You’ll find many agencies that say they offer direct mail services, but take a close look: Direct marketing doesn’t usually stand out as a specialized area of expertise.

At Gunderson Direct, we stick to what we know. That’s direct mail – and we know it well – really well. 

Take a look at our track record:

• A 96% customer satisfaction rating on Clutch
• More than one billion pieces mailed since 2004
• A reputation for delivering breakthrough creative – higher response rates at a lower cost

That shows the value of hiring a team of experienced specialists – whether you’re adding direct mail to your marketing mix or have a program in place and want to improve campaign performance.

Our services: What makes us different

Our client list includes some of the most successful brands in their industries. Companies such as Personal Capital, One Medical, and Zip Recruiter know that direct mail doesn’t take much effort if all you want to do is send mail. But they hire Gunderson Direct because they know that we have the talent to deliver high end direct mail services, breakthrough creative at the lowest possible cost, experience at testing and analyzing performance, and a team dedicated to exceptional service and support.

In short, we live and breathe direct mail.

Full service: No missing pieces

Some direct mail marketing agencies may be good at creative development, but have no idea how to create mail that can be printed and mailed at a lower cost. Other agencies may help you get more out of your budget, but don’t have a clue when it comes to analyzing campaign performance or planning future tests to validate results and quickly roll out successful programs.

We understand that direct mail can be complex, but it’s easy to understand that doubling your response rate means nothing if your mailing costs twice as much. At Gunderson Direct, you can rely on one team of industry veterans that knows it all – strategic planning, creative, production, and mailing. Our direct mail services include:

• Strategic planning and analysis: Expertise in proven response strategies that deliver  breakthrough results, keen insights, predictable performance, and a strong ROI.
• Best in class creative: We’re proud of our work, but also know that every concept we present must be based on not just creative flair, but well-grounded in a deep understanding of your audience and all the drivers that support your brand. 
• Speed to scale: As a full-service agency, we’ve helped 80% of our long-term clients scale up their direct mail programs within just three mailings. With faster turnaround times, you can be more successful more quickly.
• Production, printing and mailing: All mailing formats we recommend are the ones that offer the most postage savings — a big expense when it comes to direct mail
• Strategic data and analytics: Better data shows you what’s successful and what isn’t — why most of our clients depend on us to deliver insightful analytics that deliver a big boost to the performance of future programs
• Top-notch client service: Our 98% client satisfaction rating proves that we don’t just meet expectations, but regularly exceed them

A proven methodology: Rapidly scale up direct mail performance

Our direct mail services are based on strategies that have been proven time and again to generate results quickly and efficiently through a process that includes six key steps:

1. Establish and refine campaign goals: Agreeing on specific objectives and metrics that will define success
2. Strategic planning: Quickly  understand your audience, their needs, and key benefits so we can design tests that reveal the most useful insights
3. Targeting: We can determine which lists and which list segments offer the most promise
4. Creative development: Based on a detailed brief – so that our team of talented designers and copywriters can create mail that’s compelling, engaging, and boosts response
5. Flawless execution: No schedule delays, no last-minute budget surprises, and no errors
6. Detailed campaign analysis: Our proprietary algorithm gives you actionable insights to accelerate improvements and optimize future programs

Proven approaches to boost response rates and ROI.

Leap and Repeat: Accelerating direct mail testing

Some clients come to Gunderson because they want to begin using direct mail and create their first direct mail campaign. Hard to know where to start? We know. Most importantly, we know how to accelerate testing so that you can start today and see results more quickly. 

Direct mail offers an exceptional way to test various approaches because you can easily control your audience, your offer, and message in a precise way that’s impossible with other media. Running a direct mail test reveals essential information, but testing direct mail campaigns one at a time and then waiting for results from each mailing can take too long to fully take advantage of your marketing opportunities.

Our accelerated three-drop testing and planning approach offers a unique approach to testing multiple variables – including offer, creative, format, and lists – that eliminates delays. This proven process consistently delivers breakthrough results, more predictable performance, and a strong ROI.in a way that maximizes learning while minimizing risk.

Our clients appreciate our accelerated Leap and Repeat approach because it delivers immediate results while also making sure that each mailing is set up to test parameters likely to provide information to improve the next mailing.

Through this approach, we design and execute one direct mail test, but instead of waiting for results from that first drop, a second drop is planned and executed to test separate parameters — for example, a first drop might test offer while a second drop is a test of creative execution.

By the time we get results from that first mailing, we’re already planning the third drop and can use that information to make that third drop deliver even better information and improve results.

And when it comes time to mail a fourth drop, it’s usually pretty clear which offers, formats, messages, and lists tend to deliver the best results and a new control mailing emerges that becomes the one to beat in future tests.

This approach helps our clients:

• Learn faster with less risk – to quickly improve performance and maintain momentum
• Test multiple direct mail campaign elements to refine programs to deliver better results
• Mitigate performance fluctuations due to seasonality
• Independently test and refine re-mail audiences
• Adjust test plans based on early analysis for best results

Beat the control: Direct mail works, but could it work better?

If you’re already using direct mail, perhaps you’re already satisfied with your results. But could you see even better performance?

In most cases you can. We regularly impress clients by boosting response rates to deliver even better ROI at a lower cost. When we take on a “beat the control” challenge, our singular goal is to improve the performance against a mailing you may have been regularly sending for years.

Indeed, it can take a long time and many tests to refine a direct mail control package that optimizes offer and creative execution to deliver the lowest cost-per-lead or cost-per-sale, while maximizing customer lifetime value.

But any mailing you’ve been rolling out again and again suffers from “direct mail package fatigue.” That’s normal. As customers and prospects see the same mailing over and over, a mailing begins to lose its impact. 

That existing control package may work great again in the future, but retiring it for a period of time and mailing something else can quickly improve results. That’s why successful direct mail marketers constantly test other executions against their existing control mailings — so they know they won’t be left scrambling when they need to make a change.

Our “beat the control” approach can easily reinvigorate your direct mail program. In fact, 92 percent of our packages have beat existing controls when tested directly against them.

To deliver results like these, we first analyze your audience, your message strategy, your creative execution, and other essential attributes for your market and brand.

We then present concepts that feature new offers, different messaging, new creative approaches to creative, alternative mailing formats, new lists or list segments, and other variations. For any mailing you’re currently sending, there’s always another test that can run.

Additional expertise: Services that compliment direct mail marketing.

Direct mail is often part of a broader integrated or omnichannel marketing program. We can work with your in-house team or other agency partners to ensure that we are aligning and synchronizing our offline efforts with your other channels. We also offer services to complement and enhance our direct mail efforts on a client’s behalf.

Data Broker Services: Gunderson Direct provides its clients with deep insights into list selection, sourcing, strategy and analysis. As a registered list broker, we can offer our clients preferential pricing in addition to access to data sources and platforms not available to other agencies and client-side data purchasers.

Email Integration: Many direct mail lists are now appended with emails, increasing the opportunities for integrated EM/DM acquisition efforts. Email can be used as a surround to DM (deployed on either side of in-home delivery), as part of a programmatic effort, or as a stand-alone channel. And email can help us hone our messaging by testing offers and subject lines (headers) that can be applied to mailings.

Informed Delivery: The USPS Informed Delivery service gives consumers the ability to view and interact with that day’s mail online. It offers mailers the opportunity to engage users through an integrated mail and digital marketing campaign to generate additional consumer impressions and boost response.

Landing Page Optimization: Dynamic landing pages serve as the funnel to capture customer response and data from direct mail efforts. Landing pages can be key to measuring top of funnel activity in a timely manner, which help speed efforts to learn from testing and to scale programs. 

Mail Delivery Tracking: When the mail arrives in-home can be critical information for mailers who need to balance resources to handle response volume. It also helps us build response curves for our clients based on when mail gets delivered, not just when it mails. We use tracking software to provide daily delivery counts by zip code that clients can view through their own secure portal.

Client Dashboards: A cloud-based, customized dashboard is built to a client’s specs for reporting and analytic needs so performance data is always available in an easy-to-read graphical format. Dashboards display current program data, plus historical data, to provide a long view of a client’s direct mail performance.

Messaging Pillars: Direct mail messaging can be more complex and often requires more variables to drive response. Briefs are great, but our Pillars message development process takes a deeper view of a client’s benefits and features to help us to beat your control.

Case studies: Helping leading brands make the most of direct mail

Here are a few case studies. Each proves that not only do our direct mail services offer high value, but that our complete set of solutions means that you can rely on one agency to plan and execute programs that meet all your direct mail needs:

• ZipRecruiter: See how we helped boost growth and ROI from direct mail in a way that’s increased growth and profitability.“Their years of experience add a layer of strategic direction to our campaigns.”

• Personal Capital: Gunderson Direct helped this financial services company scale up from a few hundred thousand pieces of mail to several million mailings per quarter.“I consider them a part of our own team—they’re always willing to help us in any capacity.”

• One Medical Group: Discover how we helped a leading medical provider save $2 million and boost response rates from just .05% to 1.00% — a 20-fold increase.“We tested lots of other mailing options, but none was as good as Gunderson.”

• AAA: We showed this organization, which runs 80+ campaigns, how to reduce print costs by up to 50 percent plus increase response rates by up to 30%“They are committed to direct mail in a way very few agencies are. They’re great at a lot of other things, but DM is at the core of their business. They think outside the box and tie new technologies into direct mail.”
• Nav: Gunderson Direct helped this company test new direct mail programs that not only improved results but reduced waste from previously high rates of undelivered mail.“They stand out among their competitors for their willingness to follow through.”

Contact us today to learn more. We’re always happy to talk about direct mail – especially how you can improve results and lower your costs.