Best Use Of Money for Direct Mail

[Michael DeFrancisis]

Hello BiggerPockets!

I have just started as a wholesaler a couple of months ago. I have been spending most of this time developing my websites, forming and branding my LLC, and networking with other investors in the area. With those basics now becoming more and more complete, I am eager to begin my first direct mail marketing campaign.

I have been reading many BP threads about postcards vs. yellow letters, and they each seem to have their own benefit.  PC will be cheaper and would allow me to "scrub" my list, whereas YL will likely have a higher response rate.  To begin, I have roughly 3,100 high equity, absentee owner leads that I want to begin a drip campaign with.  My initial thought was a swing campaign (1st Month = 1,550 PCs, 2nd Month = the other 1,550 PCs, 3rd Month = YL for the month 1 mailing list, etc.).  I would do that for 6 months, for a total of 9300 pieces of mail, touching each lead 3 times.

My question is - does anybody have any advice on a better way to contact this mailing list multiple times? I want the biggest bang for my buck, and while I recognize that there is no "one size fits all" method for wholesaling, the quotes I am getting from PostCardMania and other yellow letter companies are adding up to roughly $6K for 6 months (this includes printing, variable info, postage, and mailing). I fully understand that it takes money to make money, and $6K isn't the largest amount spent on a marketing budget, but I feel there is a more economical way to contact 3100 leads. I'm not sure only 3100 leads will give me a good ROI with this system.

I look forward to your responses!

Mike

[Paul Amegatcher]

@Michael DeFrancisis

I use a yellow letter campaign printed off my brother printer.  I use yellow canary paper (no lines) and my own handwritten font.  I use mail merge with excel data to create the letters.  The envelopes are printed using handwritten font as well.  This is all streamlined and costs me about $0.55 per letter.  I also use a self adhesive #10 envelope from costco.  I get about a 8% response rate.  You can youtube yellow letters mail merge to see videos on how to do this.

I currently mail about a 1000 letters a month and only mail to tax delinquent owners in my county.  Tax delinquent list gets me a better response than the high equity list.