First direct campaign.

[Christopher Hunter]

Here is how my road to the first No came from my direct mail campaign.

June 8, 2014 I ordered my list from Listsource of the following criteria:

SFR

3-5 Bedrooms

40% + equity

7+ years ownership

and for my zip code it spit out 313 names.

Next I sought out the direct mail fulfillment center.  After pricing 3 companies, Yellowletters, Postcard Mania, and Vistaprint I went with Vistaprint.  I went with Vistaprint for 2 reasons.  The first one was the quantity I needed was low and the second was the price.  The price for 500 count (5.47" x 4.21") postcard was $20.65, color back side $8.23 for a total of $28.88.  Shipping a processing was $23.12.  Sales tax was $4.13. The grand total was $56.13 for 500 postcard.  I need to back up a bit and mention that I went through the list for duplicate address and that brought my number down to 291. Next came the postage for all these postcards.  For 291 .37 cent stamps came to $98.94.  Now the only bad thing about using Vistaprint is the way I drafted up my postcard they would not be able to address both the mailing address of the absentee owner and the property address.  So that did take me some to address 291 postcards with the name, mailing address and property address of my absentee owners.  I finally got all the cards addressed and sent out July 30, 2014.  2 days later I get my first call from my direct mail and here I am thinking Great and can not wait to get off work to call him back.  Google voice had sent my a transcript of the voice mail.  I get off work,get home, show my wife the transcript and prepared her to make the phone call.  When she called the home owner back he informed us that is rental property will never be for sale and even when he dies it will never be for sell and go to his family.  I doubled checked the name and it was in a trust, which I did not catch, when I addressed the postcards initially.  So now we can breathe a sigh of relief that we got out first "NO" out of the way and this will bring us that much closer to getting a yes. 

We welcome any and all constructive criticism that will help up grow.  

Thank you for all your help.