Why Direct Mail Still Wins With Rick Rappe, President and Owner of RPM Direct Marketing

Rick Rappe is President and Owner of RPM Direct Marketing, a firm focused on direct mail strategy, testing, and optimization. With over 30 years of experience in direct marketing, he previously held senior management roles at Hackeragency including Vice President of Account Services. Earlier in his career, Rick also led agency work on AT&T direct mail programs for more than 10 years, overseeing hundreds of programs, thousands of test packages, and more than 1.5 billion pieces of direct response mail.

Here’s a glimpse of what you’ll learn:

• [1:53] Rick Rape demystifies The Rapid Performance Method and how it speeds direct mail learning
• [2:24] How testing multiple variables helps find the winning mail combination
• [5:22] The importance of targeting, data, and offer strategy in campaign success
• [6:24] How format, messaging, and design support a strong direct mail offer
• [9:31] The core components of the direct mail performance framework
• [10:08] Why sales conversion and lead quality must align with marketing strategy
• [13:24] How response tracking, matchback analysis, and control groups guide decisions
• [17:18] Why direct mail requires an R&D mindset instead of slow iterative testing

In this episode…

Direct mail remains a powerful growth channel because it can combine precise targeting, compelling offers, and measurable response data. The challenge is that many organizations either test too slowly or fail to connect creative, targeting, attribution, and sales conversion into one system. How can companies make direct mail faster, more predictable, and easier to scale?

According to Rick Rappe, a direct mail strategist and performance optimization expert, companies need a structured testing methodology that identifies the strongest combinations of audience, offer, format, and messaging early in the process. He explains that direct mail works best when marketers treat it like a research and development effort, track response carefully, compare mailed and non-mailed groups, and align campaign goals with sales capacity. That approach helps brands move from guesswork to repeatable performance.

On this episode of The Top Business Leaders Show, John Corcoran welcomes Rick Rappe, President and Owner of RPM Direct Marketing, for a conversation about building high-performing direct mail programs through structured testing. Rick explains the Rapid Performance Method, the role of targeting and offer strategy, how to improve attribution, and why companies need an R&D mindset to make direct mail scalable and profitable.

Resources mentioned in this episode:

• John Corcoran on LinkedIn
• Rise25
• Email the team at Rise25: support@rise25.com
• Rick Rappe on LinkedIn
• RPM Direct Marketing
• Response Drivers Podcast

Quotable Moments

• “The real breakthrough in direct mail comes when targeting, offer, creative, and timing are tested together instead of one variable at a time.”
• “A strong offer can do heavy lifting even in a simple package, because value and relevance matter more than flashy design.”
• “Direct mail gets more powerful when marketers stop guessing and start reading early signals from real response data.”
• “Attribution improves when teams build tracking discipline into the sales process instead of treating measurement as an afterthought.”
• “The best direct mail programs are built like research labs first, then scaled like revenue engines once the winners are clear.”

Action Steps

1. Build a structured testing plan: Test targeting, offers, messaging, and format together so you can identify winning combinations faster.
2. Prioritize audience and offer strategy: Focus first on who receives the mail and why they should respond before refining creative details.
3. Align marketing with sales capacity: Match campaign volume, lead quality, and mailing cadence to what your sales team can actually convert.
4. Improve attribution systems: Use offer codes, QR codes, URL tracking, matchback analysis, and control groups to measure direct mail accurately.
5. Treat the first campaign as R&D: Use the initial program to gather as much learning as possible, then scale only the top-performing cells.

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Episode Transcript

00:12 Rick Rappe:

I’m Rick Rappe, host of the Response Drivers podcast. Here I dive deep with marketing experts and innovators to learn how they approach targeted marketing and use data driven strategies to acquire and retain customers. We’ll talk about what’s working, what’s changing, and how they can stay ahead and evolving. Marketing landscape response drivers is brought to you by RPM. Direct Marketing.

RPM helps companies develop hard hitting, direct mail, creative and utilize advanced testing and targeting methodologies to reach customers and prospects. Our goal is to fully optimize your marketing performance to drive more sales and exceed growth expectations. RPM delivers smarter, more profitable direct mail solutions, so you can turn your direct mail programs into a predictable, efficient sales channel. Check out rpm.com to learn more. Well, today my guest is John Corcoran from rise 25, and John has interviewed hundreds, no thousands of business professionals on his podcast and other podcasts. 

And today, we’re going to kind of flip the script, and he’s going to interview me a little bit about direct mail and how to get the most from direct mail performance.

01:19 John Corcoran:

All right, Rick, thanks so much for having me. And we’re going to dive deep into this topic, this methodology that you coined. It’s called the rapid Performance method, abbreviation RPM, just like your company. And it’s a methodology that you use with clients that you’ve used with lots of different types of companies, particularly around direct mail. So let’s, let’s start with what is it?

Give us a quick overview. And then we’re going to dive deep into how you how companies listening to this can apply it.

01:53 Rick Rappe:

Yeah. Well, the rapid performance method was kind of developed to get programs up off the ground very quickly. So one of the challenges with direct mail is that a lot of pieces have to come together at the same time to make a successful direct mail program work. So we’re talking about targeting offers, creative, you know, copy design, messaging, all these things have to come together. And so we need to gather a lot of information about each one of these variables, kind of all at the same time to really quickly figure out and understand where that needle in a haystack is, where, where these things kind of come together and make the peak performing direct mail piece.

So the rapid performance method was designed to do that. So it’s a testing methodology, a testing structure that we use to really take the first, the, the first program that we embark on with a new client and get as much learning as we can out of it so that we can hopefully find that that winning combination. And then from there, the once we have the winning combination figured out, then it becomes much more easy to, to become data driven and to start moving forward with something that’s proven and, and, and becomes predictable and scalable.

03:18 John Corcoran:

And can you give us an idea of how it can speed up the process? Like under normal circumstances, you know, it could take a year to get a mail program off the ground using this methodology. You could take three months. Or do you have an exact metric?

03:34 Rick Rappe:

Yeah. I mean, usually with a first test program, a normal timeline would be about a month for the development stage. The creative, the writing, the strategy at the beginning, of course. And then there’s usually three weeks or so For production and personalization and mailing the actual producing of the mail packages and getting them out in the mail. So let’s say that’s together about two months time.

And then, you know, you have to give it time for results to come in. So we’re talking about 30 days minimum to really read the results from a direct mail program. And that’s another way that we’ve accelerated the learning process is we start to look at the results as they come in, and we’re able to sort of look at certain points in time, 30 days, for example, and get a real good read on what’s winning and and project the results towards the end of the response curve, which might be more like 60 days or even some in some cases, we let programs go for 60 to 90 days. So it takes a long time for direct mail results to come in. And that’s one of the things that is, you know, challenging and different than, say, digital marketing, for example, digital marketing can be quicker, but direct mail performance can be a lot higher. 

So it’s a it’s a bit of a trade off.

04:58 John Corcoran:

Let’s talk about this rapid performance method can work for both companies that have an existing program, and also companies that don’t have a program at all. And you’re creating you’re building something from scratch from the ground up. Let’s start with that one first. So when you apply the rapid performance method for a new program from the ground up, where are the places that you focus it? How do you how do you approach that situation?

05:22 Rick Rappe:

Yeah. Well, we have a tool that we call the, the RPM direct mail performance framework. And here we really have broken down all the key drivers that affect direct mail performance. So the first and probably most important is targeting and data. You know, who you mail to is so critically important.

And who you don’t mail to obviously is very important is in terms of getting the most efficiency from your marketing dollars. The second and very, very important factor would be offer strategy. You got to give people a reason to respond. There’s they need to have perceived value. We want to, through the offer, you know, try to reduce risk and, and provide exclusivity and urgency through making the right offers. 

So the offer testing is a very important aspect of the rapid performance method, you know, process. And then we kind of get into the second tier, which of of our framework. And I think that includes things like format messaging and design. And the creative itself, which is, is, is important. But I think if you, if you’ve got the first two pieces targeting down and you’ve got a great offer, I always like to say that you could make that offer on with black ink on white paper, and it will probably work great. 

Eight. But if we can enhance the performance of that through great creative and great messaging and, you know, messaging also encompasses sort of emotional hooks and using emotion in the creative, which is something that we can do very, very effectively with direct mail. So these are these, this is the next tier that we focus on as we’re building program strategy.

07:13 John Corcoran:

And then let’s also talk about companies that have an existing program and bring you in. How do you approach it differently for them?

07:22 Rick Rappe:

When companies come to us with a existing direct mail program, we do. We follow the same framework, but we’re we break down what they’re doing and kind of do a review of what their current program looks like and develop ideas and concepts about, you know, what we would test against their top performing piece to try and beat it. We do a lot of extensive competitive research when we’re looking at existing programs. So we’ll not only look at your program, but all your competitors programs as well, and try to really break down where we see things that are interesting. And, you know, in marketing, one of the great strategies is to steal smart, borrow from other people and see what’s working, what’s out there.

And then, and then we also just develop brand new concepts that are things that we’ve seen work in other industries and other places that, you know, where we think you could get traction. Years ago, I was doing creative work for LifeLock, and LifeLock had a whole bunch of existing packages and a great successful program, but they were asking me to create new creative. And I looked at a bunch of things and I came back to a triple A package that triple A, you know, roadside assistance. And I remembered the chrome bumper sticker that people used to put on their bumpers that said they had triple A coverage. And I said, I thought, everybody needs a LifeLock sticker on their mailbox. 

So I created a version of the, of a LifeLock package that was based on the triple A package that they used to send out that sticker, and it became a fantastic success for LifeLock. And there has been millions and millions of pieces of that package sent out with LifeLock sticker. Wow. Based on that, that creative work.

09:18 John Corcoran:

Wow. That’s that’s really cool. Let’s talk about the, the kind of different core components of your performance framework. I think you may have maybe you’ve mentioned them all here, but I just want to make sure we don’t miss any and how they kind of connect to one another.

09:31 Rick Rappe:

Yeah. Well, we talked about this first tier targeting and data offer strategy. I put those on the first tier, the second tier being format messaging design. So the creative and what I’m actually sending out is is really important. And then there’s kind of a third tier that I would.

Frequency cadence is, is one of the components, how often you’re going to mail to people. If you’re going to mail them a series, how are you going to mail them weekly, monthly? How much is too much is a good question to think about when you’re, when you’re really hitting the market aggressively. The second aspect on that tier, I think that’s really important is to think about sales conversion. What kind of leads work the best for my sales force, we obviously, we can do some things in direct mail that will drive a a huge response rate, but the leads might be very hard to close or harder to close. 

So it’s really important to think about the sales process and get alignment with the offer and what your sales force is comfortable with and capable of converting at a high rate. Because obviously the the sales rate is a is a combination of the response rate and the conversion rate. And so both things have to be kind of optimized to really work the best.

10:51 John Corcoran:

It seems like that would be a bit of an art and a science to figure out based on the existing sales team, what their skill set is, how many leads you want to send in, versus you don’t want too much of a response because it just might fumble it.

11:07 Rick Rappe:

It is. It is a bit of an art and a science. And I think, you know, it’s also something that the sales team and the and the sales conversion process isn’t, isn’t always static. It, it, they can learn and evolve. And so initially they might not be able to handle a really hot lead, but if they get a chance to work with those leads over a period of time, they can they can figure it out and figure out how to convert.

So we want to make sure that that’s something that we’re thinking about Also the lead flow when when we think about the sales organization, how many people are we driving calls into? If it’s driving to the web, there might not be any concern with lead flow. So we want to make sure that if it’s, you know, 100,000 pieces of mail, that we break that up into small enough drops so that the lead flow comes in over a nice period of time where they can handle it, because obviously we don’t want any calls to go unanswered or any leads to go through the cracks.

12:11 John Corcoran:

Yeah, yeah. And I could imagine a scenario where all that gets mailed at the wrong time and it just could be overwhelming. So definitely spacing it out seems very important.

12:22 Rick Rappe:

Yeah. You a a typical response curve from direct mail. It goes up and peaks, you know, after 10 to 15 days after the mail drops, and then it sort of comes down and has a long tail. So we want to make sure that when that peak happens in the response curve that it doesn’t break the call center or break the sales organization. Yeah.

And the last piece I would mention real quick before we move on to the next piece, which is compliance and deliverability. We obviously have to think about legal compliance and deliverable deliverability, logistics and timing of getting the mail in the homes at the right time and things like that.

13:01 John Corcoran: So you mentioned earlier about reading results and you read results even while they’re still coming in rather than waiting until the end. And I just wanted to know how, how do you read those results and how do you determine what’s a winner when there could be other things like other noise or, or that maybe the sample’s small? Like how do you determine what is the winner?

13:24 Rick Rappe: Yeah. Well, we’re, we’re always working with our clients to capture the response information. So we’re looking at things like 800 number volume, QR code, clicks, URL hits, you know, all of the different things that are part of the call to action are very trackable. And, you know, and then at the point of sale, there’s also an opportunity to capture things like capture a code or. Capture the, capture the information that you need based on that sale.

So then it is difficult sometimes when clients are driving a lot of volume from a lot of different media to attribute it accurately to direct mail. So we do some things like match back to from with addresses from the sales data to the mail files. And then sometimes we also would hold out a control group that doesn’t get mailed so that you can see, well, here’s the sales and where those where those sales come through without any direct mail influence. And then here’s the sales and where they come through with direct mail. And it’s really interesting because sometimes direct mail drives a lot of sales through the obvious direct mail channel, but it also can drive sales through the web where you you don’t really see that they came from direct mail. 

It can also drive sales to retail. It can drive sales to a bunch of different places.

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