Direct Mail List Criteria

[Corey Petersen]

Hi all successful direct mailers, 

I'm finally ready to go through with my first direct mail campaign, and I'm hoping for some second opinions from people who have the experience.  I have been going around and around about the type of list to send out.  For this first campaign, I would like to keep it small because I'm probably going to screw up along the way, but I don't want to go so small that I'm not giving myself a chance to eventually get a deal out of it and build some positive momentum.  (Not to mention it would go a long way in giving my wife a little confidence in pushing on in this direction.)

Below is what I've chosen as criteria on List Serve, resulting in 310 properties on the list.  My plan is to send handwritten letters in letter style envelopes (probably colored) to the 310 individuals, every other month for three rounds.

My questions are:

1) Is 310 a high enough number to campaign to?

2) Does the criteria I'm using to create the list seem reasonable?

3) After the 3rd campaign, or 6th month, does the list get stale?  Or should I keep using it for additional mailings since I'm targeting owners with equity, which I would assume is a subset that changes slower than others (like foreclosure or probate)?

4) Any other words of wisdom would be greatly appreciated.  Thank you!

Geography	Washington County
Equity %	45-65%
Other	Absentee Owned, Out of State
Current Home Value	$100,000-$500,000
Type	SFR's
Total List Size	310 Properties