Postcard campain

General Real Estate Investing
1

Hey guys, this is the first time I will be doing gunshot approach marketing and I will be first testing it on about 1500 prospects in a zipcode with less than 3 years mortgage (sub2 candidates). I will be mailing each about 4 to 6 times (have not decided yet).

My question to those who have done it successfully, did you use the same postcard to keep the same message/image in their face or do you have series of different postcards? And how frequently do you mail them? Once a week, 2 weeks, 3 weeks, or a month?

2

There’s always a chance that I could be wrong, but I am not sure that a carpet-bombing approach via postcard is the best way to find these kinds of deals.

You’re looking for people who are new to their mortgage, so presumably you are interested in deals where people have little or no equity and who would be willing to deed the house to you in exchange for your taking over payments.

I would think that the only people who would be interested in such a deal are those who are already past due. (Of course, this leaves out the possibility that there are people who would sell their house, but they don’t have enough equity to pay a Realtor…) What percentage of people in your area are past due enough where they would do this? I’m guessing it’s 1% tops.

If you send out between 6,000 and 9,000 postcards, that will cost you about $3,000 to $4,500, more or less (I’m just using 50 cents apiece as a nice round number).

So, assuming that there are only 15 people in the 1,500 who meet your criteria, let’s say that one-third of them call in and you are able close about half. That’s two or three deals. Does a cost per deal of $1,000 to $2,250 meet your criteria for getting subject-to deals?

Anyway, in answer to your question, I would definitely change the content somewhat while being consistent with your branding. You want to capture the best of both worlds…the recollection factor that makes people think, “I’ve seen this before…these guys must be legit,” but you also want to try different elements with each mailing that might register better with the recipient.

For example, some people will toss postcards into the garbage without ever looking at them. Some people will read a short letter, but not a long one. Some people respond best to long letters. And so on…

No matter which route you go, though, I think you’d be wasting your money by sending the identical postcard time after time to the same people. This stems from my years in direct marketing, although I am always interested to hear what others have experienced as it relates directly to real estate.

3

Thanks for the reply, and I am also interested what other people’s input are. The idea of marketing to new home owners with 1 to 2 years mortgage is a tried approach since large number of them got in over their head. Not everything needs to make sense to be true as well, for example in the mortgage business one of the risks the lenders look out for is first payment default (they even have a term for it!)… Who would have thought someone who buys a house and pays 10%-20% down would not make their first payment.

Now, will I spend $1000 to make $10,000? mathimatically it makes sense and the answer would be yes, but it is only functional if one has the money to sustain it long term. I need to generate consistent number of leads coming in and I am going after little equity properties. I will look at all others of course, but I am trying to focus on these.