Virtual Postcards Preview - 3X Your Community & 9x12 Postcard Reach

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We just had a great 9x12 Method live group call, and I actually gave a little sneak peek at the virtual postcards feature that's coming soon to our local spotlight. I showed exactly how people are going to be able to build a massive email list of local residents in their area that they can then use to provide even more value to their advertisers or just more easily close sales. And it'll also help differentiate you from other people doing 9x12 postcards nearby. You might be worried about your competition. Now you don't have to be.

You can provide so much more value. So if you're interested in that and hearing all the great advice that other people in our our group gave today, then sit back, relax, and enjoy this hour-long >> There's the man. There's the man of the hour himself. Holy mackerel. Oh, we got to quit talking about him.

You're talking about Ben, right? >> Yeah. Well, yeah, but you know, we feel we include you. How's everyone doing? Good.

How are you How's your crazy schedule? >> Tiring. Tiring, but we're getting there. We're getting ahead. >> me tired just looking at it.

>> Making a lot of progress on uh on the virtual postcards. I'm excited for that. I might show a little bit of it today. Just cuz I got to get it off my chest. That shit's looking amazing, my friend.

Thank you. >> Mitch, do you actually do you sleep at all, Mitch? I mean, is there any any part of the night that where you actually like do this or no? I do actually. I take my sleep seriously.

But when I'm not asleep, I I'm definitely working all the time. >> But I love it. It shows. So, what's going on with everybody's businesses this week? Finally got my postcards filled up on Friday the rest of the way.

So paper version. Congrats. So, are you [clears throat] are you Did you already send it off to the printer? No, I'm getting ready to do that uh probably Friday. Then uh here's my ad for my knife sharpening.

and take a look at that. One best of the Springs gold for this year for knife sharpening. So, that was a Pretty cool. Are you using uh trackable QR codes? Uh, I am for uh the one that I put on uh this one, mine, and I redesigned this app for the garage door people and then I put a trackable QR code in there.

So, nice. Let us know how that goes. >> yesterday, yeah. Um, there's a reason why you wouldn't want to use trackable QR codes. The trackable codes.

Sorry, is there a reason why you wouldn't want to use the trackable codes for all of these? No, there isn't a reason why we wouldn't. Uh, it just some of the people put their their own on there and it's like, "Okay." Yeah. [snorts] I mean, you could offer to just stamp like if they probably don't have access to like a a dynamic QR code generator.

So, you could ask them if you want to stamp if they want you to stamp on one that you can actually use tracking. That's a way to just add some Yeah, and that's definitely in the plans for for sure. Well, it does add a little bit of Is there a way to do like a custom tracking codes where like if someone scans my code for my knife sharpening, I wouldn't necessarily want them seeing like our local spotlight. I'd want to see them more like seeing something like sharpened ready or something. Is that something that's possible to do?

Yeah, so for for tracking, it's impossible. It has to be under one domain. So, it's impossible to have like a custom domain for a trackable scanned So, like Have you heard of Bitly? I I just started looking at it yesterday, but I Right. Yeah.

It's just another It's another another um trackable QR code generator and theirs whenever you scan it it says bit.ly. So, there's really not no way you can work around that. So, I used Our Local Spotlight instead of 9 by 12 method because it kind of fits fits the vibe a little bit more because most of us are on the map anyway. So, it still kind of matches the brand.

That makes sense. Um Okay, and that does you don't think that that that people I mean, I'm very familiar with the QR codes, but I wonder if there's still a lot of people that aren't and I just I wonder if people worry about where it's taking Um Yeah, I'd I'd say 91 times out of 100 it's not going to be an issue, um but there there is a little drawback there obviously for those people that are more skeptical, but with that drawback comes the advantage of having the tracking. So, it's kind of just a decision you need to make. Um that being said, Our Local Spotlight is pretty broad. It doesn't sound too scammy.

It's not like XYZ blah blah blah blah blah. So, most people are probably going to be okay scanning it. You know, and the good positive side of that is if someone is scanning these things for a particular business and like what's Our Local Spotlight and they look it up, you know, then that's a big plus as well. Absolutely. And I don't know what you put on your card, but if you put Spotlight on your card then it makes sense to them anyway.

I used highlight cuz I want to be >> Fair enough. Like I told Elethia last week with my 6 and 1/2 by 12s, I didn't really stick with the the coupon structure cuz I like to add a little pizzazz. Yeah, so you do custom ad designs still even even with the community card? Uh yeah, but it doesn't end up being very many of them because the vast majority will do their own. And so, the custom stuff that I did was uh this one and this one.

And that's easy. That, you know, really doesn't take that long. So, that's not a problem for me on that. Since Alethia's here, uh Alethia, I added the ribbon slots that you requested. So, now on your 9 by 12 sites website, you can put ad slots in the actual ribbon of the postcard.

If you were trying to fill up, you know, make a little bit more income, you can put ad slots there now. >> One question for you. So, hold that up. So, yeah, I got a 9 by I do I'm doing the vertical 9 by 12, and then I want to do, instead of a regular medium spot, that's you see four mediums across the top, I actually want to do four ribbons on one of those medium spots. >> I cuz I think I saw that on your CRM.

I'm like, that's brilliant. And I did see someone that did a 9 by 12 vertical and had one of those medium spots, and it had four ribbons, essentially. So, it just makes it affordable for those coffee shops and stuff like that. So, what I did on your site, I don't know if you can hear me, cuz you walked away. Sorry, I can hear you.

Okay. All right. So, what I did on what I did on your site is I I just marked one of those mediums as sold, and then I'm just using Stripe right now to sell those ribbon spots. But, I think that would be really cool if you want if is to, cuz you know, you have the small, medium, large, massive, and all that stuff, mega. If you give ribbon as like just one of the options, so that we could fill in like maybe one of those actual spots as four of them.

It's just an idea. Yeah, I'm going to add that to my list. Um one thing is I you can obviously do it, but usually I've been recommending people not to because I did it on my first card. As you can see, it's not the four slots, but there's three separate slots. Yeah.

And it makes it look a little bit less clean if you sell a lot of them. And what I noticed is it was just as difficult to sell these little slots as it was to sell a medium slot. It kind of gives advertisers who would have bought the medium slot a way out. They end up buying the smaller one. And so you have to sell three slots for the same amount of space as what you could sell one slot, if that makes sense.

And you do make a tiny bit more profit based on how you price it, but that's just what I noticed. So right after my first card then I decided never to do it again. Never do it again. Okay, well, I was So I was I was I know that you recommended community spot or community card as the first one, but I'm think I'm going to go for the 9 by 12 as my first one. Um and 5K.

And I was just wanting a price point that was closer to that $100 mark, which was that ribbon size. Um but you do have to sell more cuz I think there I have like 21 spots available. So you're don't do that. Um But I do like your idea of the ribbon slot because that can be optional. If if you're missing three slots right here, the card's kind of empty.

But if you're just potentially adding more income in the middle, that's different. You could still have a filled up card with medium slots, and then you at the end can decide if you want to, you know, squeeze out a little bit more income and sell some ribbon slots. But you could use it as like an a downsell to them after they tell you that the 500's too much. Then you could be like, "Oh, well, I could offer this this smaller option here." versus it being kind of a way out, which I noticed on my card.

If they were going to buy a medium slot, and then they discovered, "Oh, there's a $200 slot right here. I'll just go with Then I kind of played myself, if that makes sense. Yeah, I am I appreciate this. I might remove my little ribbons of like my main one of my main ones cuz what I have is a large, right? So, two medium size.

I've got a bunch of mediums. Um I have some smalls. So, I took a a medium and cut it in half. And I was thinking the smalls are like pizza shops and coffee shops and you know, nail salons and stuff like that, dog walkers. and then ribbons was just for those people that are really tight, but maybe I will remove the ribbons and just do some smalls, mediums, large.

And your market could be different. So, definitely feel free to experiment. That that was just my my experience in my market. Well, cuz I don't want it to take forever to get my 12 by 12, right? If everyone's price resistant against the 450 or I was I was going to do 450.

450 and 225 is what I was going to do for the smaller spots. cuz I hear some people are like, oh, you they they can't wrap their head around that kind of price point. Um so, I will consider just removing the little ribbons and then maybe just adding them into the title. But if I have a vertical, I don't really have a lot of room for adding them in there. >> on the on the vertical template, at least on the on the website, it would be able to fit two ribbon slots on one side.

You have your DCIA over here. And then on the other side, you could fit three And that's assuming that you don't have a title though, right? That is true, yeah. If if you if you if you filled up all the space, you wouldn't have a title. Okay.

All right. >> So, there is a trade-off. Um you could use a couple of those um small small ones as things that you'd want to trade for services that you're interested in, like, you know, so you'll find a person that gives you a massage and you put their ad on there for free or you know, other types of things like that, too. Sounds amazing. Um okay, and then I have a question.

Thank you for that. It's very helpful. I I I want to give options for the smaller companies um but don't necessarily want to make it harder for me, right? Yeah. And I have a question on the 9 by For two two more questions for the 9 by 12.

One is um Some people like I think you interviewed someone that sold a 9 by 12 and a community card at the same time and he was thinking he'd do a community card every month and then a 9 by 12 maybe quarterly. Um and I would like to do a 9 by 12 monthly but is that like putting too much pressure on me type thing? Like is it unrealistic to think I can just right out the bat be able to do a monthly 9 by 12? I don't think that monthly is unrealistic at all. Um Okay.

but one strategy that I've seen people doing like uh somebody named Michael Hager is they basically choose, let's say your goal is to do let's say your goal is to do two cards per month and scale this thing up, then you would do one card in say Boston the first month and then one card in Cambridge the second month. So, you're bouncing back and forth. And then to scale up, you would choose two other locations. So, then you'd be doing two different locations each month but rotating. That way you're you're still not asking an advertiser for $500 every single month.

You're asking for it bi-monthly, so it's a little bit more budget-friendly but you're still doing two cards per month. Does that make Yeah, I understand. Um so, that's helpful. So, essentially they would have the opportunity to do it every other month. Yeah.

Um in in a in a specific location, So, essentially four cards, four 9 by 9 by 12 would be two cards a month. Yeah, and the reason that that can work is yes, you might have to make some more relationships and talk to more businesses, but it's going to be a little bit stickier on average because it'll be easier for businesses to spend $500 bi-monthly rather than $500 a month. So, you won't necessarily have to fill up as much of the card. And like I interviewed Michael after his first card, he had 75% of his advertisers renew with him. He he barely had to sell any slots for that next He does it quarterly.

So, the more you space them out, the easier it's going to be for people to commit to that to the longer term. Okay, and so question on that. All right, so more spacing, that's a great idea. Easier for repeat. Repeat customers.

So, I was going to do just use Stripe to do my payments, right? So, payment plan like do it for 3 months, right? So, Stripe does it you charge them every month kind of thing, so that would not work then. Is [clears throat] that the case like because you'd be charging them for May, June, July versus you'd be sending sending it in June, August, October or something, Yeah, so there's all sorts of ways you could skin the cat. I would recommend if you're selling packages and offering a discount, I would recommend collecting the money up front or have a very strong contract, but just know that if you just go with the contract route, you still be might be chasing money.

But, Stripe does have like custom time segment commitments that you can do. So, you should be able to set a subscription that's every 2 months. That should be an option on Stripe. Okay, that would be super helpful cuz right now I've got them all set to monthly, but if I can change that to every other month because to me that's not chasing money anymore because Stripe is doing the majority of it, right? Yeah, as long as as long as their card doesn't decline or anything like that.

You know, all that stuff happens. and yeah, upfront I have one that's upfront. Okay, so I will change that. Change to subscription every other every two months in Stripe. And blah blah blah.

Okay. so and then the other thing I was wondering about These are very helpful. Thank you. Of course. Um the other thing I was wondering about for the 9 by 12 is I heard someone saying that spring like home services is one of the great ones, right?

They they pay a lot, they stay forever, um they they get the big spots, all those kind of things. They understand the value of being in front of their customers. I was hearing that in spring like some some things are cyclical, seasonal. I was hearing in spring that they're busy and so they don't always advertise. So is it still a great one of the best, I guess, uh segments to go after is home services in the spring or are they like I'm too busy, I don't want more customers, I don't want to advertise?

when you receive objections like that, that's not usually the underlying objection because if you reached out to them during the slow season, then their excuse would be, "Oh, well, it's my slow season, so people aren't going to need the service anyway." So those are just There's usually an underlying objection beneath that that's actually causing them to not want to join, whether it's the price or something like that. So home service businesses are totally valid to hit in the springtime. And if their objection is they do say it's, "I already have so much business. Um I don't necessarily need more."

then you can dig deeper and ask them like are are they completely booked out? Like they actually couldn't use more customers or do you feel like you just don't need advertising? So, that would be a a good question to ask them because if they can't handle any more customers then you probably can't sell them advertising there's no need to. But if it's just that they feel like they don't need it, then you can explain to them that the power in this comes over time. It's about becoming the realtor that people think of when they need a realtor.

And people are still going to need a realtor during the slow months in the winter, but it takes time to become that realtor that people think of. And I'm just saying realtor you could say roofer cuz we're talking about home service businesses. But it takes time to become the roofer that people think of when they need it. doing things now to advertise and get in their heads are going to actually pay off when your slow season comes. So, your slow season won't be as slow.

Does that make sense? Yes, so I have a follow-up on that one. Um I'm just writing it down. Um get in their head they need blank, they think of you. Um when slow season comes slow season comes, it won't be as slow.

Good stuff. Okay, so and going piggybacking on that, hopefully everyone's okay I'm asking these questions. Piggybacking on that >> helpful for everybody. Yeah, um the whole exposure versus clients, right? It can be easy to say, "Oh, do this and um you'll get all these clients.

We'll get all these people in your door." versus the exposure. So, can you which is kind of what you were just saying? So, can you do a couple things on sharing just that whole concept of exposure, um repeat the people that we want are are staying consistent, those kind of Absolutely. And if they are somebody that just wants immediate clients, should propose to them that they have a very strong offer that's going to bring clients in the door and explain to them that just a basic ad just showing their face isn't going to have any any reason for people to take action immediately.

So, if they need immediate clients, then they would have to put in a really good offer that, you know, brings people through the door. And then what about the exposure? Like most of them you like you want them to do repeat purchases and do this for the long run and not just go oh, I hit 5,000 homes and I'm going to get all the business I need kind of thing. >> Yeah. So, usually the general premise of what I say is the the point of direct mail isn't immediate customers unless you put out a really great offer.

But, if your goal isn't to, you know, cut into your profit margins by 50%, then the goal is to become the service business, the plumber that people think of when they need a plumber. People don't necessarily need their pipe fixed right away as soon as they receive this postcard. They might throw this postcard in the trash just like people click off it a Facebook ad when they receive a Facebook ad. But, when you're hitting them every single month, you're the plumber's name that they see. They don't see other plumbers everywhere.

If they keep seeing your name, when the time comes to where their pipe burst and they actually need a plumber, you're going to be the first person they call cuz they already know your name. Most people don't do very much research if they already know the service businesses that they're going to go with. Does that make sense? Yeah. And then I just modify that if I'm doing it every other month, right?

So, it's just throughout the year. Yeah. Yeah. I'm going to piggyback on that. Somebody who had a home services business and grew my business by using, you know, this type of thing.

Um, one of the reasons that I would advertise every month even though our busiest times cuz it was house cleaning company. Our busiest times were spring and the holiday like right around Thanksgiving and Christmas. So, I really didn't need to advertise during that time, but I didn't want to let go of that spot because ours was the only industry that was on that in that mailer. So, that's could be a selling point as well. Yeah, absolutely.

Just don't let your competitors get on and take over your You're muted, Ben. Big deal, especially when looking at the Facebook groups where you see somebody that's like, "Hey, I need a cleaner. Does anybody know anyone?" And you have 37 cleaners that are all competing for the same person. It's like, uh for my [snorts] company, I wouldn't even bother like throwing my hat even though there's not a lot of us here in the Springs.

It's like, you know, that doesn't, you know, really help it versus being able to stand out on a card where you're the only one in that neighborhood. And so, that's that's a that's a pretty big deal to let people know to consider compared to, you know, it's like, I see you keep posting on these uh requests that people have for a cleaner, and I keep seeing you and 37 of the other same cleaners competing for the same guy. You know, wouldn't you like a way to stand out in the community and have a little bit more exposure than the other ones? And and that could be a big selling point um as well. Uh like you're saying to me with not wanting to relinquish that spot.

I love that. The premise is basically repetition and Just being there, being there, being there, being there. And to Mitch's point, everybody else is like, when oh, I need a plumber. Oh, wait, that one that keeps showing up on my card every month, I should call that person. I mean, they may or may not ultimately use you, but you're probably going to get the first phone call.

Absolutely. And if you did stack a good if they did stack a good offer in there, then it makes it all the more likely. Even if it's just a a mediocre offer, it makes it all the more likely that you're the person that they call. But try getting back to the QR code thing for a minute because I've been I'm beginning to start filling up my first card here and and when I have the initial conversation, I always mention the fact that every ad will have a a trackable code. We want to make sure that you are getting some sort of I don't want to say response because they may not do anything more than than scan the code, but some indication that the ad is being seen, being looked at and your website.

I don't see a downside to including a QR code on every every ad for that reason. There's no downside, but it for a QR code, you absolutely need to give them a good reason to scan it. You don't want to just randomly throw a QR code on there cuz no one will scan it. So, you definitely need a good call to action at least and an offer really helps. Some sort of offer.

Doesn't have to be a discount or When when I'm going to say someone, you know, come in and redeem, let's say it's a restaurant for example, come in and get the free dessert or whatever. I suspect that they they're not going to schlepp the entire card and they're probably going to clip off or there's going to be some way that they identify that they're responding to an offer. It's normally the case, is it not? Yeah. So, usually what I've been recommending for in person is they do bring the card and they could, you know, just stamp stamp the card right there with like a a hole puncher or something like that or just cross it off with a a sharpie once it's been used.

That's probably the best way to do it. They could just cut it out like like people do with coupon books. Obviously, that might cut out the back ad as well. But that would be up to you what you recommend there. There is I'm also, you know, building the virtual postcard thing right now which I'll probably show you in a second which might help with that in some instances in terms of redemptions.

Um while I got your attention, I'll just offer it because I'm getting my head around the notion of having you your team do all of the the artwork, you know, actually design the ad. I've got some design skill but I just don't see investing time in that. It just I mean I my background is in sales. I want to be out in front of people. I don't want to be, you know, caught getting Photoshop headaches and all the rest of that.

So, when at what point in the process money's collected, they've signed their, you know, initial agreement and such, when I I'm sensing you don't submit the ads for for artwork until you basically fill the card. Do you? Uh I would get it going as as as soon as you receive the payment because they're fully committed um and it makes it easier on our designer because if you hit him with 16 ad requests at once, obviously his turnaround time is not going to be as quick as if you did it spread out over time. So, what I would recommend is as you receive payments and they're fully committed, they've filled out the agreement, then I would I would commit to the ad design right away. That way he can get it going for you because sometimes there are back and forth, you know, your advertiser might want Then he's going to have to make the changes, so the more spread out it is the better.

So, in terms of the the it's a refresh me it's like $25 per per ad spot for your guys to do it. Um is that am I basically advancing the money for that work when I when I make the request for the the ad design? How does that work from a billing standpoint for me? Cuz I'm not passing that through to the the Yeah, so you would you would pay the $25 up front at 9 by 12 method.com/designs.

And then he works with you unlimited revisions till you're happy with it. Got it. Okay. Yeah. People love him.

He's he's he's been great. Very easy to work with. Well, this seems like a real a real asset because um if you're unless you're really good at graphic design, that could be a huge time suck. Absolutely. A huge time suck.

You can in the in the time it takes to design a $25 ad, you can make a lot more than $25 from going out and prospecting. As we like to say, dollar productive activities and that ain't one of them. Yeah, exactly. question, I mean, I really like someone vertical ad of that bird. Um Yeah.

And so I took that and I made my mock-up of front and back of my card. And I really like what it's doing. Real clean, real great. And so I did them all in chat GPT. They had an image update and stuff like that.

But none of them are editable. So I'd have to manually take the time to create it all in Canva. So can I give one of those mock-ups to the designer and he kind of recreates something like that? Like I I do like what chat creates from just like it's great at the offers, it's great at the imagery, it's great for the dimensions and all that, but it's uneditable. Like I can put it into Canva and use magic AI and only once can I change the text.

But then you go back and forth with the customer and you're kind of screwed and it messes up the bottom footers and stuff like it, you know, kind of goes haywire sometimes. But for the most part I really like the offers, I really like the language, I really like the layout. Except they keep using the same guy for the home services. But can I take that and give it to your guy and then he recreate something very similar? Yeah, he could definitely do that.

But the other thing is have you tried Do you have Canva Pro? Do you Have you tried magic layers? Is that what you're saying you've tried? I I've done it before, the magic, yeah, where it grabs the text, but I find you can only do it once. Like I've changed it, but then it becomes a flat it becomes flat after that.

It's like I can't rechange it. So if I change it once, then the customer says, "Oh, move this." or whatever, you're kind of screwed as far as I'd have to recreate the whole card manually kind of thing or the ad. >> Have you tried it recently? They just introduced like layers and it's like it's it's so much better.

It will grab everything and then you just pick which which thing you want to change on there. I will I will take a look at it. Um magic >> did this last night and it did all all the layers like just about every single element. There There were a couple things that it didn't completely perfectly grab like uh one of the little swooshes I had to redo, but it did a really surprisingly good job. I was impressed.

And And can you go back and re-edit it or is it like flat after that? Maybe Yeah, I was able to I was able to edit the text, edit the shapes, and change the sizes, and and the colors, and so And then if you did it once, could you go back and change it again? That was where I was having trouble before. It was like it wouldn't let me Anyways, I'll play with it. But could you It it basically just it it looks at your flat ad that came from the AI generator and it sees every element like the text and it just pulls it out, so it's each thing is its own element and you can edit thing individually.

I did that, but anyways, last time I did it once I added edited it once, I couldn't edit it again. It became flat. But I'll I'll I'll try it. Layers. I think I was just in magic edit mode versus layers, so I'll have to check that out.

Yeah, that's good. Mitch, good morning. I have a quick Morning. What's going on, William? Um I'm trying I'm trying to automate my um email outreach program and I was hoping um does our uh system allow API interface in any way?

Not at the moment, no. Not at the moment, okay. >> Are you referring Are you referring your Uh yes, to CRM, yes. And and what exactly are you looking for with the API? >> Uh well, [clears throat] I've been using our the lead generator and I've been picking up hundreds of leads and what I'm trying to do is get um get a system to automatically email them at least once or twice uh to get the ball rolling so I don't have to do it manually.

And I'm just looking for a system that would integrate with ours to do that, like so many a day. Understood. Yeah, so we are tran- in a transition period with the CRM and I'm working on the virtual postcard thing right now for Our Local Spotlight, but after that my priority is adding or completing email integration because it's already kind of halfway done, completing email integration so that you'll be able to send emails from the CRM. And then after that, sequences. So, we're in a transition period, so it's going to be a little bit difficult, but that'll that'll be coming.

And I know you're busy. All right. Hey, thank you very much. Question on that for the CRM. Um love that you're going to integrate email and uh sequences and stuff like that.

And guessing that maybe if you have multiple mailboxes, you can do multiple, right? So, you can rotate through. Um but what about phones as well? Cuz I had a CRM before for uh real estate and it would automatically send um a text message. You had to register it, obviously, but you had phone number and and you could make calls from the CRM.

Uh so, it's like a not an auto dialer, but it was it was a fast dialer, so you could make calls from the CRM and you could set automatic text messages to go out every 3 months or something like that, which was super helpful. Like I heard someone say, "Automate your follow-up, otherwise it's unlikely to get done." Yeah. So, the SMS and the dialer adds a a lot of complexity. >> It does, yeah.

And I wish I was a multi-million dollar startup and could hire some people to get it done quickly, but I can't promise that would come anytime soon, especially because I'm focused on [clears throat] the email first, the the basics. >> which most people I think would do But if anybody's looking to fund, you >> Um and can you have other people like if we ended up bringing on VAs or team members or people that are commission sales people, can they get access to our CRMs and stuff and can we limit with the view and stuff? Yeah, they they they can use your login. that's allowed. There's no like limits on in terms of like what they can what they can actually edit and everything like that.

They would have the same features as you at the moment. Okay. So I guess that's a feature request then down the road because you'd want to protect your payment information, your billing, what they can delete, all that kind of stuff, Yeah. Be able to lock them out in case they go rogue and things. What's going on, Spencer?

Hey. Uh I'm just getting started. And you've probably covered, you know, just getting started in content that you know, put out. Uh but I just wanted to ask uh the the email uh or I mean the the website um creation and hosting option that you are you have looks really great. and I I have a website created for uh a digital marketing agency already.

Uh and I could put up like a a page just saying a little spiel about um direct direct mail marketing. Uh for someone that's just getting what would you recommend? Would you recommend me like just getting a few cards under my belt before investing in, you know, like your uh Yeah, I'd say So, you're saying you already have a website that's live for your for your other marketing services? Yeah, I'd say as long as it's a a good-looking website because a a bad-looking website can kill sales. As long as it's a good-looking website, you're probably good for now.

You don't really necessarily need to invest in anything too too complicated for the 9 by 12 method specifically. Okay. I mean, I I love like for example, the the part that you have where it it it has the card displayed on the website and, you know, what spaces are already purchased and, you know, that just makes it so easy uh versus, you know, like sending someone a a mock-up. Yeah. Now, that that that is a a custom feature that has helped people make sales, I will say.

Um somebody, Corey, posted about it that the advertiser told him they loved that they could see like what slots were available and that they could see there are other businesses on there that they already recognized. So, it helped them trust him a little bit to join it. So, that is a benefit of having it. You don't necessarily need it, but that is a benefit. Yeah.

Um so, uh >> I I didn't exactly answer your question because it's a >> You don't need it. That's That's the answer to your question, but it's >> Yeah. But, it's helpful, right. Okay. Uh and then, maybe just while I have you you all were talking about you know, sending cards bi-monthly instead of monthly.

I was wondering >> you know, is there a strategy for having multiple cards that are sending to this kind of same area? Could you have uh themed cards like you know, businesses that are Google rated four four and a half stars and above or, you know, a card that's like uh businesses to look out for that are like brand new, maybe they've been in business 2 years or something like that. Like, can you come up with like different themes of cards to to create? Yeah, you you absolutely can. Um I've heard other people have come up with like restaurant specific cards um for like Valentine's Day, like date night cards.

I'm not sure if I've seen anybody complete it or at least post about it. My issue with it is that it heavily limits your reach. So, you you're really cutting off a big portion of the market when you limit yourself to one specific segment that you can reach out to, and this is a numbers game after all. So, in my opinion, it it makes things a little bit more difficult versus making things easier. Okay.

You have been successful. I haven't tried it. Uh and and maybe last for someone [clears throat] that's just starting out, you might not have like a black and white answer, but like would you recommend me, you know, going for a community card versus a 9 by 12 or yeah, any input for that? Yeah, I I recently put out a video. I I do recommend starting with the community card.

It helps you build quicker relationships with advertisers um because it's a a cheaper price point. You're going to make sales quicker um and you'll get confidence a lot faster because you'll be making sales quicker. And then for the ones who really love it, you can basically then upsell them to a 9 by 12 if you do end up going that And then the timing this this time of year, you know, it's it's mid-May. We're moving fairly quickly into summer. you know, is it easier to to sell out one of these things before the summer hits?

Like, should should there be some urgency on my part to for the timing of it? So, you can sell a card anytime of year, but what I have have noticed from everybody I've seen and talked to in the group is in the summer things get slightly slower because a lot of business owners are away on vacation and things like that. So, springtime is hot time. So, Mhm. that that should put some fire under your feet to to get going because I mean this business is really simple and you can really start today Okay, thank you.

Of course. Are you going to show us the card, the virtual card? All right, I'll I'll I'll give you a very quick preview. Um keep in mind You can't throw the tease out there and then not show it. Come on.

>> I just had to get everybody on the call. It Keep in mind it's it's launching in June, so not everything's beautiful and perfect and not every feature's built out yet, but this is the general premise I'll show you guys. Let me figure out how to share my screen Okay, can you see my screen? Yeah, buddy. Yes.

>> Yes, perfect. All right. So, as you guys know, there's now a dashboard that you guys have access to if you click login. Anybody who is a member free or paid PIN has this dashboard. Um you can add multiple locations from here very easily.

You would just fill out the application again. Um right now you have this virtual postcards tab, which just shows a coming soon thing, but I will show you what the virtual postcards will actually look like once it drops. So, here is where you create your virtual postcard. And basically the point is on your actual postcard, you would put some kind of information You're showing it to us now? And this is for So, the premise is you would have some sort of call to action or QR code on your physical postcard, which you're going to mail to 5,000 doors.

So, there's a ton of eyeballs on that postcard. And the call to action should probably be something like scan to redeem offers. And that QR code is going to bring them to the virtual postcard page, which is just going to be a virtual mock-up of your postcard, which you're going to be able to build, which I'll show you. And on that page, they can click on a specific slot which has an offer on it, and they'll be able to redeem that offer. So, I'm going to show you all of it.

And by redeeming the offer, they're going to give you their contact information, which is where you can build your email list. So, we're on the partner dashboard here, and it's just like the card builder that any of you guys who are on 9 by 12 sites probably recognize this. It's very similar. You just build the card based on how you want it to look. So, there's large slots, medium slots.

I'm going to obviously build in smaller slots as well, but and you just drag them in and build your card. And then once you've built the card, you can edit the slot here. Let me put in a medium slot. You can add the add image once the slot is sold. So, let's put in one of my old ads here.

>> You can you would connect it to an advertiser, and this is important. You would create an advertiser, you'd connect it to them. That way they get notified any anytime somebody redeems their offer. They would also receive the lead, but you can control this. So, you can have a you can have an ad slot which is basically open.

It's unlocked. So, an open offer would mean that when the consumer goes and clicks on the ad slot, they'll just see the the code or the offer right away. Or you could have lead capture turned on, which means the consumer will have to give their email um and their contact information in order to redeem the offer, which I really like. So, if you have lead capture turned on, you can control who gets the lead. And this is a conversation between you and your advertiser.

Some of them might not want you to get their leads. Some of them might be cool with it. And this is how you can build your list, but this is also how you provide value to them cuz now you're you're collecting leads for them, basically. And it [snorts] at no extra cost to you. So, you can control whether the leads go to both you and the advertiser, or just you, or just the And all that information [clears throat] will just get shuffled to the the respective people.

You would build out the offer. And I'll show you what it looks like on the front end since I already have a few built. >> So, I'll go to my sample page here. So, like I said, this is that this is not fully built out, so it's not necessarily going to look just like this. It's pretty basic right now.

So, when they scan the QR code, they would get brought to a page like this, which will show up You would obviously build out the full card with all of the slots. It'll have a front and back, so you can click front and back, and they can see both sides of the card. It's all mobile responsive as well. >> And the consumer would basically This is very helpful if you have actual offers. My ads here don't have actual offers on them, but if they do, they would just tap to redeem it.

And they get brought to a form. Obviously, this is the locked redemption, so they have to put in their contact info. So, they would put in their contact info, and then they can select they can opt in or opt out. That's kind of required to emails. And then they would redeem the offer.

And then once they redeem the boom, it's right here, but it also gets emailed to them. And then you as a partner would get an email that you got a new redemption. >> And then also your advertiser would get it an email that they got a new redemption. And if you are getting way too many emails, you can control that from your dashboard anyway. There's a a setting for notifications where you can control whether your advertiser gets notifications and things like that.

So, now that I did redeem it, you can see redemption funnel right into here. Everything is fully filterable by which card you're talking about, which advertiser. You can download the leads however you want. You got all of those leads, which you can now build into, you know, your CRM of choice or your email marketing of choice. And this is how you're going to be able to build a massive local list of local residents who you can, you know, sell advertising to or you sell advertiser advertising space on the emails to advertisers, which you send out to local residents.

But also, this expands your reach. Let me unshare my screen now. That's all I'm showing you for now. This expands your reach because let's say you do your first postcard, you send it to 5,000 doors in this zip code to my left. These people scan the postcard, gave you their contact information, right?

So, you have a bunch of residents in your database now from this zip code. Let's say next month you're sending out a postcard to this zip code. So, these guys aren't going to receive the postcard, they don't get all the offers and stuff. You send one to this zip code. But here's the thing.

Now, you can still send these guys a virtual postcard. So, you only paid to send out 5,000 postcards, but now your reach is way more massive every single month, which is more valuable for your advertisers. It means you can either charge more or have an easier time You're just providing more value. That's awesome, Mitch. Yeah, that kind of answers the question I was going to have where let's say somebody receives the card in their mail and one of the things I was hoping for is the way that they like take a picture of it or share it with a friend across town.

And it looks like what they would do probably is scan the master code of the card to get to the virtual postcard and then they could share that virtual card to their friend and be like, "Hey, this is the card that I received and they've got this really, you know, cool offer. Here's the virtual version for you." Absolutely. Okay. Exactly.

Yeah. So, yeah. I think um one input for you, Mitch, is like there should be like a shareable button for the virtual postcard which can go to social media. So, that way if [clears throat] anybody has For example, I have like a massive following in the local area. And we should be able to share that postcard to the audience.

That way >> good idea. Yeah. Yeah. So, so something like um typical share button, right? So, in most of the things you have a share button where you can literally share it to um any social media or like share it to an email, SMS, whatever, right?

It will just generate a link. Yeah. Yeah. I just took I put that in my notes. Thank you.

And yeah, like I said, this is not launching till June, so I still have some other plans for it, but that's the basic premise that you guys just saw. Yeah. That is very smart, Mitch. Thank you. Yeah.

It was pretty It was pretty inspired by inspired by Ben to begin with, so I appreciate it, Ben. >> Well, my pleasure. That was fun. That looked really good. Will there be an option for people just to opt in to your email and it would be like, you know, get on our list to get more coupons or whatever, too?

Yeah. Me presenting that to you um made me realize that that should be an option. They shouldn't just have to opt in to an offer in order to join, so I I just put that in my notes as well to they can just opt right into the virtual postcards every month. Awesome, Mitch. That will be like massive.

Imagine over a period of time you have like 30,000, 20,000 local email list. >> That That will be like super super Absolutely. And it's all All this publicity, you're building this email list on somebody else's dollar. You're getting paid to build an email list. You're not paying to send the mail out.

It's just >> Yeah. I mean like that gives people who are very serious about postcards like an advantage. Even if you have like 10 more competitors joining in the area, like it's it's a no-brainer for for Absolutely. Yeah. You're You'd be able to provide so much more value than somebody who's just coming in and selling a postcard.

Yeah. This leads me to my next question where the garage door people were able to fit two different coupons on there cuz they bought a double spot, which is good. A lot of times with the Valpak coupons that people get, we'll have multiple offers. And so what I'm wondering is let's say that they just You know, this is a guy that owns a organic clothing store right here. And he might not want to put an ad right here, but maybe on the virtual postcard he might want to put three different offers.

Is that something that we would be able to do on the virtual end? With creating your offers rather than just what's on the card itself? I don't have it built that you can put multiple offers for a specific ad, but I'll build that out. As for like they don't want to put an offer on the design itself, but they want to put an offer on the postcard, that's possible. It would just be based on your design.

Whatever design you import in there, you could still paste an like in the code you could put an offer on top of that. Okay. Yeah, so that'd be that'd be a good feature request for being able to do multiple offers from uh the advertisers. Yeah, right now the way I have it, if somebody doesn't have an offer and like I said, this is just getting put together, so it's not super beautiful yet, but the way that it looks is it basically says, "Sorry, no offer." Yeah, okay.

So, uh so >> Yeah, Mitch, one other thing is instead of sorry, no offer, the the worst like the at least the minimum thing we can do is uh redirect people to their website. True. Yeah, let me think about that. Um the thing about if you redirect people to their website, you're directing people away from your virtual postcard where you could potentially get them to redeem and collect their info. Yeah, I totally get it.

Yeah, I mean, so for the for the people who don't have an offer right now, that's that's my thing. Like I don't know. I hear you. I'm going to put it in my >> again, that's kind of on them if they didn't actually want to do an offer, then it's like, "Okay, well, you know, hopefully your logo is beautiful enough to get people to go to you and then your services at full price, which it very well could be, but you know, you know, if if they don't if they explicitly say, "I don't want to give an offer. I'm not giving one."

Okay, cool. Then, you know, you'll be on the virtual postcard, so you can get forwarded around still, but no coupon, so that's fine. Yeah, there's definitely a lot of implications to consider, so I will consider what might be the best option Can I go back to what you were saying there? So, the concept of so virtual postcard and then the concept of alternating every other month for your I've heard you say don't do two different cards in the same area because you're kind of going after the same Um but it sounded like when you were talking about the virtual postcard, two different areas would be good because area one would be sent month one. They would be skipped month two and then you would send it to area two, but the virtual postcard, both of those zones would get featured each month.

So in that case, it sounds like having back to back nearby neighboring zones would be There might have been uh some wires crossed because I've always recommended that you use like you you um target adjacent zones. Okay. yeah, I've always recommended because then you get that cross contamination of advertisers potentially bouncing from one card to the other. So maybe something was misunderstood about what I've said in the past. Okay.

So it's it's good cuz I have an area that um can go up to 10k in one spot. So if I'm doing a 5k, I have two different zones in that neighborhood and then right beside it is another 10k area. So I could do two different zones in that area. And so it's essentially uh So do every other month, virtual do it every month and then um two different groups of neighborhoods for each place, I guess. Okay.

Yeah. Now I do have to run in about 3 minutes cuz I have a call. Um but if anybody has any final questions, then happy to answer them now. Otherwise, I do have to run. Yeah.

Yeah, so has anyone here um tried like mortgage lenders uh as advertisers? >> Oh, mortgage lender. Yeah, I think I have one on this card. Yeah, right here. Mortgage broker.

Sure. So, what is the offer? Because I'm I have I have a person interested, but he's like, "I don't know what to put right now. The rates are so high. I don't know if I will get the return on investment."

Hm. I I would say speed and ease would be their best offer because some consumers might think that it's a very, very difficult process to get pre-approved. So, they don't necessarily have to offer like a discount on things like that. They just need to get people into their funnel so they can basically if they can somehow explain how easy it is that they could maybe pre-approve them in 20 minutes. Like 20-minute pre-approval, that would be something that people might be interested in because I know at least this mortgage broker can pre-approve people in 20 minutes.

Got you. Okay, yeah. Someone who's spent 18 years in that business, I will say you could also offer them a complimentary credit Which basically looking things over, seeing what their risk components are, what their and all that, which is not dependent on them taking a loan right away, but it might get people in the Got you. Yeah. That's nice.

Thanks, All right, guys. It's been a pleasure. Yeah. Take care, everybody. Thank you for coming on.

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