Direct mail

[Roberta James]

Anyone have any luck with direct mail? I'm a newbie and want to learn about tapping into this marketing method. Right now I'm using Zillow tax history link to find out if there are any tax liens on the property. While on the county's website I wrote down the current owners address to send them a letter or post card. This process is really time consuming so if there is a better way, I'd like to hear about it. Bigger Pockets family, I really want to land my first deal before Christmas 2015!!! Please share any valuable input, thank you.

[Dev Horn]

Two things I've noticed after mailing hundreds of thousands of pieces:

1) If you are mailing to people and you don't know how much equity they have, you are wasting a huge percentage of your marketing dollars.  People without equity cannot sell to you at a discount unless they bring a bucket of cash to the closing table, and these sellers don't have money or they would have repaired their houses and paid their house payments.

2) Mailing to owner occupants, even with equity, is a huge waste of money.  Owner occupants are FAR less likely to respond to your mailing as absentee owners.  You need to mail to about 3X the owner occupants to get the same number of responses as you'll get from absentee owners.

Last point I'll make.  Letters are TOO FREAKING EXPENSIVE.  Like more than a BUCK A PIECE.  Postcards are half that (i.e., mail 2X the pcs for the same $$!).  Don't be a lemming and mail those stupid "My wife and I want to $BUY$ your house..." letters.  Be efficient and innovative and direct mail can be a very productive part of your advertising mix.