Anyways I'm in the middle of finding my first few deals, basically I got a targeted audience list from my county's auditor and controller and executed multiple direct mail campaigns with my offer.

However, it's not a strength of mine, so I'm going to be hiring someone to setup my campaigns for me.

Learn all there is to know about SEO, get your website after that first month, and spend the next month applying all you learned on SEO, and research direct mail marketing.Then take 2000 dolalrs out of your 15K and send a campaign out.Scary  yes?

I'm debating doing a direct mail campaign, but haven't decided if I want to put that much effort yet.

.$50k isn't much, so leverage is probably key...but that doesn't mean you can't allocate to multiple areas...for example, hire a marketing firm and build your campaign for off-market properties...and leverage bank money on a buy-and-hold.

I've been a wallflower on BP for a few months and I finally built up the courage to do my first DM campaign.

Is it more beneficial to spend all my time driving the streets to gain free leads, only to later spend the money on the mailing campaign of maybe 100-500 leads over a few weeks?

I think that is a good idea, rather then knocking on doors. i am a Contractor and ran a small campaign like that just to see what would happen. i didn't come off saying if you need work call ******, i simply said that i am doing work near you, the hours i will be working and the company information. i got a call to price one job and a lot of thank you's from neighbors for letting them know. campaigns like that do work, just provide direct information and not a lot on them, maybe have a tear-a-way business card on the bottom.

I also plan to begin a marketing campaign to gin up some wholesaling opportunities.  

He knows a thing or two about effective direct mail campaigns.