I have an absenttee owners list from my friend at the title office, she pulled for me for free!! thousands of names and addresses in my county. What size of mailing quanity should I start with for a test? 500, 1,000 2,500…ect. I have maerged the list into Scott Risters mailing letter and have it personalized for each seller. I will sign each one to make it personal. After I wholesale a deal or two I’ll spend more and make the system more efficent. Thanks
test with 500 or 1000. make sure to hit them at least 3 times each
Lucky you…
A minimum for a good direct mail test is 1000 mail pieces for each of two messages (i.e. an A/B response test.)
This lets you find the message that works the best.
But life all direct mail, timing is everything. And that generally means multiple mailings. Standard direct mail suggests that around 7 contacts by mail with no response means a dead lead that should be purged.
The challenge of direct mail is it does have a high cost associated with it per deal. You could get lucky and get a deal with only 100 pieces of mail sent out. Or it could take 5000 pieces of mail to get one and then you could bang out three more deals on your next 1000 pieces mailed.
But lets say it takes 2000 pieces mailed to get one deal. That is maybe $1000 or so spent for your letter, envelope and stamp.
Just figure that as a cost of acquiring the property.
If you eventually pocket 10K from the acquired property, you will consider the 1K invested to get that property pretty cheap.
Ok, thanks. My wife and I are considering a small loan to fund the beginnings of a direct mail program. Having heard that maybe we should reconsider and find a way to market out of our current budget even If I could only afford 200 letters per month. In a year that would add up. any suggestions? Thanks
Don’t forget that Marketing isn’t the only way to find deals. There’s also Prospecting. Prospecting is very cheap or free but more time intensive.
Prospecting includes:
Telemarketing
Door knocking
Networking
Telemarketing allows you to reach the largest number of prospects but the prospects are the lowest quality.
Door knocking takes much more time and effort than telemarketing but according to many investors on the forum, it generates a better conversion rate.
Networking requires the most time investment because it’s about building relationships. However, when a lead does come in it’s likely to be of a very high quality.
Bandit signs are also cheap way of doing it. 200 letters could be effective if sent to the right people. How are you selecting your target market?