I didn’t hear him say if he bought any houses from the responses. What good does it do to have the phone ring if it doesn’t lead to any purchases?

I mail out to a highly filtered free and clear list and I use “yellow letters”. Whenever I mail letters my phone absolutely rings off the hook. I get anywhere from a 5-35% response depending if it’s a remail or an initial mail. But so what? Out of roughly 2000 free and clear leads I haven’t bought a single house. Well I could if I was willing to pay full retail cash, none of the “creative stuff”…

I left this comment earlier. For some reason…it didn’t take.

What I didn’t hear is whether he bought any houses from the mailout or was the big thing that his phone rang using the yellow letter.

I mail out to a highly filtered free and clear list using the yellow letter and my phone rings off the hook. I get anywhere from a 5-35% response depending whether it’s an initial mailout or a followup. After 2000 names I’m not any closer to buying a property than when I started.

Ooops…there it is. Now it shows up. Better not take any more of those doofus pills.

Hi Eric! I’m glad to hear that the yellow letters are doing THEIR job, which is to generate leads. YOUR job is to convert those leads into deals by following up. Following up with your leads is a critical part of this business – ESPECIALLY with free and clear leads. These types of leads need to be put into an “in house” follow up and build a relationship with them. They’re “slow cookers”. For the most part – if they called you, they’re interested in selling their house. Maybe not TODAY, but they are interested.

Sounds like you need to add another campaign to your business plan that includes something with more immediate justification. Maybe try marketing to Pre NOD leads for some short sale deals.

Agreeing with Tracy. The yellow letters drive in the calls, the investor converts them into deals.

I also agree that NODs & pre-NODs will perhaps be your most motivated sellers, especially in this economic climate. Someone who owns a free & clear house probably is NOT associating “pain” with owning a house with no mortgage payments. They may have a thousand other bad things going on in their life but owning a free & clear house probably isn’t anywhere near the top of that list. Let them simmer for a while. Follow-up is certainly the key there. When they’re ready to sell make sure your postcard, letter, autoresponder, or phone call is in front of them when they do.

On the other hand, someone 3 months behind on their over-leveraged house is most certainly feeling some pain, and that pain is directly associated with owning that house. Mail to this list and they’ll be selling YOU on why you should buy their house.

Great Comment, Archie. You know how to play the game.

Pre NOD’s are great if you can accept the fact that they are in denial sometimes. We go to their door and say that we are canvassing the area looking for people who may want to know what their home would sell for in this market. This way they don’t get to aggressive with us…

I have to say for certain…if you choose to use the yellow envelope direct mail campaign…1st…get a much bigger mailbox and 2nd…hire more temp to answer the phone. These are facts!I have tested and tried it all with various post cards and assorted mailing methods and the very best result was maybe…1% and we were getting business and making money.
Now…after…mailing the yellow envelopes…whoaaaaa…we were over 5% return and our business has zoomed.
We’ve been focusing hard on the pre-foreclosures and with post cards and plain vanilla we got lost in the shuffle. With yellow to the rescue…the sellers were calling us back…Thank you…thank you…Jim Platts