0 Calls From Direct Mail

I am very confused… I am a new investor and I started a direct mail campaign last month and from 5000 post cards I got 9 calls! That sucks, but I realize marketting takes a few months before it takes hold so i am expecting to get more and more calls every month. The kicker is this months mailing of the same list as the previous months yielded 0 calls.

The question is: Has anyone ever had results like this before with professionally designed post cards and why it would happen in my case?

Justin

Who did you mail to. Were your addresses foreclosures, buying, selling. Where did you get your list of 5,000 Was the list reliable
did you get any returned mail. Were the addresses correct?

When you send to a targeted list your results will improve. 5,000 postcards is a lot… perhaps yu you try newspaper classified maybe a better bang for your dollar.

Good luck to you

I got the list from postcardmania. It is 5000 people who have owned thier homes for 10 years or more. This mailing I got about 40-50 returned cards which isn’t bad.

where would you suggest to get a better list or would you mail by postal routs?

Hi Justin,

Wow, that’s a good size mailing for a first run! Seems like a really vague select criteria though. I would suggest targeting specific neighborhoods that meet your investment criteria. Once you do that, you can pull the mail route info and get a very targeted list that you can send post cards or letters to. I used to do that and was able to get my lists from a provider for a very low price. Targeting also let me send out smaller batches and keep cost down. It also made tracking responses easier. If you’d like to know exactly what I did just email or PM me and I’ll be happy to give you my number. I also stayed away from post cards when mailing to lists like this. I sent letters. I saved my post cards for specific situations like pre-foreclosures.

Paul

Hey justin how much did it cost for you to recieve those 5,000 addresses in that search? Sounds like a cheap and simple way to mass direct mail.

I was thinking of direct mailing to my target areas which would take much more time and effort to establish a mailing list but the prospects would be much higher imo.

Have you landed a deal yet out of the 10,000+? postcards you have sent out?

I am acctually working on a 20k profit rehab, I just hve to finish a 1/2 bath and paint the place, but I got that lead from bandit signs. I go through postcardmania.com which I love and that is where I bought my list, it was $550 and each mailing costs about 1500 plus I got 5000 buisness cards for free, so it is cost effective if the postcards get the average responce. I was planning on 1%, so 50 calls which should have landed me 2-3 deals.

Justin,

You targeted people who have lived in their home 10 years or more and your message to them was? Was your message relevant to them or did you assume it was?

You made two mistakes as I see it. (I’ve been in marketing for 10 years now)

The first and one of the most common mistake that is often made is that you did not test your mailing. The big boys can afford to spend money on marketing. You can’t. You should have tested your message with no more than 500 names. I would have done 100.

The second mistake was that you did not put more money into you bandit signs. Didn’t you say that yielded you one deal so far? Why not stay with what is successful.

Tailor your message Justin.

Fred