How often do you farm your areas?

Question

So I've just about got everything ready to go aside from a few minor loose ends (web designer) which will be done soon. I was just curious how often you farm your areas frequency wise. I'm starting off with post cards and a few other strageies and was thinking of doing it once a month but I'm not sure if this would be to frequent. Any thoughts or examples on what has worked best for you? Thanks!

Michael Quarles · Answer

I hold to the philosophy that a successful marketing campaign should use a variety of methods to numerous types of prospects to attract responses. In the case of real estate investing, the methods can range from billboards to television and radio ads to direct mail to getting your name out through promotional items like pens, key chains, business cards, etc.  The top prospect types (different audiences) you need to promote to are: Equity Owners, FSBO, Expired, NODâ€™s, Absentee Owners, your â€œFarmâ€, COI, and â€œFor Rentâ€ owners.

Direct mail is simply promoting to your audiences through the mail.

Depending on your budget, you may want to advertise to one or all of the prospect types mentioned above. If you decide to limit your prospect mailing to just a few prospect types, the list below shows the prospects you should promote to and their position of importance from top to bottom. (This list is prioritized in order of importance that you should follow. For instance, if you only plan to promote to three prospect types, then send to Equity Owners, Foreclosure/NOD, and COI prospects, as they are the top three on the prioritized list.)

What to Mail

Imagine for a moment that you walked into a convenience store to buy a fountain soda. If there were only two choices of soda brands, it would be easy to decide which one to choose from, and the competing vendors would have a 50 percent chance that you would decide on their product, if everything were equal.

But what if when you got to the soda fountain machine there were 24 product choices to choose from? How then would those vendors capture the largest market share possible? We could get very complex and crafty about this, but the fact is, the answer is very simple. The smart vendors would own as many of the choices as possible.

In terms of marketing to different types of prospects, in order to be successful, your message will need to be different with each type. This is because you have to appeal to the mindset of each of your prospect types. In other words, you have to connect with them by saying what they want to hear.

Different people respond to different messages, especially when they need something and youâ€™re offering a solution. The familiar saying, â€œmisery loves company,â€ is accurate in that, if youâ€™re willing to talk to someone about a problem they have, youâ€™ll likely make a new friend who will often go from a speechless frown to a very interested chatterbox.

When it comes to marketing to others and getting them interested enough to call you, it boils down to talking about things that are on their mind, being interested and letting them know that thereâ€™s a solution. This can be accomplished in writing through direct mail activities. And the odds of getting a response can be increased through a series of mailings. Using letters and postcards will increase the likelihood that the prospect will call you.

The two key components when prospecting via the mail are to get the prospect to read your message and to cause them to take the action that you dictate. When sending letters, thereâ€™s a third component: getting them to first open it.

Large companies have gone to expensive methods to trick us into opening their mail. When we do, we find out weâ€™ve won nothing or it wasnâ€™t a real check inside the envelope. They will use every trick in the book and so should you.

Having your mail opened and your message read is the key to successful marketing! Without it you cannot obtain your Key Objective: GETTING A PROSPECT TO CALL YOU.

Todayâ€™s competitive market has house sellers bombarded with many offers from Realtors, lenders and investors, so you must use every resource available in order to survive. And the more effective you are than your competition, the greater piece of the pie you will hold.

When you attend a presentation boot camp you will learn terms like â€œmimickingâ€ and â€œembeddedâ€ commands. These are examples of powerful techniques you can use to persuade a seller to take the actions you want them to take.

Your letters and postcards need to enforce those same techniques. But it can take years to perfect these techniques, and a lot of wasted income trying them out with your mailings. So Iâ€™ve developed letters and postcards that contain effective techniques, embedded commands and other necessary aspects. By the way, an embedded command is a fancy word for putting a â€œcall to actionâ€ within the body of the letter.

I mail Vouchers, Yellow, Postcards , and professional letters.  However the Yellow out pulls everything hands down.

The purpose of direct mail is to communicate and cause a desired reaction; your mail needs to be read and responded to no later than your last and final mailing. Because of this we must, at times, trick the addressee into opening the direct mail piece. When all else fails in getting your communication opened and read by prospects, my â€œYellowâ€ Letters will do the job. I have developed a very simple process to follow to ensure consistency and response.

A Little About Promotion

One of the most important activities in the business of real estate investing is promotion. Promoting yourself makes you known to others, who previously did not know of you. Letters also keep you fresh in the minds of people who know that you buy houses, but havenâ€™t decided to call you just yet.

When it comes to sending out letters, youâ€™re concerned with one thing: getting house sellers to call you with an interest in selling their house to you.

In order to get someone to call you, they have to know:

1.	that you are a real estate investor who buys houses
2.	that you can help them sell their house
3.	that you want to buy their house
4.	that they can trust you
5.	how to contact you by providing your telephone number

...this is basically what you are telling them in your promotional letters and postcards.

As mentioned, there are seven letters for each of the types of prospects. You might wonder, â€œWhy not send just one letter and be done with it?â€ It is because it takes people a number of times to hear or be told something before they respond to things. Thatâ€™s why certain things are repeated so much in infomercials. They donâ€™t just give the price and call to action (â€œorder now!â€) one timeâ€”itâ€™s stated numerous times throughout the advertisement.

To get the most out of your promotional activities, you must repeat your communication to prospects, whether that communication be the same message over and over or with slightly different messages each time. I believe that slightly different messages go slightly farther than the same message repeated. Sending the seven designated letters, along with the Yellow Letters and postcards, is your ticket to having ample prospects from whom to buy houses.

When to mail

That all depends on budget and prospect type. If an equity farm no more than 90 days between mailing. NODS hit hard for 2 weeks.  There is a ton of logic that goes into when to mail and how often. More importantly is who to mail to. Advertising is either cheap or expensive depending on the success. Choose wisely.

Will Barnard · Answer

Michael,

If you are referring to marketing via post cards/bulk mail etc and asking about frequency, it is said that you must put your marketing piece in front of the target party at least 3 times and many suggest 4-5 times to get the most out of any list you market to.

Once a month would be too far apart. If using direct marketing pieces, you should do 2 times a month for 2 months straight to the same parties. That has been suggested by many direct mail marketers.

Shelley Ballance · Answer

thanks for this topic! I have just started out in real estate investing only a couple months into it and I am still working out my quirks in my marketing! Its nice to hear experienced investors giving some advice. So mailing twice a month to the same folks is not too much? I was always told every six weeks but what you said will makes sense. Most of the marketing letters get thrown out and if you wait too far in between they will keep getting thrown out

Will Barnard · Answer

It is also best to change yoru look a bit each time. If sending postcards or letters, change the wording each time.

Will Barnard · Answer

No problemo Michael.
The rule of thumb is, the first one get's tossed in the circular file cabinet, the second gets a glance, the thrid gets read, and teh fourth creates the call to action.

Michael Quarles · Answer

The yellow letter pulls the most prospects per mailing however not everyone will respond to the yellow letters so there are other options. With that said, they pull so well that if a limited budget I wouldnt send anything else out but a yellow letter.

Silver A. · Answer

I run the same ad weekly in newspapers and it's working out alright. I have not done direct mail yet, but once every two weeks seems to be the minimum. Twice a week for a few weeks and then a break for a month or two in the area seems reasonable to me.
 
Often the people will not pay attention because they are simply not interested. Even if the message is perfect and usually gets you good leads. But then, one day, they absolutely have to sell, and start looking at the ads. Either way, test different messages at first and find out, which one gets you the most pre-qualified leads on the phone.

That just popped into my head, but try to add more value with your direct marketing messages than just "we buy houses, phone no." Maybe you can print something useful to the other side, etc? You'll want the people to think that this direct mail message might come handy at some point so they'll put it aside for future reference (and forget it, and find it again when they are cleaning the house in 6 months.), instead of throwing it out right away.

Mike G. · Answer

Michael Q, you say that the yellow letter outpulls everything else hands down.  Why do you send the other mailings, then?  Why not just always send the yellow letter?

Rachel H. · Answer

If you're doing direct mail, it will definitely take multiple mailing to start generating responses. I guess the key is to just be consistent. It's kind of like advertising - they have to see you and your message multiple times before they pick up the phone and call. Hope that helps!

Account Closed · Answer

I had planned on buying a pretty big bulk order for the savings of it. Changing the look hadn't occurred to me though so I might have to negate the savings in order to get the fresh appeal I need. Thanks!