My Direct Mail Campaign Results Have Been Atrocious

My Direct Mail Campaign Results Have Been Atrocious

Wholesaler · San Francisco, CA · Member since 2012 · 259 posts · 147 votes

Hey There BPers,

Myself and my business partner have been spending a significant amount of time on our direct mail campaign and so far, our results have been subpar to say the least. We have sent out a total of 395 letters and received a whopping 5 responses. 1 was a prank call. 2 were of the "please remove me from your list" variety. Our one success was getting an appointment with a seller, so in reality we have had 1 good response out of 395 total letters. I'm hoping to get some insights and ideas/critiques for increasing our response rate. The details of our campaigns are below.

We have slowly been gathering addresses so our list is split up, one campaign is 149 people and the other is 246 people. We have sent the different groups different pieces to try and test what will get the best response.

The first group received a standard yellow letter stuffed inside of a handwritten (in blue sharpie) 6x9" manilla envelope (link). I also used some muscle car stamps instead of the regular American flag ones to hopefully make it seem more "friendly". Our response rate was 4 of 149. Here is a picture of the finished letter:

The second group of 246 received a different mailer altogether. We used an A6 invitation-style envelope that was handwritten in black ink. Instead of a yellow letter, we sent our message on standard white copy paper. This letter was placed in the mail on 10/19 and we've only received one phone call and one FB like from our efforts. Here is the copy:

"

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Dev HornPro Member
Flipper/Rehabber · Arlington, TX · Member since 2013 · 1k+ posts · 2k+ votes
12y

Your list there is a good "core" list of houses for you guys to keep an eye on, but your list size is WAY to small to generate a meaningful flow of leads.

Buy a list of at least 1,000 ABSENTEE OWNERS and mail them postcards every month for AT LEAST 6 months.

See this reply in the discussion

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  • Flipper / Wholesaler · Farmington, CT · Member since 2012 · 189 posts · 89 votes
    12y

    wow, great post! I have recently become addicted to bp :)

    I just wanted to make a quick note about revealing your numbers to the seller(coming from a guy that is by no means an expert in dealing with sellers)...I think it would be a good idea to look at the low-end cash transactions and if they support the value you are presenting, show the seller what properties have been selling for....if you are going to provide numbers, talk about all the expenses on your end...commissions, interest, taxes, repairs, attorney fees, utilities, insurance...talk about what will happen if they list the property like get negotiated down, address issues after the inspection, they will then have to pay commissions

    I def agree with not telling the seller what you will clear and make it a mystery as to what it will really sell for because its a buyers market, but letting someone know all the expenses on your end can be very powerful information to a seller because they will realize they have those expenses if they want to list the home...and instead of selling you their problems, they will keep them

  • Flipper / Wholesaler · Farmington, CT · Member since 2012 · 189 posts · 89 votes
    12y

    one other side note, I have spent a lot of money on marketing recently...I have spent about 10k on mailing over the past 3 months and got 1 deal...but I'm keeping the faith and I will keep mailing until I get rich or my wife leaves me..it is very hard with every 1k out the door on mailing lists, letters, postcards, but this forum gives me a ray of hope that I will become a successful wholesaler sooner rather than later (but I will make it because it has become an obcession for me and I will succeed or die...or my wife will kill me because I spent all our savings on yellow letters..haha)

  • Flipper/Rehabber · Bakersfield, CA · Member since 2008 · 3k+ posts · 3k+ votes
    12y

    @Brian Davis

    Stop wholesaling and you'll make a ton more.

  • Flipper / Wholesaler · Farmington, CT · Member since 2012 · 189 posts · 89 votes
    12y
    Originally posted by @Michael Quarles:
    @Brian Davis

    Stop wholesaling and you'll make a ton more.

    i'm currently rehabbing but doing whatever I can to build a wholesale business to compliment the rehabbing...plan is to cherry pick the awesome deals and wholesale the rest...I feel stuck at 10-12 rehab flips a year due to money and time investment into each project so I need a way to build my business without renovating more homes...problem is that it's all easier said than done

  • Flipper/Rehabber · Bakersfield, CA · Member since 2008 · 3k+ posts · 3k+ votes
    12y

    it's easy. Just stop rehabbing. Stop wholesaling.

  • Flipper / Wholesaler · Farmington, CT · Member since 2012 · 189 posts · 89 votes
    12y

    but I love rehabbing...6 months to get paid, paying interest and points to hard money lenders, dealing with contractors, dealing with owner occupant buyers and their list of repairs, paying for the 2nd appraisal, heating the vacant house, having all of my money out so I can feel the stress

    Seriously, I do enjoy the process and its easier than wholesaling and I like maximizing the check at the end of the day but I wish I could just wholesale and make the same money right now...but until I figure it out, this is what's going on in my life.. so I will hopefully work on my equally atrocious mailing campaigns

    Btw, anyone have an average cost per deal with direct mail?

  • Specialist · Houston, TX · Member since 2012 · 579 posts · 301 votes
    12y

    @Brian Davis

    I hear ya. Flipping has some good returns if you can do them quickly and it just seems like the margin on wholesale deals has dropped greatly. I'm shifting my direct mail campaign from foreclosure to probate and vacant homes; though the latter are hard to find sometimes. I also just started running ads on Facebook so we'll see if I have any good results with that. I'm trying not to get discouraged but it's been a rough few months with several wholesale deals falling through at the last minute.

  • Lender · Greater LA/Orange County area, CA · Member since 2012 · 3k+ posts · 3k+ votes
    12y

    I believe the thread began as a discussion about ways to improve direct mail response rate.

    Of all the things that people do that makes their campaigns successful is persistence. A one-time mailing is like betting all your money on #7 in a game of roulette. You might land on a winner but how long can you feast on those winnings?

    A campaign is generally a series of mailings oriented around a well-defined target market. I don't think of it as a single event.

    Serious direct mailers know that failing is part of success. Testing is as much about learning what doesn't work as what does work. Pro's test one component at a time. For example, one headline against another.

    As for handling inbound calls, a quality problem is having to deal with a high call volume. Voicemail works but you will loose close to half your caller's messages due to hang ups. A well-trained staff member is ideal if you have the resources. If not, consider a live call center service.

    Years ago I teased a successful real estate investor friend about his assistant answering the business line, "Hello?" Surely she could be more professional! To my chagrin, I learned that they had a very sophisticated protocol and the 'hello' was to make the business sound like they were a small-time operation.

    Sometimes things seem to go full circle.

  • Dev HornPro Member
    Flipper/Rehabber · Arlington, TX · Member since 2013 · 1k+ posts · 2k+ votes
    12y
    Originally posted by @Rick H.:
    I believe the thread began as a discussion about ways to improve direct mail response rate.
    Of all the things that people do that makes their campaigns successful is persistence. A one-time mailing is like betting all your money on #7 in a game of roulette. You might land on a winner but how long can you feast on those winnings?
    A campaign is generally a series of mailings oriented around a well-defined target market. I don't think of it as a single event.

    Serious direct mailers know that failing is part of success. Testing is as much about learning what doesn't work as what does work. Pro's test one component at a time. For example, one headline against another.

    As for handling inbound calls, a quality problem is having to deal with a high call volume. Voicemail works but you will loose close to half your caller's messages due to hang ups. A well-trained staff member is ideal if you have the resources. If not, consider a live call center service.

    Years ago I teased a successful real estate investor friend about his assistant answering the business line, "Hello?" Surely she could be more professional! To my chagrin, I learned that they had a very sophisticated protocol and the 'hello' was to make the business sound like they were a small-time operation.

    Sometimes things seem to go full circle.

    Man, I could not agree more with Rick's comments. These issues are so critical to your success that we offer FREE marketing education videos on the topics he mentioned:

    Marketing & the Rule of 7 (re: a campaign that is a series of direct mailings)
    Proper Handling of Incoming Calls

  • SFR Investor · Lees Summit, MO · Member since 2013 · 18 posts · 3 votes
    12y
    As a professional real estate marketer (not a realtor, a marketer) one of the constant pain points we encounter is data integrity. We partner with InfoUSA when we absolutely have to purchase a list. The best lists are ones you build organically through trust. Have you considered inbound marketing as a tactic for advancing the ball? If you are not familiar with it just google it. Essentially is is pull vs push marketing. It takes time to build an audience but once you do you have a highly valuable asset (people who want to hear from you). Good luck...postage is going up again so mailboxes will have less competitive mail in them again.
  • Wholesaler · San Francisco, CA · Member since 2012 · 259 posts · 147 votes
    12y

    Thanks for those videos, @Dev Horn - very informative stuff, especially the Rule of 7 one.

    @Kevin Oldham can you go into more detail as to what you mean about inbound marketing tactics in relation to REI? I understand what pull marketing is from my college days, but what specific tactics are you referring to? We have a company blog, landing page and are targeting folks through organic and paid searches. Any others that have worked well for you?

    Hope things are well in Lee's Summit, I spent my high school years there and graduated from Blue Springs South. Thanks for the reply.

    Oh, and to update everyone on our progress, we've received 12 calls from our latest marketing campaign. We are got a few calls yesterday from folks who had received our mail in between Thanksgiving and Christmas and are now wanting to do something about their properties. We had another 1,700 letters go out on Monday so I'm hoping our responses will double here shortly. Thanks again everyone for the help, feedback and advice!

  • Investor · San Diego, CA · Member since 2010 · 30 posts · 5 votes
    12y

    I've been following this thread because I am ready to send marketing again in North County San Diego. Yes thank you @Dev Horn for the excellent videos. Thank you Brandon for the update too. The SF marketing is one of the hardest in the country. If you can get results there anyone can do it in the rest of the country.

  • SFR Investor · Lees Summit, MO · Member since 2013 · 18 posts · 3 votes
    12y

    @Brandon Foken A landing page, blog and search are great starts and may be all you need. The key to blogs is maintaining them with continual updates and making sure your titles are something people may search for. Answer questions else will. Other tactics we have used are ebooks (time consuming but the chapters can be blog posts!), YouTube content (tag appropriately) and webinars. Good to hear you are from Lee's Summit. We love it here and plan on checking out at John Knox Village when the time comes!

    P.S. Marcus Sheridan is an incredible inbound marketer. He gave a TED Talk about how he turned his pool company around through blogging. I highly recommend watching it to anyone curious about how to connect with your clients in an increasingly digital world: Marcus Sheridan - The Honest Economy

  • Flipper/Rehabber · Bakersfield, CA · Member since 2008 · 3k+ posts · 3k+ votes
    12y

    The last few houses I bought at 50% of value and sold at 100%+ As Is with no repairs the sellers were more "County" then that.

    There's not a blog in the world that would have convinced these people to call someone...

    The ONLY thing that matters in marketing is that you're there with a message which solves a problem in the fashion to which the seller can comprehend and take action on. We cant create motivation and we certainly cant make our seller change to fit our life style of Armani, Vacheron and R8 rides.

  • Developer · Boston, MA · Member since 2013 · 35 posts · 5 votes
    12y

    This is a great thread. @Brandon Foken , thanks for providing updates to your direct mailing campaign. We kicked off our first campaign in December and sent out 2317 post cards which were a combination of absentee owners and driving for dollars. We got 30 calls with the majority being from our absentee list. Just wanted to see if you were finding the same response rates as well.

    Just submitted an order of 2240 yellow letters from yellowletters.com for our month two mailing. Can't wait to see what kind of results we get!

  • Goshen, KY · Member since 2009 · 835 posts · 683 votes
    12y

    @Kevin Oldham -

    Marketing for leads for real estate investors is a whole different animal. Our motivated sellers are "one time clients". We buy one house from them in most cases over a lifetime. If we come across someone that has multiple properties it is still usually due to that one contact; either direct mail or possibly a website.

    A blog is great for building authority in your niche. That can make you money in different ways such as coaching, information products and those types of things. Blogs can open many doors. I have a blog. But it is not for the purpose of getting leads to buy property.

    When a motivated seller has a house they need to sell quickly, they won't be looking for a blogger. They are most likely going to call one of two people:

    The folks that have sent them direct mail pieces (hands down my best source of leads), or someone that has a keyword rich website that they come across online.

    Sharon

  • SFR Investor · Lees Summit, MO · Member since 2013 · 18 posts · 3 votes
    12y

    @Sharon Vornholt In my experience blogs are just another viable method to drive attention to your site. You can have a blog section on your site and not be a "blogger". SEO around the variety of keywords/phrases your target may search for and drive traffic. It works whether you are selling hamburgers, soliciting inventory or finding out how to fix your car. My belief is that you have to be there at the zero moment of truth. How you manage costs, timing and overall ROMI will differ by market, company and person.

  • Goshen, KY · Member since 2009 · 835 posts · 683 votes
    12y

    @Kevin Oldham -

    I do have a blog component, but the only purpose is for credibility and to possibly keep them there a little longer at my site. When an absentee owner or distressed seller is fed up and wants to sell now, it is a quick process and very often an emotional decision. This business of dealing with motivated sellers is very different from most other businesses.

    I had a home inspection company for 17 years. That business was a "slow and steady" route to building trust. Blogs are definitely very important in that type of business. In that business the marketing process was like dating; the relationship was built over time and your goal was to get all of their (repeat) business.

    Sharon

  • SFR Investor · Lees Summit, MO · Member since 2013 · 18 posts · 3 votes
    12y

    @Sharon Vornholt couldn't agree more. My company is involved with about 4,000 auctions a year and we work distressed sellers everyday. Blogging is how we get and market properties, among many other tactics.

  • Flipper/Rehabber · Bakersfield, CA · Member since 2008 · 3k+ posts · 3k+ votes
    12y

    I was almost half empty on gas just the other day so I drove into the gas station for a fill up. I chose the station based upon price and location.

    I'm always amazed at the people who fill up using 30 cent more a gallon for gas.

    But then again we have milk at our store and it's always at different prices. Strange it seems.

    I was scrolling through the channels looking for news and noticed that fox is one number different than cnn. Just weird.

    What's that saying? Righty tighty lefty losey. Humm

  • Dev HornPro Member
    Flipper/Rehabber · Arlington, TX · Member since 2013 · 1k+ posts · 2k+ votes
    12y

    MQ, I think you just left the reservation! =)

    Personally, I don't see blogging as a meaningful way to reach motivated sellers. I see us reading each others' blogs for professional insights, but I'd guess sellers aren't looking for articles like this by people they don't know...

  • Goshen, KY · Member since 2009 · 835 posts · 683 votes
    12y

    @Dev Horn - I agree totally. Where my blog is concerned, it is written solely for investors. I don't want sellers (or my leads) even knowing about that site. Having a blog component on your buying website for the purpose of providing information for your sellers is another thing.

    I have actually written my BP blog post for tomorrow on this topic.

    Sharon

  • Flipper/Rehabber · Bakersfield, CA · Member since 2008 · 3k+ posts · 3k+ votes
    12y

    @Dev Horn

    Still here.... I was making a point.... A bad one I guess.

    The only time I see a blog as beneficial is when someone is establishing a nurturing business model. Which is fine for Realtors however for investors and communication with sellers a blog seems to be more busy work than opportunity.

    Maybe in the world of Shortsales where a seller needs confidence in a buyer a blog may help however for the majority I just cant see the need...

  • Wholesaler · Rochester, NY · Member since 2013 · 100 posts · 23 votes
    12y

    I always wonder how many motivated sellers do a Google search for the investor. Just a first and last name Google search will bring up their BP profile and/or website. Websites often have a "bought" and "sold" price listed. Obviously it doesn't stop them from selling!

  • Aubrey, TX · Member since 2013 · 5 posts · 0 votes
    12y
    Originally posted by @Michael Quarles:
    it's easy. Just stop rehabbing. Stop wholesaling.

    what is it you recommend instead. I am all ears and will take any advice trown my way.

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