“Promoting from within rather than hiring outside executives to come in has always been my preference, and so far it’s worked out great.”

Joy Gendusa is the Founder and CEO of Postcardmania a full-service postcard direct-mail marketing and overall lead generation company.

Their services include graphic design, printing, mailing-list acquisition, mailing services, web design, e-mail marketing, Pay Per Click, and DirectMail2.0 in addition to a wealth of free marketing advice. Joy and the team help small businesses all over the country to expand through the use of direct mail marketing and a host of other lead generation techniques.

BusinessInterviews.com: Where does your passion for helping small business come from?

Joy: First off I AM a small business owner and I know how much passion and work it takes to succeed. Plus, small business is the BACKBONE of our economy — how can I NOT be passionate about helping them? Think about it. 99% of all independent businesses in America are small businesses employing 500 people or less. There are over 27 million small businesses in America and 6 million of those employ others. If I can help those companies market their businesses so well that their sales increase enough to the point where they have to hire one or two more people to handle all of the new business, that alone would solve our unemployment problem. Then we would all be able to enjoy a much more stable, rewarding and sane society!

BusinessInterviews.com: What are some of the advantages of using direct mail marketing techniques?

Joy: Direct mail is, hands down, your best bet for lead generation (which is basically getting people interested enough to contact your company to begin the sales cycle). The Direct Marketing Association puts direct mail at a response rate of about 1.2% with prospects, whereas digital methods (online and email) average 0.03% response rate. Why? In my opinion, it’s because you really can’t replace the legitimacy of a printed piece of material that prospects can touch and hold on to. Not to mention that direct mail offers some extraordinary targeting capabilities that you just can’t be sure you’re getting with online platforms. All of this combined gives direct mail the advantage when it comes to generating leads within the target audience most likely to buy.

BusinessInterviews.com: What is drip email marketing and who should be using this approach?

Joy: Drip email marketing is amazing and EVERYONE should use it! :) But to be more specific, drip emails are a set number of emails that are pre-written to be released over a specific timetable following a trigger. For example, when you sign up with Groupon and receive an email immediately after that says, “Hello, welcome to Groupon,” and then the next day you get another email from them asking you to “complete your profile,” that is drip email marketing. It’s a great method to warm people up to your company without calling for a lot of maintenance or upkeep. You just write the emails, set the timetable and triggers, then voila!

BusinessInterviews.com: What are some ways that social media can be leveraged to help generate revenue?

Joy: We’ve been able to use LinkedIn effectively to generate both leads and revenue consistently for a few years. It definitely helps that this is a more business-focused platform, and that people who are one LinkedIn regularly are very invested in their professional careers. So by sharing marketing education on there, we’ve found a good and receptive audience who are eager to grow their businesses. Also, I’ve seen my own customers — who are also my “friends” on FB — definitely express feeling closer to me as the CEO and I feel this helps to keep them coming back to us.

BusinessInterviews.com: How has PostcardMania grown and evolved since you first launched back in 1998?

Joy: When I started, we basically offered only postcard design and printing. We quickly started doing mailings for our clients as well (and today we offer so many great lead generation marketing products and services), but, at the start, I only had a phone and a computer! I didn’t even borrow money from anyone to start. I just marketed. I sent out postcards to generate interest and get more business, and it worked! Eventually I needed to hire some help, and one of the very first people I hired (as my assistant back then) is now the president of my company. Promoting from within rather than hiring outside executives to come in has always been my preference, and so far it’s worked out great. All of our senior executives started out as employees, and now, they’re a huge part of why we now employ almost 200 people and gross $22 million in annual revenue.

BusinessInterviews.com: What are some marketing trends that you’re excited or think that our readers should be paying attention to?

Joy: I am THRILLED about the advent of DirectMail2.0. It’s a new and fully integrated direct mail system that seamlessly integrates the power of Google. It includes direct mail (for lead generation), mail tracking (so that you know where your pieces are precisely), call tracking (so that you can know what your response rate is and track it) and automatic Google follow-up ads so that you can continue marketing to interested prospects online for only pennies more per piece. DirectMail2.0 offers a huge added value to every campaign, and it has increased results exponentially for our clients. We currently offer it, and in Summer 2014, it will be available to all direct mail marketing companies nationwide.