One of the most effective ways to get a motivated seller’s attention is through the use of “lumpy mail”. Lumpy mail is anything that is a dimensional mailing or that makes noise or looks different than a normal mail piece. There are several different ways to use lumpy mail in your real estate investment business.
One way a lot of real estate investors use lumpy mail is when they are going after the pre-foreclosure market. These people are getting stacks of mail and post cards every day from mortgage companies, attorneys and other investors. You need to do something to make your mail stand out and look different from the others.
There are several ways to do this. One is to simply insert something into the envelope if you are mailing a letter. It might be a piece of candy or gum with information about your business with a tag line of “In a sticky situation? Call us first”. Or, if it’s a piece of candy, “Call us first, we can make you a sweet deal”. It just needs to be something that makes you look different and stand out from everyone else.
There are also specialty boxes available that stand out because of their shape, dimension, and the fact that they look like priority mail or express mail. These generally will get opened 80% of the time according to statistics. This greatly increases the chances of that motivated seller calling you first. In addition, when you send out these mailers, insert a penny into them. Anything that makes noise will arouse the seller’s curiosity. Just one warning though, if you implement these techniques, make sure you are ready to handle the responses since they will increase dramatically.
There are many items that are lightweight and small
that can be added to your mailings to increase the response rate. Let’s face it, you have competition, especially in the pre-foreclosure market. You need something that will set you aside and get your offer opened and read. You can use a post it note pad as an envelope stuffer or a small calendar. These are items the seller will hold onto and they will contact you first when their circumstances dictate that they do so. There are many items like these available for you to choose from.
I personally mail to a lot of out of state owners and in my mailings I have a response mechanism that I want the seller to send back to me either by mail or by fax, so I include a flat pen in my mailings. This significantly increases the response rate in two ways. One is that they wonder what’s in the envelope and the other is that they have the pen immediately handy to fill out my response mechanism. It just takes away one more step for them. Anything that makes it easier for the seller to respond will cause them to do it sooner as opposed to later. Plus, they will keep the pen to stick in their purse or check book. Once again, they have my information immediately handy when they are ready to contact me.
Don’t send out more pieces than you can realistically respond to since your responses will increase significantly. And don’t forget to tie the specific verbiage in with the market you are targeting with your mailings. For example, if you insert the penny into your pre-foreclosure mailings, use a headline on your piece that says something like “Tired of getting penny ante offers? Contact us for a fair offer” You will want to use different verbiage for lists containing divorces, military transfers, pre-foreclosures, job relocations, etc.
One of my specialties as a marketing expert is to help my students create the most effective lists and locate the best list brokers available; in addition to providing many ways to increase their response rates with their mailings.
Using a direct mail letter campaign is one of the most highly niched and cost effective ways I know to get motivated sellers contacting you in droves so you can pick and choose the deals you want to do with absolutely no competition for the deals whatsoever.
For more information on locating motivated sellers using promotional pieces, direct mail and list brokers, check out my web site at marketingmagiclady.com.