Newbie Direct Marketing Questions (First Direct Mail Campaign)

[Mark Graziano]

After listening to a few podcasts and reading about others experiences with direct marketing it is my turn to jump in. 

My goal for this project is to purchase at least one 3BR/2Bath SFR for a buy and hold position. To do this I am planning to start a direct marketing campaign with a minimum of 200 contacts and to use yellow letters as my first contact and postcards for my second contact.

The list I have currently built on listsource is:

SFR in 5 mile radius of my personal residence - 52k properties

30%-100% equity - 14.5k

3bed/2bath - 6.5k

Assessed Value 50k - 150k - 4.8k

Built between 1990-2010 - 1k

This search leaves me with about 1000 targets for $200. 

First , do you think this would be a good list to market to in order to achieve my goal?

Second, I have read a lot of places about marketing specifically to absentee owners, do you think adding that criteria would make my list more successful?

(it would significantly decrease the target size - 204 targets and $40 list.  I really like the price though : ) )

What would you change, add or implement to achieve my goal.

Thank you all.

-Mark Graziano