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💡 THE TIP
In the age of AI, anyone can ship a product with enough time and credits. You stand out with a memorable touch, like direct mail triggered off real buying signals instead of a blasted email list.
Most teams crowd into the same channels: email, paid, cold outreach. That’s exactly where the AI output now lives.
Jason Ginsberg, Head of Marketing at GovWell, went the other way. Direct mail is now one of GovWell’s most efficient channels, and its qualification rate beats every other marketing channel they run, because if a prospect scans the QR code on a postcard and books a meeting, you caught them at the right moment.
By sending direct mail, GovWell goes where other marketing organizations aren’t reaching. And now they’re doubling down. Rather than spray 30,000 mailers, GovWell inputs public-sector buying signals (ex: a permitting item on a local agenda, a new budget line for community-development software) into Salesforce, then dripping a postcard tied to a specific signal that a municipality has exhibited.
GovWell follows the same instinct at go-live: a branded box mailed to the customer, plus flyers and business cards in that municipality’s branding, with QR codes pointing to its portal. GovWell barely gets a mention as the point is supporting their customers and driving resident adoption from day one.
Special shoutout to Jason Ginsberg at GovWell for this tip! If you're looking for your next role, GovWell - the AI operating system for modern government - is hiring for their marketing team, as well as sales, engineering, and more. Check out their open NYC roles here.
✅ THE TO-DO
Pick the one buying signal that best predicts a purchase in your market (a funding round, a new VP, a public RFP, a competitor’s renewal date). Find where that signal already shows up publicly or in your tools, then wire a single direct-mail trigger: when it fires, a branded postcard with a QR code goes out within 48 hours. Start with one signal and one postcard.
If you found this tip helpful, please share with a fellow b2b founder 😎
🤖 THE CLAUDE SKILL
Paste this into Claude with your ICP and the buying signals you can actually observe. It will design a signal-triggered direct-mail play you can wire up this quarter.
You are a GTM engineer who specializes in outbound and direct mail.
Context:
- Product: [WHAT YOU SELL + ACV]
- ICP: [WHO YOU SELL TO, TITLES + SEGMENT]
- Observable buying signals: [E.G. FUNDING ROUND, NEW VP HIRED, PUBLIC RFP,
PERMITTING ITEM ON AN AGENDA, BUDGET APPROVAL]
- Signal sources / tools: [E.G. STARBRIDGE, CLAY, NEWS ALERTS, SALESFORCE]
- Marketing stack: [E.G. HUBSPOT + DIRECT MAIL VENDOR]
Do the following:
1. Rank my buying signals from highest to lowest purchase intent, one line on why each.
2. For the top 3 signals, write the trigger logic: signal fires, then what mail piece
goes out, to whom, and how fast.
3. Draft the copy for one postcard per signal. Under 50 words, one clear CTA, one
QR-code destination tied to that specific signal.
4. Define the 3 metrics I should track to prove ROI (e.g. scan rate, meetings booked,
closed-won rate vs. other channels).
5. Flag the single thing most likely to make this fail, and how to avoid it.
Rank your recommendations from lowest-effort/highest-leverage to
highest-effort/highest-reward.Do you have a GTM protip? Send our way here to feature in an future issue! If you try any of these tips and found them helpful, let us know - we’d love to hear from you.