Here's my initial marketing plan, what do you think?

[Eldon Gomez]

Hey folks!

so i'd like some feedback on how i've scrubbed my first mailing campaign, and success rate with direct mail, vs bandit signs. 

I've secured every tax delinquent property in Salt Lake County, Utah. I'll be sending my mail out within the next week or so, and here's hoping i've not wasted my efforts. 

1. I eliminated any properties owned by a corporation, LLC, or investment firm.
2. I've only focused on residential properties
3. i deleted any properties over 40,000 in back taxes owed, and under 1500.00 owed
4. i'm focusing on properties that went delinquent starting in 2012 through 2014. The 2015 properties will get mailed later on, maybe. 

Because it takes so long to scrub the list, I'll be mailing batches of 500 letters at a time until I completely scrub my list of about 2400, then i'll recycle and mail each batch of 500 a second time a thuird time, and so forth for about 6 times. Then i figure I've exhausted this list.  Thoughts?

Question 2: When I decided to start a direct mail campaign, I misjudged the cost of repeated mailings. I would rather NOT spend hundreds on a mailing this list every time, so I got to thinking maybe I should have started with bandit signs, since they're cheaper, and keep they doing what they do without much maintenance. 

What would have been the most effective way to start marketing for someone with a tiny budget? and is my scrub ok? 

Thanks!

[Jeff Rappaport]

@Eldon Gomez, I applaud your initiative!  You have actually come up with an action plan.  I am not sure why you want to take out the Corporations and LLCs.  Yes, they are probably investors of some sort but they are still 2+ years behind on their property taxes.  Contrary to popular belief there are many investors that own properties that have problems.  The only other question I have is the time frame you plan on getting through all of these mailings with your limited budget.  If you are going to mail 500 per month (not sure if that was the plan) it will take you 5 months to get through your list.  If you then are going to follow up 5 more times you will only hit this list twice (some 3x) within a year.  In my experience you will want to get a new list 12 months from now and scrub that list.  You will have owners pay up their taxes and the new list will allow you to add the 2015 tax delinquents as well.  I think the ideal situation would be to hit this list 3-4 times within the year.  Now, that might not be possible based on your financial situation.  

As far as bandit signs go, I am not a big fan!  You could get a deal or so from it every once in awhile but the results are not what it used to be.  You will also deal with code enforcement as it has become a problem all over SL County.  

This is what I would recommend for someone starting out with limited funds to spend on marketing.  I would focus on some of the things you can do with your time rather than with money.  Track garage sales.  Go to them or do a little research on the sales in your area and find out if they are also the owner of the property.  Many people have a garage sale before putting there house up for sale.  Mail to them or go and inquire at the garage sale.  Look for estate sales as well.  

I love vacant houses.  That is one of my favorite methods right now.  You can drive neighborhoods and find the distressed vacant houses.  Leave a note at the house, talk to the neighbors about the situation and look them up on the County Recorder.  You can then try to track down the owner by mail, phone or new residence.  If skip tracing is out of the question then use Google, Facebook, LinkedIn and other free resources availabe to you to find the owner.  

Call FSBOs and make them an offer.  You should be able to make at least 5 offers per day.  If you did that consistently you would have a lot of offers out there.  Even in hot markets there are some deals to be found through FSBOs.  

Focus on building a buyers list.  Attend the various REIAs and Meetups and find out who is looking for rehabs and buy and holds.  Find out specifically what they are looking for.  As this list grows go to other wholesalers and see if they need buyers for any of their properties.  If you actually start performing well for these wholesalers they will start bringing you deals.  You won't have to find deals.  Just put the deals together with your buyers.  No risk and very little if any money out of your pocket.  I just did this last weekend and made a pretty good $$ for having a strong buyers list.  

The last suggestion I will give you is partner up with someone with more money, experience or knowledge than you have.  Maybe it is not a partnership but a mentorship.  Maybe it is someone in a similar situation as you are in but you can combine your resources.   Maybe it is someone that has money but no time to spend on finding the deals and putting them together.  There are a number of ways to make money in real estate.  The more you know and the better networks you have the more money you will be able to make.  Exhaust every avenue and take massive action!

If I can be of any other help to you PM and we can chat.