Is direct mail dead?

[Mike Schorah]

I heard that you need to send out $10k in direct mail to land a deal in this economy.

[Cornelius Garland]

Quote from @Mike Schorah:

I heard that you need to send out $10k in direct mail to land a deal in this economy.

Direct mail got me my first deal in 2015 and it isn't going away. Actually, I think now is a better time for it since we have other affordable marketing channels. When I started, cold calling was only for the top wholesales with large budgets. Typical rates were $12 - $20 per hour. Also, skip tracing was a very manual process. We would have to go on Upwork to find assistants to skip-trace each one manually through TLO or Microbilt. It was a pain and not cost-effective. So up until a few years ago, many wholesalers were stuck with a few marketing channels like direct mail and door-knocking to generate motivated seller leads.

Now, since skip tracing is very affordable, it has opened up other marketing channels like cold calling, bulk texting, voice broadcasts, and ringless voicemails. This may make it appear like it is not effective since others aren't talking about it as much.

You can get a deal by sending out 3,000 mail pieces to absentee sellers if your targeting is right by going to distressed zip codes and focusing on cheaper properties. However, I found that 5,000 mailers are a sweet spot. This will generate anywhere from 25 - 50 leads. It's taking me 45 leads, on average to close a deal with direct mail. This figure has held true for my company for years.