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About This Episode
LinkedIn, email, phone calling— it’s all part of the normal B2B sales approach. Strength in various channels is simply table stakes. Breaking through the noise and offering a real relationship to buyers is the challenge every B2B salesperson faces.
Kris Rudeegraap received and sent plenty of the above in his decade in various sales positions in silicon valley. After 10 years in sales, he decided to challenge the communication norm and founded Sendoso, an integrated direct mail and gifting solution.
But don’t think annoying flimsy fluff you’re just going to throw away. Think more warm and fuzzy socks, fancy macaroons, and engraved wine bottles.
Kris hopped on our Sales Engagement podcast and delivered a powerful message on why direct mail isn’t making a comeback, but it’s essential to your B2B sales program.
With Tech, Direct Mail Is Simply a Button Click
It’s part of the game now. Every SDR is using every outlet they can to speak to their accounts. Kris knows because he was part of the game for about a decade.
Emailing, cold calling, white papers … all essentials for any SDR or AE. If an SDR ever wanted to stray off the phones-and-email path to send a personalized gift through the mail, it was a time-consuming, tedious task.
Choosing some swag, wrapping a t-shirt, packaging it, sending it out … while the ROI may be high on these sorts of mailers, the labor-intensity and time consumption were high enough deterrents that few sales reps would take the time to send anything through the mail to prospects.
That’s why Kris branched out on his own in the summer of 2016. Sendoso integrates with Outreach, Salesforce, Engagio, and several other marketing automation and sales engagement platforms. With the technology advancements and integration, direct mail doesn’t create another thing for your sales team to do, but rather just one more thing to click in their sequencing.
His company has taken off since then, and it’s expanding into several different states; the entire company is built on its stated premise of “challenging the status quo of communication” by making it easy to tap into the power of direct mail.
And if you aren’t convinced direct mail should be part of your sales or customer success plan, Kris gave us 2 good reasons you can’t walk away from:
Reason #1: Direct Mail Is Hyper Creative
Instead of grabbing their once-a-quarter spreadsheets and sending out boring postcards, SDRs, AEs., and CSMs are utilizing direct mail within various stages of the funnel. Particularly, Kris has seen its effectiveness enhanced at the very beginning and end of sales cycles. (Additionally, sending a direct mailer to someone right after a demo works really well he said.)
As far as what people are sending, it’s definitely gone up a notch from a “welcome to the neighborhood” blurry photo. Kris is seeing white papers and case studies with hand-written notes. Instead of t-shirts, sales reps will send a wine bottle with a personalized logo on it. Cupcakes, macaroons, gift cards, sports jerseys – all of which Kris has seen.
Reason #2: Millennials Are Inundated With Digital
From the time they were infants, millennials have been inundated with digital advertising and marketing. Direct mail actually offers a refreshing break from the normalcy and noise of their digitally-rich environment.
Convinced yet? Well, before you roll out your stellar direct mail plan, here are 2 tips the pro direct mailer Kris gave us:
Send a Consumable, and the Whole Office Will Love You
A quick note on consumables, such as cupcakes or macaroons: Kris says these work particularly well, especially in B2B.
A plate full of shareable snacks goes a long way in an office setting, and your brand is instantly associated with sugary goodness.
If You Want Them To Like It, Send Quality
This borders on the obvious, but the ROI is real: Higher quality products garner a better response. Simply put, it’s your brand on the line. Do you really want it associated with a $2 water bottle? Kris says he’s seen people send Yeti water bottles to top accounts and/or decision makers. (Those work.)
Final Tip: Just Try It
We love to ask our guests if they have one last takeaway.
Kris said he’d love to see more B2B companies just simply try direct mail. The results speak for itself. It creates a more real relationship with your buyers and offers creativity that few other mediums provide.
This post is based on a podcast interview with Kris Rudeegraap. To hear this episode, and many more like it, you can subscribe to The Sales Engagement Podcast.
If you don’t use iTunes, you can listen to every episode here.
About The Podcast
The Sales Engagement podcast is the #1 podcast focused on engaging your customers and prospects in the modern sales era. This show features real-life stories and best practices from revenue leaders doing the job day in and day out, in a casual, radio-like talk show.
Each episode features modern tactics, strategies, hacks, and tips to get the most out of your sales engagement strategy and help you navigate the next generation of sales. You’ll find energetic talks that will provide you with real actionable value around building meaningful connections and creating a better selling experience through authentic conversations that you can measure.
The Sales Engagement podcast is here to help B2B sales leaders, customer success leaders, and marketing leaders innovate and usher in the next era of modern sales by building pipeline, up-selling customers, and ultimately generating more revenue with more efficiency.
Hosted by Joe Vignolo, Senior Content Managing Editor at Outreach, and Mark Kosoglow, Vice President of Sales at Outreach.
