Effective Letter / Envelope
When writing to people in Lis Pendens, what is an effective letter? Does anyone care to post it? PM me if you would prefer to email it to me.
Also, I have heard, use oversize post cards, wedding invitation envelopes, etc... any comments on what you have found gives you the best response rate?
rebloodhound,
Glad to meet you.
I would do a poll of the Lis Pendens people who get the 40-50 letters from investors, mortgage brokers, etc. looking for a deal.
Re Bloodhound Lis Pendens Survey Co.
$25.00 Bonus
Dear Person,
I am taking a survey of house owners who receive Lis Pendens letters from investors, mortgage brokers, lenders, etc.
To complete my survey I would ask you to choose the best letter or card you have received thus far. Once you have the letter you feel is most appealing please call me at 555-1212 for an appointment at your house.
I will ask you a series of questions about the letter or card. Just for helping me with this survey I will give you $25.00 for your time.
Thank you in advance,
Now once you get in the house can you figure it out from there?
John $Cash$ Locke
John Locke - No wonder "Cash" is your middle name!!!! Does that really work? If you have done that in the past are these people offended when you are interested in purchasing their house?
I feel stupid for not thinking of that first......
Robin
I like that idea.. but what keeps them from thinking my "survey" is junk and throwing it away before they open it?
Will it work, yes it will work.
I have a friend that gives away an Electric Clock as an introduction when he goes to see house owners.
I can assure you he makes $500,000.00 year calling on home owners.
The strongest word in advertising is FREE, so design your copy around this word.
FREE $25.00 for taking a house owner survey.
Get that creative hat on, would you open a letter or read a card with this copy big and bold and in color.
John $Cash$ Locke
brooklyninvestor,
You start with the survey if nothing else you will learn what motivates these sellers.
However, your survey could include any question you want, such as "if you could find a way out of your problem would you?"
Once you hit on a few loaded questions, then you ease into how you could help them. Why would they be angry if you can help them, isn't that what you are trying to do anyway? Isn't bottom line what they really want also?
John $Cash$ Locke[ Edited by JohnLocke on Date 01/09/2004 ]
That is an extremely interesting technique.
I had met with another begining investor a few weeks ago. I made a mistake by saying that I am not that good at marketing myself, etc. He promptly corrected me by saying that it is an underdeveloped skill. What a boost that was.
I will definitely write down this idea.
Eric
Ill definitely have to give that a test drive!
ewagar,
Glad to meet you.
I really don't think that there is anything new under the sun when it comes to marketing.
Funny thing about being out amoungst um and learning, pretty soon u r one.
Then some new person will ask you the the same questions you asked when you first got started.
John $Cash$ Locke
Thanks for the advice John.......I am working on my postcard already.
MR. John Locke
So glad I logged on . T hanks for "all" the great ideas and "thanks" to you .."rebloodhound" for the question.
My response rate on my letter ..well ..need I say more.
mcldavid
[addsig]
mcldavid,
Glad to meet you.
Welcome on board this board, hope to hear great things from you.
John $Cash$ Locke
Depending on how savy you are with the Microsoft products, mail merging can really personallize the letter without too much extra effort. We've had people call us back because everyone else's letter looked a bit too boilerplate.
I just sent out 26 letters, i didnt hand address them, but i didnt use labels either. I printed them directly on the envelope with my laser printer.
But i did put a "love" stamp on the front, and for the letters, I did use mail merge.
I also hand signed each letter, and in one section where it says " I want to help you" i underlined it with a Red Sharpie. I also signed the letter in blue ink. So you have white paper, black print, blue ink, and red underlining. If the letter ever gets open, it wont look like a form letter (which it is).
I'll keep you posted on the results. This is my first mailing.
[ Edited by rebloodhound on Date 01/13/2004 ][ Edited by rebloodhound on Date 01/13/2004 ]
In my marketing I send out about 500 hundred letters a month. I have all the contact info in Excel, I use Word todo a mail merge to get name and address. I searched the internet for "handwritting fonts", found one that look really good, I use a color printer and make the ink blue. I also put the return on the back flap not the front and of course you need to use informal stamps. I other thing I use a company that provides me with greeting card sized envelopes. So with all of that done, my hope is the reciever will think it is coming from a old forgotten friend.
Hi John-
Good knowing you too. This sounds like a great idea, but wouldnt that cause the homeowner to actually open some of those envelopes they received thus revealing some pretty convincing materials? Maybe by the time you get the call, the homeowner has already signed the Q/C deed..
sammymh,
what would you say is your response rate on the monthly basis? Do you go with a regular $.37 first class stamp?
Thanks!
I get around a 4% response rate and use I use a first class stamp
Mr. Locke has a great idea. You can even simplify your mail preparation using the USPS online mailing service to prepare and mail the letters or postcards directly to the distressed property owners.
If you aren't familiar with the USPS online mailing service, I strongly recommend that you go to the USPS site and familiarize yourself with it. Go to their site and look for the tab near the top of the page that says "Send mail and packages". This will get you to the USPS Netpost mailing service. This is one of the best things to happen for a REI. You can download a postcard template (in Word format), design a one-sided postcard message, then you upload your design back onto the site, upload your mailing list (in comma or tab delimited format), choose the date that you want it mailed, pay for it and VIOLA!
The beauty about this service is that everything is mailed first class, so it gets there fast and you'll get any returns. Also, I have found that it is much cheaper than if you did it yourself.
Here's why:
If you design a postcard using this service and then enter in your address(s) that you want to mail to, the USPS automatically standardizes the address(s) so you will get a cheaper postage rate (even though it is still first class). I use this service religiously and my average cost per piece is 24 cents. That is the cost to produce AND for postage. When I was having postcards mass produced by a local printer I was paying about 4 cents each. Then I'd still have to create labels to apply to the postcards (which add to the cost of production), and apply a first class 23 cent stamp. This not only brought my cost per piece up to about 27.5 cents, it also required me to spend MY TIME driving to the printer to pick up postcard orders, entering addresses into a mail merge program to create and print labels, affixing those labels to postcards, then attaching stamps to them, and finally taking them to the post office. Now I don't really have a specific dollar amount that I add for my time but, if you were to figure any amount into this equation you'd realize that the cost is even higher than just what you spend on production and postage.
With the USPS Netpost mailing service, all you do is take the time to design a postcard (or letter) using their template, upload it and your mail list, and pay for it. Its that easy. You can even experiment with it and send some postcards to yourself to test the quality and/or speed of their service. I have found that the quality is more than acceptable and it saves my valuable time for more productive tasks, like MAKING OFFERS!
P.S. I have not used this service for letters, but they do offer it. I just send plain white postcards with black text. You can send full color postcards, but I don't see the point. I have designed a series of 7 postcards, all with similiar but slightly modified messages, that I send out to a targeted list over a certain time period. For example, I send out card #1 to FSBO's in my area and then 2 weeks later I send out card #2 to the same list, and 2 weeks later card #3 goes out, etc. For FSBO's I send out one card every 2 weeks for a period of 7 mailings (14 weeks). For preforeclosures, I would shorten the time between mailings to maybe a week or 5 days (it depends on the foreclosure timeline in your state, mine is relatively short). Remember, most people do not even notice a marketing message until they have seen it several times. That's why it is imperative to keep hitting the same people over and over.
As far as the idea that Mr. Locke has just given... You could put his message that he gave us (in a previous reply to this topic) onto a postcard (or a letter) through the USPS site and have them do all the work. This will not only save you time and hassle, it will also cut your costs, too.
P.P.S. Email or Private Message me if you would like to see 1 or 2 of the cards that I use. I have been getting a really good response from some of my mailings and I'd like to help others achieve the same results (as long as they're not in my town!).