Direct Mail Cost Per Deal

[Brandon Mitchell]

I am marketing locally in Austin, TX and have spent about 3K resulting in 15 solid leads and 1 contract that fell through unfortunately. Still no closed deals from it but by those numbers I am figuring approx. 3-4K a month should average about a deal a month.

Just curious what successful folks with the direct mail strategy are spending per deal. I know it varies by market but am curious to see what has been working for other people. 

[James Danchus]

Really, all you have to do is start from one deal and work backwards. Based on everything I've read on here and heard elsewhere is that the response rate for postcards is anywhere from .5% to 2% and letters are around 5%.  Lets say we get 3%. If your a killer closer, generally your going to close around 5% of those. I'm probably not gong to be that good at least starting out so let's say I close 3% of my leads.

So...

1 deal= 3% of 30. So I'd need to get 30 calls to get deal. At a conversion rate of 2%, that means that I'll need to send out 50 mailers to get one call. 50 mailers X 30 calls = 1500 mailers. The cost of each mailer ranges from .90 to $1. 

Its a rough estimate, but I think it's a goof road-map.