NUTS & BOLTS
WHITE-LETTER MARKETING
White-Letter Marketing Basics A 30-YEAR INDUSTRY VETERAN SHARES THE SECRETS BEHIND HIS MARKETING MATERIALS.
by John Alexander
have used letters to reach motivated sellers and find leads on deals for more than 25 years. While many real estate investors have moved away from white and yellow letters (more on the color distinction in a minute) to postcards, I find that my target audience responds better to letters. Furthermore, in a competitive market, more peo- ple will send out postcards than will bother with letters, so sending a letter helps you stand out. The real key to white-letter marketing success is patience and repetition. Once I have determined a list of recipients based on area and the population of potential sellers, I stick with the same letter and the same list for the long term. Sometimes we might send the same letter for years. People really respond well to the security they feel when they open your letter, see something familiar, and recognize you are still in business years after they first encountered you. That is probably the biggest lesson you can learn from this article: I
Mailing does work, but you have to stick with it really long-term.
I’ve broken down one of my highly successful white letters so you can see the thought process that goes into the composition of this type of mailing. In this case, I am using a white letter, literally, but this type of correspondence also works on yellow paper. For me, white looks a little more professional, like a legal letter, and my target audience prefers it. Yellow letters tend to feel a bit more personal. You will have to make the color decision based on your knowl- edge of your target audience. As a final note before we begin, I must emphasize that the basic outline of this letter has changed very, very little over time. This is deliberate. It is important that the recipient recognize it as the same letter (and me as the same investor) every time they see it.
88 | think realty magazine :: september 2018
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