One Marketing Campaign Generated 82 Responses, $20,000 Revenue

Joy Gendusa

Does direct mail still work for real estate investors? Let's look at a case study.

This case study shows how one real estate investor generated 82 responses, $20,000 in revenue (a return on investment of 316%), and yes — with “old school” direct mail.

The Strategy: Investor wanted to target seniors in Washington, D.C. with a postcard campaign offering to buy their homes.

The investor chose a mailing list targeting seniors in the D.C. area aged 65+ and had a company mail multiple pieces of mail. This scored him a bulk mail postage discount, which can add up quickly depending on how many postcards you want to mail.

Some investors prefer to acquire their own lists and mail every piece themselves. What works for you will ultimately depend on which of the two you can more readily part with — your time or money.

If you have a few listings under your belt already and projects in progress, like this investor did, you may find your time more valuable than saving some coin here and there.

This investor took the handwritten message approach. Their goal was to mail a sincere message to their prospects to generate response, so grabbing attention with the design was vitally important.

The Design: The postcards were designed as a hyper-personalized message.

Each and every postcard includes the first name of the recipient on it — a tactic popular with investors that can help generate a 135%1 increase in response.

It’s no secret that we’re all bombarded with marketing today, so including your prospects’ first name on your marketing massively helps differentiate your message from the other clutter in the mailbox. Don’t you look twice when you see your first name?

Moreover, this postcard contained three additional personalization points to further attract the attention of the recipients: last name, date, and property address.

Here's why that tactic is worth it: 90%2 of consumers find customized marketing like this appealing because it feels personal and relevant to their own needs — not just another advertisement. And when you’re marketing to buy someone’s house from them, genuine, personal communication will outshine most flashy trends.

Keeping with personalization, this design has a natural-looking handwritten font that makes it feel more like a personal letter from a real person who wants to help. (Without spending hours writing and delivering your own letters to a fraction of the number of recipients.)

When you combine the handwritten font with the personalization from above (first and last name, date, and property address), this postcard stands out from the mail stack.

And because it was written with a heartfelt message and targeted toward seniors who’d be interested in selling their homes? Well, the results didn’t take long to come to fruition…

The Results: It only took 2 mailings in 2 months (just over 8,000 cards mailed) to generate 82 responses and $20,000 in revenue.

The main reason this campaign worked is thanks to the personalized, handwritten design being married to the mailing list. Mail the right message to the right people — multiple times — and you’re sure to reach your prospects, be remembered, and receive a response.