When working with states that have small counties, is it normal to send mail to 3 or 4 counties at a time? Is there a drawback to this? I always see most people zoning in on one county.
It’s a necessity in our business. Our lists average around 30k owners and we definitely target many counties. If you’re just getting started, then a smaller footprint makes sense. Hope that helps,
Ted
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Thanks Ted. Wow 30K…do you price and scrub your own data? If not, where do you outsource this? This step seems to be the most time consuming.
Hi Michael, as I see it, you can work “surgically” by scrubbing thoroughly your list and targeting one County - or even just a subdivision - at the time with a limited number of mailers (it saves money but you may miss nice opportunities) OR you can adopt a shotgun approach by reaching the highest number of sellers (marketing expenses goes up but you create more opportunities which, eventually, bring to more deals). Personally I find myself comfortable with sending $10000-12000 mailers/month (they will increase in 2025) but I also use quite an intense scrubbing process (I use the help of a VA whose tasks are just: download-scrub-price -repeat). To reach those numbers, my VA downloads “raw lists” of about 20000-24000 sellers, as generally half of them is scrubbed out. This is why, I don’t even count the Counties but just target as many as necessary to get those numbers.
Simply put, this is a number game: the more marketing=the more deals. Unfortunately marketing (especially when it comes to mailers) is all but cheap!
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@DelQ Yes, I scrub our lists myself. After you’ve done this many times it gets easier.
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Got it. Thanks, Arturo, and to all for the detailed feedback. That is quite a goal to pursue for me, regarding volume. You guys seem like your systems are well in play. Looking forward to more progress!
Hello Ted,
Very helpful answer. Curious if you use some of the software out there to scrub land-locked, wetlands, road frontage etc. Thanks.