Robbyn Battles: Expired Mailer Campaign

By Jefferson Snow
Today we’re hopping in the REDX time machine to talk about a Tele-Seminar call we hosted back in December of 2011. This call featured an interview with REDX All Star Robbyn Battles. You can listen to the call by clicking here and going to seminar 7, but continue reading if you want the Cliffsnotes version.
Although this call was recorded some time ago and the real estate market is constantly in flux, there are still some great takeaways from this call that are still useful and applicable. The biggest of these is Robbyn’s mailing approach.
Despite going against the majority REDX’s most established and orthodox doctrines, Robbyn kills it by never making a single cold call. And when I say kill it, I mean that at the time of this call she was tracking between $225k and $250 in yearly commissions. She’s playing in the big leagues. And rather than using the phone, Robbyn’s weapon of choice is the mail piece . . . Lots of mail pieces.
Like most successful real estate agents, Robbyn is very systematic in her approach. She doesn’t shoot from the hip, she doesn’t start and stop, pop and fizzle week to week, and she doesn’t improvise. Everything is finely tuned, a well oiled machine consistently churning out reliable and predictable business. In Robbyn’s words, “It’s like turning on a faucet.”
When a property expires on the MLS, that property is sent into Robbyn’s system as a lead. After 10 days of being expired, Robbyn sends her initial packet. I know many of you are saying, “10 days? But that’s already too late!” But according to Robbyn, by giving herself this extra time, she is actually distinguishing herself from her competition. By not joining the frenzy that ensues the day after a property expireds, she brands with a more laid back and non-aggressive approach.
But back to Robbyn’s packet. This mail piece is sent in first class mail in a nice, glossy, white envelope. Inside this this package are the following 4 items:
1. A printout of the property’s details from the MLS, including all the remarks from other agents.
2. A 5-question Questionnaire assessing why the house didn’t sell and what they would have done differently if they were the agent.
3. A handwritten (as in they bought a font that looks like handwriting) note card that offers her services.
4. A one-line CMA specific to the homes and neighborhood around the expired property.
All these items are in full-color and professionally printed save for the one-line CMA (though this is printed on a nice color printer at the office).
This first packet however is but one of 7 mailers that will be going out to the expired over the next 78 days. These are also professional-quality postcards encased in first-class envelopes. Robbyn wasn’t as specific on what sort of content these contain but she did make sure that they are all consistent with her brand as far as layout, color, and tone and that they are randomly spaced so people don’t tune them out if they come to regularly.
Once these 7 mailers have been sent, the lead is then put on a continuous 45-day cycle of receiving what she calls her “Monthly Market Activity” report. This report includes something along the lines of a CMA for that person’s specific neighborhood. These reports are sent out every 45 days until the property re-lists with either Robbyn or some other agent. So yes, she is still sending out mailers to expireds that happened from a long time ago. She even has some in her database that she’s been mailing to since 2004. “But isn’t that a waste of money?” Some might ask. Hardly. Robbyn says she loves working with old expireds and says that every now and again, a few will come out of the woodwork and and ask for appointments. Some even refer business to her that have never used her simply because she has established herself as an expert by sending out her mailers so reliably over the last decade.
At any point in time, Robbyn says she has anywhere from 1400 to 1500 expired leads in her data base that she is currently mailing to. This may sound like quite a feat to keep up with so much, but the results are there. Robbyn has it pretty well calculated that by sending out around 1400 Market Activity Reports every 45 days, she generates about 7 requests for appointments, 5 of which become signed contracts. Considering she does this on a budget of about $7.50 cents per new expired and $467 on the mass Market Activity Report, she’s seeing great ROI.
Obviously, a campaign as intricate as this has a lot of moving parts to keep track of. Especially when it comes to staying on top of which properties ares still expired and which have gone active. With the enormity of this list, Robbyn says the only tool that makes it possible to keep up is the REDX. To listen to call in it’s entirety, click here and go to seminar 7. To get into the meat of the content, skip the first 19 minutes.