All Forum Posts by: Blair Halver

Originally posted by Michael Spencer:

I've been trying to gather information on response rate -> deal and haven't found too much info on it. Obviously the market is different everywhere but I've heard you should get around a 3-5% response rate from direct mail and about 1 in 50 calls should turn into a deal. With this math is should come out to 1 in 1666.7 letters you send equals a deal.

With above math is should cost you ~$1500 to get 1 deal. Can anybody here critique that math off of your experiences?

Hi Michael
My name is Blair, and I'll tell you up front, I'm a little biased towards direct mail because I run a direct mail service, but I believe the reason there is not a lot of info about leads-to-deal ratio out there is because it is a bit nebulous. Some people say 25-30 leads to get a deal. Others say 50. But then how to you define "lead"? There are too many variables to determine a standard leads-to-deal ratio, the biggest variable being yourself.

I actually just wrote a post on my biggerpockets blog about this very topic. Here's the link: http://www.biggerpockets.com/blogs/3572/blog_posts/25567-deal-to-leads-ratio-or-how-many-leads-does-it-take-to

You may find it useful. You, too, Brandon.

As to your cost per deal of $1500, this sounds somewhat in line with most investors. I believe $1000-1500 is the typical range people shoot for in terms of marketing cost per deal.

One question - are YOU going to be preparing the 23,000 direct mail pieces you're sending out? Yikes! :-) I saw that on your spreadsheet. Nice spreadsheet, by the way. Did you make that whole thing yourself?

I used to spend a LOT of time making spreadsheets to analyze various cash flow projections for my new businesses. After a while, and maybe you'll find this too, I realized that I would usually spend way too much time tinkering with my spreadsheet and way too little time doing the important work like marketing. Ha! I'd just say, don't fall into that trap!

Hope this info helps.

Originally posted by Karen M.:

Blair H. When I originally read your post I thought it sounded like a great response rate, etc. In noting the website address I clicked onto it and read the info on your company. That too sounded interesting.

My comment was simply to ask if it was in fact your company, as it seemed strange to me that if it were, you didn't mention that you owned a company that did direct marketing. As for Michael Q., if you look at his posts, it was always obvious he was the owner of his company, and therefore; when reading his posts it gave him more credibilitiy on the subject, as it would you too.

Please understand, nobody is putting you or your company down. All of us, including me, has had posts booted to another area, in fact I did just a few days ago, I had something moved to Marketplace!

So, welcome aboard. Please share with us about your marketing ideas and other real estate investing goals, etc. that's what we come here for!

Karen M. Thanks so much for your message. I appreciate your help and your input as I figure this all out.

I'll be posting more marketing ideas on my BP blog soon. Thanks again.

Originally posted by Ann Bellamy:

Welcome, Blair H., I followed your other thread with interest, where you got called out, sort of, and then responded pretty well, I thought. I have had posts removed and edited when I didn't understand property how BP worked. I felt a little bit like a kid getting my hand slapped, but I kept at it, and am better at contributing where appropriate, and avoiding the taboo approaches.

I find it interesting that you transitioned from being the wholesaler to providing the marketing tools. That implies that you think you can do better by providing the tool than by doing the wholesale deal yourself. Or maybe it just fits better with your inclination and skill set. I myself fund rehabs, because I love the process of rehabbing and providing a beautiful home to a buyer, but am terrible at managing contractors. I know rehabbers make more money than I do, but my inclination is the numbers, not the hassle of rehabbing. So it works for me.

I have a networking group out of your geographic area and I'd like to have a topic about direct mail marketing. I'll PM you and maybe we can come up something that would work for both of us.

Hey Ann,
Thanks for responding. Yes, kid getting hand slapped is about what it felt like, with some indictment from the pre-crime unit thrown in for good measure. Ha! It's all good though.

As for transitioning from wholesaling to marketing, you're about right there. Whenever I'd actually get a deal under contract, I'd take it to my investors and they'd all complain that I either didn't get it low enough for them, I should have done it this way with some owner financing, I should have used a different purchase contract, etc etc. I got fed up with it and finally told them, alright, I'll just send the person straight to you and you can negotiate your own deal however you like it. And they did. And I got paid on the back end quite well - I had some good investors I was working with that I could trust.

Your area of expertise in funding rehabs is intriguing to me. I consider myself a numbers guy - financing was an area I was fascinated with a couple years ago, buying discounted notes, etc. Never did any deals like that, but man I could build some massive spreadsheets! I loved it. To that end, I'd love to hear more about what you do exactly when funding the rehabs, etc.

Looking forward to your PM.

Thanks.

Originally posted by JImarcus Blanding:

Hi Blair, welcome. I'm in the Atlanta area as well and a Robert Kiyosaki student as well. Always good to learn new marketing strategies. Could you post the link to the thread John is referring too in his post, sound interesting.

Hey Jimarcus,
Thanks for the welcome. What part of Atlanta are you in? I'm in Marietta.

Eduardo, thanks for linking.

Originally posted by Jon Klaus:

Welcome to BiggerPockets, Blair, though I know you aren't exactly new to BP. I've been following your post card response thread with interest. It's always good to learn more about making our marketing work more effectively.

Hey Jon,
Thanks so much for the warm welcome. I really appreciate it. It makes me think this whole forum thing may not be that frustrating and scary after all.

Originally posted by Karen M.:

Blair H. I'm sure you are aware that the website link is shown on the bottom of your post. Maybe you can explain to us why were you hesitant to associate yourself as the owner of Dealbot in previous posts?

I didn't think I was being hesitant about sharing that. I wasn't hiding anything. After all, my picture and bio is on the company website linked in my signature for public viewing.

I just didn't want to bring it up in the thread until someone asked. And then when you asked, I responded immediately with full disclosure.

I didn't want to start the thread by saying "Hi I'm Blair I own a direct mail marketing service..." I thought that would surely be considered promotion. No?

So I didn't hide anything when asked, but I didn't bring it up unprompted because I was trying to follow the forum rules. Was that right? If not, what should I have done?
Thanks

Originally posted by Joshua Dorkin:

Quick Note: I've peeled off a post to a new thread that inquired about Blair's company and placed it in the ASK ABOUT A REAL ESTATE COMPANY section of the forums. Please take any questions about this company there.

Awesome. Thanks, Josh.

Originally posted by Joshua Dorkin:

You're certainly ok talking about things you know about, which is what you appear to be doing in this thread. I'm not certain what happened here, but I'm not seeing any problems in the thread unless I missed it.

The thing is not to post a thread that's just designed to get people to ask: how can I get that? Where do I buy it? etc. Essentially -- a thread that is a lead in to an ad needs to be placed in the Marketplace like any other ad. I'm guessing that is what the others think you've done here.

Josh, Thanks so much for chiming in. I appreciate the info and I can understand now what the issue was. If I was reading a thread that was one big long lead-in to an ad, I might be a little perturbed myself.

To all: I'm sorry I did not disclose who I am more fully. Please know that my intent was not to simply develop a lead-in to an ad. Honestly, I didn't think much past the first post that started the thread. All I wanted to do was to give people information that it seemed they were interested in reading about. And if at the same time I can inspire other direct mail marketers to greater success simply by letting them know that 10% response rates are POSSIBLE, then I hope I've added some value. It's the old saying: "whether you think you can or you think you can't, you are right."

I have set my profile to public now (at least I think I have). I did not know that that was an issue. I'm not normally a fan of putting all my info out there in public view on a website that I do not control, but I see the little checkbox now that says you can have google not index your profile.

I'm now trying to figure out how to make my signature look like Josh's and Jerry's with all my info. Not sure if I'm getting it right yet. Working on it!

I've now introduced myself in the proper forum:
https://www.biggerpockets.com/forums/55-new-member-introductions/topics/80668-wholesaler-direct-mail-marketer-in-atlanta-ga-area

So, to get this thread back to something fruitful...

Originally posted by Jerry Puckett:

Your first post in this thread caught my attention because the numbers didn't look right to me. As I was following along the thread, I kept waiting for the other shoe to drop...What Josh may or may not know is that a 10% response rate for Postcards is a startling headline for anyone that does direct mail marketing.

I still get the impression from you, Jerry, that you don't believe me when I mention the response rates. I don't know what to do to make it more believable. Here are individual response rates from mailings I've done:
13.67%
7.45%
11.98%
8.62%
10.00%
9.30%
14.50%
7.63%
Average for those mailings is 10.39% (the average has changed slightly since my first post on this thread). This is number of phone calls divided by number of postcards sent. But the response rate doesn't mean much if it doesn't turn into deals of course.

One thing I was thinking about earlier, it's not so much the medium of direct mail you choose, but rather the message. In other words, whether it's a yellow letter or a postcard or a glossy full color postcard, I think the message has more impact than the medium.

Originally posted by Jerry Puckett:

You present yourself as a wholesaler in this thread, not a direct mail marketer…

It's an interesting question, what is the difference between a wholesaler and a direct mail marketer? When I was strictly wholesaling, all I actually did was direct mail marketing. My investors did everything else and I'd get paid on the back end.

I felt like that's what I was - a direct mail marketer, not a wholesaler. Now I don't wait to get paid on the back end so I guess technically it's not wholesaling (in the traditional sense of the word), I just do direct mail marketing, the same as I did before. To me, this is a way to "do wholesaling" for more people in more places. The line betweeen the two professions gets very blurry in my situation. So for the site, I labeled myself as a wholesaler, since that's essentially what I do. But I don't put that on the company website because it makes more sense to position the service as a direct mail service. Maybe I messed up on that one. I figured it sounded better to be a direct mail marketer that only charges for results, than a wholesaler who doesn't do any negotiating of the deal. Ha!

Originally posted by Jerry Puckett:

all this time I thought he was trying to help, but he really just wanted to sell me

This is another interesting concept. I see what you're saying, for sure. But sales professionals who truly believe in the benefit that their product or service gives will argue that they ARE helping people even if/when the prospect buys something from them.

Originally posted by Jerry Puckett:

You mention Michael Quarles... he also got censured again and again for being too direct about selling his products outside the marketplace forum.

This is good to know. Now I don't feel so bad about this. Ha!

Thanks, Jerry, for your help here.

My name is Blair, I’m a former wholesaler turned marketing consultant from North Carolina, now based outside Atlanta, GA.

I’m a student of Jay Abraham, Richard Johnson, Robert Kiyosaki, Ron LeGrand, Preston Ely, and Cris Chico. I’m a published author and consultant, and have also worked in the television industry since 2003.

On top of that I’m a student pilot, a web designer, an operations designer, a software developer, a husband, a father of two, and a follower of The Way.

I own a direct mail marketing company which is referenced in my profile (not posted here so I don't break any rules).

Glad to be here.

Originally posted by Jerry Puckett:

Hey Blair, if you're going to market your product on this site, at least be straight up about it, and do it in the proper forum. This kind of sneaky schilling stuff just mostly irritates the majority of people on BP

Hey Jerry,
Thanks for your input. I gotta say, sometimes I feel like I can't get anything right on here. I wasn't aware I was "marketing my product" on this thread. I mean, I never even mentioned the name of the company or that I even do direct mail for other people. Instead, I gave props to Michael Quarles' "competing company", shared actual data collected from spending a lot of money on mailings so that whoever reads this can learn from it, and gave more tips and info when asked, etc etc.

When I approached Josh Dorkin about paying for advertising on the website, this was his response:

Blair -

We're not looking for any partnerships in your space at the moment. If you are interested, we can provide you with our Media Kit and promo materials. ***Otherwise, we've found that those companies that engage and help our members with their questions in areas where you have expertise, tend to get a good amount of business as a result from simply participating on our forums.***

NOTE: We've just launched the ability to create an interactive company profile on our platform at http://www.biggerpockets.com/companies -- we definitely recommend you guys get an account set up there in addition to any personal accounts your staff might set up on the site.

Regards,
Joshua Dorkin
Founder & CEO | BiggerPockets, Inc.

(I added the stars "***" to highlight the pertinent part of his message.)

So I took his suggestion, I looked in the forums at what was popular reading, and found this thread with a lot of views:
http://www.biggerpockets.com/forums/93/topics/79088-early-results-on-yellow-letter-mailing

So I thought to myself, "wow, looks like people appreciate reading about other peoples' actual results from mailings, I'll post mine because I have a lot of experience in it and maybe someone can benefit from my data." So I posted. Now I get the impression you think I was lying about it.

I looked at what Michael Quarles does, what Gary Boomershine has done, and I used their posts as guidelines because it seemed nobody has a problem with what they do on here. Am I doing something different or wrong?

I also see that you offer marketing services for other investors as well. Am I doing something different than what you do in your posts?

I know it's hard to tell through the written word, but I'm being sincere here when I ask all these questions. I really would like your input on how to do this right. I thought I was doing it right, but your post makes me think otherwise, and generally feel like a big heel right now.

I'd appreciate any input from anyone on here. What did I do wrong? What should I have done instead? What can I do in the future? Should I not provide data on mailings? Should I not chime in when I have expertise to offer? Should I not try to get involved in forum threads relating to a topic in which I am well versed? Sometimes it's very frustrating here.

Please help. Thank you.