Where to get cheap postcard forever stamps

Question

Preferably forever postcard stamps. Usually I use ebay for regular letter forever stamps I have gotten 2k for about 40¢/piece. About to include postcards in my campaign and would like to find similar deals if possible. Otherwise 34¢ isn't anything to complain about and I'll just grab some forever ones at the post office.

Benjamin Cowles · Answer

Thank you for these points to consider. I've been having a decent response rate, >1%, with letters but wanted to save some money at least till I get my first deal. I don't hand write, but I use my own hand written font, so it's scalable.

Still working on the message. This is off topic, (found a decent deal 34¢ stamps @ 29¢ off ebay), but I thinking of using the postcards to limit the info and introduce myself and get calls coming in but use the letters, after the postcards to begin to talk about sellers' options and what I can offer. I know that after the wave of first callers from the postcards that think i can offer them full retail cash will diminish but the quality of leads will increase also but I do want to begin to increase the quality of my leads. I'm not so sure if there is an advantage to pulling in more less qualified leads in the hopes you'll convert people to sell who wouldn't otherwise be interested taking either low cash or seller finance offers. Is it entrepreneurial suicide to divulge your business plans to your prospects before talking to them? I don't like surprises myself from either side, and personally like it when marketing pieces and sales people are upfront and transparent with me. But I'm not sure if this thinking would lead to more deals especially with competition to consider. So I wasn't asking for any advice on the matter but since you steered the conversation in that direction I'll take whatever you got! Thanks

P.s. Do you happen to remember which ep? Or who the guest was?

Account Closed · Answer

@Benjamin Cowles Post cards are a waste of time and money, sorry. I have been doing real estate for twenty five years and about a year ago,  I tried 5,000 postcards, professionally designed, full color, over sized and to a good mailing list. I got 1 call. They wanted to know how I got their name. Sigh.

Ray Lai · Answer

Account Closed

I've never heard of such a low response rate either. It makes me wonder if there was a problem with the message? For example, how many sentences were on your postcard? Did you target the message for that client type (e.g. probate sale, beat up homes, out of state buyers). Can you share with us what you wrote on the message?

Benjamin - do you hand write? fulfillment/outsourcing ain't much more than what you're paying manually doing the work for each postcard.

Couple of questions that are important to the whole direct mail process:

1) Is it scalable (manual letters aren't)
2) Are you using your time in the most efficient manner (handwriting is ok for starting, but you need to hit 1000s of targets to get the responses to grow your business)
3) Is your message correct for that market? e.g. absentee, tax liens, probate, compliance issues, or simply overgrown / abandoned. Your message should maximize your probability of a response
4) Are you hitting enough people? With an average response rate of 0.5%-1% for most campaigns, are you hitting enough houses to expect a reasonable amount of calls to your number?
5) What type of problems are you having? Are you having growth problems in that you can't get enough responses, are hopefully you are having too many responses! Totally different problem. If you're not getting enough responses is your message on point? If you're getting too many responses, is your system efficient and scalable? Can you outsource part of it and remove that bottleneck to grow your business more efficiently?

Just sending out 10000000 postcards won't mean anything if the message is off for that target audience. For example there was a BP podcast where the newbie wholesaler was getting no responses and it was because they wrote way too much information in their yellow-letter. That's why going with some tried and true templates is nice sometimes as someone starting direct mail.

Benjamin Cowles · Answer

Wow. That's the lowest response rate I've ever heard. Thanx for your input.

Benjamin Cowles · Answer

Direct mail? What do you mean?

Tom Ott · Answer

I don't know how much those work in the 21st century.

Ray Lai · Answer

Awesome Benjamin. That 0 is only temporary, but it's important to think of your profit / time unit so that you focus on what you're good at doing and outsource out things that take up your time that don't add a lot of value. The gears is a good metaphor you came up with.

Thanks for checking out our site. If you have any questions, let me know. Also, if there's anything you're stuck on or need help with, feel free to shout-out. I love BP, we're a great community and it saved me from a lot of mistakes when I started out so I think people are happy to share their experiences and help others - pay it forward :)

Focus on closing your first deal and make sure you have a good answer to the questions I posed. It's Ok to hand-write at first and experiment. Once you close your first deal, start thinking about sustainability, process improvement, scalability, and I think our software would help you with those.

Benjamin Cowles · Answer

Ah thank you. Now you got me thinking about my use of time, production and value /hr in a triangle floating above my head with a fat zero displayed in the center lol. Good visual tho. The number should go from yellow to red(line) telling me to outsource, or change gears, 1st gear just one, you, 2nd 2 employees, 3rd 3+ etc...  Could be a fun spreadsheet project.

I checked out your site. Just bookmarked it. When I get into 2nd gear I'll start looking into extra technology and info. Been getting over PofA and am just focusing on my brain, mouth, and getting a contract signed to bring to someone who knows what to do next with only my excel spreadsheet. Your beta software looks tempting. Might have to check it out.

Ray Lai · Answer

In my opinion it's important to be honest, but giving too much information diminishes your chance of success as people get overwhelmed with irrelevant information. Too much information can cause paralysis and bad decision making. A person you're solving a big problem for, should not need a full explanation of your goals, business plans, aspirations. Remember, your time is money too and you're in the business of solving problems while making money, not making friends with people that you will never do a deal with... if that makes sense.

I've listened to most of the podcasts that it's hard to keep track of who said what or which episode, sorry. I know it was one of the marketing/wholesaling ones.

It's good that your scalable with font. I think you're approach is solid, I would try to save money and do it myself until my first deal too if funds were an issue. Try to think of how valuable each hour is for you. Currently it's lower since you're new, but as you close a deal and figure things out, the opportunity cost of your time ($$$ you can make per hour) increases and at that point, you need to re-examine your process to make sure it's worth your money to print your own letters especially if someone *hint hint* can hook you up with good pricing due to your network on BP.

Where to get cheap postcard forever stamps

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