All Forum Posts by: Dev Horn

I think there may be some real psychology to this; I defer to Patrick Jackson & Blair H. as I think they have good experience and advice.

Most of our mailings are higher volume and utilize standard postage which saves a huge 10 cents per piece. But the issue with standard postage is you have NO IDEA when the post office will get around to doing your mailing. We can easily control when we drop to the post office, but little control over their process. That said, I still think - for large volume mailings - the savings offset the psychology of what day people get stuff.

We do have other ways to drop messages on people on exact days of the week, so I remain very interested in what you guys think about this...

Jerry Puckett - I think your advise re: attracting an agent is PURE GOLD. Do you guys hear what he is saying? If you're "just an investor", you may be throwing away leads that are very valuable to Realtors - they may even PAY YOU $100, $200+ for decent leads and that - as Jerry says - could actually pay for a big portion of your marketing!! Pure genius.

And yes, we find that "we buy houses" as a keyword, drives lots of natural and paid searches - motivated sellers have seen the term a lot and now search on it. Check out what Danny Johnson said at 35 minutes into the last podcast:

http://www.biggerpockets.com/renewsblog/2013/05/16/flipping-marketing-wholesaling-danny-johnson/

This question is to everyone, hope to help Brian Lane think this thru:

What's the best way to establish a relationship with a Realtor that can help you with comps and keeping an eye out for deals on MLS? If you rehab & flip, I can see the pitch to a Realtor: If you help me, you will be the listing agent on all my properties... But what about a wholesaler OR a buy and hold investor - what do they have to offer an Agent that would motivate that agent to assist them (in a deal where the Agent is not the listing agent, not involved in the money)?

Not every idea is a great idea. Something is just not right about these postcards that failed to make the cut at We Buy Houses®:

http://marketing.webuyhouses.com/silly-postcards/

TOPIC: Marketing, Direct Mail

I'm going to admit I have not read every single post in this thread, but just thinking about the last few.... this is to me, a silly argument. This is 2013 people, not 1993.... You offer BOTH a phone number and website. No email. There are some people that will prefer to go online to contact you, and you want those guys to fill out a form so you can collect the right info. There are other people that will just call you. Give them the OPTION, and you get more leads overall. Eliminate one of these methods and you will lose some % of potential leads.

If they are people that are likely to go online and look for OTHER sites/investors, they will do that anyway. We tend to think of marketing in a vacuum, like we're the only ones sending them a postcard or something. Hint: you are not the only one, there are others competing for these leads. Give motivated sellers a reason to contact YOU and a way to contact you that they are comfortable doing. That's my 2 cents =)

P.S. It helps to have a killer domain name that people will remember at a GLANCE. And killer SEO on the term "we buy houses". ;-)

Listsource.com (CoreLogic) sells lists. While they are a great source, we find similar data at Click2Mail.com for less $. But their printing fees are high, so we use other vendors for the printing & mailing. My point there would be, shop around for the components and you can save serious $ over the course of a multi-touch campaign.

Bandit signs violate local regulations in many areas, but in some you can now get a permit to put them out for short periods of time. If you can do them, they are cheap and they work.

Google keywords in our business are not cheap, but they may be for your market. Most people assume PPC is the cheapest way to find leads - not always true.

Identify your market, dial in your message, and plan on hitting them repeatedly, in different ways, in a multi-touch campaign. Otherwise, you could just be tossing $$ out the window.

I often say, it may be true that you can buy houses without money, but it definitely takes money to do marketing. And you will soon find, it is all about finding the right deals, and enough of them to make a living.

I wish you MUCH SUCCESS Ethan Hamilton!

Both lists are good candidates for marketing. Either could be a frustrated landlord or inherited property, etc. Out of state absentees have slightly different motivations, so you might market to them with separate letters/postcards, etc.

But we like 'em both! You have the right source in Listsource.com...

Wish you the BEST Michael Sanders!

Yes, there are way too many fishermen with their lines in the water in the MLS area of the lake. I totally agree with you Kyle B. that it's better to fish in an area where there aren't so many boats.

Pardon the silly fishing analogy....

This applies equally to people all sending direct mail to the same old lists. Get creative. Be innovative. What can you do that other people are not all doing??? =)

Holy cow, this is a GREAT PODCAST! Danny Johnson is one of my new favorites here in BP!

Best one since Sharon Vornholt's, IMHO.

What Lynn Andris said about the disclosure requirements is definitely something you need to research and understand if you intend to be both a Realtor AND investor. The model we've seen work a lot is a partnership (some times husband and wife team) where one is the investor and the other the Agent.

I will say this - the people in our programs that can both buy AND list properties are KILLING IT. Every lead you get is more valuable in that scenario. I often wonder how many investors just throw away leads of sellers who ultimately list with SOMEONE...