BiggerPockets

1. Is it too soon after Thanksgiving to send out yellow letters a couple days after the Holiday? If yes, how long should I wait?

2. Once you have someone's phone or fax number that is on your yellow letter list, do you continue to mail them a letter or do you just call/fax them instead to save money.

3. I have my first list of 644 names (absentee,SFR,equity, 3/2+,non-trust,10-150k) but I haven't filtered it for last sale date. When I tested last sale date 1900-2005 the list shrunk to 250 names or so. These are all out of state owners. I could either start to include in-state owners or leave the sale date filter off and I'm conflicted.

I assume that inherited out of state owners will be included in this list and wouldn't want to exlude them by filtering 2005 or older, but I can understand that a new investor isn't looking to sell either. I don't know if out of state outweighs the pre 2005 sale date.

Any thoughts or experience on this? I'm hoping Michael "Quarters" Quarles (hehe, I noticed someone called you that in another thread) will chime in.

Thank you

1) Here's a previous post on this - http://www.biggerpockets.com/forums/87/topics/77821-holiday-mailing-schedule

2) I would continue to mail them. You'll be wasting a lot of time calling people that have no intention of selling.

3) I'm not sure what type of investing your looking to do but as a rehabber I would send to all pre-2000 (most have enough equity to sell at a price that I want to buy) and I then sort the addresses post-2000 by last sale price to add addresses that show $0-my average purchase price in the area.

I would take a look at past posts by @Michael Quarles but it seems like he isn't posting on BP anymore - http://www.biggerpockets.com/forums/56/topics/78511-saying-goodbye

I am also sending a yellow letter this week. 500 tomorrow and maybe another 500 next week? Depends on the response from the first 500.

@David Tower

In all honesty, the Holiday probably matters most on the day itself. Beyond that, most people are in their routine all the way to the 11th hour, and immediately the day after. That said, how are you mailing, bulk or first class? Are you tracking your mailings? Do you know the average deliver time from your drop date?

I guess my point in all of this is that I think you are over analyzing. Your target list is not very big. Knowing that mail times in general vary, it's almost impossible to gauge.

Consider a bench mark response rate of 2%. Response being someone getting your letter and calling you. 2% of 644 is about 12 calls. Are you getting that?

The reality is, direct mail is a wide net approach. It's a little counter intuitive, but you are never going to see success in direct mail, if you look for ways to narrow your audience. When you are playing a numbers game, you need the odds in your favor.

Instead of limiting your list, you should be expanding it. Instead of sending one mailing you should be sending 4. To the same list.

If you have a phone number, use it - that is if they gave it to you as a response to your mail piece. You should follow the same rule of thumb with phone numbers as you do with email. If they didn't give it to you with permission to contact them, don't use it. It's just that simple.

As for us, we just don't mail the week of the holiday itself. But not for a lack of response, business in general slows down. Everyone shuts their brains off, and getting anything done becomes a real struggle. But we are sending thousands of pieces/week.

Hope that helps.

@Justin Silverio - thanks for the link. I guess it does make sense that non owner occupied doesn't matter. Also, I'm deeply saddened that MQ is not posting anymore. He's definitely earned a break though if anyone has. It is people like him that make me want to pay it forward when I become successful in this business.

@Barry Hammond - Thanks for the response. This will be my first mailing (finally). I've heard and or read other people's (pros) results with a targeted list for hand-written yellow letters to be in the 10-15% response rate, sometimes higher. I'm hoping mine will be more in line with that.

I do plan on mailing the same list multiple times while also growing it as success permits. Probably 2 or 3 yellow letters then postcards. I hope to be able to mail them until I get the deal or they tell me to stop. The reason I asked about the phone # is because every person I make a soft pass offer to is getting a written offer by e-mail or fax. Even the tire kickers. I will follow up with them in some form.

Don't fret over @Michael Quarles - he still seems to be connecting to BP and is at least keeping tabs on things here; check his profile link for when he was "last active". Maybe if he sees somebody really in a serious struggle for something, he'll be kind enough to step in and offer a suggestion. So talk about him all you want, he seems to be listening in ...

I read that as a range, from $0 up to the average purchase price that Justin uses. It's a simple way to identify those that have a better chance of selling for less than Justin's average number.

@Justin Silverio,

No problem. The only thing I will caution you on is this. I spent about 15 years as a marketing consultant. One thing I've seen happen about 99.99999 % of the time is that people who don't actually track their direct mail responses, always like to guess that their response rate is anywhere from 15 to 30 %. While that is possible, an overwhelming number of people (including myself) have an experience that is contrary to that. If you get 15 to 30 % response that is not just unusual, it is ridiculously successful and you should be ready to take advantage of every single bit of it. If I were you, I would adjust your expectations to a more realistic bench mark of say 2%. If you hit your 10 - 15 that's great. But I've been doing this for a long time now and I have yet to see evidence that anyone should expect more than that. BTW, in the DM world 2% is considered it pretty meaningful accomplishments.

Good luck. Let me know how it turns out.

@Barry Hammond I think you meant to mention @David Tower

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