Based on the feedback I've received from our clients that are contacting homeowners in pre foreclosure, direct mail has been the best marketing vehicle for more short sale transactions. I say that with a few caveats.
First, I'm a firm believer in the omnipresence of marketing. If I had to chose one lone method to advertise to troubled homeowners, it would be direct mail, but it is more effective when used in parrallel with other communications. For example,
Day 1: Send a letter to Bob and Sally, who are falling behind on their loan payments.
Day 5: Follow-up with a phone call.
Day 10: Send a post card to Bob and Sally.
Day 15: Having established name recognition, take the personal approach and knock on their door.
Day 20: Send out a follow up letter.
You can use synergy when using direct mail in conjuction with other techniques. In other words, two plus two isn't four. It's five.
Secondly, I have seen campaigns flop because the mail piece looked too salesy or did not grab a reader by the eyeballs in a couple seconds. Savvy consumers have a very brief attention span and as a marketer, you have a small window of opportunity to command their attention.
Whatever you send to homeowners that recently missed a mortgage payment, it has to be opened to be effective. Anything that remotely looks like a bill will be chucked. Especially in competitive markets, anything with laser jet labels may not get opened either, because it looks like an advertisement or a letter from a bill collector.
If you want to send a letter to a troubled homeowner and you want a guarantee that it will be read, how about handwriting it? There is nothing more personal. In today's world of technology, people don't get something in the mail that is handwritten. When's the last time you did? Was it Uncle Tom wanting to wish you a Merry Christmas or Happy Birthday? Or was it when you received a wedding invitation? Happy moments of correspondence, right? Handwriting a letter offering your help WORKS and works REALLY well. Here's 3 techniques to harness the power of the handwritten word....
1. "The Yellow Letter" -- this is a very powerful method of getting your direct mail opened. Handwrite your foreclosure marketing message in a blank sheet of paper. Here's how. Put a legal notebook pad BEHIND the white sheet of paper so that you can see the lines through the blank sheet of paper. Now take your black pen and handwrite your marketing message on the white sheet of paper. Leave the first couple of lines blank so you can write the name. Go to a copy center and make copies of your handwritten letter, but print it onto yellow legal notebook paper--the kind that you rip of sheet by sheet. Now you have hundreds of handwritten letters. All you do is then write the person's name at the top of each sheet such as "Dear Mary" and it will look like you handwrote the letter to the person.
2. Handwritten Postcards -- Get a blank sheet of white 8.5" x 11" paper and face it in landscape mode. Divide it into four quadrants equally. That will be the size of each of your postcards. What you do is to handwrite your message on each quadrant on the paper. That will be your foreclosure marketing message! Leave space at the top to write a name if you'd like. If you plan to put information on the BACK of the post card, get another blank sheet of paper and divide into 4 quadrants and handwrite your message as it would appear on the other side of the post card. Don't forget to leave room for the address and the stamp on the other side. Then take these two sheets of papers to your office supply store and have them photocopy these two sheets of paper into a hard cardstock, bright-color pastel colored paper and that will serve as your post card. For postcards, you can actually stick labels onto the other side since the postcard doesn't require the person to "open up" the mail.
3. Handwritten envelope -- do you want to triple your response rate? Handwrite your envelopes and put a first class mail stamp at the top. People WILL open up this mail. Why? Because it looks like it came from Uncle Bob. For best results, you can hand write the return address as well. You can use a regular envelope or an "invitation-sized" envelope for an even more powerful effect. Make it look like they are getting a birthday or wedding invitation. I have heard of people getting double digit response rates with this method.
This takes some extra time, but it is well worth the extra response. No one says that YOU have to be the one to do the handwriting. Whether it is a high school kid looking for a few extra bucks, a stay at home mom or someone retired that can invest a few hours handwriting, there are other people that do this cost effectively. How about putting an ad on craigslist? Especially in the down economy, there is no shortage of people that can pick up the pen.
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