Advice on next steps

[Griffin F.]

Greetings everyone!

So, 5 weeks ago I sent out approx. 800 mailers. I built an absentee owner list using listsource. The first mailer I sent was a postcard used from vistaprint.

My criteria looked as such:
County
CT:HARTFORD
CT:MIDDLESEX
CT:NEW HAVEN
(First) Mortgage Origination Date
01/01/1900-08/01/2005
Last Market Recording Date
01/01/1900-01/01/2005
Property Type
Residential: Duplex
Residential: Multi-Family
Residential: SFR
Equity(%)
40 to 100 %
Last Market Sale Price
$50,000-$125,000
OWNER-OCCUPIED
Absentee Owned In-State
Absentee Owned Out-of-State
ALL STATES
ADDRESS-COMPLETENESS
Mailing and Property address Complete
CORPORATE-OWNED
Exclude

Out of all the mailers, I have only received one response. Considering this disappointing return, I am wondering what possible errors I may have made.

As it is coming time for me to send out the 2nd mailer, what would be the best approach? A letter? another postcard?

Thanks

Griffin

[Dev Horn]

Everything Michael Quarles said above is dead-on correct.

Direct mail is subject to some laws that are almost as consistent as the laws of physics. Here's what I say to people: Expect NOTHING from your first 2-3 mailings, and everything you get will be gravy.

The first few mailings are just priming the pump of consumer awareness. You need to consider (1) limited attention and (2) competition.

1 - Consumers' time is divided among thousands of competing messages every day. There is a high degree of NOISE that prevents your message from being heard/consumed.

2 - You are not the only RE investor sending them direct mail (especially if you are sending to the same lists as everyone else - e.g., absentee owners).

The #1 rookie mistake we see is investors that do 1 or 2 direct mail drops to a list, get low response, and bail out. They would have been better off to not do it at all. If you are going to do this, commit to 6 mailings (to a list) with a frequency of every 3 (best) to 6 (OK) weeks.