All Forum Posts by: Braden C.

@Jen Senecal It really depends on your market. In my market, a professional letter has always outperformed postcards and yellow letters. I know other investors around the country who say the exact opposite. We spend five figures a month on mail and we're always testing to see what's working best. Your market might be different than mine so it's best to test different types of mail and see which one works best for you. Postcards are tempting because they're less expensive but you might end up having to send a lot more out in order to get a deal. 

@Victor Hierro There are literally thousands upon thousands of threads right here on Biggerpockets that discuss in length how to generate leads, gotta put in the legwork.  

@Norman Alsumairi I have a house that's been on my lead board for over two years, abandoned and run down but the taxes are being paid. First time I spoke with the seller she wasn't interested, so I followed up every couple of months. When we spoke last month, she said she's ready and needs six weeks to clear things out. Moral of the story, don't give up on the lead. 

@Timothy Johnson $1 per postcard is a lot of money and there are much cheaper options available, we charge $0.68 for an actual letter, not a postcard. I've been sending direct mail for my investment company for a decade and in our market letters have always outperformed postcards. Postcards are cheaper (or should be) than letters but your cost per acquisition is almost always going to be higher. Direct mail is about consistency and volume, sending out 300 as you suggested is very unlikely to get you a deal. Most people are sending out 10x that in order to get a deal. 

I always encourage people to take action and get the ball rolling, but just don't get discouraged if you don't get a deal by sending out a few hundred mail pieces. I am happy to answer any other questions you have! 

@Krista Cox Some people are already put off that you can pull their mailing address from public records, putting a picture might send someone over the top. A few years ago the google street postcards were really popular for a very brief period. We never sent any but I am sure the amount of angry calls to the companies sending them was very high. Like @Frank Luna said, some people just live in a neglected house and it could be taken as insulting. 

@Brian Ellwood I like your criteria. Regarding the letter, are you trying to convert some leads to listings that might not be a "good fit" to sell to an investor or just trying to build trust? Professional letters perform quite a bit better than yellow letters in my market but yours might be different. 

@Milo Smith A bit unrelated to your question regarding for or against automated services but I will offer some advice since you said you're new. Consistency is key with direct mail, nobody should expect good results if they only send a small batch of mail one time. It's no different than why we see the same TV commercials over and over. Before you start, make sure you have your systems in place to handle the leads. Try and answer every call and always return calls, even if you think there's no chance it will be a deal. Being professional, friendly, and organized is something a lot of people sending direct mail somehow fail to do. Good luck! 

 If the service you use for numbers is giving you an old number, try using a different service. Sometimes you really have to dig to find people, search public records and view any lawsuits, traffic tickets, arrest records, etc. because sometimes you'll find a phone number. Try looking the person up on Facebook or other social media. I've literally tracked someone down who was living in China with no social media, it took a long time but we did it. Most people would've given up but we pushed through and after all the smoke cleared our net was just under $100k. 

@Teonia Riley Finding motivated sellers isn't easy and takes a lot of work. The more rocks you turn over, the more likely you're going to be to find a deal. D4D works, some of my best deals ever came from D4D. If you spend a few hours a day just twice a week, you should be able to get a deal within a month or two. Same thing with direct mail, it works but you have to be consistent and have good systems in place to handle the incoming leads. If you're having a hard time locking the deals down, maybe reflect on your approach to sellers and see if that's something that needs to be changed. There are a lot of really good threads here on BP that discuss what and what not to say when cold calling leads from D4D and incoming calls from direct mail. 

Good luck and don't give up! 

@Luke Grieshop You should absolutely have a return address on your mail. If you send it via standard postage, it will rarely get returned back to you if the address/recipient is incorrect. First class mail will return to you and then you can dig deeper to try and find the owner.