Here are my results after about $67K worth of direct mail cost in 2014. It would be awesome is we could have everyone who has sent more than, say, 5,000 mail pieces, to post their REAL WORLD results as well. Collectively, it would be cool to see what if any patterns emerge in terms of mail pieces that have done best, what the response rates have been, the overall profit and return people have made from their direct mail efforts, etc. This should hopefully answer a lot of newbie questions on potential response rates, how much profit they might expect from their marketing efforts, and the sheer volume of mail required to generate ANY deals at all. The majority of lists I mail to (approx 80%) are high equity (40% or more equity) in zip codes close to me in DC metro area- all lists purchased on listsource. All my mail pieces go to a simple, personal sounding voicemail. I've found, after 2 years now of sending 40,000 plus mail pieces each year, that the people who hang up and don't leave messages are virtually never motivated sellers. If they're motivated, they leave a message. It's for this reason I don't pay for a call answering service to receive the messages. OVERALL NUMBERS: Spend: $67,000 Total Profit: $106,000 (not counting one I renovated and will be selling early this year) Net Profit: $39,000 Return on Spend: 58.2% (pretty sweet) *Note- this profit calculation does not include the cost of my time required to get this profit, which was quite significant. This includes the initial phone call, driving out and meeting the owner at their house, follow-up until I have signed contract back, and the BS associated with title problems, seller's getting cold feet and trying to back out of contracts, and all the other stuff that comes up from contract signing to actually settling on the house. BEST PERFORMING MAIL PIECE: Handwritten letter on yellow lined paper with handwritten invitation (A6) sized envelope in random colors (pink, light blue, yellow, etc) I have graphics on BOTH the letter and the envelope- things like dollar signs, stars, arrows, houses, etc- whatever random stuff I could think of to make the letter more eye catching and 'WTF' eliciting when opened by the homeowner, so they would actually read it. SECOND BEST PERFORMING MAIL PIECE: 5.5 x 11 inch yellow post card (big post card) with somewhat handwritten looking font. Includes various graphics (similar to the yellow letter)- i.e. star, house, arrows, etc. MAIN THOUGHT AFTER THIS PAST YEAR: Hypothetically discussing what might and might not work when it comes to direct mail is only worthwhile to the extent it provides new ideas for things to test in the real world. Beyond that, trying to imagine what will or will not do well is pointless. Only way to know what will or will not work is to pick ONE variable and split test it by sending each half of mail pieces exactly the same, to same list, with the exception of the one variable you are trying to test.

@Christina R. I end up listing them as an agent. It's a pretty easy conversion process. Sometimes I even up the price when I list and sell it in less than a week. Everyone is happy. I listed and sold 50 homes last year at an average price of $210,000. My avg days on market was 27 and add about 33 for financing and my avg time it took to get paid was only 60 days. At a 3% commission that's $6,000/week listing one house per week. To me that's a lot less risky than direct mail. Btw my avg cost per listing was only about $300/house.

@Jonathan C. based on this I appreciate your Candor.. If this is typical of the direct mail marketing efforts I can't see how anyone would do this. as Opposed to just selling RE. If one spent half that amount as a RE Agent I bet they would make twice as much with much less risk. That all said I suspect others do better and of course you have those that send out 10k letters and never get a response. I do direct letter campaigns in certain markets but they are totally different than what y'all do. I am in the South this week so my Yall is coming out.. Off to Oregon tomorrow though.

@Jonathan C. - props for having the stones to throw your metrics out there for the world to see and looking for tangible ways to improve them. If you don't measure it, you can't improve it.

I'm not so sure it's the opening as much as the timing. It has been said "The first vacuum cleaner salesman never has a chance. It's the 4th, or 5th, or 6th one that the housewife buys from." So, I think it's a magic number, and that number varies from person to person. So, grind the magic beans. Go listen to a GURU on a mountaintop. It's not WHAT, but WHEN. My opinion. How many times have I entered a house I bought, only to find a stack of "Yellow Letters" on the kitchen counter-all opened. Why did they select mine?

I love this! Thank you for your insight. My office is just a tad behind pace to buy 100 houses in 2015. We mail 8,000 pieces / mo. We build our own lists and then have a profiler edit the list down to the top 30,000 prospects. We use 2 Ph#s in or pieces; We use a ph# directly to an acquisitions closer and we use a LiveComm.com ph# pointed to a "FREE RECORDED MESSAGE" this is huge! We mail a physical contract to every single caller! This is huge. We use TLO to track down owners of return post cards; we send every single one of those prospects a physical contract. This is huge! Our goal is to by 2 houses per week. We started flat footed on Jan 1 with our plan. We got skunked a few weeks early in but our biggest week yielded 11 acquisitions... we're catching up to our goal of 2 per week. Sales are a non-issue with LiveComm.com (you just need door openers) We have 5 acquisition mgrs and 3 sales mgr. Within each group there's a team leader that gets an overuse on all activity. Everyone in my company is paid on results, within 48 hrs of the checks hitting our account. Pay scales are very lucrstive. I have studs on this team. My job is to keep all the carrots in a EXACTLY the right place, help the team close difficult transaction they'd otherwise lose. We are great closers! Everyone is making very good money and the processes are as smooth as you can ask for; very defined. I am responsible for all the funding dollars; me or my private lenders out up the money. I pay a full time bookkeeper, an inside closer for our deals, and the office space (I own the building). These are the only 2 employees besides myself. Everyone gets some type of a bonus per transaction - in or out. We will wholesale or whole-tail 40% of or acquisitions. We "Owner Finance" the other 60% and average $400/house positive cash flow with nonlanlording liabilities; we are the BANK! Payments only please; if something breaks, don't call us...it's not out house. 20 years and 1,300 deals later, I may have finally figured it out how to do volume and have a life. It's all about having a great team and making sure EVERY ONE OF THEM are taken care of. --Mitch Stephen-- Mitch@1000Houses.com

@Jonathan C. Wow. This business would not be anywhere near as exciting if I had to spend that kind of money for a return. I would imagine your cash flow becomes tight at times. Right now we are sitting at 10.09% YTD. Ex: Spend $1,000 Profit $10,000. You should be aiming for 10-20%. I would ditch the voicemail and would completely disagree with "hangups are not motivated". I called back a hangup last year and cleared 38K on it. It's sometimes hard, but don't judge the callers until you're sitting at their kitchen table.

Eric Dembinski I think for this year I'll probably up it to about $100K and see if the profit and return on spend stays at same ratios I experienced last year. If there's always a 30%+ return on spend there really isn't any reason I can think of not to keep upping the marketing spend it as long as the return stays in a similar ballpark.

70,000 Mail Pieces in 2014; What Did I Get For It?

Jesse T.

Herndon, VA · Member since 2014 · 1k+ posts · 324 votes

70,000 Mail Pieces in 2014; What Did I Get For It?

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