Yellow Letters 101 – Complete Cost/Time Breakdown

Introduction

Thinking about starting your first Direct Mail Yellow Letter Marketing Campaign but only have a small monthly spending budget? Or maybe you are building your marketing team, and need to implement an easy-to-follow system for your new hires. This post breaks down the entire process of a Do It Yourself Yellow Letter Campaign vs. outsourcing it through 3rd party companies, such as Yellow Letters. I will break down the time it takes, and the cost, of manually filling out and sending 100 & 500 Yellow Letters vs. purchasing them through a 3rd party vendor. There are a ton of different ways and best practices on how to do this process, but this is how I got started! Any feedback is greatly appreciated; there are always new ways to make this process more efficient, so let’s brainstorm together! Note: this is only breaking down Yellow Letters, and not comparing alternative Direct Mail options, such as postcards. 

Supplies

Listed here are all the necessary supplies needed to start your Yellow Letters Marketing Campaign from your home office. If you are just starting out, I breakdown the exact one-time, startup costs to get this marketing train running! This will also be useful for out of state Investors who plan to partner or hire someone in a different market; you will be able to outline the exact startup costs needed. For consistency purposes, I pulled all pricing from an OfficeMax near me (accept for the yellow pads and printer, which are noted below). Prices may vary depending on your location and local supply vendors.

Cost Breakdown - Supplies

Supplies Notes: 

- Envelops: Many people say the best practice is to use Manila colored, invitation style envelops. I personally use all colors: white business style, manila, pastel. You want to keep your audience guessing. However, colored envelops are usually much more expensive (OfficeDepot is $14.29 for 50). If your budget is tight, starting with white envelops, which will be easier on your wallet. 

- Black Sharpie: Man people suggest writing your Yellow Letters in red ink. I use black sharpie because it looks the most similar to how my printer photo copies. This allow me to photo copy my template, and just write in the Property Owner's Name and Address.

- Red Pens: Used to address envelops.

- Yellow Pads: Found on clearance woohoo!

- Printer: People are always selling printers for CHEAP on Craigslist since they are way too heavy to ship. Take advantage! I bought my Dell 926 Photo Printer for $20 NEVER USED.

- Ink: I assume that the new ink cartridges will last at least 500 copies. This cost is listed as a one-time cost for the 100 copies sample.

- Additional: When mailing 100 letters, I are assuming that you buy in bulk and based off the prices listed above.

Building Your Letter Template

Template Notes:

- What is actually written in your template is never usually a make or break (unless you are writing completely off the wall information). Pick a template, and just try it out. It is key to test the waters with different marketing approaches, measure your results, and pivot accordingly. Here is an example of the one I am trying out. Everything is photocopied from the template on the yellow papers that I feed into the printer; I only manually write in the Property Owner's Name and Address.

Time Breakdown

Time Breakdown Notes:

- Photocopying: For efficiency purposes, you can also be doing other steps in the process (such as stamping envelops) while the printer is making copies. For more realistic time totals, I will only add 1/3 of this time to the total time allotment (assuming that 1/3 would be spent re-feeding the printer, keeping piles organized, and assessing papers jams). Additionally, each printer copies at different speeds and some printers aren't friendly when it comes to printing out paper that isn't the standard 11x8 white printer paper. Do your research ahead of time to make sure you purchase the right printer for the job!

- Handwriting Return Address: You can purchase pre-printed return address stamps instead of doing this step. However, it may make your letter seem more authentic if it's entirely handwritten, and will also help keep costs down. Vista Print offers 140 return label stamps starting at $9. 

Outsourcing Your Yellow Letters

I pulled a quick and dirty price quote from Yellow Letters for a customized Yellow Letter with nothing fancy, and only the bare bones to give us a great side by side price comparison. Outsourcing this through YellowLetters.com can take around 30 minutes if you are fully customizing and writing out your template to perfection.

Conclusion

Once you get the ball rolling and are consistently mailing out letters every few weeks, whether you are mailing 100 or 500, the cost differences can add up. 

Manual - 100 Letters (After one-time fees): 

- Total Cost: $63 - ($0.63/letter)

- Time: 3 hours 26 minutes

Outsourcing - 100 Letters:

- Total Cost: $162 ($1.62/letter)

- Time: 30 minutes

Results - 100 Letters:

- If you are manually sending out 100 letters (per week, month, etc.) then you are exchanging ~3 hours of your time instead of paying $99. If you value your time at more than $33/hour, outsourcing may be a good option for you! However, if you mail letters sporadically (i.e. Driving for Dollars), it may make more sense to manually mail. 

Manual - 500 Letters (After one-time fees):

- Total Cost: $315 - ($0.63/letter)

- Time: 15 hours 47 minutes

Outsourcing - 500 Letters:

- Total Cost: $547 ($1.09/letter)

- Time: 30 minutes

Results - 500 Letters:

- If you are manually sending out 500 letters (per week, month, etc.) then you are exchanging ~15 hours of your time instead of paying $232. If you value your time at more than $16/hour, outsourcing may be a good option for you! 

Thank you so much for checking out the blog! All feedback goes towards making this process more efficient and effective for the BP community. Thanks and let me know if you have any questions.