A Video Conversation with Shaun Buss, CFO at IBS Direct - Part III

3/24/17

Shaun Buss

Click here for Part IPart II

Simplifying direct response marketing to achieve better results

Shaun Buss is the CFO of IBS Direct, a marketing and printing company in King of Prussia, Pennsylvania. Founded over 40 years ago, IBS Direct provides its diverse clients with high-quality campaign materials aimed at driving direct responses from consumers. Several years ago, the company hired new leadership and merged with multiple marketing organizations in the Pennsylvania–New Jersey area, tripling in size and doubling in revenue.


EDWIN WARFIELD: As a direct mail company, does IBS have a specific regional focus?

SHAUN BUSS: Traditionally, mail would only go 300 to 600 miles just because of the cost of transportation. With the products that we offer, we’ll go as far as Texas and the Midwest because they’re somewhat unique, hard to find at other places. And then, through our marketing services group, we can acquire printing anywhere in the country. Right now, we’re primarily focused on the East Coast and the Midwest.

Q. With the rise of digital communications, do you worry that the direct mail industry will disappear?

A. It’s a mature business—I mean, I’m not going to say it isn’t—so the opportunity is not going away. It has not been going away rapidly. It’s not like books or catalogs—things like that that have diminished 10, 20, 30% a year. Direct mail still works as long as the US Postal Service continues to mail, which I think they will. They have a Constitutional obligation to do so. Direct mail is going to continue to work for marketers. The math works. They know what they can get out of it.

What do we do to stay relevant in that space? Acquisitions have to be a part of your strategy and they always have been and will be a part of IBS Direct’s strategy. We also believe you have to keep innovating. You’ve got to continue to change what you can print, and how interesting and different you can make the message of a marketing department, so that it stands out in the mail. You’ve got to get somebody to open that piece. Direct mail is so targeted compared to television that I think it will continue to be relevant.

Q. Where do you see the company 5 years from now?

A. Definitely acquisitions, definitely new products, new innovation. We’re never going to stay still. I think we will be doing digital printing at some point in the near future—it’s definitely getting to the point where it’s ready for the type of business that we have, which is significant volume of print, and it’s ready for mass marketers, which are our primary customer base. People who live and die by marketing need to get pieces into the mail to their potential customers to maintain their businesses. And digital has definitely arrived in many, many ways. I see that as part of our future. Geography—I think we will expand. We will be in different locations than just in the Midwest and the East Coast in the near future.

Connect with Shaun on LinkedIn

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