All Forum Posts by: Sean McKee

I am a newbie real estate investor and I am doing a lot of the rehab myself and I was wondering what type of flooring long term rental investors use?

Initially I wanted to use vinyl snap together flooring since it is pretty durable and I have worked with it before. The downside is it would take a while to install it myself and I think it would be a more expensive option. I have kinda been against installing carpet but it might be an easier and cheaper alternative.

I would love any and all thoughts. Thank you!

Speaking from a personal standpoint here as I get several mailers each month about my properties. They all have the same look and feel and I'll discard them right away. Unfortunately, you have to hit them at the 'right time' but that's impossible to do unless they're in a difficult situation and want to get rid of the asset. 

Mailers as a mono-action to lead creation is ridiculous, and this form of marketing has never been designed for such any more than a billboard is for getting "leads". 

Mailers is more-so a conditioning action. 

Could one get a call from "a" mailer, sure, but that's not the consumer psychology of it. 

Back in the day, all these tenant's of such were just "known", and followed, because we never had the internet to rely upon. So we would strategically hit a location with a mailer, that than the call-room would start hitting on 2 days later. And as call center worked the area, 2-3 additional mailers went out. 

Cold-calling is all but a dead-art, but the principles remain. 

Using mailers, in an ascending manner, in concert with conversion based marketing, that's what drives up lead gen to hit those 3,4% marks. 

Your mailers have to be conditioning based, referencing back to the converting portion (website / click funnel). And done in strategic waves. Not 1 but 3, 4 etc.. 

And when done in concert with other mediums, be it billboards, radio, whatever creating a saturation marketing strategy, that's how leads are made. 

But problem is too many think they can do just 1 action of the marketing strategy and like magic leads appear, that's gonna be a setup for failure. 

So if viewing mailers as the marketing strategy, your doing it wrong. It's a piece of the puzzle, 1 piece, so a person needs that whole to make that 1 piece most effective. 

In general, a click-funnel, a call center # (because needs to be answered 24-7), an ascending series to develop a lead in that click-funnel, and a series of mailers that "stack-up" on the messaging of each other. 

Direct mail will continue to have declining response rates as the people who actually look at their mail dies off.  
I spend 6 months a year away from my main residence, and don’t even bother having mail forwarded.  In the last 4 months, 2 pieces of mail delivered were important enough for me to have them forwarded (my neighbor goes thru my mail for me when I’m away).  We utilize email campaigns and the response declines every year.  I hear that the same can be said for phone calls - and after a brief surge in text response that too is starting to be ignored.
So, while a continuous campaign funded at a fairly large level (top wholesalers spend $15,000 + monthly on marketing), the trend is that people DON’T want their personal space and sanctums violated by advertising.  They want quality information when they search for it.  Obviously, a complete and well built website with interactive components and quality information that’s constantly update and optimized for particular keywords to show up on the first page of search engines (including YouTube) will bring in the MOST valuable leads.  Sending quality information/updates through email to the people who contacted you and opted in to your email list could lead to similar results - IF you don’t bombard them with continuous sales pitches and or irrelevant information.  

SEM works, BUT it’s become very expensive, and now requires expertise beyond the capacity of the average business owner/investor.  And once a campaign is going, billboards have surprisingly proven effective.  

For many investors, this type of expense and effort is not worth it. Those investors are better off buying deals found by others who are possibly utilizing  these marketing tools.  Those investors will have to NEGOTIATE to get a deal” as the other party will want to keep as much of the “gravy” as possible for themselves.  But the cost of marketing in both $ and time needs to be weighed against paying somewhat more than the “wholesale” price.  My best advise is that unless you’re in the BUSINESS of real estate, in other words if you’re just a part time investor, then skip the direct mail, email blasts, SEM, etc. and go to the people who have already obtained the lead - and negotiate a good deal.  The exception would be a superior website maintained for SEO, IF your investment program is large enough to cover the $5k upfront cost and the $500 per month maintenance for an optimized website. 

If you only sent out 3500 mailers and got a deal from it, that’s very successful.
I’m actually surprised you got a deal from such a small amount of mailing…  

@Sean McKee

I never really understood people with smaller budgets doing direct mail. There are companies spending $100k a month on mail and all the smaller sized companies / people all get their data from same sources (like Propstream).

To me it didn’t make sense to use the same info as it is extremely difficult to have any type of advantage

Good to meet you.   There aren’t any tricks.  Marketing is very difficult done right.  

1-2 properties a year is a great goal.  There’s nothing wrong with stability.  

Personally I run an algorithm on a market once I decide on it.  The algorithm gives me a lot of insight.  Things like high demand, high risk, DOM and such. 

I still like direct mail.   I can drill down and market to just LIKELY motivated prospects.  

Besides marketing the larger component is the list of questions to ask and how we ask them.  

Most sellers are afraid of that first contact and need direction.  

Does BP still allow users to share scripts.  If so let me know.  

I am not doing a lot of direct mailing but I have over 15 years of marketing experience. The key is to test, test, test until it works. Like Bob said above, you need the right mix of list, message, and mailer. 

You never know until you keep testing what works and what does not. Then the market changes and you need to start testing something new. 

 It's the list, the mailing piece and the message. They all have to work together. A while back I sent out 5,000 pieces at $1 a piece and got zero phone calls. I have also sent out 500 at $1 a piece to a different group with a different list and got 20 calls. I haven't done mailers in a while, so I'm not really sure what the response would be right now.