Reopen a very important-yet under-discussed Direct Mail Flaw

[Troy Lilly]

*reposting because I wish I came across it when I first started out, and I have a good update with a number breakdown

(8/6/18)

Hey Texas BP,

I want to take a second to discuss a very undervalued and underrated topic-- Lists Leads.

It's common knowledge that the list of leads you hunt, (or hopefully direct market to), are the most important part of marketing, yet it seems to be the most neglected thing in marketing. I see all investors flooding the market place with Listsource leads or other common leads, when it would behoove the investor to spend whatever amount of money that makes sense to get the highest of quality leads.

My 2 and half years of birddogging in the Houston Market has allowed me to fully understand how to get the highest quality leads. I have become known in my niche as the guy who provides the value with the leads I provide and the lists I bring. It helps me to network and provide value to other investors I network with.

With all of those perks being discussed, let's take a look at the math on the marketing side:

Let's use 2 hypothetical lists for example:

1) My scrubbed list of probates to check the probate records for "real property being inherited" and a different mailing address for the applicant and the inherited or soon to be inherited property.

2) A random list pulled from ListSource containing certain criteria of out of state absentee and 90% or more equity in the house.

List 1:

mailing 1000x5 times with a postcard costing $.50 ($2,500) (hypothetically let's say 80% of these leads have motivation) ($500 is in vain)

List 2:

same $2500, except only 50% of these leads have motivation of some sort, so there's more tire kickers and less potential. ($1250 will be in vain)

With this math, the value of a great list will be worth at the very least $750 plus value in the market place, more concentrated motivation, and much less tire kickers.

What does the BP community think?

I'll end this long discussion by asking everyone not only what they think, but what are their experiences with lists and leads and wasting potential money on marketing?

Thanks BP!

[Troy Lilly]

Hey just wanted to update this post with some new insights in regards to leads and way more expansion in my experience and newly gained knowledge.

I still hold probate leads at the highest pedestal in terms of quality of leads, and if you are marketing and you aren't marketing to these leads, you are wasting marketing. Or at least not optimizing your marketing.

My conversion with these leads still supersedes the conversion of more generic leads by at least 2x... and I don't mean just conversion, but also price for the deals contracted with these leads.

on the flip side to that, these leads are very limited in nature. I wouldn't have been able to hit 20-30 deals/month targets with these leads alone. In order for actual big expansion, I needed to dip into absentees and hit a higher quantity, during which I still focused on Probate leads separately, and these were still by far better and higher conversions. But only accounting for 2-5 deals/month max. Where as absentee accounted for the other 20+ deals a month. (lower spread, lower conversion.)

Moral of the story... both leads hold their place, but probates should definitely be a big focus, and a beginning focus, along with perfecting your systems and your actual DM piece.

Here's a ROUGH breakdown of the last 6 months of deals comparing the 2 lead sources (just to give you an idea):

Probate:

Mailing 4,000 leads/month (6 months) (total mailed 24,000)

-12-14 deals (240 leads roughly)

-average assignment: $17,500 (our sales team is top tier)

Absentee:

Mailing 40,000 leads/month (6 months) (total mailed 240,000)

-70-80 deals (thousands of leads...2400+)

-average assignment: $9,500

These are again, rough numbers, but paint the picture with the KPIs that I was able to track...

Let me know if there's any questions, I feel as if this topic is very under discussed and I would like to spread some of what I have learned.