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For anyone successfully mailing marketing letters or postcards to ppl in pre foreclosure…Do you typically send your mailers as soon as you see the client on the NOD list, or do you wait? I was told for states like Calif (where theres typically a 2month window from NOD to Trustee sales notice) that ppl in foreclosure receive so much mail when the NOD is 1st filed, and that they are in denial usually…that a strategy of waiting til all the initial mailers have come & gone and waiting til they are more desperate further in the process might work alot better. Is their anyone using this “delay” strategy? Is it working? Any feedback would be greatly appreciated! 8)
I have tried both. Actually, I send letters two to three times during the foreclosure process. Actual success rate is around 2%. I think I need to redo my marketing material. Can you share your material. Email me if you can.
Many thanks.
Im not sending anything out yet, trying to get some feedback on this, but no ones responding with anything helpful yet. 8)
Marketing principals are more important than their motivation. I could talk for hours about this. A lot depends on how you’re going to follow-up. The key is repetition. You should hit them 8 times within the window of opportunity. Most investors just mail once and never mail again. Studies show it takes 4-7 hits to get a response. Since you never know who or when someone will respond, you have to stay in front of as many of them them as much as possible.
So here in CA our window is actually 3 months from NOD to NOS and 21 days from NOS to sale (although many are delayed). If all you’re going to do is mail to them then it’s probably better to hit them hard at the beginning and then trickle up to the end.
Another key element is consistency. If you’ve ever been to their house you’d see a stack of mail one foot high. At some point they’ll go through it (over the trashcan). You want them to see your same mailer over and over. At some point you hope they’ll think, “Sheesh, this same person has mailed me 5 times…I’ll check it out.”
If however you’re going to call or door-knock, it’s nice to be able to refer to a previous mailing you sent (actually, even if you didn’t send it yet). You can start by saying, “Hi, I’m so-and-so, I sent you the large yellow postcard about a week ago.”
The final tip is to test. Do split mailings (send one thing / version to one group and another to another group). See what works and what doesn’t. Stop doing what doesn’t work and do what does and test some more with that group. It never ends. Marketing to homeowners constantly changes.
Here’s some sample mailings I’ve done and I’ve heard others do. I can’t vouch for their success or not, these are just ideas.
Mailing Campaign #1 (Postcard or letter).
- Day 1 (NOD)
- Day 3, 7, 10.
- Bi-Weekly until they call, say stop, or you verify the NOD was rescinded.
Mailing + Phone call + visit
- Day 1 postcard
- Day 2 call, refer to postcard (which they don’t have yet, that’s okay). Get their info. If it looks interesting make an appointment to meet them. Otherwise, tell them you’ll be calling again or in the area from time to time and would like to stop in to see how they’re doing. Try to do this ever 2-4 weeks. The more the better.
- Day 5 (if they didn’t answer the phone, followup).
Late game Mailing + door knock (NOS filed)
- Mail every other day. Time is short. Get creative. Send them a fedex package with an offer in it for example.
- Door knock at different times of the day until you reach them. Make sure you’re chasing good inventory.
There’s a hundred different ways to do marketing (e.g. lead generation, farming an area, voicemail blasts, USPS postcards, CDs, DVDs). The media changes but the marketing principles are the same. Decide how you’re going to follow-up and mail a lot. This is where most people fail.
Good luck.
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Thanks for the help. I have 2 questions that maybe you can help me out with. One is where did you get your website from, or did you do it yourself? And the 2nd ? is, everyone only talks about sending out that 1st letter to ppl in pre-foreclosure, I dont have any models, or drafts of a 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th, letter, etc. All I have is draft of a 1st letter to send. Can you help? 8)
You can use the same message in each letter and just reword it. They will recognize it’s the same person. You also want to start out with a statement that lets them know they have received your letters in the past. Here are some examples:
- It’s me again. Just checking on you to see if you resolved your problem with the bank, yet?
*I wonder if the post service lost my last letter to you. I haven’t received a response from you, yet.
*About the letter I sent 2 days ago, …
*In my last two letters, I …
*Concerning my last two letters, …
*I hope you found my last letter helpful.
*I haven’t received a response from my last two letters. I would feel much better, if you called me to say you took care of it, already. (when they call and say “it’s taken care of”, ask them “how did you take care of it?”, “Did you remember to setup a “plan B”?”)
*In my last letter to you on February 9th,
*My last letter gave you insight on what I do.
*As you know, in my last letter, I mentioned …
*Last time, …
*Three days ago, …
*As I mentioned to you, last week, …
Some of these are pretty goofy. Please forgive me. It’s a good start. You should be able to brainstorm and write out several more ways to start your repeat mailings.
How about sending two duplicate letters. The first one send normal, and the second one crumple it up first then refold it not so neatly and put it in the envelope, but before you do write on the top of the letter
" Dont throw this away again"
Then they will think you dug it out of their trash
:boink:
I happen to own a hosting company so I do them all myself. It’s less important what you send them as it is for the mailing to get attention, get opened, and get read. They have so much mail that they could forget they read your letter 5 pieces ago. Just keep hitting them with the same message.
That’s very creative and attention getting, Ramona. Have you actually done that? How about leaving it crumpled up and sending it in a padded envelope as lumpy mail with “Open Me” as the return address. I might try that on the higher equity properties. lol
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Ok, when marketing (mailers) to ppl in pre foreclosure on a budget, which do you think would be more effective or beneficial in getting responses? Mailing to say 100 ppl 2 or 3 times? Or mailing to say 40 ppl 6 or 7 times?? Here in Ca. ppl are in pre foreclosure apprx. 90 days before NOS begins. So in those 3 mos I could hit a larger amount of ppl a few times, or a smaller group several times during those 3mos?? Any thoughts??? 8)
A statistic I’ve heard from marketers is 80% of your leads will come by the 7th hit. This means a% will come from 1, b% will come from 2, etc. all the way up to 80% by the 7th hit. Of course the problem is knowing 80% of what? The only way to find out is to do it. Once you do it you’ll know what 80% is. We also don’t know if a deal will come from the first call or the 8th call. So when do we stop?
Here’s a guideline from Richard Roop. Mail 7 times during the window of opportunity. Here in CA the window is 3 months + 21 days to trustee’s sale. I use a different mailer during the 21 days so I use 3 months or roughly 90 days. So to mail to them 7 times I would need to mail at least every 12-13 days. One way to do this however, since they’ll get bombarded from day 1, is to frontload it a little by mailing 3 times every 3 days then spread them out every 2 weeks (which adds up to more than 7 but see next statement for smaller list ideas).
As the campaign goes on you’ll get returns and may need to skiptrace the owner or they’ll call to tell you there’s been a mistake and they’re not in foreclosure for which there’s a response for, or numerous other non-deal calls or mail. You use these to scrub your list. I printout 3 full-size postcards at a time per property and use a follow-up system (e.g. folders numbered 1-31 for a month) to know when to mail them. I remove the bad addresses and printout the next 3. Then I or somebody I hire just stamps them and puts them in the mail. If you’re using USPS postcards you can actually schedule all the mailings at once and never have to think about them again. They just go out automatically.
Another way to scrub is to watch the rescissions. If the foreclosure has been rescinded then it’s off the table.
Whew, I hope I got across that more mailings to a good targeted list is better than a couple mailings to a bigger list. Others may have differing opinions.
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Thx for all your advice. I have a program that I will use that will mail out postcards 7 times during the 90 day foreclosure period. Then, if they come up on my Trustee Sale list after 90days, I will call or door knock! What do use during the 21 day period before the Trustee Sale? 8)
I haven’t had much luck mailing during the NTS period. Door knocking is still the best. I’m considering experimenting with a fed ex offer and couriers. I’ve got a ton of ideas, wish I had enough time to implement them all. Good luck.