800$ Monthly Budget For Direct Mail Need Guidance

Rehabbing & House Flipping
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800$ Monthly Budget For Direct Mail Need Guidance

Kirk Zacharda
La Mesa, CA · Member since 2013 · 116 posts · 26 votes

I have an 800$ Monthly budget that I plan to use until my Rehab business is well on its way to doing 2 to 3 deals a month. I have a list of 1500 AO in Socal. What would be the best direct mail strategy given the budget and the list. I plan to mail to this list until its been exhausted. Should I cut the list in half and use yellow letters or do a post card campaign.

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Aaron Mazzrillo
Investor · Riverside, CA · Member since 2011 · 2k+ posts · 3k+ votes
12y

Just use click2mail.com and create your own post card. It is easy and cheap. These guys selling their services are great, but at your budget, all the other nonsense isn't going to make much of a... any difference. Everyone always talks open rates, conversion rations, blah, blah, blah. The only thing that really matters, at the end of the day, is how profitable you are. I sent out 500 two pages letters. I don't know what the cost was and I DON'T CARE. I got 1 phone call. Sounds crappy doesn't it? I closed that seller, wholesaled the house and pocketed a $14,000 wholesale fee. Was my campaign successful? Bet your ***. I have almost zero overhead so that is $14,000 - $625 ($1.25(rough guess) per letter x 500) = $13,375 profit.

Now, here is the big argument (said in some whiny psuedo-marketer voice): If I got more people to call, I could have gotten more deals. Is that a fact? Sounds more like an opinion to me. I've done campaigns and had 50 calls with no closed deals. I did a post card campaign and sent out over 2,000 post cards. I got less than 5 calls. I thought it was a total failure and decided to try a new marketing piece because I had been sending out this piece for almost a year and thought it had gone stale.. Several months later a call came in from that campaign. I closed on that house and sold it for a $60K profit. Do I care about open rates, conversion rates, calls, blah, blah, blah - No. That info is important if you are sending out hundreds of thousands of mailers, but not a few hundred a week to a list of 20,000 or less. Also, these psuedo-marketers are confusing what they do with what the original mailing guys, like Robert Collier did. He mailed to millions of households selling books, suits, overcoats, etc. When your list is 5M names, you need to do small tests, split tests, etc. to see what gets the best response. We are mailing to get people to sell us a house. I don't care what Dan Kennedy says, this business IS DIFFERENT. Is a person buying a $50 coat and selling a $100K house that possibly produces income the same? No. Not even close.

There is no magic envelope, special font, perfect color, right stamp, blah, blah, blah. And, if they are doing mail on behalf of others, I guarantee you there are HUGE margins of errors in any statistics they report.

There is a guy here in Socal who prints up generic post cards in full color. They say the typical "We buy houses, pay cash, no costs to you" copy. He prints out individual mailing address labels and sticks them on the cards. He's been in business since 1981. I think he'd agree with me. Just mail. That is the most important. If you want to analyze every detail of your tiny campaign to pretend you have convinced yourself you know the magic formula to get the highest possible return, good luck. I think your time is better spent practicing your putting.

I've sent hundreds of thousands of letters, post cards, bank money bags, bulky mail, etc. in every color and size. We had specialty in-house software that tracked every .001 of a cent and printed out these fancy reports with all the statistics a person could dream of. After a few years of that nonsense, I went back to good ol' send it and forget it marketing and I'm still consistently doing the same number of deals with the same profit spreads.

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  • Gary Parker
    Real Estate Professional · Salt Lake City, UT · Member since 2010 · 608 posts · 163 votes
    12y

    You could spend days reading up on this subject on BP. One thing to consider when developing your plan is that consistent mailing to the same people will produce better results than mailing to a person once or twice an moving on. Podcast 037 has some excellent info on marketing.

    0Reply
  • Kirk Zacharda
    OP
    La Mesa, CA · Member since 2013 · 116 posts · 26 votes
    12y

    Yes I have spent a lot of time reading up on this. I am ready to make the move but wanted to get some current feedback. I am all in with hitting the list as much as it takes.

    0Reply
  • Fred Delariva
    Wholesaler · Corona, CA · Member since 2011 · 18 posts · 6 votes
    12y
    Hey Kirk. I'm out of SoCal too. I'm a marketer by profession and I've been responsible for lead generation at the corporate level. Before you spend your 800 monthly budget on your direct mail campaign, you need to first identify your target audience which you've already done with your 1500 absentee owner list. Next you must understand that your list is not exclusive so other investors probably have your list too. So your communication needs to stand out or it's going in the trash. I would suggest asking other users to see if they could share letters/postcards that worked for them You must also plan the frequency of your campaign. In other words how often will you communicate to them. And here is a very important thing you need to do. And that is test at a small scale. Pick out 200 names from your list at random. Send 100 of those one type of communication and 100 another type. Track your results and whichever one is most successful you will send to your remaining list. And lastly be CONSISTENT. Consumers get hit by tons and tons of communications daily so you need to stay top of mind. Since your local feel free to hit me up. I could help on the marketing side but only somewhat on the real estate side. I'm a re-newbie. In other words I invested during the good times so my mistakes were covered up by the market. I want to learn the right way now during the leaner times. Good luck.
    0Reply
  • Kirk Zacharda
    OP
    La Mesa, CA · Member since 2013 · 116 posts · 26 votes
    12y

    Thanks Fred that makes a lot of sense. Fortunately i have the staying power to remian consistant. Do you write add copy. Is marketing your day job?

    0Reply
  • Fred Delariva
    Wholesaler · Corona, CA · Member since 2011 · 18 posts · 6 votes
    12y

    I don't know what happened there. I was using the app and my previous reply posted again so now I'm back on the desktop.

    To answer your question, I am in marketing and have written copy. I've been in the marketing game nearly 15 years now and have done everything but graphic design. I currently data mine, edit copy and handle the direct response campaigns.

    0Reply
  • Kirk Zacharda
    OP
    La Mesa, CA · Member since 2013 · 116 posts · 26 votes
    12y
    Fred Delariva re have you seen any of the yellow letters and post cards from yellowletters.com. They seem good. Like Aaron Mazzrillo said in his podcast when the seller is ready they are ready and if your card or letter is there they will call. I cant wait to start talking to people. I love in bound calls
    0Reply
  • Fred Delariva
    Wholesaler · Corona, CA · Member since 2011 · 18 posts · 6 votes
    12y

    I have seen their samples.and I'm sure they work, but at your budget and the size of your list, I don't think that's the way to go. Their letters go from 79 cents on up right?

    I was trying this out last night and the results were not bad. I took a yellow paper notepad and copied verbatum in red ink a yellow letter sample that I found online just to test out leaving an empty space out for the address. I then photocopied the letter on my PIXMA printer and I then added the address in the empty space, What came out looked like it had been handwritten. The only thing was that the back was still white, but it was a reasonable facsimile, I bet the costs were nowhere near what Yellowletter.com charges. It may be a solution for those that have a small budget.

    0Reply
  • Gary Parker
    Real Estate Professional · Salt Lake City, UT · Member since 2010 · 608 posts · 163 votes
    12y

    I must disclose I am no marketing expert, and I am a bit more seat of your pants kind of guy. In other words I could do much better at testing and tracking. What I have learned in my two years of direct mail marketing is that different people react to different mail pieces. Now this is a general statement and certain lists may be better suited to the same type of letter over and over. So for me I mix it up..different kinds of letters and post cards. Also, I like to tie each letter together.

    There are some extreme experts on this forum such as @Michael Quarles and many others.

    1Reply
  • Kirk Zacharda
    OP
    La Mesa, CA · Member since 2013 · 116 posts · 26 votes
    12y

    @Fred Delariva my guess is that @Michael Quarles Has tested their copy prety extensivly. I do like your idea of tying the campaign together. I know the yellowletter PC are .39 ea. i would love to have an 8 month campaign mapped out and jus pull yhe trigger on it. Not sure if that is possible.

    0Reply
  • Sean Dezoysa
    Investor · Toledo, OH · Member since 2012 · 292 posts · 34 votes
    12y

    Foreclosed/Abandoned homes have mailboxes full of direct mail from competing investors, many of who have mailed for many years and have a piece that converts well. The issue is that taking mail even from abandoned homes is illegal.

    0Reply
  • Jerry PuckettPro Member
    Wholesaler · Fort Worth, TX · Member since 2010 · 1k+ posts · 1k+ votes
    12y

    Hi @Kirk Zacharda ,

    If your budget doesn't have room for outsourcing and you have many hours to spend in order to save a few dollars, you will find an excellent resource for do it yourself yellow letters here, at Struggling Investor.com.

    The directions are very clear and easy to follow. I would suggest getting a nice big calendar when you pick up the other materials and plan out your strategy. Mail to each prospect every four to six weeks. Make each letter different but building on the one that came before. Be persistent and consistent.

    Among all the other metrics you track, make sure that you also count the cost for your time. Log how many hours you spend doing this and multiply by whatever you believe your hourly time is worth....then see if you actually saved any money DIY..........just sayin'

    1Reply
  • Kirk Zacharda
    OP
    La Mesa, CA · Member since 2013 · 116 posts · 26 votes
    12y

    @Jerry Puckett I own an electrical contracting business and I learned a long time ago to let others do what they do beat and I stick to what I do best. I am also happy to pay for a good service if it produces results. I currently use a call center for my contracting business instead of trying to hve a commision only sales rep doing cold calls. Thanks for the tips on DIY. BTW I enjoyed your podcast yesterday. I also checked out your site and services. You are on my list to talk to. Like I said I believe in working with experts.

    1Reply
  • Aaron Mazzrillo
    Investor · Riverside, CA · Member since 2011 · 2k+ posts · 3k+ votes
    12y

    Just use click2mail.com and create your own post card. It is easy and cheap. These guys selling their services are great, but at your budget, all the other nonsense isn't going to make much of a... any difference. Everyone always talks open rates, conversion rations, blah, blah, blah. The only thing that really matters, at the end of the day, is how profitable you are. I sent out 500 two pages letters. I don't know what the cost was and I DON'T CARE. I got 1 phone call. Sounds crappy doesn't it? I closed that seller, wholesaled the house and pocketed a $14,000 wholesale fee. Was my campaign successful? Bet your ***. I have almost zero overhead so that is $14,000 - $625 ($1.25(rough guess) per letter x 500) = $13,375 profit.

    Now, here is the big argument (said in some whiny psuedo-marketer voice): If I got more people to call, I could have gotten more deals. Is that a fact? Sounds more like an opinion to me. I've done campaigns and had 50 calls with no closed deals. I did a post card campaign and sent out over 2,000 post cards. I got less than 5 calls. I thought it was a total failure and decided to try a new marketing piece because I had been sending out this piece for almost a year and thought it had gone stale.. Several months later a call came in from that campaign. I closed on that house and sold it for a $60K profit. Do I care about open rates, conversion rates, calls, blah, blah, blah - No. That info is important if you are sending out hundreds of thousands of mailers, but not a few hundred a week to a list of 20,000 or less. Also, these psuedo-marketers are confusing what they do with what the original mailing guys, like Robert Collier did. He mailed to millions of households selling books, suits, overcoats, etc. When your list is 5M names, you need to do small tests, split tests, etc. to see what gets the best response. We are mailing to get people to sell us a house. I don't care what Dan Kennedy says, this business IS DIFFERENT. Is a person buying a $50 coat and selling a $100K house that possibly produces income the same? No. Not even close.

    There is no magic envelope, special font, perfect color, right stamp, blah, blah, blah. And, if they are doing mail on behalf of others, I guarantee you there are HUGE margins of errors in any statistics they report.

    There is a guy here in Socal who prints up generic post cards in full color. They say the typical "We buy houses, pay cash, no costs to you" copy. He prints out individual mailing address labels and sticks them on the cards. He's been in business since 1981. I think he'd agree with me. Just mail. That is the most important. If you want to analyze every detail of your tiny campaign to pretend you have convinced yourself you know the magic formula to get the highest possible return, good luck. I think your time is better spent practicing your putting.

    I've sent hundreds of thousands of letters, post cards, bank money bags, bulky mail, etc. in every color and size. We had specialty in-house software that tracked every .001 of a cent and printed out these fancy reports with all the statistics a person could dream of. After a few years of that nonsense, I went back to good ol' send it and forget it marketing and I'm still consistently doing the same number of deals with the same profit spreads.

    8Reply
  • Jerry PuckettPro Member
    Wholesaler · Fort Worth, TX · Member since 2010 · 1k+ posts · 1k+ votes
    12y

    C'mon @Aaron Mazzrillo , tell us how you REALLY feel!

    The real fun part is that I agree with you almost 100%. Thing is, there are tons of folks out there not even interested in doing it themselves as you do.

    1Reply
  • Kirk Zacharda
    OP
    La Mesa, CA · Member since 2013 · 116 posts · 26 votes
    12y

    Wow @Aaron Mazzrillo I was hoping you would chime in on this thread. Looks like we have a winner. I am in total agreement. I will check out your recomendation click2mail and should be mailing out next week. I can do this for a year and still not spend what I have on the GURU education programs. I hope other newbies see this thread.

    0Reply
  • Fred Delariva
    Wholesaler · Corona, CA · Member since 2011 · 18 posts · 6 votes
    12y

    @Aaron Mazzrillo . He is a successful investor. How can I argue.

    Kirk, I was just trying to help you more precisely target your audience with a message that will resonate with them since your budget is limited. Just be consistent as you plan to be.

    And to Aaron, and everyone else. Marketing is not a science. No one can ever duplicate results even if you did everything the same way. However you can give yourself a better opportunity to see better results if you apply proper techniques. That's my two cents in my whiny pseudo-marketer voice.

    0Reply
  • Jerry PuckettPro Member
    Wholesaler · Fort Worth, TX · Member since 2010 · 1k+ posts · 1k+ votes
    12y

    Hey @Fred Delariva , if the jacket doesn't fit, don't wear it. @Aaron Mazzrillo is a hell of a good guy and I'm pretty sure his intent is to help, not insult.

    0Reply
  • Fred Delariva
    Wholesaler · Corona, CA · Member since 2011 · 18 posts · 6 votes
    12y

    @Jerry Puckett - I was never insulted and I hope my response didn't come off as such. Perhaps I should have put a smiley face at the end of my post. His response was funny.

    The old batch and blast technique and see what sticks isn't how I do things in my day job. As a professional marketer, perhaps I'm thinking too much. Thanks for your input.

    0Reply
  • Ratho R.
    Specialist · Portland, OR · Member since 2013 · 93 posts · 29 votes
    12y

    @Kirk Zacharda I hope it is not too late to put in my vote!?

    My mentor and friend uses click2print.com for his mail campaign. I personally am still in the early stages of marketing and do not have a huge budget to blow. I checked out the yellowletters.com and thought their prices were good...then I saw the fine print of needing to order 1000 items! Yeah...my mail list is about 100-200 right now...what am I going to do with the other 800 mailers...let alone the cash to buy them. haha.

    So, my first batch, to open and honest, came from Vistaprint because they are already designed and ready to go, and you can order small amounts like 200 (not sure how many you are wanting to send). I would vote for them if you don't posses creativity to make your own. I have since designed my own and plan to use click2print to send those out going forward.

    So short story long..I'm working on that. haha. If you don't want to have anything to do with designing them, check out vistaprint.com. If you can manage even a simple design, go for click2print.

    0Reply
  • Kirk Zacharda
    OP
    La Mesa, CA · Member since 2013 · 116 posts · 26 votes
    12y

    Just want to say thanks for all the input. This is why I joined BP. Thanks to the creater and all who participate.

    0Reply
  • Aaron Mazzrillo
    Investor · Riverside, CA · Member since 2011 · 2k+ posts · 3k+ votes
    12y
    Originally posted by Jerry Puckett:
    C'mon @Aaron Mazzrillo , tell us how you REALLY feel!

    The real fun part is that I agree with you almost 100%. Thing is, there are tons of folks out there not even interested in doing it themselves as you do.

    Just to be clear, I didn't put down mail house services. I in fact said they are great and I think most people on here would benefit greatly to just hand over the credit card and let someone else do it. My brutal honesty (always delivered with a smile!) is directed at people who are spending a few hundred dollars a month and getting all wrapped up in the intricacies of marketing. If someone is mailing 500 letters/postcards a week, just mail it. Even better is to let someone else do it for them. All the time I read on BP about someone who sent 80-100 letters and they are talking about call ratios and cost per lead. Really? 80 letters and they are concerned about cost per lead? I just spent 80 letters worth of money at Bucca de Beppo for lunch.

    Actions speak louder than words. I'd like to see more posts about "I sent out 400 letters and got 10 calls. What do I do now?", than "I'm thinking about sending out 400 letters, but am terrified I am going to throw $200 in the trash." I bet a lot of these same people have $100+ cable bills every month. Can't send the mail, but gotta have that cable.

    5Reply
  • Account Closed
    Investor · Central Valley, CA · Member since 2012 · 6k+ posts · 3k+ votes
    12y

    I've sent hundreds of thousands of letters, post cards, bank money bags, bulky mail, etc. in every color and size. We had specialty in-house software that tracked every .001 of a cent and printed out these fancy reports with all the statistics a person could dream of. After a few years of that nonsense, I went back to good ol' send it and forget it marketing and I'm still consistently doing the same number of deals with the same profit spreads.

    Too funny. I had no idea how much we have so much in common. I always felt guilty about my lack of tracking. If I mailed 100 pieces and got 7 or 4 or no calls, it's not hard to figure the percentage rates. There has been no correlation between call rate and deal rate. So the numbers game thing never rang true for me. I would improve my call rates by a mile by using broader targets, but it didn't improve deal rate. A couple of years ago I made an honest tracking attempt and kept at it for 18 months, but have been back to "send it and forget it" all this year. Deals are the same, tracking no longer takes any time.

    1Reply
  • Shaun Reilly
    Landlord and Rehabber · Newton, MA · Member since 2010 · 2k+ posts · 877 votes
    12y

    Lots of interesting points here.

    The "Just shut up and mail it!" comments are really resonating with me.

    I'm just getting started with direct mailing and was getting to caught up in all the nuances of it all. I kind of realized it was keeping me from actually DOING anything and it didn't seem to make sense to over analysis things for a few hundred pieces to test the waters.

    Also @Ratho R. suggestion of Vistaprint is a good one for those that want to do a small run on their own. Since they are perpetually on sale you can get an order as small as 100 for $12.50 (Price per piece gets better as you go up and the increments are small). You do have to pay shipping on top of that unless you have some deal.

    I actually am going to be starting my stuff with cards I got there.

    Back when they used to give away a lot of free stuff I designed a card and whenever I bought other stuff and got over a free shipping threshold I would order as many free items as I could and acquired about 8,000 postcards for free.

    Since all I need is to address them and get postage I think I just need to get off my duff and mail some!

    0Reply
  • Jerry PuckettPro Member
    Wholesaler · Fort Worth, TX · Member since 2010 · 1k+ posts · 1k+ votes
    12y
    Originally posted by Aaron Mazzrillo:

    My brutal honesty (always delivered with a smile!) is directed at people who are spending a few hundred dollars a month and getting all wrapped up in the intricacies of marketing. If someone is mailing 500 letters/postcards a week, just mail it. Even better is to let someone else do it for them.

    Yessir, I believe I am now 100% in agreement with you.

    0Reply
  • Aaron Mazzrillo
    Investor · Riverside, CA · Member since 2011 · 2k+ posts · 3k+ votes
    12y
    Originally posted by Shaun Reilly:
    Lots of interesting points here.

    The "Just shut up and mail it!" comments are really resonating with me.

    I'm just getting started with direct mailing and was getting to caught up in all the nuances of it all. I kind of realized it was keeping me from actually DOING anything and it didn't seem to make sense to over analysis things for a few hundred pieces to test the waters.


    This is exactly what I want to help you avoid. Get it out the door and take the calls. Then we can really help you close deals. If you want to test and track, that is great, but don't let it prevent you from taking action. I've read so many posts on here by people who have sent zero mail and they are overly concerned with size, color, font, message, etc. Just get it going. Then, you can come back here and post your results and ask for help in tweaking (or twerking if you prefer!) your methods to see if you can get better results. It's like watching a student driver trying to figure out how a car is built and runs before he is willing to step on the gas and drive it down the street! You don't need to learn how to change the oil. There are great people here that can do that for you. You just need to point that baby down the highway, step on the gas, and put your tail in the wind.

    0Reply
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