Small Budget is it worth doing Direct Mail?

Question

I have a very small marketing budget, as of now I'm using bandit signs, but I would like to add direct mailing to my plan. I have a very small budget and can afford sending out 100 postcards a week, and 100 yellow letters a week, my list is about 1800 (absentee owners) is it worth sending these cards out? or should I just use my marketing dollars elsewhere?

Thanks

Bryan Hancock · Answer

You don't need to write them...there are templates to do it with a printer.  That will save you a ton of time and effort.

The list is the most important part!  It doesn't matter how good your campaign is if your list sucks ;-)

Travis Newton · Answer

Will do, thanks Bryan, Yellow letters and bandit signs it is (I already have the signs out, and have about 75 oout of 200 left) And yes the list is good, it even has the name/address of the owner of the townhouse I used to rent lol, so yea I feel extremely confident in my list.

I'll start writing my letters tonight and start sending out 100 a week...and do research here on BP in regards to follow up.

Thanks, again, great advice.

Bryan Hancock · Answer

Skip the postcards...go straight to yellow letters.

The envelope needs to look like an invitation and the copy on the front needs to look handwritten.  A fancy seal on the back REALLY helps too.

There are systems set up to do follow ups on the initial set of yellow letters.  I am pretty sure this is discussed on the forums...do some research.

Bryan Hancock · Answer

I one of my recent former lives I ran a coaching program and we sent out THOUSANDS of marketing pieces each month.  We also did ads in newspapers, signs, website leads, bird dogs, etc.

Yellow letters done PROPERLY yielded a consistent 14% response rate.  Postcards were on the order of any other form of direct mail...more like 2%.  Postcards didn't cost as much, but if you have a very targeted list that you pay good money for you want to hit it with the best form of marketing.

Very low would be less than $100.  The letters will likely cost you about $1/each depending on who does the work, how much you buy, etc.

Bandit signs pull well too, but you will eventually get nabbed by the sign police no matter how creative you are.  When you run a business putting out tens of thousands dollars worth of marketing it tends to attract the attention of Barney Fife and you get nasty calls.

I would do ALL yellow letters OR yellow letters and bandit signs.  Scrap the postcards.

Travis Newton · Answer

Bryan, to get clarification on "REAL" invitation...for my yellow letters I was going to do, yellow legal pad paper, red ink, and send them out in invitation envelopes...when you say "REAL" I'm assuming you mean in the invitation envelopes?

And to follow up on postcard vs. yellow letter, I was going to send the postcard week 1 and then the following week send a yellow letter to the same individuals....what's your (or anyone for that matter) opinion on that strategy?

Thanks!

Tadd Bennett · Answer

I would have to agree with Bryan on this one. Altho Bandit signs bring in a lot of traffic in phone calls your yellow letters will actually bring you quality leads and actual deals.

Bryan I'm curious on what you consider " VERY low" and why you prefer letters over postcards, if you don't mind.

Bryan Hancock · Answer

I would argue that scrapping the bandit signs and doing JUST yellow letters would be a better use of your money.  If you already have the list and just need to put the letters out a small budget will work just fine.

Postcards are pretty worthless in my experience.  The money spent on those is better spent on yellow letters if you are budget constrained.

Make sure you don't skimp on the quality of the letters.  They need to look like a REAL invitation or they won't get opened.  That is the trouble with postcards so if you are going to skimp on the materials for the letters you may as well do the postcards...both will yield a VERY low response rate regardless of the copy.