Yellowletters.com or actual handwritten? Which, more succesful?

Question

Is it worth it to just get them made on the site or done by actual hand whether that be through or outsourced through a few of my college buds?

Michael Quarles · Answer

College buds seems like a great choice as long as it doesn't cost more than hiring a yellow letter company.

And costs aren't limited to actual cost of a letter however go way beyond.  Things like loss of opportunity and consistency.    Beside some companies charge as little as .79 cents.  That's hard to match.

The biggest issue is a real statement by Ron LeGrand.  The less I do the more I make.

I would rather be talking to sellers over buying stamps and dealing with mailings that take too long.

All that said.  No matter how you proceed get your mail out.

Good luck.

Ps. How did I do mods.

Dev Horn · Answer

Yeah, Blair H. - I definitely see the logic in that.  Sometimes it's all about doing what you can with what you have.  And if you don't have a marketing budget, there is nothing wrong with the DIY approach to get you going.  Great point.  And here's to all those who are just starting out - no excuses!  Get going!  =)

Dusty Warner · Answer

After trying to contact a local Texas Yellow Letter provider multiple time with no reply I decided to give it a shot myself. I'm really glad I did!!

I have a work printer, Free Ink!!.., Bought some wide ruled paper and 4x6 color envelopes  at Wal-Mart for cheap, Went to YouTube and learned how to do a mail merge using Excel and Word, Bought some really cool stamps from the USPS, found a cool hand written script from Dafont.com, and printed my own custom mailers using a custom list purchased from Listsource.

Canon MG3222 Printer (fed the regular paper & 4x6 envelopes just fine!!)

Stamp-.49

Envelope- .5

Paper-.01

Ink-Free

TOTAL- 55 Cents per mailer!!

The list I bought from Listsource cost me about .22 per lead.

Grand Total- 77 Cents per Mailer

Time- Maybe a total of 3 hours (creating mailer template, printing, stuffing, stamping)

Michael Quarles · Answer

Just make certain the envelope is real handwriting.

Blair Halver · Answer

Hey Dev Horn, I agree and disagree with you.  I started out handwriting my own letters.  I did a couple hundred one week, and then I was done.  It was the worst.  So I agree with you that handwriting your own letters is a bad idea.

However, I disagree that actually handwriting the letter only gives a marginal advantage.  My experience has shown that it does indeed increase response rate, which is the goal for anyone trying to maximize their few marketing dollars.

If a new investor has more time than money to invest, he wants to maximize his return by turning the "quantity" of responses way up even if the "quality" of the responses goes down.  When he gets to a point where he has more money than time to invest, he does the opposite and makes his mailers more stringent in their qualifying characteristics.

P.S. again, my company does not provide yellow letter service (as of the date of this writing... :-))

Jamaal Hunt · Answer

Indeed as long as your envelope is handwritten they'll open it anyway. Thing is though so many people are using the "handwritten" approach and many sellers get tons of them. So what makes your actually stand out? Some will say the "color of the ink" or the "color of the envelope" or "depends on what you say" Well the thing is it doesnt matter. If you just so happened to be the right person to mail to them at the right time they'll call. It is just that simple.

Dev Horn · Answer

OMG, please don't try to HAND WRITE your own letters!  Time is MONEY.  Sure you can "outsource" it (to people who will later sue you because they developed carpal tunnel syndrome).

There are plenty of places that will print yellow letters with a handwritten font, if that's what you think will be effective.  One of the reasons I like yellowletters.com if they have a lot of intelligence about what works and what doesn't (not just a printer).

Looks guys, the handwriting is kind of a psychological trick.  The strategy gets people to pay attention to something that they may otherwise ignore.  The handwritten fonts accomplish this.  The incremental value of having it ACTUALLY HANDWRITTEN is small.  Are you trying to make them think you only care about THEIR house? (i.e., that you love it so much you might even pay FULL RETAIL for it?).  This is where some of that marketing intelligence comes in - with verbiage that says "I'm looking to buy a house in this neighborhood, I'm asking all your other neighbors too, and I can only do one, so if you are interested in selling, let me know ASAP."  (loosely quoted from text I saw on Michael's site).  I love that.  It's setting the right expectation.

Think about where you are going with this from a STRATEGY standpoint, and consider the psychology involved.

Michael Quarles · Answer

Great point Chris    Beating the street is an awesome method.

As a guy who has done 200 plus deals a year I need a way to find the prospect predictably.

As for everyone sending to the same list IMHO that's actually a positive thing.  I can't buy the 10,000 plus houses I market to and neither can the other investors.   We can however help each other indirectly by touching prospects.

It's why they create shopping malls.   Multiple opportunities attract more wealth then a single opportunity.

Think about fast food.   They rarely build one all by itself.   Typically there's a Taco Bell McDonald's and Fat n the Box on each corner.

Heck gas stations do the same.

Between Thursday and Saturday look at all of the bundled junk mail.   Co marketing works.

Winston Spence · Answer

@Dusty Warner

What fonts did you use from dafont.com?

Dusty Warner · Answer

I did contact @Michael Q. 's company and they were very professional and helpful.  If I decide to outsource my mailers in the future I will definitely use his company!

Yellowletters.com or actual handwritten? Which, more succesful?

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