Recently scrubbed through my first list, which now contains about 6,000 names. My plan is to go with the Rocket Print option mentioned in the master class. At .28 cents a piece, this comes with a price tag of about $1680. Although I understand there are no guarantees for success, I am curious if there is any downside to sending out mail to only the first 1,000 names to “test the waters” before making a purchase that large. Or, would someone with experience advise against and recommend just going all in if I can afford it?
@isaakberry I’ve done this quite a bit in the past when trying a new market or new scrubbing technique. It can be a smart move (some people will even drip out 30 - 100 per day with some automation, just so they’ll be able to catch any problems if they become evident… systems like Pebble can do this).
The only risk I can see is if get spooked (say, if the first 1,000 don’t produce any results) and never try again.
Suppose that were to happen (and it probably won’t… but you never know), as long as you have the presence of mind to use this feedback to identify some possible problems, make some tweaks and keep going, it seems like a smart way to proceed IMO. Better than making a mistake that affects all 6,000 of your recipients and then getting stung on a much bigger campaign, right?
When you’ve got years of experience and you know how to expect, it gets a lot easier to pull the trigger on big campaigns like this, but if you’re just getting your bearings and testing the waters, there are plenty of reasons to take it slow until you’ve built some confidence in what you’re doing.
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I would break the 1,000 up into tranches of 250. Sort your list from lowest to highest assessed values and send your first 250 letters to the 250 lowest assessed values. Then your next 250 letters to the next lowest assessed values. Work through your list this way.
I send out 1250 letters per week broken up between 4-5 different counties. Each with the 250 lowest assessed values. If the response looks good then I will send out more mail to that county. If the response is bad I move on to a different location. I can afford only mailing a portion of the data I pull because I have the 25,000 export plan through PropStream for $197 per month.
I realize that the school of thought is that assessed values generally have no relation to actual market value of the property, which I agree with. The advantage I have found doing it this way is that these property owners that get a tax bill every 6 months look at their assessed values from the county. Then they get an offer from you that is higher (sometimes much higher) than what they have been seeing on their tax bill. It’s psychological, but it works in my opinion versus the flipside of getting an offer that is much lower than the assessed values they have been seeing on their tax bill.
On multiple occasions I have get 1-3 deals just from my initial 250 letters to the lowest assessed values.
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