Beyond the Envelope: Innovations for Direct Mail Success

Direct mail can be a great way to get new leads. These properties are off market, allowing you, the buyer, to work directly with the seller to hash out all of the details. This technique is very powerful but is also very difficult. A lot of letters that you send out will either not be opened or the owner is not interested in selling. To say the least, the success rate is not that high. You have to send out a lot of letters or come up with some other way to get a higher conversion rate to purchase deals. A direct mail letter has the potential to pay off big time and in this post, I am going to go over what you can do to improve the likelihood of someone contacting you back after receiving one of your letters.

Hand Writing

One of the first things I would recommend would be to hand write you letters. This creates a personalized touch and makes it seem like you really care about the owner and their home. It also stands out among the other letters they receive because yours is not some standard print. Unfortunately, this strategy is time consuming and is hard to do on a large scale. You can decide to just hand write the info on the front of the envelope or you could go all in and do both the envelope and the letter itself.

Color

Another strategy is to have a colored envelope. You will want something bright that pops out to get the owner’s attention. Your letter will stand out from the other white pieces of mail that they receive each day.

Sticker or Professional Stamp

Similar to the last technique a sticker or stamp on your letter will help it to stand out. This could be one of your logos or something else that you think might grab the owner’s attention making them want to open your letter.

Candy

A recent strategy I just learned about is to put a small piece of candy in the envelope with your letter. This will make the letter feel and look different than the other pieces of mail. Homeowners will be so curious as to what is inside of that mail that they will most definitely read the letter as well. You can even use a play on words to tie in the candy with why you are contacting them. I think this is a great idea and is something I plan on using in the future.

The goal of these strategies is to increase the likelihood that someone will open your letter. You want to set yourself apart from all of the other pieces of mail that owners are receiving. Try out some of these techniques and see how they work for you. I feel that with some or all of these strategies, you will definitely see an improved performance on your direct mail campaign.