The Future of AI and Marketing with Benjy Yuhl

What this episode is about

Benjy Yuhl discusses the impactful intersection of data analytics and marketing, sharing his journey from college marketing enthusiast to a seasoned expert at Valpak. He emphasizes the current enthusiasm in the industry due to advancements in AI and machine learning, highlighting how these technologies enable companies to leverage their data for growth and enhanced accountability.

Key takeaways

• Data isn't just numbers; it's the compass guiding businesses through the fog of market confusion.
• With brands now treating AI like a golden goose, the eggs they lay may just be the future of marketing.
• Context is king: understanding local demographics makes income stats lose their shiny appeal—it's about differentiation.
• Gone are the days of 'spray and pray' marketing; precision targeting is now the sniper rifle of business strategy.
• Embracing data means businesses are guessing less and gambling more—confidently hitting market bulls-eyes instead.

Who speaks in this episode?

• Tommy (Host) · 7 min speaking
• Benjy Yuhl (Guest) · 10 min speaking

What is discussed, and when

1. 0:00 – 3:00: Valpack, Artificial Intelligence, My Local Insights, data lakes
2. 3:00 – 6:00: direct mail, Machine Learning, new movers, test and control
3. 6:00 – 9:00: Neighbors Next, direct mail, Conversion rate, reach and frequency
4. 9:00 – 12:00: Artificial Intelligence, marketing as investment, Tesla, Inc., 2026 small business study
5. 12:00 – 15:00: Artificial Intelligence, data lakes, Nvidia, ChatGPT
6. 15:00 – 16:59: Valpack, valpack.com

Notable quotes from "The Future of AI and Marketing with Benjy Yuhl"

• 30 years. And tell us about that. So I met you through Valpack. I got to speak at a couple of their events to the franchises. the little blue mailers that come in the mail. Awesome. works great for us. Tell me a little bit about.

  about Valpack · at 0:43

• Well, as a data person, that's like the most exciting time, right? So, because people are now really paying attention to their data lake. They're putting more investment. The CMO, the C CEO is now running point on a lot of AI, right?

  about data lake · at 1:31

• It maybe you only have an email and we'll tie that to phone numbers and postal addresses and then help tell the story of who your customers are and how they compared local…

  about My Local Insights · at 2:35

• Well, yes. First of all, yeah, you want to test and control, right? Each business, each industry, each offer is going to perform differently. So you do proper test controls, you do a lift.

  about test and control · at 4:09

• Want that installer to put a sign in the yard. You want them to canvas the neighborhood. And we've been piloting out a program called Neighbors Next that does a lot of that. Sends that billboard in the mailbox, right?

  about Neighbors Next · at 6:31

• That means your conversion rate face to face when you knock on the door is dialed. That means that you're offering everything to the client and you're letting them choose. And they might say,.

  about Conversion rate · at 8:54

• Look at what AI has done to our industry and what AI will do to even more industries over the next couple of years. So yeah, I think people are just simply afraid of the future.

  about Artificial Intelligence · at 10:39

• Garage doors potentially once the AI is in the humanoid. Like where do where does it go? And by the way, Tesla believes that there'll be 10x more humanoids than humans here within the next 10 years.

  about Tesla, Inc. · at 11:30

Who and what is mentioned in this episode?

People

• Mike Davis — Person · Referenced mentor / recruiter · 1 mention · first at 1:00
  Credited as Benji’s key mentor who recruited him to Valpak while serving as Valpak CEO; now identified as CEO of Neighborly.
  Well, one of my mentors, if not the mentor, Mike Davis, who's now CEO of Neighborly, he recruited, he was CEO of Valpac at the time, and I met him in New York when I was…
• Elon Musk — Person · Referenced public figure (AI/future discussion) · 1 mention · first at 10:27
  Brought up as part of a discussion about AI, private deals, Tesla’s humanoid-robot expectations, and broader societal implications.
  Garage doors potentially once the AI is in the humanoid. Like where do where does it go? And by the way, Tesla believes that there'll be 10x more humanoids than humans here within the next 10 years.

Books & papers

• 2026 small business study — Book · Referenced work · 1 mention · first at 9:28
  Cited as a source for insights on small business advertising trends.
  Advertising, stops time or whatever, however that quote goes, we just completed our 2026 small business study and small business owners stated that they were will normally advertise when their business is good.

Companies & orgs

• Valpack — Company · Business focus · 3 mentions · first at 0:43
  Primary company discussed, involved in direct mail and data analytics services.
• Tesla, Inc. — Company · Referenced company · 1 mention · first at 10:28
  Mentioned in the context of future technologies and AI advancements.
• Neighborly — Company · Referenced company · 1 mention · first at 1:02
  Mentioned as the current affiliation of a key individual discussed.
  Well, one of my mentors, if not the mentor, Mike Davis, who's now CEO of Neighborly, he recruited, he was CEO of Valpac at the time, and I met him in New York when I was visiting there with some agencies and he was visiting.
• Nvidia — Company · Referenced company · 1 mention · first at 13:33
  Mentioned in the context of future technologies and job security.
  Trades are protected. That's why what's his name? the CEO of Nvidia.

Products & tech

• Neighbors Next — Product · Business program / targeting product discussed as a solution · 2 mentions · first at 6:36
  A Valpak pilot program used to target the closest households around an install/job site (“billboard in the mailbox”), enabling hyper-local reach/frequency strategies.
• My Local Insights — Product · Newly launched data enrichment/insights product (case example) · 1 mention · first at 2:14
  Central example of how Valpak uses customer files to enrich identities (email/phone/address) and benchmark customers vs. local population to guide growth decisions.
• valpack.com — Product · Lead-capture destination (CTA) · 1 mention · first at 16:22
  Explicit call-to-action for listeners to submit a lead-gen form and request Benji for a call; functions as the conversion endpoint in the episode.
• ChatGPT — Product · Referenced AI tool (example of AI environment) · 1 mention · first at 12:39
  Used as an example of where consumers seek answers; supports the point that AI depends on accurate/normalized data to provide trustworthy outputs.
  Data is accurate it's normalized and we can count on it. consumers when they're doing a search, when they're looking at co-pilot, when they're looking at chat GPT or whatever…

Concepts & topics

• Artificial Intelligence — Concept · Core topic · 3 mentions · first at 1:23
  Central theme of the episode, discussing the impact and future of AI in business.
• direct mail — Concept · Strategy · 6 mentions · first at 0:37
  Discussed as a key marketing strategy, especially in conjunction with data analytics.
  Center, started building that out with at a high university and learned a lot about that and then started my career in data and direct mail and loved it ever since. So it's almost 30 years now.
• data lakes — Concept · Key argument · 2 mentions · first at 1:25
  Highlighted as a crucial component in leveraging AI and data analytics.
  Listen, we're living through these days of AI, machine learning, data lakes.
• marketing as investment — Concept · Key argument · 1 mention · first at 9:36
  Presented as a philosophy contrasting with viewing marketing as a cost.
  Those marketers or those seale individuals are not looking at the data. They look at marketing as a cost versus marketing as an investment.
• Machine Learning — Concept · Technology · 2 mentions · first at 1:23
  Mentioned as part of the broader discussion on AI and data analytics.
  Listen, we're living through these days of AI, machine learning, data lakes.
• data lake — Concept · 1 mention · first at 1:35
• test and control — Concept · Methodology · 1 mention · first at 4:09
  Highlighted as a best practice in marketing and data analysis.
• new movers — Concept · Target audience · 1 mention · first at 4:33
  Identified as a key demographic for marketing strategies discussed.
  You have a customer base that is always on a move. Roughly in any database, customer database, there's roughly 8 to 12% plus or minus of your customers are in a new mover journey within the past.
• Conversion rate — Concept · Performance metric · 1 mention · first at 8:54
  Discussed as a critical metric for evaluating marketing effectiveness.
• reach and frequency — Concept · Strategy · 1 mention · first at 7:32
  Discussed in the context of optimizing marketing campaigns.
  We have reach and frequency calculators that help guide us in that. And you know the old ad, you remember the old adage years ago with the newspaper industry was you got to hit you got to hit the.
• spray and pray — Concept · Strategy · 1 mention · first at 8:02
  Critiqued as an outdated marketing approach compared to targeted strategies.
  And that's much better than spraying and praying. that's what realtors talk about, let me own this neighborhood, not let me own this county or this city. I want to be the most.
• lift analysis — Concept · Methodology · 1 mention · first at 4:17
  Mentioned as a technique for evaluating marketing campaign effectiveness.
  Business, each industry, each offer is going to perform differently. So you do proper test controls, you do a lift analysis, you compare the results. Of course, being from with…
• SGI — Concept · Technology · 2 mentions
  Mentioned in the context of future AI developments.
  Confident that they're getting the right answers, right? I do think we're going into a utopia within the next 5 years when SGI and all these things come out. They will come out. It's a matter of time. it will be good. But where do you find.
• geno code — Concept · Science · 1 mention · first at 14:54
  Mentioned alongside genotype in the context of future human advancements.
  Well, with AI and understanding the genotype and the geno code, I think we might be able to get an extra hundred years out of us.
• genotype — Concept · Science · 1 mention · first at 14:54
  Mentioned in the context of future human longevity advancements.
  Well, with AI and understanding the genotype and the geno code, I think we might be able to get an extra hundred years out of us.

Places & events

• Columbus — Place · Setting · 1 mention · first at 5:44
  Mentioned as the location of the speaker, adding personal context to the discussion.
  Yeah. it's a very personal moment right now for me on that one because last week, I live in Columbus, Ohio. We had frigid temperatures. We had a bunch of snow. my well pump…
• Columbus, Ohio — Place · Setting · 1 mention · first at 5:44
  Mentioned as the location of the speaker, adding personal context.
  Yeah. it's a very personal moment right now for me on that one because last week, I live in Columbus, Ohio. We had frigid temperatures. We had a bunch of snow. my well pump…
• Ohio — Place · Setting · 1 mention · first at 5:44
  Mentioned as part of the location context for the speaker.
  Yeah. it's a very personal moment right now for me on that one because last week, I live in Columbus, Ohio. We had frigid temperatures. We had a bunch of snow. my well pump…

Full transcript with timestamps

0:00 All right, guys. Check it out. We're uh my buddy Benji came into town and uh he is probably one of the smartest data analytics person on the planet. Where did you get into data? How did you learn about data?

0:18 I don't know if we have enough time for this podcast for me to give you the full story on that, but uh you know really I I was so interested, enamored by performance metrics and hitting the right audience. And I was mainly interested in marketing in college. And so I started going through a sales center, started building that out with at a high university and learned a lot about that and then started my career in data and direct mail and loved it ever since. So it's almost 30 years now.

0:43 30 years. And tell us about that. So I met you through Valpack. I got to speak at a couple of their events to the franchises. Uh the little blue mailers that come in the mail. Awesome. Uh works great for us. Tell me a little bit about what led you to there, what you love about there, what you're working on today.

1:00 Uh, well, one of my mentors, if not the mentor, uh, Mike Davis, who's now CEO of Neighborly, he recruited, he was CEO of Valpac at the time, and I met him in New York uh, when I was I was visiting there with some agencies and he was visiting the local market and, uh, asked me to join Valpac. Uh, that was eight and a half years ago.

1:19 Yeah. Eight minutes. Yeah. Yeah. And what are you most excited about? Listen, we're living through these days of AI, machine learning, data lakes. What is just exciting for you?

1:31 Well, as a data person, that's like the most exciting time, right? So, because people are now really paying attention to their data lake. They're putting more investment. The CMO, the C CEO is now running point on a lot of AI, right? They want to know it because it's giving them the answers and giving them the pathway to even more growth and accountability uh of their overall business. So, it can't be a more exciting time for a data nerd, data geek like myself, especially when you can look at that and then tell a business and help a business perform better using the data that they have with our data.

2:06 Give me an Give me an example of how you might use data. I mean, I we just went through a whole demo of the awesome stuff you're working on, but just for the audience.

2:14 Yeah, we just we just launched a new product called My Local Insights uh in in our in our business. And what our job is is to help is bring in a customer file. So maybe A1 A1 garage your customer database which you have name and address you know the you know all basic information about them and we can layer and enrich that information link it maybe you only have an email and we'll tie that to phone numbers and postal addresses and then help tell the story of who your customers are and how they compared local population because that's really if I told you your average customer is $100,000 income that may that may not matter because everybody in that community might be $100,000. You want to know what is different and then how you can grow from that.

3:00 And when you get really good with the data, what do you would you expect? I mean, if you were very very good, you had the automations, you had everything firing on all cylinders. You were really a data first company. You morphed into this. What do you think that does for a business?

3:18 Well, you're not guessing anymore. Yeah. You've got the levers. you've got the information in front of you. So if you said, "Hey, I want to pour gasoline in this area because I know this is performing. I can push that button and grow it even further." So it gives you more confidence because that spray and prey. So years and years ago when you know direct mail and even from a digital you would do display advertising to hit everybody in the area. You don't have to do that anymore. You can be more precise and more targeted than ever before.

3:50 What do you think converts the best? So, you've got this data, you've got moving data, you've got permit data, you've got all this data. You hit them with a text message, a phone call, an email, you hit them with a mailer, do you hit them with a a handwritten mailer, like or all of it?

4:09 Well, yes. First of all, yeah, you want to test and control, right? Each business, each industry, each offer is going to perform differently. So you do proper test controls, you do a lift analysis, you compare the results. Of course, you know, being from with Fowlpack and Clip, we we talk about a lot of direct mail, but a decent portion of our business today is digital. It's all powered by data, though. So if you see let's let's talk of new movers as an example. You have a customer base that is always on a move. Roughly in any database, customer database, there's roughly 8 to 12% plus or minus of your customers are in a new mover journey within the past one year. That's an extraordinary amount of churn and change management.

4:56 Sending out a email notification to them, sending out a push notification, maybe it's a text, and then ultimately maybe it's direct mail. That all pulls together for the performance analysis. Yeah, obviously they're moving into a new home for my type industry. Look, what we look at is this is what's interesting to me is HVAC, um, hot water heaters, garage doors, they tend to fail at the same time. Like the whole neighborhood when they were installed, the builder installed them, within a year they all start going out.

5:31 So, what are your thoughts on using the data to really be able because look, one one neighborhood might be hot for a year and then it moves.

5:40 Yeah. Uh, it's a very personal moment right now for me on that one because last week, you know, I live in Columbus, Ohio. We had frigid temperatures. We had a bunch of snow. my well pump went out and then the next day my water softener stops and over and over it gets overworked and then in the middle of the night my geothermal shut down. So you can't get more cataclysmic than that. Um and you are spot on like you know as you get to those certain ages of a home they need more love they need more maintenance. Yep.

6:16 And absolutely. So, if you do a job and it that job is, let's say you do new garage doors and it's $1,000, it's $2,000. You look around, if you're the installer, you look around, you're like, "These neighbors all look the same to me. Why am I not targeting them?" You want that installer to put a sign in the yard. You want them to canvas the neighborhood. And we've been piloting out a program called Neighbors Next that does a lot of that. Sends that sends that billboard in the mailbox, right? closest 25, closest 50, closest 100 to model out that data. So, you can't get any more precise than that. And you are 100% right. Now, what I've been told by people far more advanced than me is you need to send that more than once. You might have to send it seven to 10 times. So, you might want to hit them on a monthly, just reoccurring to own that to be just be fresh in their minds. What what is the

7:09 is there like a magic number that you like to do that like a sequence if you know that neighborhood's hot and you could you go back to the builder? So you want to hit the whole area that that was the same builder.

7:19 So let's let's talk about like neighbors next. So if you do an install and then you target the closest 100 around that and you get another one and you target again, you keep fishing where the fish are biting, right? And you keep going. We have reach and frequency calculators that help guide us in that. And you know the old ad, you remember the old adage years ago with the newspaper industry was you got to hit uh you got to hit the audience 10 to 12 times in order for them to actually convert. That's not just a sing that's not just 12 direct mail pieces.

7:50 Yeah. You want to retarget them. You do OTT. You could do Comcast following. You could do Yeah,

7:55 absolutely. They need to hear they need to feel that you're the brand. You're the dominant provider in that market.

8:02 And that's much better than spraying and praying. I mean, that's what realtors talk about, like, let me own this neighborhood, not let me own this county or this city. I want to be the most knowledgeable person about this area. So, if you could own that audience, you're winning. Oh, everybody's competitive, right? You're competitive. I'm competitive. I want to win. You want to win. So, I want to own this neighborhood. I want to send direct mail pieces. I want to send messages to this. And I want every single one of those customers, those prospects to be my client. and I want to make sure that they're that I continue to farm that area and own it.

8:35 You know, my favorite I thought about this quote. It was like 10 years ago. This guy had it up behind his desk and it says, "He who could pay more per lead will always win."

8:45 I saw that in a signature. I saw that in a signature this week from another advertiser.

8:50 And it's that means you got your booking rate or your contact center is dialed. That means your conversion rate face to face when you knock on the door is dialed. That means that you're offering everything to the client and you're letting them choose. And they might say, "Oh, well, I want that and that as well. I might as well." And so, if your conversion cycle's right, you can pay more. And I I know there's a lot of people listening right now that are like, "Oh, great. Something else to buy. I can't even afford to advertise as it is." What do you tell somebody that's kind of lost in their marketing world?

9:20 Well, short of having that Henry Ford quote, you know, the person that stops advertising, stops time or whatever, uh, however that quote goes, you know, we just completed our 2026 small business study and small business owners stated that they were will normally advertise when their business is good. What does that mean? When their business is not good, they're going to continue to go through a spiral.

9:44 The death spiral is what it's called. 100%. You stop marketing. I just talked to a guy that said, "Listen," he was sitting in this seat yesterday, uh, massive water filtration company. He goes, "208, 9 and 10, we poured money into marketing when nobody else was. We took market share. Didn't make a lot of money those three years. Came out and just murdered it." Is when you're not making money. Why is it the first thing people cut is marketing versus all the people that aren't performing? Because those marketers or those seale individuals are not looking at the data. They look at marketing as a cost versus marketing as an investment.

10:22 Yes. Well, give us a few more words of wisdom here. What else are you excited about in the next few years? I know that Elon just did a deal, a private deal with his companies. I don't know if you saw that today.

10:32 I did. I think people are afraid of the unknown. They're afraid of some of the future things that could be possible. Look at what AI has done to our industry and what AI will do to even more industries over the next couple of years. So yeah, I think people are just simply afraid of the future.

10:49 Well, what does well, let's let's take a deep dive here. Um, when we went through the industrial revolution, you know, it took care of like 20 farmers. One machine could handle 20 farmers. Well, the farmers just had to learn new stuff. It was easy. You know, when the girls had to put in for the phone calls, they learned how to do something else, wouldn't we? We There's nowhere else to turn when it takes over. I mean, we're probably going to be on universal income. I Where people Some people are more optimistic. They say, "Well, you don't understand.

11:22 Humans adapt." Adapt to what? It's a better surgeon. It's a better driver. It's a better at building houses. It's better at filming. It's better at fixing garage doors potentially once the AI is in the the humanoid. Like where do where does it go? And by the way, Tesla believes that there'll be 10x more humanoids than humans here within the next 10 years.

11:43 Um I think that might be very accurate. Yeah. Like I have I have a several hundred foot driveway and when we first built the house, I did not have snow plow or anything like that. Did it manual. Uh that was backbreaking work, right? Think of the cotton gin, all that stuff. backbreaking work, you know. Uh then I got a, you know, a snow plow.

12:03 Yep. Still a lot of work. You got to, you know, maneuver that thing. Two years ago, I bought a side by side with a snow plow on it.

12:10 Yep. Right. Super quick. I'm evolving. Right. So, the next phase I've got to get some humanoid bots apparently to uh to plow my driveway for me and I have to worry about it. But you know as I think about the future and as I think about data continuing to infuse it because AI is nothing without the data

12:29 y and we have to make sure that number one data is accurate it's normalized and we can count on it. consumers when they're doing a search, when they're looking at co-pilot, when they're looking at chat GPT or whatever uh whatever the AI environment is, they want to be confident that they're getting the right answers, right? I do think we're going into a utopia within the next 5 years when SGI and all these things come out. They will come out. It's a matter of time. Um it will be good. But where do you find your meaning? I mean, I like to golf. I like to do water sports and have fun, but you know, when the machine could go faster, it takes me It takes a kid 12 12 grades to learn school before he even specialized and goes to college.

13:16 Mhm. Uh it's a matter of a blink of an eye for a machine to learn all that stuff,

13:22 right? That's why you're always going to need home service. You're always going to need home improvement

13:26 for now. Yeah. That's why that's why uh the trades are pretty protected. You need electrician. You need a plumber.

13:31 Trades are protected. That's why uh what's his name? uh the CEO of Nvidia. Yeah. He was talking about the plumbers the safest. That's why everyone's getting into it. But how many plumbers can you have and for how long? Before the the AI's in the in the robot.

13:44 Well, as long as there's a toilet, there's going to be a plumber. But not every single person could become a pl Yeah.

13:49 Right. Until the humanoids become plumbers themselves. Yeah. No, it's pretty easy. Load it all in. It's It sounds simple to me. Um it does sound simple because if they could wash the laundry, it's like But that's a trick. All I would do is wear a suit for a month and I do all the work and that just loads the AI system just loads into the the robot.

14:13 Yeah. It's going to learn from that. Yeah. I mean it's not it's not complicated to me. So what happens though? What are you optimistic? Do you feel good? Are you worried? Are you costly optimistic? What what do you think?

14:25 I wouldn't be human if I wasn't worried. Right. So am I optimistic? I'm very optimistic about the future because hopefully that gives more people opportunity for leisure, for recreation, to do things that are more valuable to them as a person,

14:39 more family time, right? Work life balance, maybe that's a little bit better. Uh, so that's where I'm optimistic.

14:47 It's going to give us more time and time is something that we can't get more of. Well, with AI

14:54 and understanding the genotype and the geno code, I think we might be able to get an extra hundred years out of us.

15:00 That's right. They say if you can make it 10 more, you're probably going to live an extra hundred.

15:04 Yeah. But, uh, yeah, I'm a little worried just because I think most people, they get a lot of satisfaction through accomplishment, through like doing good work.

15:13 And, uh, I feel like that's a important piece in humanity and we've always had that. like you'd have to go hunters and gatherers, right? And now it's just going to be like, "Hey, you want a house? This thing builds the outside of the house. This little robot goes around and like builds and it's a better house that we build today." It's just interesting. But I'm I'm obsessed with data. I'm nowhere near at your level. Um, if someone is just lost and they just don't even know what we're talking about, it's just over their head. They don't understand their ideal client. They don't understand what their avatar looks like. Is there a book they could read or something that just give them basic fundamentals

15:51 besides yours? Yeah. I mean, you you've got a great podcast. You highlight a lot of this stuff because as a business, you need to understand who your customers are, those basic avatars, those personas. Can they read? There's plenty of books out there that they can read about it. But I prefer to kind of get my hands dirty.

16:07 Yeah. And you know, I go ahead and I engage with a business that you feel comfortable and confident with that can help you. They create an introductory model for you. You test that out and then you go from there.

16:18 And if somebody wants to reach out, learn more about what you do. How do they do that?

16:22 You go to valpack.com. There's lead genen form lead genen forms there. You can put in my name and request me. I can I'm happy to jump on a call and talk with it. So

16:31 you might get in trouble here. I'd love it. I I I welcome it. Benji is I'm telling you guys, this guy's a freaking genius. I mean, there's no other data scientist out there that builds teams. What I like about somebody that really knows what they're doing, they know how to do the work, but they know how to build a team and get the result quickly. And the stuff that you just showed me, it's freaking nuts. So, I'm excited. Thank you for coming in today.

16:53 Thank you. I appreciate it, Tommy. All right, brother. Take care.

Questions about this episode

Who speaks in "The Future of AI and Marketing with Benjy Yuhl"?

Tommy (Host), Benjy Yuhl (Guest).

What is "The Future of AI and Marketing with Benjy Yuhl" about?

Benjy Yuhl discusses the impactful intersection of data analytics and marketing, sharing his journey from college marketing enthusiast to a seasoned expert at Valpak. He emphasizes the current enthusiasm in the industry due to advancements in AI and machine learning, highlighting how these technologies enable companies to leverage their data for growth and enhanced accountability.

What is mentioned in this Home Service Expert episode?

29 people, works and ideas are mentioned, including Valpack, Artificial Intelligence, Neighbors Next, My Local Insights, direct mail, data lakes. Each one on this page links to its own page with every episode that mentions it.

How long is "The Future of AI and Marketing with Benjy Yuhl"?

The episode runs 17 min; the transcript is about 3,410 words in 54 timestamped sections.

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