my first direct mail campaign

[Don Chambers]

I am about to start my first direct mail campaign and I am looking for any advice. My primary goal is to find properties to flip - I've done 4 flips. I also have 26 rentals and would buy as a rental if the house is better suited for that.

I am sending to absentee owners with 40% or more equity in my county in Georgia. I have a few other criteria and there are about 600 name.  I don't think this is very competitive in my area. I have 20+ rentals and have only received 1 mailing with no follow-up (that was a few years ago).

I also have a couple of smaller unique lists I want to mail to. Maybe 100 more names.

I will send a very direct postcard. Something simple saying I want to buy the house and I'll include the address.

My plan is to send to this every two months for a year. Then I will evaluate and decide if it's worth it.

I have some questions. 

1. Over time the list will change. New houses meet the criteria and existing ones come off. I don't want to buy the same names every time. How do you handle this?

2. Is it better to send to all houses at the same time? Or break it into blocks, maybe 100 a week every week and in about 2 months I've done them all and then I start the followup. This may help so I don't have them all hitting at a bad time of month by chance.

3. Anyone have any data on what to expect? My uninformed opinion is that I will get about 40 responses over the year- just under 1%. I have no idea how many will convert to deals. That's under 1% of mailing- not of total houses on the list.

4. I don't have concrete pricing but I expect it to cost about $500 to send the cards and the list will be about $500 but I don't need to buy it every time. I'm planning to spend about $3,500 for the year. Is the realistic?

5. Any advice on where to get the list or who to use to send the cards? It would me great if I could automate so I don't get sidetracked and not send the follow-ups.