Postcards
Today my first postcard mailing from Postcardmania.com is being mailed. In total there are about 530 postcards. These will all be sent to first time recipients of my marketing. My “hand written” yellow letters usually pulled an average of about 12% response rate, so I’m interested to compare how the postcards do.
Quick Little Game: If you can guess how many responses I get over the next two weeks, from this first batch of postcards, I’ll give you a free audio on how to talk to motivated sellers. Just leave a comment with your guess. Total mailed out was 530.
Bigger Pockets
I’ve been getting more active with bigger pockets over the last 10 days or so and have reconnected with some old friends. Joshua Dorkin (founder of bigger pockets) was already nice enough to post his opinions on my blog about what he thinks of Bandit Signs and I tend to agree with him. It’s good to have an open mind about what other people have to say.
If you are looking for a real estate investing forum, bigger pockets seems to be the place to go. One good indicator is how fast questions get answered and how many responses there are. Very quick and always a lot! Joshua has done a great job growing BiggerPockets.com to the success it is today and I’m a bit peeved at myself for not really ever taking the time to get into it before. Don’t wait, join up today!
SI Lead Manager – Beta 6
Over the summer much of my free time to work on Beta 6 had been curtailed by getting swamped with work at my 9to5 as well as with the new baby. But I’m happy to say that since this past September, I’ve been able to work hard and am pointed towards a December release date. With out getting into to much of the details, some key changes have been made since beta 5….
- Tagging System – There are no more “Lists” per say. You will now organize everything by using Tags (like Probate, Morris County, Bread and Butter Area, etc..). You make the tags up to suit your needs.
- Letters and Mail Merge – Now you can simply create a letter in a Word Document with simple field tags like <owner_last_name> and <owner_address>. Beta 6 will then mail merge your lists directly with your Word Document Letters. No need for creating the letters in SILM. This allows for a quicker learning curve and much more flexibility with creating your letters. Pictures, Coloring and anything else word can do you can now do.
- The entire Mailing interface has been streamlined and works with the Tags as well.
- Mailing Campaigns have been simplified
- And more…
Complete Random Thoughts
- Do I want to continue to put up bandit signs?
- Why have my partner and I only had 3 deals in the past 18 months? What needs to change?
- Starting to think about next years goals and plan
- Need to increase my marketing budget, but How?
- Should I start charging for SI Lead Manager? At what price?
- Should I offer a multi user version of SI Lead Manager that uses a cloud Database?
- How many houses would I have to wholesale to replace my current income?
- I want to rehab a house this year
- Having a treadmill in my condo is awesome, though I worry about the neighbors hearing us use it.
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I am guessing 3 or less. I had 1000 go out with no response.
Keith’s last blog post ..It’s not the same New Jersey Real Estate Market
Yikes! I’d be pissed if I only get 3 calls, that would be a 0.6% response rate which would not be good. I’m expecting to get at least 30 calls. If I sent out 500 letters my average response rate says I’d get 60 calls.
What was the message you had on your postcards Keith?
Michael Q., said expect a 1/2 percent response on postcards. It was just a montague of “We buy homes” “fast Cash”…blah, blah, blah!
Keith’s last blog post ..It’s not the same New Jersey Real Estate Market
Remember regular Direct Mailers are happy with a 1 – 3% response rate!
Keith’s last blog post ..It’s not the same New Jersey Real Estate Market
Scott –
Thanks for the plug. I’m glad to see that you’ve been getting active in the site and I think you’ll find that the benefits that come with doing so are many — in fact, I happened back on your site because of it. For your readers who may not know the link (not included above), our forums can be found at http://www.biggerpockets.com/forums [feel free to remove if need be]
BTW – Good luck with the new marketing campaign!
Josh
Thanks, I’m hoping my partner gets so many calls he asks me to spread out the mailings more LOL. I’d probably be happy with a 8% response rate but would love to get 12% or more. Fingers are crossed because it’s much easier and cheaper to send out postcards then yellow letters.
I’m going to guess you get 30 leads from it Scott. Naturally I hope you get more, but I’m going with 30.
1 week down and 1 week to go before I tally the responses!
I’ve had bad luck with postcards and am about to switch to yellow letters. I’m going to guess 13 calls, but I hope you get more!
If I were to guess, I would say Yellow letters would work better then postcards at least for getting calls in general. The deciding factor is that will the calls from postcards be higher quality calls from more motivated sellers? If I get 30 calls from yellow letters, and 5 of those calls are from motivated people that’s fine. If I get only 10 calls from postcards but 5 of those 10 are motivated people then I would say the postcards where more successful. The reason is that my partner wouldn’t have had to waste is time talking to an additional 20 people just to get the 5 motivated sellers. What do you think?