I just got an email with the following question…
“I recently found a money partner that has agreed to fund my marketing costs, so I am planning on increasing my yellow letters and post cards to 1,000 per month from 250. I can send a yellow letter out for about 48 cents and they seem to get the best return. Where else would you concentrate these new funds?”
First off, this person did a smart thing by partnering up with someone who had money. If you’re a new investor and have the “desire” but no cash, go find a partner with cash. There is zero excuse for not getting going and being successful in this business.
Secondly, it’s extremely smart of this person to increase their direct mail. I know that they’ve gotten deals, but it’s tough to make a lot of money in this business if you’re only sending out 250 letters a month. Obviously, they’ll get more deals now that they’re sending out 1,000 letters monthly.
So what did I tell them to concentrate their new funds on?
I told them something very simple. Instead of sending out 1,000 letters a month, send out as many as they can with the new marketing funds. If you market properly, I believe that direct mail is the best return on investment you can get.
The investor who sends out 5,000 letters a month does more deals than the investor who sends out 2,500 a month and they do more deals than the investor who sends out 1,000.
I also told this individual to try several different letters. The yellow letter always gets a great response (if you do it right). Also, I told him to send out some typed letters, some postcards, and some 3D letters.
If you don’t know what a 3D letter is, it’s when you include something in the letter or you attach something to the letter. For example, you could attach a packet of Aspirin and use the headline, “Is your rental property giving you a headache?” Or you could attach a real $1 bill. “How would you like to save thousands in the next 7 days?”
Or you could enclose a coin purse in the envelope.
“Here’s something to hold all the money that you’re going to save, since we don’t charge fees or commissions.” You get the point.
If you happen to come into some money during the holidays, and you smartly decide you’re going to increase your marketing budget, I would use it to send out more direct mail before I spent it on any other type of marketing first.
{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
make sure you tell him to send multiple letters as part of his direct mail campaign. its much more effective to send 4 rounds of letters to the same list, rather than 1 letter to 4 times as many people
wow, interesting. and yet, not really surprising. nice to know that nothing will ever really surpass the hand-written note.
That is spot on! Leads, leads, leads!
I would also add that investment in a CRM that helps you with collecting information about your leads and sometimes even mail merge into your materials. There are two that I’ve looked at recently, zoho.com (as low as 13/month) is pretty straightforward and Infusionsoft.com (pretty hefty 200/month at least), which I am integrating into a client’s business. As someone who loves systems and processes, even though it is expensive, Infusionsoft is absolutely incredible in helping you automate most of your tasks, and they have incredible support.