My 2nd direct mail marketing campaign.

[Ken Nyczaj]

Back again and with more action- today 400 letters will start being delivered by USPS. Here is how I went about this campaign:

Stepped up from 200 to 400 yellow letters with red ink and pastel blue envelopes to distressed or high equity owners in my farm area. Specifically distressed owners are- recently gone through eviction in past six months, tax delinquent, absentee landlords, some driving for dollars houses with a noticed defect of their property.

I'm still doing all the work myself- Printing out hand written font on a 5 x 7 yellow letter, printing same hand written font on envelope with mail merging from an excel spreadsheet, and stuffing each envelope plus putting the stamp on. Definitely took a whole weekend working about half days- roughly 4 hours each day. The main problem was my printer kept having a paper jam, I'm suspecting I need to use a higher lb paper and it won't happen.

Costs- per entire mail piece it is costing 63 cents.

If I can solve the paper jam I may do one more campaign myself and then start to outsource it. It seems to get a decent rate from another yellow letters supplier your order must be around 1,000 units, and I haven't seen the option to send out a tiny a1 invitation envelope from any sources. I really like this style since it definitely is unique to the opener in a stack of mail, it looks like a baby shower invitation.

Regardless of the results, I'll be back again in 4-6 weeks for round 3. There are really no deals on the MLS, and I haven't found a wholesaler to work with so for a while I'll be doing direct mail. Being a new company, my partners and I are not willing to buy foreclosures that are site unseen, and most likely our bank won't loan on the first property that's a foreclosure that needs a lot of work. Thanks for reading. Questions appreciated.

[Jerry Puckett]

Just thought I would chime in here since this is a thing that comes up every so often. You have not calculated the cost of your time into your cost per piece. 

I bill my time at $100+ an hour. That run of 400 would cost me $800+ (in addition to the 63 cents per piece) and that's just for the time itself....but what about the things I may have missed spending my weekend working?

But let's say $20 an hour...it costs more than $150 in addition to the supplies to produce 400 pieces. People in this business, especially the newer ones often forget to pay themselves which is one reason so many fail.

Your time is your most important asset....the opportunity cost of your time is very high. Using those hours to better understand the market, talk to sellers, network with your team....all likely to produce higher returns. 

On the other side of the closing table, cashing that big check, trust me, you're more likely to say "wow that was a lot of work, how can I make this easier?" than "woo-hoo, I saved $100!". Just sayin'

Unlike money, which there is always more of, once your time is gone, it's gone. 

As to the paper jam, regular 20lb paper should work in just about any desk top printer. If you are using actual yellow sheets torn from a pad, that's 16lbs at the most, and I have terminally jammed many machines....I'd suggest switching to regular yellow paper and print the lines on it before blowing up a printer.

Most DM companies will be willing to use any sort of envelope you are willing to pay for. Looks like a pack of 500 costs about 8 cents per piece.

Hope that helps!