Yellow letter marketing for real estate

As you may or may not know, I am big on direct mail.  I really believe that mailing high quality postcards and letters to a targeted list is one of the best ways to bring in consistent leads in your real estate business.

Yellow letter marketing is HANDS DOWN one of the best converting forms of direct mail out there.  Any time I have a high quality list of motivated sellers I try and use the famous yellow letter.

The following article will give you some suggestions and tips to put into action in your own real estate business.

There are 3 ways that I have used direct mail in the past.

The hand written yellow letters outperform the other two forms of direct mail hands down.  Of the three that I have listed, my favorites are the postcard and the yellow letter so I am going to concentrate on those two for now.

Postcards

Pros:

  • Cheap
  • Fast
  • Decent response rate
  • Easy to send out large amounts at one time
  • Don’t even need to open them to read the message

Cons:

  • Could get a better response rate with YL
  • Not very personal

 

Yellow letters

Pros:

  • Excellent response rate
  • Easy to outsource
  • Excellent response rate! (had to put it twice!)

Cons:

  • Expensive
  • Time consuming if you do it yourself

As with any marketing you have to pay attention to the three M’s

  1. Market
  2. Medium
  3. Message

The Market is your list. You need to make sure you have a quality list to mail to.  Some of the more popular lists are:

  • Free and clear homeowners
  • Probate leads
  • Pre-foreclosure leads
  • Divorce leads
  • Bankruptcy leads
  • Absentee owner / out of state owner leads
  • Inherited property leads

The Medium is your form of marketing that you are sending out.  In this case we are talking about yellow letters and postcards.

The Message is the copy in the letter.  There are two ways to go about this…. You can write something very vague and get more calls.  Something like:

Dear ______,

My wife and I are interested in buying your house at 123 Main St. in Anytown.  If you are interested in selling it please give me a call at xxx-xxx-xxxx.

Hope to hear from you soon!

You will get a GREAT response rate with this type of message, but I have found that sometimes people will be a little pissed off as soon as they find out you are a real estate investor.

Another way to do it is to have a longer letter and provide as many benefits to the potential seller as you can.  This is actually the way I prefer to do it.  I like the idea of being transparent in my marketing message.  I want people to know what I do and who I am.

You have to make sure that all 3 M’s are optimized when you are sending out your yellow letters.  If any one of the three are below par, your response rate will be below par.  So you have to track your results and do small test campaigns to see what works the best.

If you decide to change something in a campaign, only change ONE thing at a time and re-test.  If you get a below average response rate, then change 3 or 4 things to the campaign and test it again and get better results you will never know what it was that produced the better results.

As I said, the best response rates come from hand written yellow letters.  I also like to use envelopes that look a bit like greeting card envelopes.  Colored ones work best.  Hand address the recipient and leave out the return address and curiosity kicks in to play.  Most of them will get opened.

So how do you go about getting your yellow letter campaign going?  You have 3 options:

  • Write them yourself
  • Use a laser copier with a hand written font
  • Outsource it

The obvious choice it to outsource it if you have the money.  The best company that I have seen out there is www.yellowlettermail.com.  They will hand write the letters and send them out for you for around 1$ per letter.  They can even provide the lists for you! This is by far the best way to get your yellow letter campaign going fast.  You can get a free sample of the letter >>>HERE<<<

Another way to outsource it is to hire someone but I have found that it always takes more time and money to do it this way.  You are better off just using www.yellowlettermail.com

You could also have family members and friends help you but it is a horrible job.  If you really love them, you won’t put them through this!

I have created a letter in a graphics program using a hand written font, adjusted it a million times and finally came up with one that actually prints perfectly on the lines from a laser printer.  It’s a pain but it works.  Then I buy the yellow pads of paper from office depot and tear 10-20 sheets off at a time and stick in them in the copy machine.   Click on the picture of the letter to the right to see it…..

If you try this method be sure and get the heavier weight paper.  The really thin paper jams up the copier.   I think you can even find unbound lined yellow paper online if you search hard enough.

So that’s my thoughts on yellow letter marketing for your real estate business. Give it a shot and I bet you will be happy with the results!

 

 

 

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Filed under: Direct Mail • Marketing • Real Estate Education

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