Hello Everyone,
I’m doing my 1st mailing this week. I’m sending out 500 absentee owner postcards. I’m starting in my own county here in Maryland because I know the area pretty well. My postcard will be personalized towards the property owner(Dear Mr. Davis, I’m interested in buying your property at 1462 E. Fayette St.), letting them know that I’m interested in buying their house, my card says please call and listen to the 3 minute recording on how I can buy your house, so they know it’s a 24hr. message. My message just says I can buy your house in as-is condition, no commission or fees and I can pay all closing costs. I also say that if your looking for full retail value than I may not be your guy, as a RE investor I do plan to profit from the deal, so I’m hoping this weeds out most of the non-motivated sellers, also, I know there will be plenty of hangups. I’m following Cris’s course exactly as he recommends. My goal is to start out with 500 cards per week and work my way up as I get used to talking to sellers EW. I don’t yet know what response rate i’ll get but I’m assuming a 3.5-4% will call. I’m pretty good with talking to sellers so that’s not a problem, I’m building my buyers list now with homemade bandit signs and sticking them throughout the area I’m marketing. Please let me know your thought’s on my marketing plan, also, if you have had success using this system please post your thoughts or stories! Thanks!
Go get 'em!
3.5 - 4% would be a very strong response from a mailing but I like the idea of a 24 hour recorded message… that really helps.
Hopefully that is a call capture system so you can call those that do not leave a message or response as you do not want to leave any possible lead unturned.
Generally direct mail response rates are about 1%.
The facts are most people pitch “junk mail” in the trash without giving it a second thought. If you want to increase the chances that your mailed piece will be looked at you need to give it a reason to be noticed.
Are you doing anything to cause it to stand out or just mailing a generic mailer? What kind of followup are you doing?
You could improve your success rate my following mailings with a phone call. Credit card companies and other direct marketers take this approach all the time and it dramatically increases the success of the campaign.
As a real estate investor you don’t necessarily want to be a telemarketer, but you could always hire an administrative assistant to handle these tasks for you.
Good luck! Hopefully you’ll defy the odds and get a decent response rate.
Peter Vekselman
Post altered
No links to your site in body of message…that is what your signature is for…
That’s great Brian. I want to commend you on taking action on what you bought with your hard earned money. Many people won’t even get to read the course. You actually went through it and now are taking some action.
Awesome man.
In regards to the mailing. I think 3%-4% is little on a high side. It will all depend on the sales copy on the postcard and your list. If your list is targeted enough, the chances of getting people to respond to you is much greater.
How are you tracking your campaign success/conversion of your mailing? Are you directing them to a specific extension?
One other thing I would do is to direct them to your site so they can listen to it there and maybe give you their info there. (Just something to test out later on).
Peter
Hello Everyone,
I just wanted to give you an update on my postcard mailing. The 500 postcards were recieved by the absentee owners this past thursday(2 days ago) and so far I recieved a total of 17 calls, so far 8 owners are looking to sell, I had a few saying they weren’t interested in selling and of course the hangups. I’m calling back the sellers today and will keep you updated on how that goes. I do expect a few more calls to come in before I do my next 500 cards which will be this Tuesday(I will be doing mailings every week). Any opinions or advice is greatly appreciated. Thanks!
Congrats Brian
Just make sure that you hit the same of sellers over and over for at least 6 months. That way you will be able to build up your brand with them and be the first person that they think of when it’s time to sell (Motivation is a function of time).
Another couple of pointers:
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Increase list from 500 to 1,000 sellers, its hard to judge the results of 500 cards. Also the first time you hit a population when you see the largest one time result, the rest will filter in over time.
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A lot of what the info you’ll buy in programs is just ‘busy work’; get with some of the more experienced investors in your area to find out what does and does not work well. When I first got started I wasted tons of money and time focusing on administrative work that really didn’t matter; those funds could have been much better spent.
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Focus on what the buyers on the list that you’re going to build want first, then try to find properties for them. It’s a heck of a lot easier to find a house for a buyer than it is to find a buyer for a house. That way you won’t be wasting money trying to guess what they want.
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Get on the email lists for the other wholesalers in your area in case you don’t have exactly what your buyer wants in inventory. Do this so that you always know what’s available and be able to work out a deal with the wholesaler for bringing a buyer that closes to the table. As a wholesaler I have no issue with sharing the wealth as a referral fee on a deal that closes.
Josh Cantwell has some awesome short sale training material and most of it is free videos on his site. He also has a binder complete with mindmaps, marketing material, and DVD’s for you to watch his at home training. You can check him out a www.strategicrealestatecoach.com (this is his actual site).
Just thought this might help.
Brain
Just curious out of the 8 people that wanted to sell you presently are working with one is that correct? What is the outcome of reasons you experienced that the others were not motivated even after contacting you?
Thanks and best of luck!
-Mike
No, I had many callers that I talked to and were not motivated, after talking to many callers you can sense motivation and the non motivated sellers. I talked to a s**T load of sellers who has tenants in there property and were willing to go 10K below the market value or they would just continue to rent, that is not a motivated seller, they were just curious as to what I would offer them, I would use my 70% formula and make the offer and never hear from them again. When I sense a non motivated seller I move on right away to the next seller. Honestly, as a newbie, think of the worst possible situation. I talked to about 60 sellers before I found this motivated seller. I have learned a lot just by talking to sellers. If someone calls and says “Well I’m just calling because I’m kinda curious what you will offer me for my house” 90% of the time there not motivated to sell. If 2 out of 100 sellers were willing to make a deal to unload there unwanted house, I’d be very happy.
Even if a landlord is willing to go 10k or more below market value, even if it’s not the standard 70% of ARV, I’d put the place under an option and send it out to my buyer’s list and try to get it sold. Sometimes the biggest profits come from those deals that are sold directly to a tenant buyer! (not a landlord or investor). Since you have an equitable interest in the place (option) you are not acting as an agent by marketing the property…Good to use on a house in a hot location or for an area you think may significantly increase in value over the years.
Alex - where do you find tenant buyers at?