{"id":40656,"date":"2013-04-04T12:43:50","date_gmt":"2013-04-04T18:43:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/renewsblog\/?p=40656"},"modified":"2021-03-16T10:01:02","modified_gmt":"2021-03-16T16:01:02","slug":"2013-04-04-direct-mail-case-study","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/2013-04-04-direct-mail-case-study","title":{"rendered":"Go Where Others Won\u2019t \u2013 My Direct Mail Journey"},"content":{"rendered":"

It is a terrible time to buy off of the MLS!!<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve put numerous offers on multiple listings with the same outcome \u2013 multiple offers. \u00a0I\u2019m asked to submit my highest and best offer<\/p>\n

and, in the end, the property gets bid up 10-30% over asking price.\u00a0 My local market is on fire.\u00a0 There is hardly any inventory and listing agents don\u2019t even bother returning phone calls, even when I ask them to represent me so they can double-end the deal.<\/p>\n

In my last transaction, the listing agent was representing three<\/i> additional buyers \u2013 so much for that little trick, it looks like everyone else has caught on to that as well.<\/p>\n

Next Steps:<\/h2>\n

As you may have heard on my recent interview on the BP Podcast<\/a>, I believe I have another 1-3 years left before I plan to exit half of my existing portfolio.\u00a0 After looking over all the data, the lack of inventory and the increased competition, I felt like I need to acquire property differently to take full advantage of the current market.\u00a0 Over the past 3 years, I\u2019ve purchased primarily from banks and the MLS.\u00a0 However, now that the \u201cdeals\u201d on the MLS are over-priced (for my business model anyway), I need to go directly to the source \u2013 the homeowner.<\/p>\n

Starting next week, I plan to attack a set demographic of homeowners in an effort to create my own leads.\u00a0 I\u2019ve laid out my marketing campaign below:<\/p>\n

Target:<\/b><\/p>\n

Zip Codes:<\/b>\u00a0 In the sub-markets where I would like to purchase property<\/p>\n

Equity<\/b>: 30% – 100%<\/p>\n

Owner<\/b>: Absentee Owner<\/p>\n

Sq Ft:\u00a0 <\/b>500-1700<\/p>\n

Bedrooms: \u00a0<\/b>2 +<\/p>\n

Bath:\u00a0 <\/b>1+<\/p>\n

Property Type:\u00a0 <\/b>SFH<\/p>\n

Message:<\/h2>\n

In the first phase of the campaign, I plan to send 1,400 postcards.\u00a0 I chose to go with yellow postcards primarily to keep expenses down on the front end. \u00a0I did extensive research on direct mail marketing<\/a>.\u00a0 This involved speaking to seasoned Realtors, talking to non-real estate related direct mailers (insurance agents, brick-and-mortar businesses, etc.) and reading several books on the topic.\u00a0 I\u2019m by no means an expert, but I believe a few of the \u201ctweaks\u201d I plan to implement below should result in a better response rate.<\/p>\n

\"signature<\/p>\n

Note<\/b>:<\/span>\u00a0 I\u2019ve written, \u201cLooking forward to your call\u201d on each postcard in red ink.<\/p>\n

Address\/Name:<\/b><\/span>\u00a0 I\u2019ve also incorporated mail merge into the card so that it will include the homeowner\u2019s name as well as the address of the property I\u2019m targeting.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Photo:<\/span>\u00a0 <\/b>I\u2019ve also chosen to include an \u201capproachable\u201d photo of yours truly.\u00a0 I\u2019m not sure if this will hurt or help my cause. \u00a0I plan to test this by sending out the same postcard without the photo and monitoring the response rate.<\/p>\n

\"photo<\/a><\/b><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Informal<\/span>:\u00a0 <\/b>The look and feel of the postcard is low quality.\u00a0 I deliberately decided to send something that would stand out from the rest of the potential seller\u2019s mail \u2013 i.e. glossy, professional, high-resolution, etc.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Saturation Strategy:<\/h2>\n

I had my printer print 1,400 postcards and adhere a stamp to each of them.\u00a0 I will be writing my personalized message on each of these cards over the weekend.\u00a0 Down the road, I plan to outsource this to another party, but I\u2019ll be doing it myself for the first phase.<\/p>\n

In the second phase, I plan to send out a letter on lined yellow paper that will reference the postcard.<\/p>\n

The third phase will be another yellow letter referencing the previous one \u2013 in a very clever manner (details to come on this).<\/p>\n

The fourth phase will be another postcard referencing the previous three mailers.<\/p>\n

The fifth phase will be another postcard letting them know I will available should they decide to sell their home down the road.\u00a0 They will be put on a separate mailing campaign and will be mailed twice a year.<\/p>\n

Holes in the Plan and Areas for Improvement: <\/h2>\n

The first problem I see with my list is that it is more of a \u201cshotgun\u201d approach, meaning I have no real qualifying information that any of these homeowners are under distress.\u00a0 I\u2019m hoping to catch a burned out landlord, a homeowner who can\u2019t afford to \u201cfix-up\u201d their home, or an owner looking to exit the property quickly.\u00a0 Over the next few months, I will be working toward funneling future lists against additional criteria \u2013 code citations, fire damage, divorce and abandoned properties (while driving for dollars).\u00a0 Though at this time, I feel that this campaign will be enough to get my feet wet.\u00a0 I\u2019m a big believer in the idea of \u201cadjusting while in flight.\u201d<\/p>\n

I look forward to posting updates to the community \u2013 feel free to share your insights or thoughts below.<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It is a terrible time to buy off of the MLS!! I\u2019ve put numerous offers on multiple listings with the same outcome \u2013 multiple offers. \u00a0I\u2019m asked to submit my […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":716,"featured_media":40751,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5529],"tags":[4705,4706,4075],"class_list":["post-40656","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-real-estate-marketing","tag-mailers","tag-mailing-campaign","tag-post-cards"],"acf":[],"comment_count":0,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40656","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/716"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40656"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40656\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/40751"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40656"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=40656"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40656"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}