Direct mail in a small town

[Dusty Bowling]

Hi everyone,  was wanting to get some advice on starting a marketing campaign in a small community. I'll give you a little background. I'm a deputy sheriff and have been flipping homes and collecting rentals for the past 10 years. I've developed a great reputation for the quality of flips we do as well as a long waiting list for potential rentals waiting for one to open or for us to buy rehab and hopefully turn into a rental instead of flipping. I've done around 25 flips over the past 5 years and currently have 20 rentals. There is currently no competition for house flippers in my immediate area. I live in a town of around 3000 and patrol a county of less 30,000 people. The prime area for flipping in my area is the town I live in which only has 3,000. We are in rural Indiana so also have country properties available outside of the towns. We can often rehab in less than 60 days on a gut job and have people waiting to buy as soon as we are finished. I would say our average days on market would be less than 30. Because of our reputation and face book friends alone we can often advertise a house available for rent or for sale and have 5-10 people respond that day.   

The only marketing we've done for our self is word of mouth, face book, and I did have my aunt look up at the county records a list of owners that owned properties but had a separate mailing address, an absentee owners list but the majority are still in this area. I think out of the 100 only 15 or so were even out of the county much less out of the state.  This list only came to just over 100. We sent out hand written letters and had a 20% response rate. Out of those 20 we did manage to buy 2 deals. Which I thought was a fantastic return. I've been looking into yellow letters and was wondering with such a small farm area would I be better off to use every door direct and just blast everyone or try to purchase a list. I think every door direct for the area that I would want to pursue is only 1360 addresses. I feel a list of absentees, divorce, landlords, ect would be so small. I also am concerned about resubmitting mailings every 6 weeks or so and wonder whether I would be over doing my welcome when they aren't any other investors doing any kind of mailing in our community. I see that sometimes investors change numbers or give different pieces of mail to make it look like it is from other investors, but I feel my main advantage in this market is the reputation and character I carry in the community. In my opinion I would want everyone to know it was me wanting to buy their house, they see the difference we've made, quality of work we do, and know if we say we are buying we will close.  I would want a brand or consistency with my marketing, bandit signs, yard signs, ect.

Last year we started to expand and did 8 flips and have put in place multiple crews, project managers, and systems to handle and hopefully do 15-20 this year.

 Sorry to ramble but I guess my question is how would you pursue a marketing strategy in a smaller community where you are your only completion. I do own properties on both major highways directly coming into town and am planning on smaller billboards in those locations. We do put up bandit signs with our company "Integrity Investments by Bowling" coming soon on all our rehabbed properties as well as a 6 foot vinyl sign that we place on the fronts of each house when we begin our rehabs. As always thanks for all comments and suggestions.