Direct Mail Marketing

[Jay Eubank]

Hey BP! 

My name is Jay Eubank, and I am a rental property investor in my hometown of Las Vegas, Nevada. I just started a direct mail campaign out here using List Source as my lead generator. I used a local Mailer Company to get all my letters sent out to these leads. My list from List Source was about 2300 leads. I separated it into three chunks of about 800 and am doing each group once a month for 2 rounds to start with. So in 6 months from now I would have reached out to all these leads twice. I heard that this cycling of sending to the same leads is a strong method to doing a direct mail campaign. My question is:

For all you direct mailers that invest in real estate to get fix and flips, wholesale deals, or BRRRR deals, what is your method of your Direct Mail campaign and what have you found that works for you? What lead generation company do you use, what mailing company do you use? What cycles do you do to keep your brand stuck in their heads to eventually give you a call? How many leads do you send to every month? How many deals do you get accepted for this amount of leads you send out to?

[Melissa McRay Johnson]

Hi @Jay Eubank!

My first question is what criteria did you use when you pulled the list from ListSource? I've been doing direct mail off and on for 17 years and tried just about everything. I have found that shotgunning out to a huge list isn't as effective as getting more targeted with your list and message. We have gone niche to only probates, drive for dollars, and water shut off lists. Then we stack those with certain criteria. Have you heard of or tried list stacking? There are a few companies who can do this. I do my list stacking in PropStream. Yellow Letters HQ is a great company to use for direct mail. I also recommend calling any local mailhouses in your area, sometimes they can give good pricing since they are local. A mix of postcards and letters can also be really effective. The letter allows you to say more, and the postcard keeps the familiarity going. Make sure you are branding yourself and being consistent with what you're sending out in terms of look, feel, and timeframe. I mail out about every 4-6 weeks to each campaign, with an escalating message that pretty much ends with "if you don't sell your house, what will you do?" Conversions of direct mail have varied over the years. Some years we get a lot of deals from it, some years it's slower. Being more targeted saves you money and helps make sure you aren't wasting time or resources on property owners with no motivation.

Hope this is helpful!