My First Direct Mail Letter - Any Good?

Question

Hi All,

I'm looking to venture out into the wonderful world of direct mail to try and find motivated sellers shortly. I've never done direct mail before and am looking for my first flip project...I have three rentals but all were bought off the MLS with a realtor. For those of you with experience doing direct mail, any helpful tips or critiques you could give me on my letter below would be GREATLY appreciated :). I'm planning on sending 700 of these out to a list of absentee owners with 40% + equity who have owned the houses at least 10 years. For the second mailing I was planning to send a similar letter, but with yellow paper and red ink. I will photocopy these and just fill in the names and addresses manually. Thanks in advance for any tips or advice.

Michael Quarles · Answer

Good to meet you.

I would remove the bullet points.

other then that yellow paper and red ink.

The 10 years and 40% should be 30%+ and 5 years plus. Send all out of state AOs first then send 50% owner ocs and 50% absentee. Make sure theyre SRF and under median.

Michael Quarles · Answer

Hi Tim...

Its very hard to answer your questions completely without violating rules and having the post removed..

the best list is out of state absentees... so pull all of them if the budget allows.

the reasoning behind 50% absentees and 50% ocs. is the bending. almost everyone tells people absentees and with that come a lot of other folks. the positive is that some absentees understand what we do and seller financing is an easy term to obtain as thats is what they have been doing for the renter in one form.  the owner occupied  are virgins and tend to not like seller financing however that is about your skill set. The nice thing about them is they dont need the money or it wouldnt be tied up in a home.

the move to 5 years has a correlation to a change in life of the seller which i like for motivation.

As for yellow white blue green or any other color. as a guy who sends out millions of pieces i know what works and what works better.

which order to send in what the messaging should say and packaging look like. I cannot describe the pieces here.  However if you search one of my last few post in the marketplace i posted them there.

I just did podcast 346 and its all about list, city makeup and mail pieces.

Happy hunting

Tim Porsche · Answer

@Michael Quarles Nice to meet you too! Thanks so much for the tips. By the way I just listened to one of your BP podcasts last week on the way to work, very good stuff.

I have just a few follow up questions for you though.

1. I'm just curious about sending to out of state absentees first, then 50% owner occupieds and 50% absentee, what is the reasoning behind this? Should the 50% absentee on the second round be out of state too, in state, or both?

2. Is dropping the 40% equity to 30% and 10 year ownership to 5 mainly just to cast a wider net?

3. In your opinion will the yellow paper and red ink vs white paper and black ink make a major difference in response rates or do you think I could still get a good response rate from white paper and black ink? Not a big deal either way, just would need to find a color laserjet to use if I do red ink.

Again thanks for your help :)