What if your mailbox held the secret to unlocking more real estate deals? Welcome to the Flip Talk podcast! Today, we’re cutting through the noise with Bryan Hollenberg from REIPrintMail, revealing why direct mail isn’t just surviving, it’s thriving for savvy investors. Discover the critical insights on data, consistency, and follow-up that turn ordinary mail into extraordinary profits. Tune in to learn how to put this powerful, evergreen marketing channel to work for you.

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Think Direct Mail Is Dead? Think Again — Here’s How Winners Use It To Destroy Their Competition With Bryan Hollenberg

I’m here with another amazing guest. We’re going to talk marketing and this going to be part of our marketing series for the Watch Me Grow a challenge. Before I do that though, I want to make sure you’re going over to FlipTalk.com and just checking out everything we have going on in the Flip Talk universe. Also, if you haven’t yet, go to WatchMeScale.com and make sure that you get the notifications and everything about where we’re dropping some cool information because it’s not always going to be in the same spot. I have my guests from REIPrintMail. I know that you guys do a lot of cool stuff over there. Brian, what are you going on?

The Importance Of Data-Driven Direct Mail

We’re already at prep mail and our goal is to get your phone’s ringing with leads. We’ve been in business for many years. We specialize in direct mail marketing for real estate investors. Our goal is to take all the guesswork out of it. We’re super data-driven. We track all of our mails. For the past 17 of those 33 years, we’ve been tracking all of our mail. We supply tracking numbers for all of our customers. That way, we can tell exactly how many phone calls you’re getting on each campaign, which mail piece is working the best and which set of data is working the best in your specific market.

We also have a phone team as well that can answer those live calls for you. We try to do it all. We’ve got it down to a science. We can pretty much tell you, “You send this many mail pieces, you’re going to get this many phone calls and you’re going to close this many deals.” As I said, we try to make it easy for you. We’re a one stop shopping here.

I’ve worked a lot of direct mail houses for the years and one of the things is that I like about our area and I’m not going to make this like a puff piece or anything. We’re going to dive into some new stuff here but one of the things I like about REIPrintMail when I started interacting, getting to know and working with you guys is, you guys do care about the data. A lot of mail houses will say, “My X customer said this is working for them. My Y customer said that’s working for them.” You guys are tracking it. You guys can say, “The data says. The customer say it may say this but the data says this and that as what we go on.” I like to live and read my data. That’s what I love about you guys.

That was our goals. We’re getting this word of mouth and all these statistics from word of mouth but people can be as or some people aren’t tracking. They think they are. “I got about 25 phone calls on that last campaign,” or something like that but they weren’t too sure. We said we’re going to step in. We’re going to put our best foot forward and we’re going to say, “Here’s a tracking number. Let’s put this on your mail piece, whether it gets directed to your phone or to our phone team. We want to know exactly what mail piece is working best and exactly how many phone calls you’re getting. We can both look at that this data too together.”

That way, there’s no guesswork. We want to know. One of our future customers come, we want to relay that day and say, “This is the mail piece in your area that’s working the best. This is what we recommend. You’re more than welcome to use it or not but this is what we recommend and this what is working best.” Sometimes, we don’t know why things work the best. We just know what does work the best.

Direct mail is always been one of my favorite marketing channels. I talk about direct mail a lot in everything I do because the marketing channel has always worked the best for me. I know that there are McKinney marketing or any market in general. There’s wage. Some years, it works better than others. I always found that the odd years were the less productive years and even years went on the most productive years.

Not to say this is a whole lot of science behind that. There’s a little bit of data I have behind that but anyway the point is, I’ve been doing direct mail for a lot of years and I love it. What I have found for me is that the data tells a different story than what is happening. We did an exercise way back in 2018, literally, if we change the color of the car and the list combination. We changed the phone number. We had different phone numbers for different quarters so that we could see like, does this type a list or this type of postcard work better at different times a year?

Are there times a year where postcards are stronger than other times a year and so on and so forth? It was data-driven. As I said, that’s what I appreciate about what you guys do. The customer may say, “I don’t feel like I’m getting a whole lot.” You say, “You got 100 phone calls in 24 hours but you didn’t answer 50% of them.” That’s something that’s cool. Have you noticed that different marketing pieces work in different areas of the country? Is that something that you guys can see and nail down as to what works in different areas better than others?

Yes. Especially during on your high end. Let’s say you’re a California or San Francisco. Your check mailers is not going to be work that well because these people aren’t necessarily struggling for money. They’re not hunting the mailbox for a paycheck but in your lower end communities, that’s where we see the offer mail pieces with the check specifically. It shows up and it looks just like a real check with the property owners name on it. They’re dying to get another check.

Most people are but the people in the higher end neighborhoods are not necessarily hurting for money. In our lower in neighborhoods, you’re Detroit. It’s like here in Saint Louis. The checks do great because they show up. They look like a check. People are dying for a check or in a rush to open it up. They work well and you’re hiring neighborhoods.

 

We tend to see more of a personalized handwritten letter in a handwritten envelope or a postcard that’s in an envelope that resembles like a wedding invite or a birthday card or something like that. That’s the case. One little thing that we come to find out is we’ve been using a pink postcard with a female’s name on it. For some reason, it’s doing well. We’ve started to put females named on these mail pieces and our response rates have gone up quite a bit. A little point there.

One of the things that we found as the response rate, the quality of caller changes with the female name. People will be like, “I don’t have a girl in my office.” You can always say, “Jan’s out. She’s away from her desk but I’m more than happy to help you.” There’s ways to battle that but yes, putting whatever reason or putting what a woman’s name on a postcard get you a better response rate.

It makes sense to me.

Maybe people just feel more comfortable. I don’t know how to answer that. I don’t want to get into the politics of training to answer that.

I don’t know either, but it works.

That’s where the data comes and where we can track this type of stuff. As I said, sometimes we don’t know why things are working. We just know what is working and that’s what we stick with. Our customers are like, “You’re more than welcome to take our advice and use it. That’s what we’re here for.” Believe it or not, a lot of people are stuck in their ways and they say, “I’ve been using this postcard for years,” and that’s fine. We’re here to do that too but I recommend we try to stick to the statistics in what’s working and that’s what we recommend and what we’re here to do.

I’ve been doing postcards off and on since, I would say probably 2005. I went to take a break from real estate because I lost everything because I was an idiot in that time frame. I got back in and I would dip my toe into postcards on a small scale. It wasn’t until I went all-in in a very decent budget and very consistent practice as far as consistency and emailing. I saw like measurable results in consistent and good results from postcards. Let’s talk budget. If somebody has $750 a month or a thousand dollars a month on postcards and they’re in a market that’s maybe not San Francisco, but still a decent sized market. Is that enough of a budget to get any traction in that market?

Common Mistakes & Keys To Success In Direct Mail

To be completely honest, it’s not. I recommend you don’t want to come into direct mail with anything. You want to have at least $4,000 to $5,000 on average nationwide. It varies from market to market but nationwide. It’s going to take you $5,000 mail pieces per deal. If you’re spending $750 depending on the mail piece, if you want to get started, we can make it happen. I don’t necessarily recommend it but it’s just going to take a little bit longer to get that deal.

If you’re okay with getting a deal in the next five months, we can make it happen. You’re just going to have to stay consistent for five months. Trust the process. It’s going to take a little bit longer to get that deal, but I would recommend having about $5,000 monthly marketing budget set aside if you’re going to start with direct mail. It’s not cheap but it works.

I found that on average in Central Valley, California that it would take about $13,000 mail pieces to get a deal on a mixed list. Some list did better than others but there is that average. There’s a lot of averages in any marketing channel and that’s the one thing I want to know. I was hoping you’re going to give me the honest answer there is. Do need to come in with direct mail with a fairly decent budget? You got to commit to a runway and you got to give yourself a few months before to get attraction. A lot of people come in and expect to send one campaign and have that change everything for them. You got to build momentum with any marketing channel and direct mail is one of them.

What I like to say, what I see at least is it takes 60 to 90 days to even start seeing any traction. Where I see the highest failure rate are people that do exactly what you just said. They start and then they stop then they pause for a little bit because they’re not sure if it’s working. They’re getting calls and they might close a deal and they’re like, “I’m back at it.” Every time you start, stop, start and stop, it’s like you’re starting from scratch again. You want to be able to at least maintain that that exact mailing budget for a minimum of three months to be able to see some traction and that’s minimum. You want to stay consistent. That’s the most important part of the game is consistency with direct mail.

Again, that goes for any marketing channel. There’s a lot of averages and there is that momentum thing. It’s funny because I see people turn off direct mail or turn off whatever the marketing channel they’ll do. They’ll be like, “I’m still getting deals.” They’re like 2 months or 3 months. I turn my marketing off months ago and I’m still getting deals. What they don’t understand is it takes a minute or two. You got your pipeline, your follow-up, and people call on that to held onto the card for a little bit.

Sometimes we don't know why something works best—we just know what works best. Share on X

Sometimes, they call like two years later but people don’t realize that’s the momentum you build and eventually, that momentum is going to run out but that momentum, when you build it, it’s a beautiful thing. Once you get traction and it starts to Stack upon itself, you’re getting stuff coming in that’s ready to go or stuff that you’ve been falling up with for a minute that’s ready to go and stuff right in the middle. That goes to my next question. How important do you feel follow-up is when it comes to making direct mail work?

Extremely important. We want to answer that call in the first call. If you’re not answering your calls live, you’re missing out. You’re leaving money and deals on the table because a lot of times, that seller might have a whole stack of postcards. They’re working their way through them. If you don’t answer, they’re going to call the next card or by a time you call back, they’ve already gotten a hold of somebody there that got something in the works. That follow-up is extremely important. No doubt about it.

That’s another cool thing about REIPrintMail. We have a team that can follow up on those leads for you. Follow up is extremely important. You want to make sure that you have a team that is consistently following up. I’ve worked with plenty of people who think, “My team follows up great. We do well.” Come to find out after tracking everything, they’re following up three times per lead. That’s not enough. They’re only following up for the first month and that’s not enough.

You can follow up through phone call or follow up with mail pieces. Another reason I recommend hitting the same list multiple times, you want to stay in front of these people. You want to follow up with them. They might not be ready to sell that first month, but month five or six, bingo. You got them at the right time. It’s about timing as well.

I agree with you 100%. I’ve had deals where we have had them in our system and following up on them and gotten them in contract for years after they have called into our system. COVID is a great example of why follow up is important because we had a deal. I share this deal all the time when I’m talking to people about marketing. We had a deal with the seller that want $80,000 and we followed up with them and they wanted $80,000 but the deal didn’t work initially because $80,000 didn’t work and we couldn’t get this seller down.

In COVID, what happened? The market took off. None of us expected that but it took off. Suddenly, the ARVs after a pair of values are skyrocketing and we look and $80,000 suddenly works. We’re like, “Now there’s a deal.” We ended up giving the seller exactly what they asked for every time we talk to them for four years because the market changed. Some people think, “The seller is going to change.” No, the market changed.

The market changed so they changed her mind. We end up getting to deal and we made like $30,000 on it. I’m a big believer in follow up and how important follow up is. As far as your experience with working with people from around the country, give me, I would say the top three biggest mistakes somebody makes with direct mail that causes them to fail at it and then we’ll go into the top three things to do to make it work.

You’ve touched on at least 2 of the 3 of the consistency, starting and stopping. Thinking that they can come in and which this does happen from time to time. People send out 2,000 mailers and get deals. It’s few and far between, but it happens. They can say, “My buddy sent out 2,000 mailers. I can go ahead and do this, too.” We will tell them or I’ll preach to them, “You’re better off saving your money. If you only have $2,000 to spend, you’re better off cold calling, go on some cheaper routes, close up a couple deals then come back to me with that marketing budget. I’m not here to sell you enough and I want you to win. I want you to call me back saying this worked.”

Not having that marketing budget set aside thinking they can spend a thousand dollars or $500 and get a deal. Even the people that do come out with bigger budgets, start and stop. It ruins your pipeline. As you said, you’re going to close deals in three months from the mail you’re sending out. If you stop sending mail in three months, your pipelines going to be dried up. You’re not going to have nothing going on. You’re going to wonder what’s going on here. Is it the market changing notes because you didn’t stay consistent with your marketing?

You hit the nail on the head with two of them. Data is extremely important. Whenever you’re pulling these lists. I’ve got guys that’ll say, “I’ve got my own data platform. I’m going to supply my own list of records.” That’s extremely important. Anybody can open up a phone book and just send out a bunch of mailers. You’re not going to see great success. You want to make sure you’re using the correct filters.

You want to make sure you’ve got somebody on your team or you get somebody like us that has a whole data department to pull that data for you that knows what they’re doing or using the right filters. They do this all day every day. One wrong filter, you got an entirely different list. Quality data is extremely important, consistency and having that marketing budget set aside.

Agreed. Also, checking the phone number twice. I know you guy supply.

Direct mail is key because many property owners are elderly. They may not be online, but they check their mailbox daily—making it a powerful way to reach them. Share on X

That’s another thing we do. We’ve got our camping corners coordinators. They call and before we start printing, we check the phone number just to make sure it works because if I had a penny for every time that that’s happened, it’s ridiculous. Either it’s a typo or they’re just an error in the number, whether it’s the correct number or just the error. If that’s not the correct number, the phone’s not going to ring and you’re wondering why you’re not getting no calls. It’s super unfortunate when that does happen, so we try our best to make sure that doesn’t happen but it’s very good point there.

We did that once with a very large drop where we put a phone number on the card that we did not own and it was an expensive mistake for sure. Let me ask you this. I’m an unbranded guy. I send out my postcards with no website, no branding, and whatsoever because I like I want you to call me. I don’t want you to Google me and go to my website because if you’re on the fence, you have questions. You go to the website and you think, “I’ll call them later,” and then you don’t. I’m not saying that’s the way it should be done. That’s just the way I do it. The question I have for you is, what do you see most often? Do you see people preferring the brand or unbranded? That’s a question I get a lot.

The only reason I ever recommend putting a website or a logo on there is if you’re well-known in that area because sometimes your name is going to help you out. If you’re well-known, if you’re in a small little suburb area and you’re super well-known then we can put a logo on there. As you said, I don’t recommend putting a website.

You don’t want a website, a QR code, a phone number, and email address. You’re giving them too many avenues to go down. When they get this mail piece, if they’re interested in having a conversation, pick up the phone and call me. That’s all I want. The only thing I would recommend would maybe be a logo if you’re well-known. Otherwise, leave the email off, the website off, the QR code off, phone number and maybe a logo.

We’re in agreement there. If you’re on TV, like I had a buddy in Waco that basically was on TV. He was doing commercials. He would put his Waco first logo on his postcards that I get to a large degree. For me, as I said, I want you to call me. I want you in my CRM. I want to be able to follow up with you and I can’t do that with my website. If you go to my website, I don’t know necessary you’ve been there. There are trackers we can use to see that you’ve been there, but that seems more work than us getting you on the phone and having a conversation with you.

How many times have you gone to a website doing some shopping? “I’ll come back to it. I’ll call,” and then you just never get around to it. You got one option, pick up the phone, and call me if you’re interested in having this conversation. Now, you capture all their info.

Honestly, that’s how I feel like we made it Waco work for us. If you had a question, we were talking to you. Is there anything I didn’t ask that you feel like somebody needs to know about making direct mail work?

That was good. We covered a lot of it. Mail piece is important. We went over. Everybody’s going to respond different to different mailers and that’s why we track what we track. Another thing with direct mail why it’s so important because a lot of a lot of the population, it’s elderly folks that own these properties. They’re not necessarily going on Google or Facebook to sell their properties. One thing they’re doing is checking their mailbox every day. That’s another thing. You’re able to reach a lot of people that you’re not necessarily able to reach on PPL or PPC.

Agreed, 100%. One more last question that I have for you. First class or standard class, which one do you think matters or do you think it matters?

Optimizing Mail Delivery & List Cadence

I only recommend first class. You’re going to spend an extra $0.20 or maybe even $0.23 per stamp for first class. I recommend hitting every list multiple times. You want to stay consistent in front of these people. What I usually recommend is using first class on that very first drop, that first touch throughout your list. That way, you know your undeliverable. You know you’re getting your return mail because when you’re using first class, that’s the only way you’re going to get your return mail. A lot of times, when you’re getting that return mail and those undeliverable, that’s where the Gold’s at because nobody else is able to market to those people.

If you can’t send a postcard to them, that means Joe over here can’t send a postcard to him either. I recommend you get your return mail, you skip trace, and you call on all those returns because there’s lots of times, there’s gold in it. In marketing mail, the only issue would ever see is we tend to get pretty good results is the delay from the time it hits the mailbox but we’re in Saint Louis Missouri. We’re right in the middle of the nation. We tend to hit mailboxes within about ten days from the time the mail is shipped. For first class, you’re guaranteed 3 to 5 days. USPS hubs prioritize first class, so you’re in the mailbox a lot quicker than you are with marketing mail but you do not get your return mailers.

I like to predictability when I send direct mail. With first class, I can pretty much tell you what day it’s going to hit or when we’re going to get our first initial calls. I like that. I’ve always been first class guy because I like to be able to say, “If I send on this day, we’re going to get our calls on this day. That way, we send throughout the week.” There’s also a thing that nobody thinks about and every time I say it, people are like, “That’s genius.”

 

I try to avoid my direct mail landing on the day that junk mail hits my mailbox in my area. For us, it’s Wednesday, so I try to have my direct mail piece of land on a Monday or a Friday. I try not to have land on Wednesday. I don’t know if junk mails different in every area but that’s something. If you think about those little things, you’re more likely to be seen. You can control that with first class.

That makes a lot of sense, too. You don’t want to get lost when they call it the taco of mail. That’s good. I want to imagine it’s different in every area, what day the junk mail is. That’s a good point.

We basically beat this thing to death, but one of the things, I don’t know if you guys tracked us or not or talk about this with your customers. One of the things I saw and I want to share this with the audience, our data, and everybody’s data maybe different, is distress list, so less cadence. Let’s talk less cadence. For me, distress list is somebody that’s in foreclosure tax default that has like a timing issue on basically something’s going to happen soon.

We want to mail to often. Every 4 to 6 weeks, we want to basically hit that list because something’s going to happen in a time frame. We want to try to convert them before it does. I’ve noticed with non-distress list, like your equity list. None or occupied equity list basically doesn’t have a whole lot of distress points on it. Maybe has a few in there, but there’s nothing that forces a time issue for them to make a decision. About every 90 days is a good cadence for us for that list if you want to be aggressive every 60. If you go every 30, you’re throwing money away. I don’t know if you see the same thing or feel the same way. What advice would you give to you agree with me?

I agree here. Distress, as you said, they are more rush to sell the property if you’re waiting your 60 to 90 days. That’s not going to be there anymore. That deal is going to be gone because somebody else is going to get it. I agree with everything you just said there. Let’s say you’re not such a motivated sellers list like your equity list. I would recommend every three months, get back in front of them. You’re motivated sellers monthly at least, maybe even every three weeks.

Tell everybody how to get a hold of you and where they find you if they want to talk to you about direct mail. Let’s be clear, you’re willing to get on the phone with them and give them a consultation and see if it’s a fit. This is a no obligation thing. I highly recommend you reach out to Brian and have a conversation with Brian. How do they find you?

You can go to Brian.REIPrintMail.com. Make sure that you say that you read this episode is where you’re coming from and I’ll take good care of either way Brian. My direct number (636) 265-6452. Make sure you let me know that Don sent you my way and what you’re in good hands. We’ll take care of you.

If you just want to get on and talk about a direct mail strategy, I’m going to go out there and say, even if you’re not quite ready for a direct mail yet, get on a phone, call with Brian and talk about the pieces you need to put in place that you can be ready for direct mail. That way, he can help me put a plan in place so that you know exactly the steps you need to take to be ready to deploy direct mail.

At the end of the day, cold calling was the hotness for a minute and now there’s some struggles of cold calling. Texting was the hotness for a minute and now there’s a TCAPA stuff that you got to be cognizant of. The point is, marketing channels come and go and they ebb and flow. Direct mails always been a thing and it’s not going away. There’s no do not call list for the mailbox, when it comes to at least what we’re sending.

Direct mail is going to always be that tried and true. It’s going to always be there when some of the other marketing channels go away. It’s something that you should be mastering. It is my favorite marketing channel by far. It’s been the one that’s made me the most money. I spend as much as almost $600,000 in one year in direct mail. That’s how much I believe in it.

How much you make on that? That’s the question.

I made a lot. Brian, I appreciate your time here with me and thank you very much. For all of you reading, again, go to FlipTalk.com for everything in the Flip Talk universe. Make sure you have a wonderful day and I will see you on the other side.

 

Important Links

• Brian Charlton on LinkedIn
• REIPrintMail
• Brian.REIPrintMail.com