Investor · MI · Member since 2016 · 82 posts · 16 votes
Hello, fellow Investors/Wholesalers!
What are you all seeing as your total costs for running direct mail campaigns? How much are you paying per record when you are purchasing your lists to mail? How much are you paying to send out each piece of mail? Do you use any other services to keep your direct mail campaigns in order? I'm also curious what your cost to acquire a direct mail deal is? What is the average profit you see per deal in your market?
I'd love to hear how these numbers vary from person to person!
Hinton, WV · Member since 2026 · 1k+ posts · 373 votes
6mo
Direct mail is becoming more expensive as competition rises, but if you're doing it right, it's still profitable. My costs have gone up about 30% in the last two years -- list acquisition, printing, and postage. We're paying roughly $0.80 to $1.20 per piece all-in right now depending on volume and targeting.
Our cost per qualified deal is running about $800-1200 depending on the market, and that's because we're selective. We mail to specific neighborhoods and specific list criteria, not blanket campaigns. The flyers themselves matter -- generic mailers get ignored. Ours are formatted to look like personal notes, not slick corporate mail. Response rate is somewhere between 3-5%, but most of those aren't qualified leads. Maybe 1 in 20 people who call actually has a deal that pencils.
We've also switched to mail plus phone follow-up. Just mailing is slow. Adding a call 10-14 days later bumps our conversion noticeably. Are you planning to do the follow-up calls yourself or outsourcing that, and what markets are you targeting?
Investor · MI · Member since 2016 · 82 posts · 16 votes
6mo
@Bo Smith Your cost per piece all in is a bit higher than mine. We also run a targeted campaign in specific areas of MI. We are looking at around .59 cents all in counting mail and list cost to send each postcard. We do quite a high volume of mail though. What is your average cost per record/list and what price do you pay per letter on average? I must say, your cost per qualified deal looks awesome! Great work!