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SHOW NOTES FOR EPISODE 317: USING DIRECT MAIL TO FIND GREAT OFF-MARKET PROPERTIES
Finding off-market properties in today’s sellers market can be a tremendous challenge for real estate investors. In this podcast episode, marketing expert and CEO of PostcardMania Joy Gendusa shares some creative ideas and case studies from investors who are finding great off-market deals utilizing direct mail postcard campaigns.
What You Will Learn
- How to find off-market deals through postcard direct mail marketing
- Why applying the “power of multiplication” can yield outstanding results in direct mail
- How one real estate investors campaign, with a simple yellow postcard, resulted in the purchase of 35 houses
- Why real estate investors get traditionally better results from postcard campaigns than other industries
- How one real estate investor got a 24,000% direct mail response by using postcards
- Why “Multi-Channel” campaigns have generate even stronger results
- How you can custom design a postcard campaign online
- Why a data-driven approach is the best way to start a direct mail campaign
About Our Guest
Joy Gendusa
Joy Gendusa is an entrepreneur, business owner, author, keynote speaker and philanthropist. With only a phone, a computer and postcards (no funding of any kind!), Joy grew PostcardMania from a small startup into an industry leader that generated $59 million in 2018 and currently employs over 250 people in Clearwater, FL. Her company, PostcardMania, has been featured on the Inc. 500 and 5000 lists, and has helped 81,767 small businesses and counting with their marketing.
More About Joy
- Was a graphic designer
- She would broker the printing for her clients
- Decided she needed postcards to promote her own business
- She was marketed to by a company that sold 5,000 postcards for only $425
- Designed her postcard, put it on a CD, Fed-Xed it to the company
- The company sent back a proof but they added the printing company’s 800 number to the proof and she wasn’t happy with that
- They took it off but she had already made the decision that she could do better and that she would market to the small business own, not just the trade (graphic designers, ad agencies, etc.)
- Sent a test flyer out in a local newspaper to test the interest level and got a great response
- Started PostcardMania in June 1998
PostCardMania
- Started out using outside printer
- Had to gang the printing projects with 16 different postcards on each run to get the good prices
- Eventually moved printing in-house
- Use both off-set press and digital printing (like giant color copy machines) today
- Went from printing and mailing postcards to doing integrated campaigns with postcards, Google, Facebook, Instagram, call tracking, mail tracking, etc.
Recognizing the Power of Postcards
- In 1999, she felt like they had reached a plateau regarding her business growth making about $20K per week in revenue
- She was mailing out 2,500 postcards a week to promote her business
- She said to her assistant that she wanted to double the number of mailers to 5,000 that they are sending out each week to promote her business
- She wasn’t drawing that much at the time for her own salary and she knew this would take away from her own income to try this
- She said, “Let’s just do this for 6 weeks to see what happens.”
- By week five, her revenue more than doubled to $50K per week from $20K per week
- Today, she continues to aggressively mail – she send 160K mail pieces every week to promote her own company
Biggest Mistake Postcard Marketers Make
- Not sticking to it long enough – not allowing for repeated mailings to the target audience to build familiarity and to thus generate increased responses
- People need to see the same piece over and over to build familiarity
- She’s seen companies get on the Inc 500 utilizing direct mail postcards over a long period of time
Big Successes of Real Estate Postcard Marketers
- Real estate is a unique niche that is able to see results in the first mailing
- Case Study: Yellow Postcard Campaign
- In August 2016, a real estate investor mailed “yellow postcards” to an absentee owner list
- Spent $1,417
- After the first mailer, asked PostcardMania to stop the campaign because they received too many responses to handle
- Received 120 responses
- Continued to send out monthly for 6 months
- In July 2017, the numbers doubled to 320
- 30% response rate
- Closed 11%
- Bought 35 houses
- Generated $750,000 after just one mailer
- Case Study: Mailed 1,000 pieces three times (not a yellow card)
- Generated 665 callers
- 502 of the callers were unique (PostcardMania has a call tracking service)
- 13 sales resulted from that campaign
- Case Study: See how one investor got a 24,000% plus response to his postcard campaign: https://www.postcardmania.com/case-studies/real-estate/barr-properties/
Not Just Printers – Also Result-Driven Marketing Consultants
- PostcardMania advises and works directly with clients, from start to finish
- Before starting her company, Joy had a marketing company, so she has expertise in marketing
- They are focused on results first for their clients
- She has a “Results Manager” on staff
- She catalogues all of the results of their various campaigns – by industry – and shares the results with her company’s marketing consultants
- Then, the results manager, shares the info with PostcardMania’s marketing consultants who, in turn, share the successes with their clients
- Joy said real estate investors get results that other industries don’t
- One campaign had postcards with handwriting fonts that went to people over 65 that received great results
- Link to successful real estate investor campaigns: https://www.postcardmania.com/case-studies/real-estate-investment/
- PostcardMania also helps clients select the right mailing lists
- Joy recommends that interested persons contact her marketing consultants first, allow them to ask lots of questions, so they can recommend the best approach
- Also, have “live stamping” that makes it looks like someone hand stamped the postcard
Advice for Old Dawgs Looking to Grow a Real Estate Portfolio Through Direct Mail
- Go for the data first! Create a “data-driven campaign”
- Don’t just send to “an area” where you think make have more opportunities
- She recommends selecting the right list first, i.e. absentee owners out of state, pre-foreclosure or foreclosure, etc.
- Conduct a “multi-channel” approach – they have a service called “everywhere small business”
- Put your message in front of your target market everywhere your target market spends time
- Once the mailing list is selected, they upload the list to see if certain names also match up as having a Facebook account (sometimes, they get 30-90% matches)
- Then, they’ll have a sponsored Facebook ad hit first before the postcard is mailed
- The postcard is then mailed and on the postcard there is a website listed
- When the person goes to the website, PostcardMania can then track and follow the visitor
- Then PostcardMania initiates a retargeting campaign that targets them on Facebook and Google, based on their visits in response to their first wave of marketing
- Then, the targeted potential customer gets a repeat message in a short period of time
- Determine Quantity
- Get the list criteria first (out-of-state, pre-foreclosure, etc.) and see home many homes are listed in the area they are interested in
- Find out how many homes are on the list
- Determine how many you want to reach, for example 2,000 homes
- Then test the area to see percentage responses
- And build upon that
Future Things Happening at Her Company
- They are creating a “White Label Storefront” for real estate investors to sell postcards to other real estate investors
- People will be able to go to the storefront and design their own custom postcard online
- But besides that, they will have
- List search and retrieval services
Rap-it-Up
- Favorite business books: Building Your Story Brand by Donald Miller and Don’t Make Me Think by Steve Krug
- Most valuable web site for success (other than your own): MarketingSherpa.com
- Favorite app: Facebook
- Favorite quote: “Never regret yesterday. Life is in you today. And you make your tomorrow.” L. Ron Hubbard
- If you had to start all over, knowing what you know, and you only had $1,000, what would you do to launch your real estate investing business? Become a real estate inverstor! lol
SPECIAL OFFERS FOR OLD DAWG LISTENERS
- Get Joy’s free eBook, Postcard Marketing in an Online World
- Free Sample Real Estate Investor Campaigns! PostcardMania/REIreport to get free downloads of successful real estate investor campaigns with details and sample cards
- Postcard Real Estate Investor Stats Report
- Free Postcard Marketing Consultant Consultation: 855-980-5492
- Integrated Campaign for Real Estate Investors: PostcardMania.com/REIeverywhere – Get 1,000 FREE POSTCARDS when you sign-up for an integrated campaign
How to Reach Joy
- Website: PostcardMania.com
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Additional Episode Sponsor: Meno Studio – menostudio777@gmail.com
