Direct Mail Campaign Advice

[Randall Kates]

Hey Everyone,

I'm looking for  some  different strategies.  When doing your  direct mail campaigns to your target houses i.e sending cards,mailers, letters  etc home. How long of  a duration is   recommended to wait before sending mail and doing your  next wave of  marketing i.e second or third round of letters? Also  how  many rounds  does  it take  until you  come to the  realization that you need to move on to another list?

[Iris Burrows]

I haven't sent out all the letters from my list of 300 names yet, but in the first 150 I've received approximately 20 responses. Now they didn't all lead to deals and contracts but I've gained plenty of insight from the list I've purchased.  

1) My targeted area needs improvement.  Make sure, as another investor suggested to me (unfortunately after I already had my list), find out where the investors are buying and use those areas as your target.

2) When I have sent letters out, I have gotten responses in a soon as a day of reception, to a week or 2 weeks has been the maximum response time after receipt.  What that tells me is that everyone has gotten the chance to choose whether to open my mail, call me back or throw it away. So, I could very well send follow up letters shortly after that to those who did not respond at all. I've kept track of return mail (very few) and those who have called and said they weren't at all interested or the owners moved, etc. Just to save me time and money from sending follow ups to them again.

3) Letters work better for me. I've sent out 200 post cards from a separate list and got 1 response 2 months later. That's WACK! I'll take my 20 calls from a 150 letter pool any day.

4) Although there can be several factors why post cards weren't as successful to me as letter have been I've learned mostly that you have to find what works best for you. It's definitely trial and error, so pay close attention to the reaction of your campaigns. No response is also feedback.

Hope this helps,

Iris