Best list to get leads.

[Tony Zheng]

Im about to start another direct mail campaign and I'm wondering what is the best type of mailing to get the most motivated seller leads. I've sent out absentee owner postcards and I didn't get the response that I hoped for.

[Cornelius Garland]

@Tony Zheng Hello Tony, how many postcards did you send out? Nationally, direct mail has a low response rate, like around 1%. Some areas are better and I've been able to get a higher response rate depending on the list that I mailed. However, the higher response rate didn't necessarily translate to a higher-quality seller. For instance, the mortgage late list is great to target if you're a short sale realtor or investor and you'll get a great response rate. However, none of them will have equity and will call you at the last-minute before their property is going to auction. I've mailed several lists but found that the absentee high-equity list is by far the best list to market to. The reason being is because you know as soon as you send the mail out you can most likely get a deal if the seller is motivated. It is critical to be able to filter by equity. Nothing is more wasteful or frustrating than purchasing a list and not knowing if you can even help the sellers. I found that a lot of list brokers aren't able to provide equity filters and it's a shame that they sell them to investors because that is such a critical component to getting a deal. For postcards, you can expect a 1% response rate so you should be sending out at least 3,000 at a time to get a decent number of interested sellers. I work with a client that was using direct mail and received a .5% response rate and an abysmal closure rate. The market is saturated with new "investors" and all of them are sending direct mail. You need to be consistent and send large quantities to be successful. Keep your head up!