Volume Yellow Letter Marketers - What are the numbers?

[Phil B.]

I probably should have asked this question before spending a few thousand dollars creating my own yellow letter workstation but I am curious what your numbers are like and if there is a formula, even if its loosely calculated, like:

5000 mailers = 150 phone calls = 20 good leads = 5 contracts = 1 done deal.

Does anyone have some stats about the mailers? I have a 3000 piece mailer going out soon and am curious what to expect. Is 3000 enough to absentee owners? 5000? 10,000?

I've sent a few very small 150 and 300 piece mailings out as a test and only got about 9 or 10 calls although one was hopeful. It didn't work out but it seemd to be a decent lead. This will be my first large mailing since setting up the stand alone station. I'm still waiting for the envelope printer to arrive. Do you guys have any numbers? I'm trying to figure out how much money and the number of mailers it will take (approximately) to get one deal in the can. I understand markets and mail pieces are not all created equal. I'm just looking for some ballparks.

Thanks.

Phil

[Tim Leslie]

@Phil B.

It depends on your yellow letters. Are they hand addressed, first class stamp, etc? You can normally expect a 5-10% response rate with hand addressed yellow letters. As for your other numbers...say you send out 1000 letters to absentee owners. Expect around 50-100 phone calls. For every 25-30 "motivated" sellers you talk to you can roughly expect 1 deal. These are very general numbers. I do direct mail campaigns for quite a few investors and that is what I have been noticing. For example I just sent out a mailing for an investor..it was 750 yellow letters to absentee owners and he got 88 phone calls and 2 deals...while another guy I just did a mailing for sent out 2000 and only got 1 deal. It depends on how many times you follow up, how targeted your list is, etc. But expect a 5-10% rate and for every 25-30 sellers you talk to you will get one deal. (generally) Best of luck!