Recently, one of our students was suffering from low response rate. IT was not for lack of experience; this individual has multiple real estate businesses and has been doing this a long time. Despite this, the response rate on the marketing she was sending out was just getting lower and lower. The particular probate mailing she came to us about was only getting a 1% response rate. The first question I asked her was, “Are you making money at 1% response rate?” She was, but was concerned that if it continued to decline, she would stop being profitable.

We all want our response rates to be as high as possible. This is a topic that is constantly talked about in real estate investment clubs and masterminds nationwide. The motivated sellers many of us are mailing to are worried and frozen with fear. These people are getting a lot of mail, but they do not know who to trust. None of the investors whose mail is sitting on their coffee table are really standing out. This is one problem we can solve – and we have made gains in this area with our own business and with our students.

Back to my student and her probate list campaign. Our next step was to make a minor update to her existing direct mail letter. I simply asked, “Is your book and a picture of you with your book on the letter?” It was not. So we added it.

Now her face and the credibility of being a local author were right there on the letter. The people reading get to see her. This is not normally on a letter, so it creates curiosity. Now people reading are paying attention, interested in what she has to say. They are now actually reading the whole letter, all the way to the statement at the bottom of her letter which says, “If you're not ready to sell your house yet, but you want to get some education or some information on what your options are, I wrote this book. It is $12.99 normally, but if you give my office a call, I'll give you a copy for free.”

Guess what happened when she did that? Do you think her response rate went up or down?

It increased to about 3%. Being a former math teacher, naturally I had to run some more numbers. 1% to 3% is what percentage increase? 300%. She increased her response rate 300% without changing the list, without increasing the size of the list. She did not even change the main body of the letter. It did not take a lot of effort for her to add a picture of herself with the book that she already licensed with us. These were credibility and curiosity pieces that she already had that set up which quickly turned into huge gain for her direct mail response rate.

Low response rates are costing you money. Are you worried about losing money, about not being able to pay your office staff? What about paying your salary? What about planning for future growth and innovation?

Max, you might be saying, I do not have a book! You do not need to be a published author to use this strategy in your campaigns. You can record a how-to video and include a QR code that links to it. It can be an e-book or an invitation to a webinar. Ask yourself, what else can I offer in addition to what I am already doing? You want to include something that positions you as an educator, consultant, and/or an advocate for the people that you are marketing to.