I’ve decided to start my direct marketing campaign. Been a cash buyer and going to get serious with wholesaling too! Question is how successful have you been with direct marketing and how many touches do you do for absentee owners? Do you see a better ROI with postcards, yellow letters or handwritten letters? Melissa Ragan MMH Investments, LLC

With direct mail I get a lot of older folks just wondering what I can offer them. Their expectations are usually way beyond reality. Really have to sift through the junk.

I get a lot less web leads, but they’re more qualified. They seem to have more situations where they have to sell with urgency.

I have only been marketing since October.

@Alex Cornwell

Since you've been marketing since October how much have you spent on marketing.  And with the qualified leads that have been coming in have any of them become actual deals?

You can definitely do it cheaper than I did. I have a marketing firm doing an AdWords campaign for me, I outsourced calls to a Call center, had another place mail everything for me...it has all been a great way to get started. My day job has me traveling quite a bit so I don’t have a ton of time.

No deals yet. About 50 leads at this point. There was one lead that some investors probably would have jumped on, but the spread just wasn’t there for me. A guy wanted to get rid of 5 houses. 3 were in a really bad area though.

One person called who was about to be foreclosed on. She had 45 days to get out, owed $175k and ARV was $235k. Needed $35k in repairs and it was a SFH so the spread wasn’t there for me. I’m looking for MFR mostly.

I wouldn’t recommend doing direct mail to absentee landlords right now. Too many people just looking for $225k on properties worth $175k. They’re not willing to budge too. No urgency at all. My market is the area south of Boston.

I have three people who wanted me to contact them after the holidays because they didn’t want to disturb tenants with visits. I called them all a few times this year so far and no calls back. Have to keep trying though :)

I haven been in sales for over 6 years professionally so I know this stuff takes time.

Hey @Melissa Ragan , Typically letters perform better than postcards, and I suggest 4-5 touches per prospect. Feel free to reach out to me if you want to chat more!