Even though it seems like digital marketing has completely taken over the real estate world, there’s still one of the most effective marketing strategies hidden in plain sight.
Direct mail offers you a personalized way to get tangible results from your marketing campaigns, allowing you to stand out and generate more leads as a real estate professional.
If you aren’t using direct mail marketing in your business, especially alongside your digital marketing campaigns, you’re probably leaving deals on the table.
And if your competition is sleeping on this highly effective strategy, it’s easy for you to gain local market share just by implementing direct mail in your business.
In this guide, we’re going to show you exactly how effective direct mail can be, what you need to make it work as effectively as possible, and 10 different direct mail companies you can use to get started.
Why Real Estate Investors Need Direct Mail
While most investors are flocking to digital media marketing because they believe it’s easier, or converts higher, they seem to be ignoring the statistics that have kept direct mail around for decades.
As digital marketing trends come and go, direct mail stays as effective as it’s always been.
To see what we mean, check out these stats:
- More than 42% of recipients either scan or read the mail they receive — while many more internet users are “banner blind” and have trained themselves to ignore marketing & ads they see online.
- In terms of response rate, direct mail averages a 4.4% conversion rate for both B2B and B2C campaigns while a “good” response rate for digital marketing is around 2%.
- With a highly-targeted mailing list, you can generate a response rate of up to 9% for house lists and nearly 5% for prospect lists.
- Up to 73% of Americans say they prefer direct mail for receiving brand communications because they can read it at their leisure instead of being interrupted with digital marketing.
- Almost 92% of shoppers share a preference for direct mail when it comes to making a decision to work with a company or purchase their products and services.
You can see how much more effective direct mail marketing can be when it’s used in the right way.
And if you’re already sending direct mail pieces but aren’t seeing the type of return you’re looking for, check out the ultimate real estate direct mail success guide.
What You Need To Make Direct Mail Work For You
One of the biggest reasons more investors aren’t using direct mail (outside of being attracted to the digital marketing shine) is that they simply don’t understand how to properly implement it.
Wondering how many pieces they should send, when they should send it, and who they should send it to, while also figuring out how to manage the campaigns they run can be incredibly frustrating.
To help you get started, check out the video below — it lays out the answers to each of those questions and gives you 3 quick tips for making your campaigns as effective as possible.
Then, to get started laying the foundation for your campaigns, you’ll want to make sure you have:
1: A CRM System
Your CRM is, arguably, one of the most critical components in a successful direct mail campaign.
As you’re sending out mailer after mailer, you need to be able to properly organize who you’ve mailed, whether or not they have responded, what their response has been, and what the next steps are.
A CRM like REsimpli makes life easy — and makes it incredibly simple to manage your campaigns.
2: A Direct Mail Company
Now, unless you want to hand-address and personally mail 1000’s of pieces of direct mail, you’ll want to use a direct mail company to handle the heavy load for you.
And it all starts with writing the letter you’ll send to homeowners.
Then, you’ll want to determine your budget, build your lead list, choose the right mailers, and templates, get your creative wheels spinning with direct mail ideas that actually work, and set yourself up for success.
You also want to make sure you’re “double dipping” your direct mail lists using the strategy broken down for you in the video below:
3: A Lead Intake Service
Once you have that in place, unless you’re ready and willing to sit by the phone and be available whenever, wherever calls come in, you’ll want to use a call answering service like Call Porter.
Their professionally-trained “porters” will answer your incoming calls, pre-qualify the leads as they come in, and book them directly to your calendar — so you can keep doing everything you would be doing BESIDES sitting around watching your phone ring.
They also keep you from having to deal with tire kickers and time wasters, which is an unfortunate side effect of ANY marketing campaign.
The 8 Best Direct Mail Companies For Real Estate
When you’ve laid the foundation, the next step is finding a direct mail company you can trust.
Below is a list of 8 different companies who can help make your direct mail campaigns as effective and as efficient as possible — so you generate more leads and get more chances to close deals.
1: Ballpoint Marketing
Now, we are a bit biased with this recommendation, but one of the biggest benefits of using Ballpoint Marketing for your direct mail campaigns — is because we use them in our businesses, too.
When we started the company, we built it from the ground up knowing that it needed to serve US at the highest level and solve the frustrations we had with other direct mail companies.
We wanted direct mail that stood out and got attention in the mailbox, that was too good to just toss in the trash, and had that handwritten, personalized approach that we were sending out by hand.
This what we came up with:
With these mailers, it’s pretty easy to 10x your return, too, using the strategy below:
With Ballpoint Marketing, you get:
- Beautiful Handwritten Direct Mailers
- Vast Array of Postcards, Letters & More
- Automated Mailer Sequences
And a higher response rate than you’ll get with other direct mail companies.
2: REIPrintMail
REIPrintMail is a Missouri-based company that helps you optimize your direct mail campaigns using AccuPix that gives you an accurate photo of the home you’re mailing to.
Including this in your mailers can make them incredibly personalized.
They also help you generate mailing lists while enabling you to send text messages to the owners you send your direct mail to.
Key Features
- Automated Campaigns
- Personalized Text/Copy
- Mailing List Builder
The only downside to the service is that mailers can take a while to get sent out. If you’re looking to quickly grow and scale, that could end up being a frustrating experience.
3: The Addressers
The Addressers has been operating since the late 1970s and helps investors of all sizes and forms consistently mail their prospects.
They got their start manually sorting mail and then became a USPS-approved postal provider to make them more efficient as time went on.
With The Addressers, you’re able to generate mailing lists and send out postcards, letters, brochures, flyers, and envelopes in both standard and handwritten form.
- Regularly Updated Mailing Lists
- Vast Letter/Postcard Options
- USPS Approved
Based on how easy the service is to use, and the features you get, The Addressers is a decent direct mail company with years of experience serving investors.
4: Open Letter Marketing
Open Letter Marketing is a direct mail company run by Justin Silverio, providing products and services like handwritten mailers, professional and business letters, skip tracing, and more.
They also let you tag leads as either low or high priority based on the criteria you provide so you’re able to create segmented marketing lists and roll out your direct mail campaigns.
OLM is also one of the few services that provides a returned mail system — letting you scan the barcodes on returned pieces so you can prevent future mailings.
Key Features
- Returned Mail System
- Skip Tracing
- Lots of Postcards/Letters To Choose From
Open Letter Marketing has a simple-to-use interface and comes with a number of features that can help grow your business at an affordable rate.
5: YellowLetterHQ
YellowLetterHQ is one of the most competitively priced direct mail houses for investors, so if you’re budget-conscious and want to get more done with a smaller budget, they may be worth considering.
They offer you lead lists and organization, skip tracing, and postcard marketing services while boasting an average turnaround time of around 2 to 3 days when you expedite your order.
For an additional fee, you’re also able to get access to your returned mail list so you’re able to accurately track your response rate and prevent double mailing failed pieces.
Key Features
- List Organizer
- Letter/Postcard Templates
- Return Mail Feature
While YourLetterHQ is incredibly affordable, that lower rate means you also get access to fewer templates and features than you’ll get with other companies.
6: YellowLetters
YellowLetters currently boasts having served over 12,000 investors across the country.
With access to more than 1,000 different templates and over 500 direct mail templates for real estate, this California-based company helps deploy your campaigns, while also giving you access to their “cluster marketing” strategy that switches up the type of marketing your prospects are receiving.
Key Features
- Direct Auto-Pilot Mailer Campaigns
- Call Tracking
- Enhanced Mailing List Features
YellowLetters is one of those companies that toes the line between being affordable while giving you access to a wide array of templates, with a simple-to-navigate platform.
7: PostcardMania
PostcardMania is one of the oldest companies on this list, being founded back in the late 90’s.
They’re also one of the only companies on this list who have a dedicated results department that focuses on ensuring their campaigns deliver competitive results, compared to other company’s results.
Key Features
- Custom Branding Service
- Digital Marketing Integration
- Free Sample Packs
While more expensive than many other companies we’ve featured, you do get access to their custom branding service, integration with your digital marketing campaigns, and sample packs to see and feel what you’re sending out before you commit.
8: Wise Pelican
Wise Pelican is another direct mail marketing service that focuses on serving real estate investors.
They provide custom postcard designs, a user-friendly online management platform, competitive pricing based on the volume that you send, no minimum order requirements, and list targeting so you’re able to effectively optimize your campaigns as you build and send them out.
Key Features
- Custom Designs
- Targeted Mailing Lists
- User-Friendly Management System
Most campaigns are sent out within 4 to 6 business days and the discount on bulk orders makes their pricing incredibly competitive as you grow and scale your investing business.
If you’re just getting started, there are better services on this list. However, if you’re growing and scaling and have a large marketing budget available, you might want to consider Wise Pelican.
Final Thoughts…
While direct mail marketing is still one of the most effective, most powerful forms of marketing in your real estate business, you still want to ensure you’re doing it the right way.
Using mailers that stand out in the mailbox with handwritten, personalized messages is one of the best ways to get responses from the list you mail.
Ballpoint Marketing was built from the ground up on proven direct mail principles and it’s what we use every day in our own real estate businesses, consistently optimizing each campaign we send to ensure our ROI stays as high as possible.
But it’s not just our business, though.
Check out some of the results our clients have seen while using our handwritten, personalized mailers:
You can take a look at the mailers and see why they are as effective as they are by visiting our catalog.