Direct (Target) Mail

Does this work?
Has anybody tried it?

I have an opportunity to buy a list of names, which is sorted by zip codes. The parameters are that the name must be a home owner of value of $100.00 or more.

Whats a good price per name and do you know where I can shop around to find other companys to provide this list?

Thanks
Tim

That is $100 thousand or more in home value.

Hey Tim

What happened to that marketing plan handout?

Charlie

Real Estate Marketing Plan

Sorry. Mother-in-Law went into the hospital on xmas eve. We have been traveling to her home every weekend to take care of her.

I will get it done and post. Bare with me.

Thanks

No problem.

Charlie

Charlie

If not posted in couple of weeks. Please remind me.

You can buy a CD Rom with every name and address in the phone book.You can sort them anyway you want.I work in Northern New Jersey where you would be lucky to find a house under $100,000 or $200,000 for that matter so a list sorted like that is not unique.I am constantly scoping out new areas to break into.Everytime I get call from the phonebook to an area that I have not been, I make note of the prospects.

My suggestion is to go to staples or office max, and buy a cd called pro cd phonebooks.There are 100 million names on it.You can print out lables from it.The cost of the CD is $59-$69 depending on your area.The names probably come from this list anyway. why buy a partial list when you can OWN the whole thing.The cd tells you how long they lived there and just knowing the neighborhood will tell you what price range the houses are.I once paid $250 for 2500 names,
(ten cents a name)when I didn't know any better and it was a giant mistake.How many people does the broker of the list you want to buy sell it to? I say make your own list and send out mailers to them 2 or 3 times per year after a while calls will be consistant and constant.
The company that makes the CD is also the company that is on the net when you search for someone.
To see what I am talking about go to people search on any search engine and punch in a street name,city and state.You should come up with 90% of the people on that street the other 10% is the people that are unlisted.
This is what you are buying.
The Cd only allows you to print 2500 lables directly from it but I have found a way around this E-mail me and I will tell you how.


Oh yeah they also list businesses if you are interseted in commercial work (flat work etc...)You can find them by address name or sic code.

Thanks JR

I appreciate your time. I am going to go to staples today and check into it. So what all can you sort? Will the post office give a discount on the postage?


Tim

The Only way the post office will give you a discount is if you buy a bulk mail permit.I had one two years ago but didn't renew it since I only sent postcards and believe it or not post card rate is cheaper than bulkmail.You have to have a list that is barcoded and you have to mail to everybody on a postal route to get the best discount.
The Cd allows you to sort by name,address,street,city,zip.
It also has zip=4.

E-mail me

JR will you please e-mail me. I have a couple of questions and I can't e-mail you through the board for some reason.

Thanks

Lenny

JR, i was thinking about looking into this cd rom for flatwork (businesses), but somebody told me it was'nt good for what i wanted it for? i guess ill go and check it out again. (even though this was'nt my thread) thanks... lol

-Clint

I do not know how you can target your market with this software?

I use this software with a great deal of knowledge of the areas I want to target.I know some towns like the back of my hand.Since I do mainly residential it helps to know where you want to work.As for commercial such as flatwork,if you're interested in bank drive throughs just put in the town or zip you want to target and enter the sic code for banks. This is just a cheaper alternative to paying a list broker 10 cents a name for a targeted market.Since I own the software and do all the mailing,I am not held hostage to a minimum mailing and have to buy tens of thousands of names when I only want to mail 400 or 500 at a time.I target my market by knowing the market first.
Hey it works for me.And like it was said before,don't think you are going to mail 5000 postcards and all of a sudden have a never ending supply of customers.Direct mail needs to be sustained over a period of time.I still send out mailings to places where I haven't had that great of success.But when I drive through the area decks are restored.That means someone is doing them and sooner or later it's going to be me.

Direct Mail

I would like to give my input to the direct mail idea. I also do alot of mailing this way. The CD that you guys are referring to from office depot or staples has its limits. there are a few products like these available. If you read the box real close you are limited to 500 or 1000 names after that you have to pay for them. average is .08 to .11 cents each. As for the bulk mail discount. In order to get that discount you not only need a bulk mail permit. But you also need to have your list of names C.A.S.S. certified which is impossible with the store bought CD. The list has to be newer then 90 days, and everything has to be sent out within 90 days of the list being made in order to get the bulk rate for postage. I have researched this alot. You can get a great target list. But buying products from InfoUSA which is the company making the CD's for the stores is junk. What you need to do is find someone in your area that pulls mailing lists straight from county records. He is the guy that all the other mailing list companies get their list from. My lists are targeted for homes newer then 1980 and between 200k and 500k. Each name cost .05 cents. He only works for this area though. So really research your ideas before you just go out and buy that CD from the store. I bought it also and its not what i thought it was. When i bought the cd i tried to look up some of my customers on the CD. I found 2 out of 5 this was not acceptable for me. Also the list was limited to 1000 names. Think about this so you are trying to save some money up front by spending under 100 bucks at the begining. Think about how much postage is. Or try the CD and see how accurate your target list really is. Either way im sure you will find that paying for a good list up front and saving money on postage instead of wasting money is the way to go. I just bought some more names from my guy. I have a total of about 25.000 names for all the areas around my house. I also own the list. Most listing companies only rent the list. so make sure before you buy.
i dont get bulk rates because i cant afford to send out 5000 at a time, i send about 600 to 1000 every two weeks or so. And you can get an Imprint permit which allows you not to use stamps and you can just have the number printed up.

So here are the things to ask yourself before purchasing a list

1. Do i rent it or own it?
2. how much per name?
3. Are they CASS Certified?
4. Get your lists from someone who just doent purchase from another listing company
5. To get a bulk mail rate you must send with in 90 days

Hope this helps...

Mark Poole

www.waterworksnw.com

You can buy CASS or PAVE software all over the place,all it does is run your names against the usps database to ensure that the address exists.
A simple search on google will verify that.A lot of them offer free updates every 60 days to stay current.
You can buy phone select with POSTnet barcoding from staples(infoUSA)
All three infoUSA products available at staples
Phone select, procd phonebooks and 130 million homes and businesses all allow 2000 names.(Right from the box!)
I don't even use bulk mail when I send out my postcards for 21 cents.All bad addresses come back(you have to pay for that with bulk mail.) To get the best discount you have to send to EVERYONE on a carrier route,when you factor in the apts and rentals and all others who don't qualify.The savings start to dwindle.
Oh yeah I sent out 1000 postcards off the "junky cd" I got four days ago and am about to go do the 5 estimates I got off of it and expect to mail a couple more thousand next week and do the usual 3-5% response rates worth of estimates for my springtime mailings.

You can also call your local phone company about purchasing leads from them. Here in PA, Verizon will sell you leads from new home owners or people who have just moved and established phone service with them. I've used them before and they are pretty good at getting people that want to do some clean-up work on the new house they just moved into. You can even subscribe to their lead services and they send you any new moves each week, month, etc., at whatever frequency you desire.

Actually, the real benefit to using the InfoUSA products like the commercial or residential finders we use is the power in georgraphically targeting specific neighborhoods. Let's say you know certain neighborhoods like JR was discussing, you can pick one address in that area and query the software to find all the addresses within say .2 miles of that address and it will essentially give you the entire neighborhood. You can also search by street name, zip, etc. Pretty powerful stuff if you're trying to mail out a postcard to people in a high income area without hitting all the surrounding areas.

JR

JR im sorry i didnt mean to offend you or the product you use. I had a very bad experience with them. Im glad it works for you.

Mark

No offense taken,I am just trying to help guys who don't have a massive budget for advertising.This is just a cheaper alternative.
and make that 8 calls so far and they are still coming!

thats a good laugh !!!!!

i hardly have a big budget. Im just really trying to get movin this year. Hopefully it will work out. HEHE

Hey Guys,
I went online to infousa and did a request for all residential homes within 25 miles of my zip code. They cmae up with a little over 200,000 names and addresses, but guess what the price was for this mailing list. JUST OVER $16,000.00

So much for a large mailing list from them...

Wayne