Justin B. Miller, MBA, is the President of Profit 911, a leading direct mail marketing company that helps businesses grow through high-impact, results-driven campaigns. With over two decades of experience in marketing and entrepreneurship, Justin is known for his expertise in blending direct response strategies with personalized mail solutions. He is the author of Jurassic Marketing and is widely respected for his innovative approach to using traditional marketing methods to achieve modern success. Justin and his team at Profit 911 print and mail millions of pieces annually, helping clients drive measurable results.
Here’s a glimpse of what you’ll learn:
- [6:16] How Justin Miller’s early entrepreneurial journey led to his expertise in direct mail
- [8:16]F’s endorsement of Justin as a top direct mail expert
- [9:25] Overcoming the common belief that direct mail is dead and why it still works
- [10:20] Justin’s football versus soccer analogy for different direct mail approaches
- [12:00] The challenges of working with small direct mail sample sizes
- [13:48] Testing limitations and the need to occasionally change multiple variables at once
- [16:42] Why it’s important to use gut instinct and past experience when data is limited
- [19:55] When to abandon traditional split testing in small direct mail campaigns
In this episode…
Direct mail is often dismissed as an outdated marketing channel, with many businesses favoring digital strategies. This misconception leads companies to overlook the potential of direct mail to cut through the noise and reach high-value prospects. How can marketers effectively leverage direct mail, even when working with small audiences and limited data?
According to direct mail expert Justin Miller, the key is adapting your strategy based on your audience size. Many businesses operate in niche markets where split testing and large-scale campaigns aren’t feasible. In these cases, Justin recommends focusing on high-value, low-quantity mailings. He suggests using intuition, past experience, and client feedback to guide decisions — while accepting that some results may lack statistical significance. This approach can still yield powerful outcomes when executed thoughtfully.
In this week’s episode of The Timeless Marketing Podcast, Brian Kurtz hosts Justin B. Miller, MBA, President of Profit 911 and author of Jurassic Marketing, to discuss the enduring power of direct mail. Justin shares his journey from digital marketing to building a thriving direct mail business, his techniques for succeeding with small-batch mailings, and how recognizing the value of “non-extinct dinosaurs” in marketing can unlock new growth opportunities.
Resources mentioned in this episode:
- Brian Kurtz
- Brian Kurtz on LinkedIn
- Chris Mason on LinkedIn
- Justin B. Miller, MBA on LinkedIn
- Profit 911 Consulting
- Profit 911 Newsletter
- Jurassic Marketing: How to create a “big bang” in your business with modern direct mail! by Justin Miller and Brian Kurtz
- Overdeliver: Build a Business for a Lifetime Playing the Long Game in Direct Response Marketing by Brian Kurtz
Special mentions:
Quotable moments:
- “We’ve chosen to go backwards in time as far as what we provide and what we do, and our results continue to get better.”
- “Direct mail isn’t dead — it’s just waiting for the right marketer to unlock its power in today’s digital age.”
- “If you analyze the numbers too deep, you come to incorrect conclusions.”
- “When data is scarce or unclear, trust your gut and experience — they often reveal what the numbers can’t.”
- “Sometimes you have to be okay with just knowing something works and not why it works.”
Action steps:
- Understand the limitations of small sample sizes: Recognizing that testing results may lack statistical significance helps manage expectations and ensure focus on valuable prospects in small target audiences.
- Embrace gut and experience in decision-making: When numbers are ambiguous, leveraging intuition and experience helps businesses with limited data make informed marketing decisions.
- Adapt to the market environment: Shifting your approach based on the market’s perception, such as viewing direct mail as viable despite its seeming obsolescence, helps capture untapped opportunities and leverage underused marketing channels.
- Iterate and innovate continuously: Even without statistically significant results, continuously testing, iterating, and making bold changes can drive breakthroughs and optimize marketing in a fast-changing environment.
- Accept that successful strategies may remain a mystery: Sometimes strategies deliver results without clear explanations; it’s important to keep using them while embracing ambiguity and seeking to understand customer behavior.
Sponsor for this episode…
This episode is brought to you by Titans Xcelerator.
Titans Xcelerator is a private mentorship program for direct response marketers.
It is one of the most giving communities and serves as the de facto board of advisors and marketing insurance policy for over 250 of the best and brightest direct response marketers, copywriters, media buyers, marketing agencies, senior executives, anyone in direct response marketing, who is committed to growing and scaling their business.
And you don’t need to spend 10s of 1000s of dollars either.
Titans Xcelerator is 1/10 of the price of most groups of its kind.
And with a private membership, you’ll receive access to the full presentation from today’s episode, along with the Q&A and discussion that followed.
As an added bonus, you’ll receive access to a vault filled with many more private calls just like this one.
The bottom line: you don’t have to grow your business alone.
If you want to see how Titans Xcelerator can help you grow and scale your specific business, go to BrianKurtz.net/help
Episode Transcript
Intro 00:03
Welcome to the Timeless Marketing Podcast with Brian Kurtz. Your connection to insights from some of the top direct response marketing minds on the planet.
Brian Kurtz 00:17
Hey, it’s Brian Kurtz here host of the Timeless Marketing Podcast. Today’s episode is a clip from one of the two-hour calls inside Titans Xcelerator, my private mentorship program for direct response marketers. Before we get to that, I have one question for you. Do you have a marketing insurance policy? If you don’t, you need one. And that’s why I created Titans Xcelerator, which is one of the most giving communities and serves as the de facto board of advisors and marketing insurance policy for over 250 of the best and brightest direct response marketers, copywriters, media buyers, marketing agencies, senior executives, anyone in direct response marketing, who is committed to growing and scaling their business. The bottom line, you don’t have to grow your business alone. And you don’t need to spend tens of thousands of dollars either. Titans Xcelerator is 1/10 of the price of most groups of its kind. I know because I hosted a group that was over $20,000 a year. If you want to see how Titans Xcelerator can help you grow and scale your specific business, go to BrianKurtz.net/help. That’s B-R-I-A-N-K-U-R-T-Z.net/help. And with a private membership, you’ll receive access to the full presentation from today’s episode, along with the Q&A and discussion that followed. As an added bonus, you’ll receive access to a vault filled with many more private calls just like this one. Again, if you want to see if Titans Xcelerator is a fit for you with no obligation, go to BrianKurtz.net/help. That’s B-R-I-A-N-K-U-R-T-Z.net/help. And feel free to email me directly. I respond to every email with questions about this episode or just to say hi, at Brian@BrianKurtz.net. Now onto today’s episode. So we’re going to have our first speaker today and that’s Justin Miller. Justin, we’ve known each other for many years, but we became more friendly over the last few. He’s one of my brothers in Genius Network. He has a newsletter called Profit 911. Justin, do you know who Rob Davis is? You ever heard of him?
Justin Miller 03:00
I do not, no.
Brian Kurtz 03:01
Yeah. So here’s a direct mail savant, Justin Miller, and I just told him about the best direct mail designer of all time. I got one up on you just on that. So but that’s the only thing I know.
Justin Miller 03:12
That fits nicely to the topic today actually.
Brian Kurtz 00:16
Good, good, good. And then Justin wrote a book recently called Jurassic Marketing. I wrote in my preview of his presentation that Justin and I have a lot in common. We’re both non-extinct dinosaurs who believe that direct mail is not dead, who believe that, and in fact, the second speaker, Caleb O’Dowd, is going to talk about like magazine space advertising and newspaper space advertising. Nothing is dead. Sometimes it lies in wait for the right person to bring it forward. And Justin is that person who brings it forward all the time, just like David Foley does, just like Craig Simpson does. But Justin is just a, and he’s a wonderful guy. I’ve really gotten to know him a little bit more over the last few years, and I respect him. I love what he does and this group because I’m your leader. You will have to bear with me all the time. When someone is an expert on direct mail and wants to speak because we need to continue the legacy of direct mail. And there’s all kinds of direct mail as Justin is going to talk about today. But he’s going to deliver some great content today. So Justin, welcome to Titans Xcelerator. I’m so glad we were able to set this up. And Justin you’re on.
Justin Miller 04:43
Thanks, Brian. Appreciate being in front of the group. I see a lot of familiar faces. So this is awesome. And that’s also going to prove a point for me pretty soon here. All right. Cool. With any luck, you’re seeing the proper slide. It looks like you are. And I will ask you to forgive me on some polish on the presentation today because Brian said, hey, Justin, you can’t do your typical thing, people already know about direct mail. So we’re going to go a little deeper than I normally would. To give you some good insights of what’s typically behind what I present.
Brian Kurtz 05:16
So I positioned you as an advanced group, so don’t don’t disappoint me.
Justin Miller 05:22
That assumption is built in here, so we’re stuck. You know, we can go back to the 101 level one, but we’re going to talk about what to do if your numbers lie, which is awesome. So I could tell by the questions and the chatter here at the beginning that, you know, everyone in this group, at least that spoke up, seems to know numbers and care about numbers and go to a depth that most business owners don’t. And by the way, if you’re wondering what the heck’s with the dinosaurs? It was kind of an accidental theme for our company a couple years ago, and people loved it. And we have just run with it. And if you come visit now, the whole office is decked out like Jurassic Park. So.
Brian Kurtz 05:58
I mean, I think when I wrote the foreword, I talked about the non extinct dinosaurs, which I think is a really good way to position it.