What are good companies for Direct Mail?

[John Walker]

I'm looking for some feedback on what are some good companies for getting started with Direct Mail. What do you guys think?

[Claire Trammell]

@John Walker

I'm a fan of absentee lists, but also some owner occupieds. The criteria I recommend looks like this:

1-3 Bedrooms

30%-100% Equity

4 yrs. Ownership

SFR

Median Price Range for your area

Absentee

Owner Occupied

No Corp

No Trust

I also like to pull these lists from ListSource.com. Once you have a list to mail to, you can begin a campaign! 

There are two things that you should ask yourself that will help you determine your mailing quantity:

1) Your budget

2) Your ability to handle the calls

It might help you to answer these questions if you had an idea on what to expect in respect to the response rates. Here are the average response rates we have seen based on our customer feedback as well as our own mailings throughout the years:

Yellow Letters- average response rate of 8%-9%, all kinds of calls (angry calls, curious calls, tire-kickers, quality calls)

Postcards- average response rate of .5%, mostly quality calls.

Zip Letters- average response rate of 2%, mostly quality calls. (Great for follow ups)

Greeting Cards- average response rate of 2%, mostly quality calls. (Great for follow ups)

Direct mail tends to work best when you send a campaign of 5-7 different pieces, 4 weeks apart from each other. Follow ups are key as the average person takes 3-5 touches before picking up the phone to respond.

Hope this is at least a little bit helpful. Let me know if I can help any further!