Automated Postcards: Your Secret Weapon Across the Marketing Funnel

Remember the last time your inbox hit 1,000 unread emails? 

Or when you scrolled past 47 ads before finding that cat video you wanted?

Digital channels are bursting at the frickin’ seams.

Meanwhile, brands are adding an entirely new channel to their marketing programs: postcard marketing. And they’re getting their brand, messages, and offers (literally) into people’s hands.

The most successful brands, though? Brands like HexClad, Kindred Bravely, and Dr. Squatch> They're automating their postcards via behavioral triggers and driving hands-off revenue just as they do with email and SMS.

And they're seeing ROIs that make some of their digital campaigns look downright sleepy.

So: automated postcards.

You. Us.

Let’s discuss.

Automated Postcards: How They Work

An automated postcard is the same thing as an automated email, except it’s physical direct mail: dynamically fired off to people’s homes based on specific behavioral conditions or triggers. 

The conditions can be simpler, ranging from “abandoned cart 7 days ago" to "abandoned checkout 3 days ago" to “last order date = 90 days ago.” 

Or, they can be more specific. For example, triggers can be RFM-based for automated winback campaigns. A couple of examples:

• For regular customers: Last order date = 90 days ago; Number of Orders = 2+; Total Spend = $150
• For VIPs: Last order date = 180 days ago; Number of Orders = 5+; Total Spend = $475.

Of course, actual segmentation based on your own definitions

(But how are they automated?)

The TLDR: We (PostPilot) are a vertically integrated direct mail platform that natively integrates with Shopify and Klaviyo, so as soon as someone hits a behavioral trigger, we automatically print and mail a chosen postcard to them.

The slightly less TLDR: Because of PostPilot's native integration with Klaviyo, you can use a webhook to add an automated postcard to your email or email/SMS flow, just as you do for any other message.

Below is a sample of a welcome flow for BFCM that includes a postcard added at the end.

The actual timing of your flow can be based on your own data, and it can be used for browse abandonment, welcome flows, abandoned cart flows, abandoned checkout flows, post-purchase flows...

And any other flow or automation under the sun.

That said, let’s take a look at some specific postcards for retargeting and retention. 

Retargeting: Catching the Ones That Got Away

We all know the stats...

Most people who visit your site bounce without buying. 

Instead of chasing them around the internet with the same banner ad and 30 more emails, why not surprise them with something in their IRL mailbox?

Waking Up Your Indecisive Email List (With a Direct Mail Welcome)

There's a reason we highlighted an example of an email/SMS/direct mail welcome flow. Postcards are crazy effective at converting email/SMS list subscribers who haven't purchased yet. Meaning: Your Meta prospecting dollars are pushed further, and direct mail is generating net-new revenue on autopilot.

We actually have a whole feature built around this: MailMatch^TM. MailMatch lets brands send direct mail campaigns to the homes of leads based on email addresses alone. 

And it works.

Some of the most successful ecomm brands in the world use MailMatch all the time.

Like HexClad.

HexClad has kept MailMatch automations on for years, so they’re always sending postcards to their indecisive list subs.

It’s always effective, but it’s particularly-particularly effective over BFCM. For example, last BFCM, HexClad raked in 7 figures of revenue, and. a big part of that was using MailMatch.

As an aside, HexClad kicks their MailMatch strategy an extra notch over BFCM by creating a MailMatch flow. In other words, they send up to 3 postcards to non-buying list subs for additional touchpoints. When someone purchases, they will be automatically taken out of the flow.

Bottom line...

While someone may scroll past a bunch of retargeting ads and emails, you can’t touch or fold (or maybe even sniff) an email.

Target Anonymous Visitors

Yup, we can help convert anonymous site visitors, too. Automatically.

• MailMatch sends mail to email subscribers who haven’t purchased
• Voila: SiteMatch^TM sends mail to anonymous site visitors who haven’t even subscribed yet.

The SiteMatch skinny: Brands can simply install a pixel in Google Tag Manager or in their Shopify backends, and we can start IDing, scoring, and ultimately sending mail to lukewarm leads. (We can match about a third of anonymous site traffic to IRL addresses.)

The team at Gozney has used SiteMatch for some killer results, by retargeting potential customers browsing specific product pages. Although in their campaigns they’ve automated a trifold, brands can automate postcards in exactly the same way.

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Gozney saw a 11x ROI on these, and again, they were targeting anonymous visitors. 

Not bad, eh?

Retargeting Quick Tips

• Strike while the iron's hot (send cards quickly after cart abandonment)
• Make it personal (show them what they were looking at)
• Add a time-sensitive offer (create urgency to act now)
• Coordinate your postcard message with your emails and ads
• Try different timing sequences (setting up the automation for day 7 vs. day 30 can make a huge difference)

Retention: Keeping Customers Coming Back for More

Getting a sale is nice. 

Getting repeat sales is where you make real money, and it’s how household names are built.

Bringing Back Customers (Who Unsubscribed from Your Lists)

When customers unsubscribe from your email/SMS, you’re left to hit them with retargeting ads and pray. 

Unless you’re using direct mail, too.

Dr. Squatch saw a 10x+ ROAS by targeting specific segments of inactive customers with automated postcards.

Their approach? Analyze purchase patterns and send perfectly timed postcards when customers were likely running low on product, often before they even realized it themselves.

In effect, this served as a replenishment campaign that could only be done with direct mail: it brought customers back into the fold, resubscribed to lists, and extended LTV further.

It's like they were able to put up mini "remember us?" billboards.

At exactly the right time.

Auto-Inviting Customers to Loyalty Programs

If you’re working to drive additional members to your loyalty program, you likely have your email and SMS flows built out. But you can use direct mail, too.

When someone hits the spending/behavioral threshold, you can fire off an automated postcard, just like the Beard Struggle:

The Beard Struggle dynamically sends the postcard above to their VIP customers and auto-recruits them to their Brand Vikings^TM loyalty program.

And it works ridiculously well: The Beard Struggle is seeing over a 15x ROAS on these postcards.

But Wait... You Can Send Handwritten Direct Mail? At Scale?

We've shown off a few mailers already, but we have one more for ya.

Advances in technology (robots to the rescue!) mean you can leverage ultra-fancy handwriting robots that use real pens to exactly mimic human handwriting styles. We have a whole fleet of them, and our customers use these to add an extraordinary personal touch to the most-personal channel.

real pens writing notes automatically, powered by data and triggers just like an email campaign.

The result is a genuine-looking, heartfelt message, but done in a way that’s efficient and repeatable.

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Retention Quick Tips

• Segment your audience based on past behavior (one-size-fits-all is dead).
• Use their name and reference past purchases (personalization matters).
• Don't always discount. Sometimes a thank you is enough.
• Stay in touch without being annoying (timing is everything).

Some Quick Proprietary Data: The 1 + 1 = 3 of Direct Mail x Email

Automated postcards enhance your digital marketing.

We’ve actually investigated this specifically to see the real lift from combining direct mail and email:

• We analyzed 544k MailMatch postcards across 122 campaigns. 
• We can be fairly certain that almost everyone received emails because they were subscribed to brands’ email lists.
• We used holdouts because those can tell us whether somebody received an email or an email + a postcard.
• The results? Incredible. Brands saw a 2.89x incremental lift when combining the channels.

Plus… You’ll Have Tracking That Actually Works

With platforms like PostPilot, you can track conversions and ROI just like you would with digital campaigns. This means you can optimize your postcard strategy based on real-time data, not guesswork.

As soon as a customer (who was sent a postcard) makes a purchase, that revenue will be updated in the PostPilot UI.

The Bottom Line: Automated Postcards Work

From finding new customers to winning back browsers to keeping loyal fans happy, automated postcards deliver. Across the funnel.

Direct mail really moves the needle, and when you automate direct mail, you really move the needle without having to think about it.

If you’re interested in learning more about us, check us out. PostPilot.

Or, if this convinced you, and you wanna just talk to a direct mail expert, head here.

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