How did I mess up my second mailing campaign?

Bird Dogs, Wholesaling
1

I forgot to personalize each postcard with the address of the property I’m wishing to purchase. I just said “wish to buy your home,” and sent them to out-of-state owners. They wouldn’t know which home I’m referring to.

The other thing I did differently was use data from the property appraiser instead of ListSource.

Also, I used 6x9 postcards this time instead of white letters.

I received 0 phone calls so far. I had at least 5 by this time last campaign.

I think it’s the fact that I didn’t personalize the postcards with the address. That’s what makes sense to me because how would they know which house I’m talking about?

2

You’re trying to reinvent the wheel and it’s costing you. Trying to save a buck is costing you. Send to absentee owners with equity in your target area. Go to yellowletters.com and use the letter I sent you. Send 1,000 a week and you’ll buy 3-4 houses a month…

Or you can keep dicking around wasting money.

3

Oh really, are you learning anything? How much money and time are you willing to throw away b4 you listen to experienced investors?

The experts say to buy your absentee owner lists from listsourse.com
The experts say to use a standard sized post card thats hand written and personalized and mentions the 2nd property.
The experts say to get some book learning in negotiations, salesmanship and reading body language.

But I think I will do it my way, I dont need no stinking education.
I dont need to follow advice, I’m my own man.

Can you say, I used to be like that, but I got tired of being poor.

4

So was the postcard the problem or the list?

And how do I determine whether a house has a lot of equity? The age of the home? And why does it even matter if I’m just flipping the contract anyway?

5

Well I don’t $1,000 to spend on lists every week.

I think Luke gets his leads my way, right? (Through the county property appraiser/assessor)

6

I use listsource and bird dogs for wholesale marketing. I also buy sub2 and target 30/60/90 day late lists I get somewhere else.

Who knows, or cares what the issue is at this point. It’s not working, so do what these kind folks are saying to do. Consider it cost of tuition.

7

Also, Rando sent me two books and I read them both. He also suggested a book on negotiations that I am reading. Plus I have about 6 other books I just bought.

8

That’s a lot of money on leads. Probably $4,000/month. Plus another $3,500 on mailing.

Is this what you spend?

9

No I spend about $1K a month on direct mail. It’s not an all or nothing proposition, you spend what you can afford.

10

Meaning that you only send out about 500 letters/month?

11

Honestly, only Redstar could possibly stir the pot this often, add in so many ingredients, and yet cook nothing.

:beer :beer :beer :beer :beer :beer :beer :beer

12

Yellow letters is around 80-90 cents a letter. If you do postcards it’s a lot less. It really doesn’t matter what I do. All that matters is knowing that you’ve wasted a ton of time, a bunch of money and gotten zero results. Everybody here has different tactics, but we’re all saying pretty much the same thing: target absentee owners with equity from list source, send them a piece of mail in handwritten format, and take the flurry of calls that come in…

Write down all the money you’ve wasted so far, and calculate how many pieces of mail from yellowletters.com you could’ve sent. I’ll bet it’s at least a couple thousand. Two thousand letters at a 5% response rate is 100 calls. Someone with absolutely no clue could get a contract after 100 calls.

13

You’re not factoring in the cost of leads. It’s somewhere around $1/lead.

I got 12 calls on my first mailer, but that’s besides the point.

14

No, no they’re not. If you’re paying more than about 20 cents a lead you’re getting rip off.

Once again, have you even checked into List Source?

15

Yes, I used ListSource for my first mailer. I just got a call 3 minutes ago, BTW.

16

Rando,

Do you really use the Zestimate?

17

If you paid $1 a lead through list source then you had too many filters. I just created a quick list in Orlando, absentee owner with 40% equity, removing duplicates and came up with 16,205 leads for a price of $2850. That breaks down to about 18 cents a lead…

18

Okay I see that. If I’m buying only 1000 at a time, I wonder how I can avoid getting duplicates on different purchases.

19

If you want to get rid of duplicates, then get your lists in excel format, merge them, and then sort for duplicates.

We haven’t talked about over-sifting listsource.com, but Luke is exactly right about using too many filters.

I just sifted for free and clear houses with in-state and out-of-state, absentee owners; no condos, town houses, or manufactured homes, and it gave me 3,436 records. With duplicates removed it cost $622.00 or 18.10¢/each.

Mailing 3x5 postcards through Click2Mail.com cost .34¢/each or $1168.24

$ 622.00 List (3,436 Records)
$1,168.00 Postage/Supplies
$1,790.00 Total Initial Mailing Cost or .52¢/each

I can resend this same list for $1,168 or .34¢/each. You can send the same list over and over.

http://jaypalmquist.com/images/listsource-1.png

.

20

Thanks.

Is it really worth it to send the same list? Might they be interested the second time but not the first?