Dennis Kelly has tremendous experience in sales, marketing, HR, and finance. He started his career journey as a sales representative and spent time running data centers, developing products, and being the CEO of venture and angel sponsored startups. During his career, Dennis has developed numerous self-financed businesses. He talks to Geordie about his journey.
Technology has evolved tremendously over the last few years. With more advanced communication options available, no one would ever think direct mail would become relevant again. While traditional direct mail is no longer effective, the automated version is what many marketers are reaping huge benefits from.
Dennis says their direct mail automation software solution solves three crucial problems with traditional direct mail marketing. These problems are production speed, integration, and analytics. Listen to the podcast for his detailed explanation of these solutions.
Starting a business can be challenging. Dennis gives a brief explanation of how he started his Postalytics journey out of chance. He says he has been developing software companies for the past 30 years. At some point, he collaborated successfully with a young architect, but they would soon lose touch.
When they later reconnected, they discovered they were close neighbors. The architect introduced Dennis to some technology he had developed as a side project to help direct mail marketers digitize their marketing channels.
Dennis and his team saw potential in the project and pitched it. Listen to the podcast and learn how they developed the software together and the struggles they faced along the way. However, the project did not work according to their expectations. Find out how some customer's problems came as a wake-up call to the team.
Postalytics offers a cloud-based SaaS solution where marketers can log in and create a letter or postcard. It allows users to import data from lists directly in their marketing automation tool, spreadsheets, files, and CRM (customer relationship management) platform. Dennis says they have incorporated a model to accommodate direct mail. Listen to the podcast for his extensive explanation of how that system works.
More people today are using email marketing than direct mail. Dennis says they leveraged email marketing as a model for their project. The team came up with a concept to develop an email experience that people would use to send direct mail. They were armed with email marketing software for their first product and knew what people wanted in an email marketing experience. How did they execute the business model? Find out from the podcast.
As Dennis and his team pivoted their product, they focused on developing their website and producing marketing materials. Upon launching the product, they realized their ideal customer profile overlapped with the Hubspot customer profile. Still, they went ahead with the launch while targeting the Hubspot customer setup.
Dennis mentions one unique thing that helped them get off the ground, and you can learn about it from the podcast. He also explains further about the Hubspot platform and customer profile.
Should you want to venture into a project similar to the Postalytics platform, Dennis says, you need to research and focus on one platform at a time. Did they use the same approach when starting? Dennis says their first product gave them an advantage. Find out how from the podcast.
Dennis mentions their response rate has doubled recently and attributes the growth to reduced competition in mailbox currently, unlike in the past. He adds that there is better targeting today, which leads to better technology, data, and reduced competition.
Dennis explains another use case that you can learn about from the podcast. You will understand how to leverage direct mail to target people who often ignore email and convert them to increase ROI. Dennis talks about leads and outlines strategies they use to attract leads.
While competitors have emerged in the market; Dennis reiterates they have maintained a targeted approach towards the technology-enabled small and medium-sized businesses as their primary audience. He discusses some of the things they do that their competitors don't.
Get all the details from the podcast. Having a unique business model has been instrumental in helping Polystatics remain ahead of its competitors, Dennis says. He concludes the podcast with some wise words to people considering introducing a SaaS tool in the market. He says: you cannot be all things to all people. Focus on building something that a specific audience will find value in.
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