719: $1,000 per Postcard: The Every Door Direct Mail Side Hustle

Summary

Podcast Summary: The Side Hustle Show – Episode 719

Title: $1,000 per Postcard: The Every Door Direct Mail Side Hustle
Host: Nick Loper
Guests: Rachel & Dalton, Big Sky Automation
Date: January 22, 2026

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Episode Overview

In this episode, Nick Loper explores a creative local side hustle with guests Rachel and Dalton from Big Sky Automation: leveraging Every Door Direct Mail (EDDM) to generate up to $1,000 profit per postcard. They break down how they aggregate ads from multiple local businesses onto a single mailer to dramatically reduce costs for advertisers and create an attractive recurring revenue stream for side hustlers. The pair share their step-by-step process, lessons learned, customer attraction strategies, and how this approach can be a powerful "foot in the door" for additional business opportunities.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

Introduction to the EDDM Side Hustle

• What is EDDM?
  The USPS allows nearly blanket local mail delivery for about $0.25 per piece.
• Business Model:
  • Revenue by aggregating ads for 10–16+ local businesses on one postcard.
  • Shared advertising dramatically reduces cost per business.
  • Rachel and Dalton report a repeatable process, running up to 20 campaigns in less than a year.

“You stack up a bunch of those [ads] on the same mailer to spread out the costs, and you got yourself a creative extra income stream.” — Nick (00:05)

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Pivoting to a More Profitable Structure

• Initial Challenges:
  • Started with a large 9x12" postcard to 10,000 homes at ~$600 per participant—price too high for small businesses.
  • Shrunk the campaign size to 6.5x12" cards, targeting 2,500 homes in specific neighborhoods.
  • Effects: Lowered costs, increased affordability and retention.

“Bringing it down to that 2,500 mailing range brought the cost down...so now we were able to continue doing this on a mass scale...and it’s no longer unaffordable for them.” — Rachel (01:20)

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Standing Out from Valpak & Other Direct Mailers

• Unique Selling Points:
  • Only local businesses (not national chains).
  • Exclusivity: Only one business per category—no direct competitors on the same postcard.
  • Simpler format: A single, prominent postcard, not a thick envelope of coupons.

“Valpak can be up to 75 businesses...we get them here at our house, and...there was two roofers back to back...he ended up switching to us because of that.” — Rachel (03:04)

• Types of Advertising:
  • Indirect brand awareness (like a billboard) rather than expecting instant, direct response.
  • Especially appealing when the cost of solo mailers is prohibitive.

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Effective Outreach Strategies

• How To Find Customers:
  • Target businesses already spending on direct mail (e.g., advertisers in Valpak, local magazines).
  • Initial outreach via Facebook Messenger and email, not cold calls—allows owners/managers to respond in their own time.
  • Show real presence: share postcards, sample cards, and community involvement on your Facebook business page.

“Our response rate is really good, especially on Facebook because they can easily go check out our page, see that we’re real people.” — Rachel (06:16)

• Pro Tip: Include pricing upfront in your initial message; it removes friction and signals affordability.

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Customer Fit and Retention

• Best Businesses to Target:
  • Dentists, HVAC, home services, salons, restaurants, coffee shops—especially those with high margins or needing repeat brand exposure.
  • Restaurants/coffee shops make the card “sticky” (recipients save the card for offers/coupons).

“One of our most consistent customers has been one of the dentists in town...he buys the biggest spot. HVAC [and] a body contouring salon...And we always recommend trying to get a restaurant or coffee shop...” — Rachel (11:05)

• Category Exclusivity:
  • Major selling point—businesses value being the sole provider in their niche on the card.
  • Creates subtle scarcity; some join to keep competitors off.

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Operations, Costs, and Margins

• Designing Postcards:
  • Canva is used for design; business provides assets or Rachel/Dalton use templates.

“...we have a lot of templates that we use and just kind of switch out the information...the simpler that you can make it, the better.” — Rachel (17:14)

• Handling Fulfillment:

  • Printers can handle printing, bundling, and mailing directly via USPS EDDM—Rachel and Dalton never touch the physical postcards.
  • Fulfillment can be handled out of state (their printer is in NY, mailing to MT).

• Financial Breakdown:

  • Example: 15 spots at $150 = $2,250 revenue.
  • Full cost (print, postage, fulfillment): ~$1,300
  • Estimated profit: $1,100 per mailing.

“So you bring in about $2,400 and then it’s around $1,300 for full fulfillment...you’re left with about $1,100 in profit.” — Rachel (20:12)

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Recurring Revenue & Scaling

• Retention:
  • ~60–70% of advertisers re-up for each subsequent mailing.
  • Now pre-selling 3–6 month packages or subscriptions (sometimes paid up front).
• Geographic Expansion:
  • Model works in multiple towns/regions—sometimes even without in-person sales.

“We’ve done it up to four hours away from where we live—just messaging people on Facebook and email.” — Rachel (23:52)

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“Foot in the Door” for More Business

• Lead Generation:
  • Each mailing is a relationship-building opportunity with up to 16 new trusted business clients.
  • Many expand into other services (website, ads, reputation management).
  • Businesses receptive to further marketing help after initial trust is built.

“This is a really good thing to put at the forefront of our services...you offer such a really high value thing for such a low cost and they appreciate it. You build a really good relationship with them...and then it does lead to those conversations of what else do you do?” — Rachel (25:25)

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Key Mistakes & Lessons Learned

• Setting Expectations:
  • Don’t overpromise direct response or ROI on the first card.
  • Educate clients that this is about long-term brand building and top-of-mind awareness, not instant leads.

“Setting those clear expectations up front is what really made our retention rate hold strong and grow. Because they’re not expecting their door to be knocked down by customers on one mailing. That’s completely unrealistic.” — Rachel (33:29)

• Printer Missteps:
  • Ensure your printer’s EDDM template aligns with USPS requirements and doesn’t cover client ads.

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Building Community & New Opportunities

• Building Trust and Local Community:

  • Create a business owner group (e.g., WhatsApp or Facebook) to facilitate networking, provide value and keep yourself top-of-mind as the go-to advertising resource.

• New Product Teaser:

  • Launching “community board” — placing large message boards in restaurants/gyms featuring a handful of business ads, displayed for a year, providing recurring low-touch income.

“It’s almost like again, another billboard, but on a smaller scale.” — Rachel (39:35)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “Businesses, they either get this kind of marketing or they don’t...You might have to educate them in the process, but the fact that you target owners that are already advertising...will be a lot more receptive to this idea.” — Dalton (04:22)
• “I always recommend, don’t wait to start. Motivation is just this thing...No, just get started today and your dreams are going to come true.” — Rachel (41:58)
• “You have to be consistent...your motivation will run out, so you have to be disciplined with your consistency.” — Dalton (43:24)
• “If you build it, nobody’s going to come unless they know about it.” — Nick (43:51)
• “Each postcard has 16 businesses...that could be up to 16 new leads that we’re bringing in that we’re building relationships with.” — Rachel (26:49)

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Key Timestamps

• 00:01–01:20: Intro, What is the Every Door Direct Mail Side Hustle?
• 03:04–05:16: Valpak comparison, Exclusivity, Why local targeting matters
• 06:16–09:50: Outreach strategies: Facebook, email, messaging, pricing talk
• 11:05–13:25: Best types of businesses to target, “Sticky” ads
• 17:14–20:12: Designing cards, fulfillment, margins, cost breakdown
• 21:44–22:52: Recurring revenue, advertiser retention rates
• 25:25–27:24: Using postcards for lead generation into higher ticket services
• 33:29–34:48: Setting expectations, learning from early mistakes
• 36:28–38:18: Building a business owner group/community
• 39:03–41:46: Teaser: Community boards/shared advertising opportunities
• 41:58–43:51: Top actionable tips from Rachel & Dalton

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Actionable Takeaways

• Niche down, start small: Target specific neighborhoods for affordability and effectiveness.
• Leverage exclusivity: Category exclusivity is a strong selling point.
• Start with warm leads: Local businesses already using direct mail are your best prospects.
• Build community: Creating a trusted local network multiplies opportunities.
• Set expectations: Emphasize the value of brand visibility and repetition rather than instant results.

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Resources Mentioned

• Bigsky Automation
• Community Card Playbook
• USPS EDDM Tool
• Canva (for postcard design)
• WhatsApp/Facebook for local community building

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Summary by: Podcast Summarizer Pro | Language and tone reflect the episode's engaging, straightforward, and highly practical style.

Transcript

[Nick]

A thousand bucks per postcard. This is the every door direct mail side Hustle. So here's the play. The postal service lets you get in just about any mailbox for about 25 cents a piece. Now, you could use that to promote your own business, or you could do what today's guests do and sell that as a service to other businesses. You stack up a bunch of those on the same mailer to spread out the costs, and you got yourself a creative extra income stream. They've done it 15, 18, 20 times already, so definitely repeatable. And they're breaking down how you can do the same in your own area today. From Bigsky, automation.com, rachel and Dalton, welcome to the side Hustle show.

[Rachel]

Hey, Nick, thanks for having us on today.

[Nick]

We've been doing this for a year or two. How did you come up with the idea?

[Rachel]

So we had something similar. It was a larger postcard. Here, I'll show you what ours looks like here. It's on a six and a half by 12 postcard. When we initially started doing this, we were actually doing a 9 by 12 postcard, which is just a little bit bigger. But the play on that one was that it goes to 10,000 homes at a time. And when you're doing that, the cost range for the participating businesses is around $600 per mailing. So we did a couple of those cards. We quickly realized that that price point was not going to go over well for the participating businesses. If you think about it, you want to do multiple of these, at least one a month, if not two a month like we currently do. And that was just not really affordable for the businesses participating. So we said to ourselves, we're actually driving to the Oregon coast on a vacation. And we were having a serious conversation of how do we keep doing this but make it affordable? So we actually decided to scale down on the number of homes and focus on specific communities within our area. So we're in Missoula, Montana, so we narrowed it down to pop neighborhoods that businesses like to target already for their marketing. And we mailed just to those. So they work out actually pretty perfectly to be about 2,500 homes each. And we mailed to two neighborhoods per month in our area. So bringing it down to that 2,500 mailing range brought the cost down for the participating businesses tremendously. So now we were able to continue doing this on a mass scale where we just continue to do it month by month and we have people hopping on for multiple mailings and it's no longer Unaffordable for them.

[Nick]

Okay. So shrinking the size of the mailing, shrinking the physical size of the thing in addition to the list, so makes it more affordable and more highly targeted at the same time, becomes an easier. Yes. To get from the business owners. Did you find, like, as you're knocking on doors or calling up different businesses that were like, oh, yeah, we already tried that. Have we done Valpak? Or, like, were other people doing this? It seems like I personally get the promotions for, like, a single business, but I don't know if I've seen anybody try and send, like, multiple. Like, I don't know if anybody's packaging up this way in my area at least.

[Rachel]

Yeah. So Valpak is a really good example of something similar. But what we do a little bit differently than them is obviously it's a postcard with up to 16 businesses on the postcard. Valpack can be up to 75 businesses. So it can be a really thick envelope of many, many businesses. And another thing that they do is they allow competitors in the same envelope. So we get them here at our house, and one day we pulled it out, we were going through it, and there was two roofers back to back. And actually we called one of them and he ended up switching to us because of that.

[Nick]

It's a great way to source people who are already investing in direct mail, correct?

[Rachel]

Yes. And they already understand the idea of the shared thing. And then when you present this option and you say it's local businesses and no competitors, that is a really, really big selling point for them. So I think that people are starting to feel like they can get lost in, like, money, mailer, Valpak, things like that, because there's so many businesses and you might be right next to your competitor. And then as far as solo mail, that can cost thousands upon thousands, which is money that most small businesses just don't have.

[Nick]

From, like, the Valpak perspect, I got to open the envelope. I got to, like, leaf through all these things versus having a postcard that's front and center.

[Rachel]

Yeah, right.

[Dalton]

And I'd say businesses, they either get this kind of marketing or they don't. This is a form of indirect advertising where the whole purpose of it, it's like a billboard. It's not really to drive responses to basically drive a bunch of brand exposure. So, you know, it's hit or miss on. On an owner, and you might have to educate them in the process, but the fact that you target owners that are already advertising as well, those ones will be A lot more receptive to this idea.

[Rachel]

Yeah. And when you try to pitch a business owner on indirect advertising, when it's not about response and you say it's going to cost you a few grand, they're going to slam the door in your face. But when you tell them that you can get your name out there and get your brand all around town for $150 per mailing, I think they're a little bit more receptive to hearing that. That maybe it's not about immediate roi, it's just about getting your name out there. So I think once you explain it and frame it that way, it is. It's greatly appreciated.

[Dalton]

Then you can start to compete with the big guys in town and end up in people's mailboxes. And direct mail is like one of the few advertising methods that is 100% localized.

[Nick]

Yeah. It makes sense from, from that standpoint and kind of try not to over promise the direct response element of it. It's like more like the local real estate agent, which is another touch point. Another. I want to be first in mind when somebody thinks of xyz, if it's pizza or dry cleaning or whatever it is, like, just, I'm gonna get in front of these homes for a relatively low cost per impression. To put it on, like an online advertising type of terminology there starts with like, okay, I got this idea. And what was the. What was the size that you mentioned?

[Rachel]

Six and a half by 12 inches?

[Nick]

Yeah, okay, six and a half by 12. And you said, I'm gonna have up to 16 advertisers. And so from there is it just a matter of picking up the phone, sending cold email? Like, what have you found effective? Or what types of businesses like to be in this space? I guess opening up the Valpack is a good place to start. Like people who are already spending money on mail.

[Rachel]

Yeah, that's one of our starting points is valpack. Any local magazine that we get with like a flip book of advertisements, we always check that out and then what we personally do, because we found that with cold calling, the person that you're trying to get to that's going to be able to make this decision is busy. And nine and a half times out of ten, if you cold call, you're not going to get to the right person. So we kind of just allow the space and the time for them to be able to respond on their own time. And how we do that is Facebook Messenger. So we'll actually message their business page because we know that's typically manned by the owner or a manager, somebody who can make those decisions. And then we'll also send emails. So we do that. It's a little bit less invasive on their time and if they're interested, they'll respond and then we call them. So instead of just bombarding with cold calls, we just go ahead and send out some messages. And our response rate is really good, especially on, on Facebook because they can easily go check out our page. They can see that we're posting about it, they can see that we're real people. And then, yeah, like I said, we'll get on the phone with them right away when they're interested. And they're. We've gotten like comments about how. I'm so glad you called me. I really wasn't sure if this was real.

[Nick]

Oh, okay. Okay. So maybe one, you have this agency at Big Sky Automation, so you have a business profile page to reach out to people through and it points back to the portfolio and all this stuff. And so barring that, you almost have to set something like that up in advance to have kind of a presence or a home base.

[Rachel]

No, it's honestly something that you can build as you go. And so we have people in our community that we teach to do the same strategy in their area and most of them don't have an agency like Dalton and I do, so we teach them to just look professional. On your Facebook page, if you're going to be reaching out on Facebook, share digital copies of the cards, get some sample cards, post pictures of them and then post pictures of you just in your local area. That way they know they can see you. You took a walk at the local park, you, you ate at a local restaurant. Just kind of start being this community person. It's not something that you need to start, it's just something that you can build. And there's plenty of people that we know that don't even use Facebook because they're old school, they don't really like Facebook, they don't have a Facebook. And those are our, our emailers, our cold callers, even some people do door to door. We've seen that work for a lot of people just stopping in and, you know, like leaving a card behind with your business card and, and asking for the owner to give you a call. So there, there's multiple strategies that, that can kind of work for that.

[Dalton]

Yeah.

[Nick]

What's that initial message say?

[Rachel]

So mine is, hey, I'm Rachel, I own Big Sky Automation Services. We're sending out a postcard going to 2500 homes in Miller Creek spots start at $150. Would you be interested? I have it down because I've done.

[Nick]

It so much copy and paste or get the like, text expander shortcuts and off to the races.

[Rachel]

Yeah. So we like to include the price because it's such a low cost that we want them to know we're not asking them to commit hundreds or thousands of dol. And that has increased our response rate greatly. So we, we do include that price. I know that's a little counterintuitive for what you get taught in sales, but I. For it being such a low ticket item, it does work in its favor.

[Nick]

Well, I imagine that leads to better responses because it's always like, well, if I have to ask, I probably can't afford it. And then you get this right back and forth where people really aren't qualified. And it's like, okay. And you can start to do the math in your head. Well, 150 bucks, 2,500 homes. It's like a nickel a piece, six cents a piece to get in front of my target market. Yeah. All of a sudden I'm curious to learn more.

[Rachel]

Right, Exactly. They're even willing to be like, this might be a scam, but I'll give them a call.

[Nick]

Wait a minute. How does this work?

[Rachel]

Right.

[Nick]

So we don't get the postcards, but we do get this magazine. It seems to be pretty well established because it's been coming for four or five years. And it's not like Better Homes and Gardens, but it has a similar sounding name. And it's just a catalog. It's just a brochure of like roofers and home remodelers and cleaning services. And it's just, we'll do your backyard paver project or we'll redo finish your driveway or something.

[Rachel]

Yeah.

[Nick]

It's a similar model where it's like, okay, we're going to cover this mailing cost by spreading the costs out amongst all these different advertising businesses.

[Rachel]

Yeah, absolutely.

[Nick]

So different ways, different ways to get it done. Have you found, I mean, the, the breadth of small businesses? Like, is it the pizza place, is it the real estate office? What kind of businesses have you found most responsive?

[Rachel]

So that could be anywhere from. I'm looking at this card in front of us. One of our most consistent customers has been one of the dentists in town. He has been on almost every single mailing and he buys the biggest spot.

[Nick]

Okay.

[Rachel]

He absolutely loves it. H vac, that's another really consistent customer of ours. And Then we've got, like a body contouring salon where they do, like, the fat freezing. Of course, a restaurant. And we always recommend trying to get a restaurant or a coffee shop because what that does is make the card sticky. So then the people who receive it, they're like, oh, coffee. Or, oh, there's a coupon for burgers. You want to go there Friday? They put it up on their fridge or they put it in their drawer and everybody else sits there with it.

[Dalton]

Yeah. And usually businesses that have high margins, like most home service businesses, where they need multiple touch points, like a roofing company, nobody needs a new roof until they need it. It's not like a buy on. On demand.

[Nick]

Yeah.

[Dalton]

But I would say home services definitely are strongest and they understand the indirect advertising piece of it.

[Rachel]

Yeah, absolutely.

[Nick]

Yeah. Thinking of dentists, like a very high lifetime value of a customer. So I could see them being a good candidate. The, you know, higher ticket services or kind of like the roofer, like, example, big ticket, you know, once every 30 years, expense kind of a thing. Like, I got to be top of mind. I got to be the first phone call that they think of.

[Rachel]

Yes.

[Nick]

When. When it comes that time. Similar would be like the plumbing services. And there's a few in our area where it's like, stop freaking call Beacon. Beacon Plumbing is like, you know, the one that comes to mind for the Seattle area. And they would hire Seahawks players to come in their commercials. And it's just if I have an emergency, like, you know, they're top of mind, so good on them.

[Rachel]

Right.

[Nick]

So that type of stuff definitely makes a lot of sense. And I liked what you said earlier about we're going to have exclusivity on this mailer. Like, you're going to be the only roofer that we feature. Because I think for a lot of local store, you mentioned the Val Pack, where it's like, I might have two or three other roofers that I'm kind of competing with for attention. And in that, like, magazine example, it's like, well, there's. Every other page is a kitchen remodeling service. It's like, well, how do I differentiate?

[Rachel]

Right. Exactly. And that was basically what sold that roofer. When I called him, he was like. I said, you know, you're back to back with another roofing company. He goes, yeah, I'm kind of sick of seeing that. And I explained to him that ours is category exclusive. And he was like, I didn't even know this was an option. This is great. Yeah.

[Dalton]

And we've had cases where we'll pitch it to him and that like, maybe they don't want to sign up, but we pitch in the idea that it's exclusivity and then they're like, if you get on here, you'll keep somebody else off of your competitor. And they're like, oh, that sounds good to keep my competitor off of there.

[Nick]

Yeah, it's almost a scarcity game of like, well, you know, I'd love to offer this to you, but if you don't take it, you know there's three or four others on my list to call next, Right?

[Rachel]

Exactly.

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[Nick]

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[Nick]

So I'm going to bring up the every door direct mail. This is on the USPS site. So I've targeted a zip code, every purple dot, I guess, as a potentially a household, which is kind of cool. And so you can click on the different areas you want to get to, and it'll show you the income in this area. It'll show you kind of like the age demographics of this area. Really kind of interesting stuff that I didn't know existed. And so it was a pretty high income area. And it says, okay, now you said that targeting total mailers kind of in that 2500 ballpark. So I got to like, okay, if I, you know, say I want this area instead, okay, I'm at 2700. Maybe that's close enough. And it's going to say this is the approximate cost for that mailer at $683. So my next step, obviously, I want to try and fill that up with 10, 15 different businesses front and back. And like, I guess you could divine to design it in Canva. And like, actually that probably makes a good question, like, are you designing it yourself? Are the people submitting graphics? Like, that could be kind of the next hurdle of, like, how do I make something that looks decent or even stands out here.

[Rachel]

Yeah, we do use Canva, and nine times out of 10, the businesses do want us to design it. The roofer that I mentioned, he actually had his team design all of their mailings, which was a huge help. That was awesome. But most of the time, they do want us to design it. So we have a lot of templates that we use and just kind of switch out the information and just make sure that we highlight them. But keep it simple. We don't want to overflow it with too much information. So I think a lot of people get nervous when you're talking about designing a postcard, but the simpler that you can make it, the better. And there are so many templates inside of Canva that you can go in there and you can search for, like, roofing, and you have a beautiful roofing template they can go off of and just insert their information.

[Dalton]

And we also have a template where basically it's pretty plug and play, a coupon and a logo and a phone number. So you don't even have to have a high creativity. I mean, we've tried to make it as super simple as possible where you don't have to get into graphic design. So that's something we also teach as well. We try to keep this low tech as possible.

[Rachel]

Yeah, there you go.

[Nick]

Yeah, like tons of really nice looking examples of what you could fill in to your, to your postcard here with the, oh, here's the solar installer. That could be a good one too.

[Rachel]

Yes.

[Nick]

Plug in your business name, your phone number, and you're off to the races there.

[Rachel]

Yeah.

[Nick]

All right, so now we're back over here. Okay, this is, it's going to be estimated 680. Call it $700. And if I've sold 15, what do we say, 15 spots at 150 bucks a piece. Now I've got $2,200 ish in revenue to play with. And so there's, you see that $1,500 in margin in the middle there. But there's still like printing costs, fulfillment costs, like maybe let's go through the next steps there.

[Rachel]

Yeah, so the cool thing, this is probably one of my favorite things. So I'll preface this by saying you can handle the mailing portion yourself. We don't, because we don't want to deal with 2,500 postcards landing on our doorstep. And then we have to organize them for the post office.

[Dalton]

Yeah.

[Rachel]

So our printer will actually handle the EDDM fulfillment. And so what that means is he bundles them, you have to bundle them in bundles of 100. And then you have to have the proper facing slips that explain what routes it's going to, what zip code, everything like that. And then he will ship them to our local post office. And then from the post office they just go out immediately onto the carrier truck. So we don't ever touch a postcard unless we've got extras from a mailing.

[Nick]

Okay, so finding a local printer that has the capabilities to do the eddm, basically that's, that's the unlock. Like, I don't want to touch it. I'll send you the digital files and maybe get a proof. And then you're like, okay, go, go.

[Rachel]

You do it right. And you don't even have to have a local printer. Our printer is in New York and he gets them into Montana in like two or three days. It's phenomenal.

[Nick]

Oh, I didn't Even think about that. Yeah, I guess it's. If it's all digital and then. Yeah, send it. Send it to the post office. They'll send it out.

[Rachel]

Yeah.

[Nick]

Okay. Do they charge per piece or is it like bulk pricing times the 2,500 units or how do you typically have that set up?

[Rachel]

Yeah, it's around $0.07 per card for fulfillment, right? Yeah, yeah. So I think it works out to be $175 extra for us to have him fulfill. And for us that makes sense. So we, we pay him the extra $175 and he handles all of that. We live about 45 minutes from the town that we target, so. And doing two a month, we don't want to have to drive up there to drop off our postcards. So it makes sense for us. But yeah, so you bring in about $2400 and then it's around 1300 for full fulfillment. That's print postage and his fulfillment for him to bundle and ship. So you're left with about $1,100 in profit.

[Nick]

Okay. Okay. So the 175 doesn't include the printing costs, but all said printing postage and the EDDM printer magic sauce around around $1,300 in total cost.

[Rachel]

Correct.

[Nick]

Helpful. Okay.

[Rachel]

Yeah. So if you charge more for the spaces, then you keep more. $150 is a really good spot for our market, but we've seen people charge more.

[Nick]

Okay. And so then the question becomes like, I had my first taste. Well, now do I go back to the well with the same advertisers and say we could. You want to do it again next month? Hey, though, this was great. You know, just kind of set them up on a recurring contract. Do you find that's common or is it? Well, I got to go to the next town over. Like, how have you seen seeing this kind of play out?

[Rachel]

Yeah. So we have done From May of 2025 to the end of December, we did 20 cards. So in about a seven month span. And that was mailing to the exact same two neighborhoods every single month since May. And we have about a 60 to 70% retention rate. And it's because we set the expectations up front of this works best when you have multiple touches. So we've actually gotten to the point now where we're only selling like packs of these postcards. So we sell them from three to six months where they pay up front and they're on the postcard and it's just kind of maybe switching out a few ads. So when we were first, getting started in order to build the trust and to build our confidence and make sure that this was going to work. Obviously we were doing one mailer and at that point we would go back to all of the same people that were on the previous postcard. And again we were seeing that 60% retention rate where they all wanted to hop on the next postcard because it was so affordable.

[Nick]

Yeah. Recognizing. Look, this is a game of repetition and awareness versus direct response. And because, well, what's another six cents? You know, I'll get to another house.

[Rachel]

Yeah, right, Exactly.

[Nick]

Okay. But now pre selling people on kind of longer term. Okay, we'll space it out every two weeks or we'll space it out every month. And imagine not necessarily billing up front, but kind of pre booking a lot of those slots.

[Rachel]

Yeah. So we're actually doing it where they do pay us up front. And we've seen other people put it more of like a subscription model where they have like a six month contract, but they can pay monthly. So they can't back out after month three. They're locked in for the six months. But the way that we're doing it, we are just charging upfront. So if they want six months, they pay for. For six months in advance.

[Nick]

Oh, okay.

[Rachel]

Yeah.

[Nick]

And then expanding to different neighborhoods, different geos. I mean, because it's so targeted, it could be just in the map that I've pulled up is like, oh, you could go to the next town over and the next town over and it's a completely different set of local businesses.

[Rachel]

Yeah, absolutely. We've done a couple cards in Bozeman, Montana, which is about four hours from us. And we never even went to Bozeman to sell these postcard spots. We just, we were messaging them on Facebook, sending emails, and then getting on a call if they wanted to talk to us. So. So we've done it up to four hours away from where we live. So it's absolutely possible. Especially Montana is a little different than like say Seattle. So like Bozeman is four hours and that's the next big town from us. So sure, sure, you have to go four hours. Other people could probably go 30 minutes in the other direction and, and see a whole new set of businesses and homes to mail to. So the opportunities are really endless when it comes to this.

[Nick]

Yeah, that's really, that's funny about Montana. Oh, it's only four hours away, but it's like, hey, that's like, you know, a typical morning drive, you know.

[Rachel]

Right, exactly.

[Nick]

Okay. So expanding geographically and then really the repeat business. But what is kind of interesting is it's almost this foot in the door. Like build trust, drive value in the case of your agency and getting more customers to be like, well, this was cool. What else do you have to offer? And it's like looking at Big sky automation, you know, the typical suite of services with reputation management and web design and all this stuff, you know, marketing done for you. Marketing. Have you found that like, okay, now because we've built this upfront level of trust and now people are kind of warm. Leads coming in.

[Rachel]

Yes, that's exactly right. And that's what we call it is our foot in the door offer. This is actually something that we installed into our business after the fact. Like we didn't start our business with this. We do brand reputation management, website builds, a few other things, and we're just finding it really hard to build such a relationship for those higher ticket items. Maybe it's like monthly recurring or a large upfront cost, especially for website builds. And it was just really hard to build that relationship off of a cold lead or somebody that you just met. So everybody believes in direct mail, but not everybody can afford it. So this is a really good thing to put at the forefront of our services. And you almost come in as just like, I wouldn't say hero, but I think you know what I'm trying to say. Like you offer such a really high value thing for such a low cost and they appreciate it. You build a really good relationship with them, you work closely with them on their ad design, you talk with them. And then it does lead to those conversations of what else do you do? And we've seen people use this for, to like sell print services, to sell agency services like we do. Some people just use it as a side hustle or some extra money. But. But it works so good. I mean, each postcard has 16 businesses that could be up to 16 new leads that we're bringing in that we're building relationships with.

[Dalton]

Well, if you think about the card, it's got two lead generation strategies and the first one is getting people on the card and selling them other advertising. Or you put yourself on the card, maybe your B2C. And now you've got lead generation to consumers as well that you're funding from other sponsorships. So that's what's really cool about the card.

[Rachel]

Yeah, we have a client who owns a brewery and he uses it as a way to advertise his business for free. So it can work in that regard too.

[Nick]

Oh, a student of yours Doing the postcard thing, almost like a house hacking type of deal, like in one corner of the postcard and rent out the of the rest.

[Rachel]

Exactly.

[Nick]

Okay, shoot. Now I'm like, well, dang. Yeah, I could promote, promote the podcast to all these households and have a little, little corner, subsidize it. That's. Yeah, that's a really interesting one. Yeah, like, you know, you're going back to. When it's time to re up and say, like, hey, do you want to do the next month? By the way, you know, we noticed your website is looking a little dated. Like, are you driving that proactively or is it the, the customers, the businesses are kind of raising their hands being like, hey, I was checking out your website and you know, maybe it's time to do a little refresh on some of our branding or something like that.

[Rachel]

Yeah, yeah. Whether we bring it up or they bring it up, I think it kind of just like sparks their, their thought process of, well, these people are probably going to be looking me up. I should have a better presence.

[Dalton]

Yeah. Usually there's, there's two issues that we really push on when we're talking to business owners and we always run reports and the first one is, are they responding to Google reviews and then how quickly are they responding? That's for reputation management. But Google is going to favor its features first. So like it's going to do sponsored ads and then it's going to do the map pack with Google Business Profiles. And then the more active you are on your Google Business profile, the more and better you're going to rank. Obviously, if you've got more reviews, you're going to rank better as well. But the response time and responding to reviews actually has a higher impact on Google Business Profiles. In your ranking system, when we run a report, we can tell if they're 30 days, whether a response time is seven days. And that's one of the pain points we'll talk about with them and how we can plug in AI to actually respond to their Google reviews for them or. And then for their website. A big thing that we target is page speed and a lot of people have a good desktop, but their mobile version, maybe heavy content, maybe heavy pictures, maybe heavy JavaScript. But those are the pain points that we really drum up in a conversation and start get the ball rolling on where to proceed.

[Nick]

Yeah, it all plays together. Even if the postcard is that billboard, to use your example, it's that awareness. But if it does lead to people Googling for roofers and they say oh yeah, yeah, yeah. That was the company. I know, I've heard of them before. Right. But like making sure the digital presence kind of matches the expectations that you set and really putting your best foot forward in terms of your reputation and the reviews and the portfolio that you're showing to prospective customers. Like it all like multiple channel, omnichannel, whatever they call it these days in marketing, it really is a thing. And we've had a guest on who was like, if you can play the digital game well, yes, of course, show up, do the best service possible, but you win the game when somebody Googles you. You win the game by showing up at the top of the results with a great presence and all these five star reviews and a good looking website that's mobile, responsive and you pick up the phone when they call and you play that game well and then you do the thing. Like the thing is probably not rocket science.

[Sponsor Announcer]

Right.

[Nick]

And kind of guiding some of the businesses who are being proactive about that and kind of, in your case, proven that they want to invest in their presence, in their marketing and kind of being a trusted helping hand along the way.

[Dalton]

Yeah, that's kind of how we built and structured our funnel and what we teach. So the cards are meant to reach a cold audience and then build and drive traffic to Google and then your Google business profile will actually drive traffic to your website. So the three go hand in hand for how you're actually going to own the digital presence. But people have to know about you first.

[Nick]

Totally.

[Sponsor Announcer]

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[Nick]

There's gotta be a better way.

[Sponsor Announcer]

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[Nick]

What's been your biggest mistake? If you had to start over, you.

[Rachel]

Would do differently, setting expectations with the advertisers. Would you agree?

[Dalton]

Yeah, 100%.

[Rachel]

Yeah. So when you're first getting started, you're. You're really excited to make the sale and get a postcard done. So somebody asks about results and you want to just look up direct mail response rates and it's going to tell you a 1% response rate is common for a successful campaign. But What Google and ChatGPT don't tell you is that that's for a direct response campaign, not for an indirect campaign. So, you know, we did make the mistake of on our first couple of cards, just kind of generalizing the results that they might see instead of thinking about the fact that it's Going to take multiple touches for a lot of these businesses to see results. They can't spend $150 on one postcard and land a $4,000 job. If you do, I mean, that's wonderful. Right place, right time.

[Dalton]

It does happen.

[Rachel]

It does happen. We've seen it. But setting those clear expectations up front is what really made our retention rate hold strong and grow. Because they're not expecting their door to be knocked down by customers on one mailing. That's completely unrealistic. So I think just setting that up front so that they will continue to come back and understand the model properly, that was our biggest learning lesson with this.

[Nick]

Well, what's cool about it is you don't have any upfront costs, like you don't have any printing costs until you've sold the thing. It's almost like a drop shipping type of thing where I want to collect the money up front and then I'm going to go deliver the goods. And unlike drop shipping is like. Well, there's a recurring element to it. Or there can be. Or there can be 60, 70% retention if I've done it right.

[Rachel]

Exactly. That's exactly right. We've heard a lot of people compare it to drop shipping.

[Nick]

Yeah, not in a bad way. Drop shipping has certain connotations, too.

[Rachel]

No, not at all. I didn't take it that way.

[Nick]

Any surprises that you've seen from either yourself, your advertisers, or your students who are now kind of doing the same model?

[Rachel]

Surprises, I would say. Like, the biggest surprise that we ran into was we thought we had a printer secured on our first card. And then. So this, this right here is called the Indisha and that is what has to be on there per EDDM requirements. It's like it takes the place of the stamp and that's how the post office knows that it just goes to every door on the route. So we had our car laid out and done. Every advertiser paid, and we went to go place the order and the specific printer that we had chosen, they did not tell us that they have, like a template for their indicia. So the way that was going to land it was going to be like, right here, over the top of a.

[Nick]

Couple of ads covering up a couple of your. Your clients.

[Rachel]

Yes. So we scrambled and that's how we ended up with our current printer. Found him through the grapevine. And it was actually the best accident that could have happened to us because his customer service and his prices are just the charts. He is phenomenal. So it was. It was a great mistake. It was a great surprise to have to come across.

[Nick]

Yeah, that's one of the wild cards. Make sure that you're following the guidelines and the templates there to make sure your thing is printable and deliverable. And everything is still visible on the postcard.

[Rachel]

Exactly. And then as far as other things, I think what Dalton and I have done and what we've also watched people in our community do is grow their own community in your area. So, for example, one of our members, he's actually in Ireland, and he does this, and he. What he did was set up a WhatsApp chat of business owners in his area. He's got over a hundred business owners in that WhatsApp chat, and he's basically just providing value to them and giving them a place where they can all, you know, have a conversation, share things with each other, and then in return, he becomes the trusted printer. He owns a print shop over there, so he becomes the trusted printer. He has all of these people that know, like, and trust him. And that's kind of what we. We've built in our area, too. Just a place where everybody can come hang out, but you're the leader. You organize it, and people trust you. People like you, and they know what you do. Not that it was a surprise, but I think once you see it start to unfold and see how much that. That can grow your business and. And generate revenue and profit for you, I think it is a little bit of a surprise. Even though you're told over and over that that's the key.

[Nick]

Right. You know, what's the shortcut? Well, you know, showing up every day and providing value. But this is kind of a cool example of building that local community, kind of like an online chamber of commerce type of thing, where you're the connection hub between all these different businesses and sparking conversations and adding your own insights into what's working and not working. That's a really, really kind of cool place to be if you want to establish that reputation in your hometown.

[Rachel]

Yeah, absolutely.

[Nick]

What's next for you guys? You're doing more mailers, you got the agency. You've got communitycardplaybook.com helping people get started with this business. What's next for you? What are you excited about this year?

[Rachel]

The biggest thing that we're excited about actually has to do with our community. We have another form of shared advertising that we're launching that you can actually make triple the profit with a third of the work, so. Meaning less advertisers, more profit. So we're kind of putting the finishing touches on that model here soon. And Dalton and I have done it ourselves. We always like to test everything before we bring it to our members. So we've done several of this thing and it's just, it's a lot of fun and you can make a good profit with it. So I would say that's one of the biggest things.

[Nick]

Well, you can't tease it like that. Give us the rundown here.

[Rachel]

Yeah. So it's actually a message board and so we call it community board. And it's a big board. When you walk into like let's say a restaurant and they've got today's specials with that, with those bright markers written on a blackboard. It's just like that. And you give it to, let's say it's a restaurant, you give it to the restaurant for free. And then you can have six advertisers on there. And their advertisements are actually about a half page, like half a page of a magazine ad because it's such a large board.

[Nick]

Okay.

[Rachel]

And then the restaurant keeps that board up for a year. So the advertisers get a year of exposure to all of the foot traffic, traffic that's coming into that restaurant every single day, every single week, every single month. So it's almost like again, another billboard, but on a smaller scale.

[Nick]

Yeah, miniature billboard.

[Rachel]

Yeah.

[Nick]

And less frequency. Like the decision cycle.

[Rachel]

Right.

[Nick]

Like, I just, I'm going to commit to this for a year. I don't have to make that sale again for another year. I think a lot of, about that cadence of rebilling where like, oh, it's a monthly charge versus something, you know, I'm going to switch to. You kind of incentivize people with the pricing. Like, I'm going to switch to a quarterly billing. Like now I only have to think about this three months or a six month plan. And it's. It just makes the decision fatigue less and less. Right. And so this time you only have to sell it once a year.

[Rachel]

Yes, exactly. And there's plenty of restaurants. We've even done it in gyms. Put a board in a gym and then have health type businesses sponsor the board so that they know their ideal customer is going to see it. So chamber of commerce is. It's really good for that. So that's one thing that we're just so excited for. We aim to provide the most value to our community members. And so we find something. Dalton, I usually go and we work out the kinks and we see if it's going to work and then we share it with our members.

[Dalton]

I was going to say our community is really shaping up people to be network marketers inside and, and really own the community that they're, that they're trying to be a part of. So that's kind of why Community Card Playbook is named the way it is. Because you're trying to domina and be the community networker.

[Nick]

Yeah, that's a good way to put it. Become that central trusted hub and kind of build that reputation. It's really cool. The gears turning on. Like you mentioned the key phrase shared advertising. Right. How do we share the cost here to get in front of more and more people and spread the word? So it kind of like gets the gears turning. Well, what other forms of shared advertising might there be? I like your example of like it's a smaller billboard. Right. You know, instead of buying a $75,000 billboard on the side of the highway way.

[Rachel]

Yeah, exactly. So, yeah, we're always looking for ways to just get creative. If you just get creative, you can come up with endless opportunities.

[Nick]

Very cool. Community card playbook.com check them out over there. Check out the free mini course that they've got set up for you. Let's wrap this thing up with your number one tips for side Hustle Nation. Rachel, ladies first.

[Rachel]

My number one tip is always don't wait to start. If there is something that you're thinking about, either a side hustle that you want to turn into a full time job or job. I shouldn't say job. I should say a full time thing that can replace your job. That's what most people want to do. Or you're just looking for some extra income. Don't wait to start it. Because what this has provided in our business and our life has been phenomenal. We've spent like a quarter of this year traveling to places that we've wanted to go to go see family. We spent over a month in Indiana and Kentucky visiting family and then we spent another couple weeks with my mom and it has allowed so much freedom. So I know it's hard to get started and it's hard to get motivated, but there's not a day that goes by that I feel motivated. I'll be completely honest. Like, motivation is just this thing that I think people create to feel like, oh, I'll be motivated tomorrow. No, just get started today and. And your dreams are going to come true.

[Nick]

Well, you've given the past for both ways. Whether side hustle income $1,000, $2,000 a month, all the way up to, you know, using that, you know, I'm going to get paid to generate leads essentially to build out this full time agency and, and built it in such a way we're not licking stuff in envelopes either, like, oh man, we're going to outsource the fulfillment of this stuff. So very cool. But don't wait to start. That was Rachel's number one tip. Dalton, what about you?

[Dalton]

You said it earlier too, and this is kind of what I live by, is you have to be consistent. And then Rachel also said that your motivation will run out. So you have to be disciplined with your consistency. And that's pretty much where you're going to find success. And when you're doing outreach, like it doesn't matter if you're call, text, email, Facebook, message, like just try to talk to people. That's pretty much where if you're not getting your offer out there, nobody's going to buy from you.

[Nick]

That's right. If you build it, nobody's going to come unless they know about it. You got to be your own biggest advocate here. We had somebody else mentioned motivation is like avocados. They expire or something and quick. Okay, I guess any food probably expires. But you know, motivation is temporary, maybe, is what it was. And it's like find a way to build some discipline and consistency around that, recognizing that it's going to ebb and flow along the way. But very cool. Bigsky, automation.com, communitycardplaybook.com check them out over there. If you're new to the show, welcome, grateful that you found it. Now you might have seen this in your podcast app. We actually have over 700 of these killer actionable tactical episodes just like this one in the archives. And to be sure, I would love to have you binge on that whole catalog. Join the exclusive club of listeners who've done the whole thing. I gotta have some T shirts made up for that club, for that crew. But what I recommend instead, if you're more pressed for time, what you can do is head over to Hustle show and you can do this right on your phone. It'll take you like 60 seconds and you'll find our personalized playlist generator quiz and you answer a few short multiple choice questions and it's going to spit back out 8 to 10 of our greatest hits episodes based on your responses that you can add to your device. You'll learn what works and you'll make some more money this year. But big thanks to Rachel and Dalton for sharing their insight. Thanks to our sponsors for helping make this content free for everyone. You you can hit up Sidehustlenation.com deals for all the latest offers from our sponsors in one place. Thank you for supporting the advertisers that support the show. That is it for me. Thank you so much for tuning in. If you're finding value in the show, the greatest compliment is to share with a friend. Fire off that text message to that person in your life who needs to hear this one. Until next time, let's go out there and make something happen and I'll catch you in the next edition of the Side Hustle Show. Hassalan.