Hey there — today, I want to talk with you about something pretty cool… direct mail! (Yep, I still love me some DM.)
Specifically, I’ve got the 5 do’s and the 5 don’ts of direct mail. Well, this email will be the 5 do’s and the next email will be the 5 don’ts. And maybe some bonuses are thrown in too. 🙂
Why do I want to cover this? Because direct mail works! It’s not dead. Investors are still doing deals because of DM. So, don’t quit doing direct mail.
Now, the Do’s…
#1 Do DM
Yep, obvi, send out the direct mail.
So, I had a student who became successful, and I just love his philosophy about direct mail. When he began, he really didn’t know what he was doing. He just decided to take action. He didn’t have all the systems in place, but he just thought “F@$& it” and he did it… he did a bunch of direct mail. And he killed it!
You have to do direct mail and you’ve got to be consistent.
#2 Make a Schedule
Get your direct mail campaigns on a schedule. But, you shouldn’t be the one managing those campaigns. Send it to a mail house or a printing company and have them deploy, for example, 5,000 postcards — 1,000 a week — for five weeks.
There you go, that’s a schedule. It’s even easier because someone else is taking care of it for you.
#3 Go Big or Go Home
You can’t think that you’re going to send 200 postcards here and 200 there… and expect to do a deal. It does not work that way.
You’ve got to get over that fear that you’re going to be wasting a lot of money and send out a BIG marketing campaign.
If you need to start small when you’re first getting started, I get that. But once you start doing deals and once you’ve got some money, you’re going to have to spend $4,000–$5,000 for a campaign.
Remember Hyper-focus on a few ZIP codes. You need to be a big fish in a small pond.
#4 Track Your Numbers
Okay, it’s important to track your numbers as calls are coming in.
To do this, just get a different virtual phone number from Vumber or CallRail for each campaign, so you know which campaign they’re coming from when the leads come in.
Each list, each postcard, each letter gets its own virtual phone number. It’s affordable, just $3–$4 a month.
#5 Trace Returned Mail
Always skip tracing your returned mail!
If/when you get returned mail, you need to find out who the owner is and find their phone number and call them. Well, your VA can do all of that.
Bonus #6 Alternative Mail
Think about alternative things you can mail.
For example, maybe send blind offers. I do this for land and it works really well.
And, I’ve also done it for owner-financing deals, where my VA finds free-and-clear properties and puts them in a spreadsheet, then sends them blind owner-financing offers based on Zillow estimates. Done and done.
And there you go…
That’s 5 do’s for direct mail plus a nice little bonus.
Stay tuned for my next email with the don’ts of direct mail. Good stuff coming!
