Then I'd mention it the next time I came by. Worked like a charm. They never realized that I didn't pay for the UPS delivery. And we all know that those special delivery envelopes are irresistable…

I know that the UPS envelopes are free and I think Fedex are free as well. You just gotta have the stomach for knocking doors.

In fact, you could put your lumpy's inside the fedex envelope, seal it and then put that inside another plain envelope and mail the whole thing to them. I know I'd open it!

In the end I'd rather mail a classy, hand-signed letter to the exec's and beneficiaries the first time and then drip mail the exec's only with a yellow postcard (click2mail) every 30-45 days for the rest of eternity. Til they buy or die…

Remember, keep it simple. And cheap. And effective. And efficient. And honest. And clear. And persistent.

You buy any houses yet?

-Taylor

But I digress.

One of my great ideas along the way was to shoot a VERY low budget, very homegrown type video aimed at homeowners in trouble. Reasons: Do something different. And, create lumpy mail.

The video would not be high production. Professional yes, but not high dollar. Honestly – I still think its one of my greatest ideas.

Total cost should be no more than $500 bucks to make the video and produce a bunch of DVD's in simple paper sleeves. Hell, you could do it on a Mac for less using iMovie, or Final Cut.

Listen – you and EVERY MoFo out there is doing letters. How many investors do you think are doing essentially what amounts to a personalized 1 minute commercial sent directly to the distressed owner?

Answer —— NO ONE!

As you might already know I sent out my first batch of direct mail to apartment owners last month. I sent out 278, 20 came back unable to forward and I got 7 call backs (as of today.)

For some reason, I get a better response in the commercial market than I ever did in any other market (but the closest in comparison was definitely my probate mailings.)

Now, as of right now, I don't do anything fancy. I mean I posted my exact letter over on my website but I do have a neighbor hand-write the apartment owners and address, plus I have her put a normal stamp on there and a return address sticker. It's getting opened like that as of now and it's nothing fancy.

In the future, I'll try some lumpy mail techniques based on the particular mailing I am sending out…i.e. including either a piece of candy in there or 2 aspirin wrapped in saran wrap. Those are for future mailings and I will include them on my website as well.

Right now, I'm just using your standard #10 envelope but I think that using colored envelopes get opened up more often then plain white ones. Perhaps you can try that out.

Or I've also tried to use colored paper with a white envelope. With all of that said, I agree with what Bilgefisher said. So perhaps instead of something gimicky you can try different colored envelopes? different sized envelopes? etc. etc. I'm sure you can think of different ideas too.

Ya know now that I think about it…perhaps you could do a lumpy mail piece with aspirin wrapped in saran wrap in them. Because it is a stressful time when some passes away and you have to deal with all of their finances, etc. Perhaps they are upset and stressed about what to do with the property?? Might be able to work, you just have to figure out exactly how to word your headline as not to offend or upset.