All Forum Posts by: Shane Foster

Keep it simple like the one below. Your list is more important.

We have tested every type of copy and the standard one always pulls the best. Most calls and highest conversion rate.

I received a few emails regarding this. The leads.

I will try to answer everyone's questions here.

1. The leads are free if you buy 1000 or more letters from us. 

2. The subject property you want to buy is marked vacant by USPS, not the mailing address. 

3. We can search by zip code or counties. Your choice

4. The leads can have a 1 or all of these filters (the more filters the limited number of leads) Vacant property, free and clear, out of state owner, and commercial or residual. We normally suggest you use VACANT, FREE AND CLEAR, AND RESIDENTIAL. 

5. I am closing this offer on Friday March 20 at 5pm.

6. TO ORDER CLICK HERE

7.TO VIEW OUR YELLOW LETTER SITE CLICK HERE

CLICK HERE TO ORDER NOW!

sorry to hear about your experience. But this is why I say marketing is not an exact science at first. Absentee owners is a great list if done in bulk. in your first go around always use the short yellow letter. You mail peice should not try to disqualify a seller, only you should.

There is nothing wrong with standard mail. Slow yes, but it gets delivered. And yes, standard mail does not get returned to you. But most mail houses lease software that can predict (with great accuracy) if a mail peice won't get delivered and can cross reference it with usps to get the most up to date addresses. 

@Lamont Marable glad I could help! Good luck

 JPaul,

We are ready to rock in roll! Let me know if you need anything else. 

Congrats on tracking your calls/leads. Results look slow.. I would highly suggest looking at other list. I maybe wrong, but the inheritance lead list is simply pulled based on a special deed http://budgeting.thenest.com/change-deed-inherit-property-30172.html. Also quit claim deed signal an inherited property. Look at pulling probates, vacant, and evictions. If you have boots on the ground you can send them to the court house to get a lot of information.  If you do not mind me asking, why did you pick the Cleveland area? Are you wholesaling there.

Since you are in Cali I would most certainly sign up for propertyradar.com. It is a no brainier. You can pull your absentee owner leads there. You should pick three list to work. Probates, vacants, and absentee owners. I would send 250-500 per a week and market to the same list 6 times every 6 weeks.  First round send yellow letters, 6 weeks later send professional letter, next 6 send postcard.. and then repeat. Probates can be pulled from your court house, vacant and absentee owners can be bought at flipthisrealestatelist.com. You can use a few different criteria. But I always use ownership of absentee owner's of 15+ years, equity of 50% and up, remove llc's/llp, trust. For more criteria it depends on your market and what your buyers are looking for. 2 bedrooms/condos will not fly in my area- but in yours they may. 

This one is the one that pulls best.

would not worry to much about envelope size. Normally anything other than white #10. I am testing a blue #10. Stands out pretty well because of the color. Normally I said the 6x9. I like using the larger envelopes because they stick out. Almost 3 inches taller than a normal envelope.

Direct mail is all about the 3 "M": Message, market medium. Not every delivery vehicle (mail piece) is going to encourage a response from a recipient. That is why advise everyone to mail to one list 6 different times (on average it takes a 2-6 touches to make a recipient want to respond) using a different vehicle.

In setting up your campaign the best thing to do is set up a monthly mail budget and stick to it. Once you close a deal, take 25% and invest it back into marketing.

THE MOST IMPORTANT thing is your list (MARKET). I'd avoid the absentee owners. They are getting marketed to like crazy and we are seeing dismal results (especially in LA). Here are the list we use in our business with a lot of success. Pick three and test them. 

1. Probate- get from county or state (just google what court handles these cases and call to find out)

2. Evictions

3. 2 or more years late on taxes, then run it through my software to find the vacants. Find who handles your the taxes and then file a Right To Know (if applicable)

4 60, 90 days late on mortgage

5. Notice of default (foreclosure).. constantly stay in their ear , from start to finish.

6. discharged/dismissed bankruptcy cases (get from pacer)

7.Tax lien sale- published in legal news papers when auctions come up

8. Divorce- get from court

9. 25+ years owned or more for owner occupants with equity (list-source)

10. Code Violations

11. Vacant properties (drive for dollars)

12. absentee owners 3-5 years owned (most landlords sale after the first 2 years, and with prices climbing its a perfect list)

13. inherited properties: some states do not require heirs to go through probate if the will was recorded prior to death. these properties are sold through under a special deed

14. Expired listings.

As for which one is better, that is a loaded questions. Like I said before you need to use a mixture of everything.

Here is my current mailing stats for probate:

Week 1: Yellow letter. On the first go around I average 12% using the short message. I get about 300 probate leads a month. 25-40 phone calls. But actually we only make offers on about 25-35% of them. 

Week6 (we only remove them unless we get a contract): Large handwritten postcard. 8% response rate.

Week 12: Profession letter 5% response

Week 18: Postcard Small: 2% response

Week 24: Yellow Letter Long (mention previous attempts) response

Week 30: Postcard