Dan's Top Tips For Your Next Mail Campaign

Dan Austin: [0:01] Welcome to the Collecting Keys Friday Focus. Hey there. Welcome back to another episode of the Collecting Keys Friday Focus. You have me today, Dan Austin, as your host. I'm sorry to disappoint, but I do not have a case study, deal case study for you today, I'm just gonna blabber on. But it's actually something I think is important, a lot of people seem to be interested in, and we get a lot of questions about this, and that is mail sequencing, and setting up mail campaigns, and the how to, and what do we do, and some of the nuances around actually doing direct mail. If you're a listener of us, you know we're direct mail people, and that's how we find most all of our motivated leads. This week in our instant investor group call, this question actually came up. If you're not familiar with it, we have the instant investor group coaching program, and we do two live calls with everybody in that program, they get to ask us questions, and we all mastermind on really best practices, and what's going on in the market, what we're seeing that works well, what doesn't work well, so it's a great group dynamic with some awesome A players in there, and they come up with awesome questions like this, and we get to spend an hour, couple hours a week actually masterminding on these sorts of things. And the the question specifically that was asked is, how often do you mail the leads on your motivated leads list, once you know, you develop a list of who you believe are motivated, and then how often do we mail them?

Dan Austin: [1:23] And the short answer is, we don't stop mailing, you know, a list once we start, unless they call in, and now they're in our CRM, and they're in a separate drip or follow-up sequence, or they call and say, hey, I don't wanna be on your list, take us off your list. Then you know what, we happily, if they give us their address, we'll strip them out of our list, and stop mailing to us, so we can save 50¢ or a buck, or whatever it is. But really, if you look at it the macro level here, what we're trying to do is we're trying to build a a marketing funnel, and at the top of it, your least motivated leads, and then you peel in and bring in different motivations, like, and they're typically financial motivations, but there's others, you know, you have bankruptcies, and liens, and foreclosures, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera, and the more lists a single lead shows up on, the more motivated they are. So, when we develop our list of leads, we're gonna take those that show up on the most amount of lists, the highest motivation, grab all of them, Then we're gonna grab the next group that shows up on the next least amount of lists, so maybe the first group is three, the next group is two. We're just gonna start pulling in those leads from most motivation to least motivation, until we hit our budget. And our budget is usually, for a market starting out, is about $5,000 is a great budget. For marketing, you can go less of course, this is just something we standardize on, you can go more, but 5,000 is a great number, it's going to get you two to four deals a month at least, and you're going to have great margins, and great profitability with that type of budget. So when we fill up that list, then we now have our list, and they're on our list for a reason, and that's why we keep mailing them. Sometimes you mail them once, and they don't answer, sometimes you mail them 12 times, you spend $12 on really high quality letters, and they finally call in, and you do a deal that's worth 30,000, 40,000, 50,000, and so that's why we say, once we start mailing, we generally don't stop because they're on that list for a reason.

Dan Austin: [3:18] They may fall off, because we do refresh our data, and so they may fall off in month two, maybe they were in pre foreclosure and somehow they got out of it, now they're no longer pre foreclosure, and that was the only motivator motivator they had, or maybe they sold the house or or whatever, things happen that they may peel off, but if they're on that list consistently for six, seven, eight months, we're gonna mail it to them, because they're they're like I said, there's a reason why they're on there. We also set up a sequence, a mailing sequence that lasts six months. So in that sequence, we have six unique postcards and letters that we send, and these letters will have unique copy per month. So we're not mailing the exact same letter every month, it changes up, there's some nuances to it. And then, honestly, once we get to the end of that six months, we just start back over, and again, like I mentioned, we're refreshing data, so there's gonna be new people on there, there's gonna be some same old people, but they're gonna go back to month one, and they're gonna get that same letter, same postcard that we sent out in month one. Now, like looking back just over the last two years, we spent over $1,000,000 just sending letters and postcards to motivated sellers, so we have some level of expertise, but mostly we understand the small changes that don't really make much difference, and the small changes that make a ton of difference. You know, it's not always about spending more money, it's not always about changing the copy, there's there's some nuances, and I want to jump in and give you my top three tips for starting out with your mailing campaign, and what I would do if I was in your shoes, because it's exactly what we're doing here in our various markets that we send mail in. But before I do that, before I jump into my top tips, I would appreciate if you could do me a huge favor. If you're listening to this on Apple Podcasts, I can't help you right now if you're on Android, because I don't know, you know, Spotify, whatever whatever you're using to listen to this. But if you're listening to this on your Apple iPhone, and you've got Apple Podcasts, do me a huge favor, open up the app, open up the actual podcast, make sure it's not the episode, but it's the actual podcast channel there, and just scroll down past the episodes, and then all of a sudden, you'll see our impeccable 4.9 star review.

Dan Austin: [5:29] Hit that topic, give us a five star rating, and if you want a free t shirt, you wanna do something really cool for us, go a little bit lower and tap on that writer review and give us a review. Let us know what you think, good, bad, indifferent, whatever, and if you screenshot that, send that to me on Instagram at investormandan, we will send you a free collecting keys t shirt, we're really trying to bolster those reviews, because especially on Apple, that's honestly how we're able to share the show. We don't ask you for anything else, we're not advertising for anything else, this is kind of just for us, to get the reviews out there, and to get our podcast known. So if you don't mind doing that, I would appreciate it. That could be your thank you for me giving you these top tips. Anyhow, let's dive into them. The top three tips. There's only three, there's probably many more, but these are the three with the biggest bang that's gonna help you get started. The first one, it's very simple, but also super difficult, stay consistent. Once you build out your list of motivated leads, once you figure out who are the right people to mail, once you have that list, stick with it for at least three months.

Dan Austin: [6:30] If you don't get a deal in your first month, that's okay. It's actually quite uncommon to get one after just sending one batch of mail, honestly. It doesn't happen very often for a lot of people, just because it takes some time to build up a little bit of that list, and to follow-up. You may get a deal in month three from your first batch, but you're not gonna need to know that if you quit after month one and just tap out. So, and that's This goes with like anytime you're going to make a change, don't make a change and say, oh it didn't work after month one and then quit. Give everything three months, spend time thinking about it, and making the right decisions upfront, at least well thought out decisions. You may make the wrong decision, but make some well thought out decisions, click go, and sit on it for three months, plan to go for three months. If it's not working, you're not getting the results you think you should get, after three months, that's when you should make the changes. And a lot of times, the big changes there are gonna be like, maybe you need to change the zip code you're marketing to, you're not getting very many leads, maybe you need to change the lists, maybe you're not mailing to the right lists, maybe you're mailing to just too broad of a list, or you don't have enough equity, so these people aren't able to sell their homes, or whatever it is. Those are more likely to be it.

Dan Austin: [7:41] Honestly, gonna be less likely that you need to change anything about your mail copy or anything with your letters. Those are kinda smaller changes, but it will It does bring me to my next point, tip number two. Mail copy and branding is important, but it's not the most important. Make sure that you are branding your mail with something memorable. I always tell people when they come up with their company name, don't do something that is memorable to you, or that's important to you, do something that's going to get that's catchy, not too gimmicky, but catchy, and something that after getting a letter or two from you in the mail, the seller is going to remember you, because that's that's what's going to stick in their brain is that brand right there. Don't spend a ton of time on it wasting it, trying to figure out the perfect thing, just get something easy and simple and go with it, but definitely brand your material. And then secondly, don't overthink the copy. Don't spend time thinking that this is the one hold up that's gonna keep you from sending out mail. If you're local where you're at and you're going to send mail local, put some specific things around there. If there's a major event, if there's a heat wave or a snowstorm, reference that if you're gonna be mailing within the next few weeks, that that's gonna be hitting these people's houses.

Dan Austin: [8:52] Try to be hyper local. Don't try to be hyper local if you're not, and you say something that's totally stupid, it's like going into, you know, you're cold calling a random city, you say a road wrong, what you're saying, know, like whatever main road they have in town, and you say it backwards or something like that, and they know immediately you're not from there, it's worse than having like a southern accent, and saying you're from Washington State, where we do not have southern accents. So, try to be somewhat specific and creative, but keep it also simple and short, because people are not gonna read a long letter, they don't need the love story that you're about to write up. You know, I like to go with one good paragraph, and then some bullet points. Beyond that, you don't need a lot, you wanna really highlight like, hey, I'm here to buy houses, I'm an investor, and these are the advantages of working with me. And then make some minor changes, know, like, hey, did you get my letter last month? I would love to chat with you. I'm trying to buy houses in your exact neighborhood. I would love to see if you were open to getting an all cash offer, blah blah blah blah blah, on an episode, I cannot remember which episode, but several episodes ago, we'll put this in the show notes, we actually read the copy for one of our letters, so it's out there, Mike, I think read it off. So it's We don't get too complicated with this, so don't overthink the copy, have a memorable brand, be simple, and just go with go with your gut, especially if you're local, try to be local with it.

Dan Austin: [10:12] Okay. The last tip, the goal here really is to spark a conversation, and to do that, you need them to actually look at your postcard, you need them to actually look at your letters, they need to open them and read them and get your phone number off those letters, right? So think about the junk mail that shows up to your doorstep or your mailbox every week, and which ones are you most likely to actually open? For me, you know, it's really the simple ones. I like the things that look like they're almost personalized, and they might be from somebody that I know, and I'm like, hey, who is this who is this damn guy that sent me a letter? I should open this one, right? So that's kinda what I look for when I'm actually going through my junk mail, and I just kinda believe it needs to really just spark some curiosity, so don't you know, put a bunch of flashy stuff on there that says, I am junk mail, if you throw it away, it will not cost you anything. I like to say, you know, like, you want your letter to be simple, because it will stand out against the zip bang pow graphics that you see on all this junk mail, that's you know, bright colored things with flashy, shiny cards, and all this sort of stuff that everybody's trying, because they're trying to get everybody's attention. But I strongly feel that, know, we are kind of desensitized to that, especially like having digital marketing just always thrown at our faces, mail marketing just like, ugh. And so if you can go in there with a very simple, white letter, I think is the best, like a white envelope, because it almost looks like a wedding invitation or something.

Dan Austin: [11:43] Kinda like I said, kinda make it like spark their curiosity, like what is inside this envelope? And so they open and they say, because remember, they are motivated, that's why you're mailing to them. And so they open it, that at least gets gets them thinking about it. Again, they might not call in month one, but month two, when the screws are tightened, when the bank's calling them twice a week now instead of once a week, they may actually answer your call, they may you know, actually call you from from your letter, they may they might make that decision, but you gotta be mailing again consistently to make that happen, and they have to open your letter. A lot of times, letters just get thrown away, especially if you're just part of the junk mail, and they don't really see you because it's just a bunch of bright color flashy stuff. That's the three things. So to summarize, stay consistent, always give everything three months. Your mail copy and branding is important, but it's not the most important. Try to be memorable, try to be local as much as possible, be simple, clear and concise. And then lastly, make it so that they want to open your letter, make it so that they see it, and think about that from your point of view, when you're going to the mailbox, and you're seeing stacks of junk mail, and coupons, and this and that.

Dan Austin: [12:55] What's the one thing that you would open, and go with that? Don't get crazy, it's gotta be simple. Like I said, Mike and I have spent over a million dollars, we've bought all of the different types of letters out there, we've had the most success with simple concise copy, with simple plain letters, nothing crazy, and we're just consistent over a long period of time, and that's how we find success, and that's how we coach success in our Instant Investor Program. So, those are all the tips, I will leave you with that. If you do have any questions, if you want me to fill in any gaps, I know I didn't go over every little detail here, but if you do have some questions and and you want me to answer some of the detailed stuff that maybe sparked new thoughts or new questions in your head, feel free to hit me up on Instagram at investorman dan. I love talking to listeners, I love helping people solve problems. I love helping people get their first deal or get their next deal. So sincerely, hit me up. I would love to help you out. So with that, happy Friday. Have a great weekend. We'll catch you on Monday with our next episode. See y'all. Thanks for listening to this collecting keys Friday focus. Be sure to subscribe wherever you listen to your podcasts.