How much direct mail should I send out

[Kortez Walker]

I would like to know personally how much direct mail should I send out atleast a month to get a good return. I've been doing investing for 2 years now but now alot of direct mail. I've alot of deals really just driving for dollars and contacting home owners on zillow. I now am an active broker in the indianapolis area and I would like to know how much an active investor does in direct mail to get a good return?

[Claire Trammell]

@Kortez Walker I think that @Gerardo Dominguez hit the nail on the head. That IS he million dollar question. 

We have seen that the average response rate depends on the marketing piece. Also, the types of responses differ piece by piece as well. For example: yellow letters see about 9% response rate on average while postcards see about .5% on average. Now, that may cause you to immediately disregard postcards, however, the types of responses can make a difference. The 9% response rate of yellow letters are all kinds of calls: curious calls, angry calls, tire-kickers, quality calls, etc. While the .5% response rates from the postcards are mostly quality calls.

Maybe because I have a little bit of a biased to direct mail marketing, or marketing in general, I have the view that there is no maximum when you are looking to market yourself or your business. I was talking to Michael Quarles not too long ago and he had the best example of marketing that has stuck with me. He asked me "If I were to say Geico, what do you think of?" and, like most folks, I replied with "In 15 mins, you could save 15% or more on car insurance."  Michael then told me that Geico spent over a billion dollars on marketing in one year. They exhausted every possible way to market: billboards, commercials, direct mail, radio commercials, and the list goes on and on. When asked if they felt like they spent too much money on marketing, they said they wished they could have spent more, but there was no available medium left. By spending that much on marketing, they have become easily recognizable and therefore one of the first to come to mind when someone needs insurance. 

The same principle can be used in your direct mail campaign. Instead of "how much do I need to spend on marketing?" the question becomes "how much can I spend on marketing?"