Yellow Letter for property management

[Lance H.]

Hello,

So I have my RE license and I've signed on with a broker in my area. My primary intent is to manage 10-15 units for 3 years while continuing to work my regular job. After 3 years I will likely set up my own brokerage. Now I just need to find those 10-15 units!

My thought is that yellow letter marketing works well for many people wholesaling, why not try it for property management? I can easily pull lists from the tax records in my area, so my thought was pull a list of 2-4 unit properties with out of state owners and send them yellow letters.

My question to the BP community is, what would make you respond to a letter from a PM marketing to you? Any suggestions for verbaige to use would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

Lance

[Arthur Garcia]

Lance H. - Yellow Letters are just another marketing medium, like postcards - so yes, they can work. The bigger question is - would sending a Yellow Letter send the right "message" about your company to your potential customer.

The main reason investors use YLs is to come across as a "mom and pop" or want the marketing piece to seem "informal". This may or may not be the message you'll want to send to your prospects.

Which ever direction you decide to go with - make sure you go with a campaign (multiple "touches" over a period of time) vs a shot gun (1X mailer) marketing strategy.

As an out of town owner who outsources property management - I'm never 100% satisfied with any of the PMs I use, so in a sense, I'm always LOOKING for someone better.

That being said, I probably wouldn't switch PMs based on one mailer. HOWEVER, if I've received a few pieces of mail and one happened to end up on my desk as I was trying to fill a vacancy - I would probably give you a call.

I get quite a bit of mailers from various PMs and I can tell you that NONE of the them have ever sent me more than 2 pieces over the last 3 years.

Here are a few things I that would make me take a second look at your company:

* Multiple mailers - I've already explained this above

* Professionalism - I probably wouldn't respond well to YL. However, you can still avoid getting tossed in the trash bin immediately if you have the outside of the envelope hand-addressed. I'd also scan in a few highlights (w red pen) - underling your call to action, a quick note like, "looking forward to your call", and circle/star any important pain points - tired of dealing with non-responsive PMS or something like that.

* Pain points - here are a few "hooks/pain points" that would cause me to look elsewhere: incompetent mgmt, non-responsive personnel, no help with coordinating "rent ready" process, don't send before an after photos for any contractor-related work, a very difficult to read monthly income statement and finally, non-accessible MGMT (don't return phone calls, forget to do things, etc.)

Purchase some marketing books on Amazon - take a look at a few of Dan Kennedy's books. Another book I really liked was "duct tape" marketing.

I hope this helps!

AG