In episode 19 of Wake Up to Wealth, Brandon Brittingham interviews Scott Snofke, from REIPrintMail, as they discuss the importance of data and KPIs in real estate investing. Scott shares valuable insights on how tracking data can lead to successful marketing campaigns and ultimately drive deals to the closing table.Â
Tune in to discover the secrets behind creating effective mail pieces, finding the right data sets, and targeting the right buyers in different markets.
SOCIAL MEDIA LINKS
Brandon Brittingham
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mailboxmoneyb/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/brandon.brittingham.1/
Scott Snofke
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/reimailman/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/reimailman
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/scott-snofke-32637394/
WEBSITE
Brandon Brittingham: https://www.brandonsbrain.org/home
REIPrintMail: https://scott.reiprintmail.com/
This is Wake Up to Wealth, a podcast dedicated to helping you change the way you think about wealth. And now here's your host, Brandon Brittingham.
Why do you think your data is just so good compared to what else is out there?
Brandon Brittingham
Every market is so different. KPIs are just huge.
Scott Snofke
So you guys actually think about what you put the mail in.
Brandon Brittingham
We all make the journey from the mailbox. We go straight to the trash can.
Scott Snofke
All right. What's up, everybody? We are back with another episode of Waking Up to Wealth. And we happen to be in Dallas today on the road and super excited. I got one of my homies, Scott, here. Scott, thanks for coming.
No problem. Thanks for having me. You know, it's not often that people tell their trade secrets of how they find things. And so usually people don't promote us that well. So I appreciate you having me on.
Yeah, so one thing that we know and that I know is to be good at anything in business, you got to have good data and you got to have good KPIs. And one of the reasons why I brought Scott on here today was we use Scott for our data in our real estate investing business and for our mailers and a lot of our outbound marketing that we do. And I've been doing this a long time and these guys just do some really, really cool things and have helped us become super successful. So just, you know, kind of give me an overview of like, from your perspective, just data and KPIs, you know, as a whole of how you got to run your business.
Well, we're the only ones in the industry that track everything we do, either through our CRMs or through our customer's CRMs. But we want to know what the results are. And in finding the results, we know how well it worked or how well it didn't. So we know where to pivot and where to continue and double down. So KPIs are just huge in knowing what pieces are coming out of the mailbox and how the people are responding to them. We're able to track that stuff. We're able to track You know, whether whatever we put on it with a certain phone number to know exactly what an offer percentage should be on a check for somewhere in Jacksonville compared to say somewhere like where I'm at in St. Louis, Missouri. We fluctuate those numbers based off how they respond and we test continuously with it.
So, I want to dive a little bit deeper on that. You know, there's a lot of people that run businesses that don't really look at their KPIs. Like just I mean, just talk about that a little bit.
So, I mean, this is a great example, and I talk about it quite a bit is even with your numbers, like you and I ran a campaign last March, April and May. We sent out 16,000 or 18,000 pieces, 6,000 a month. And what we were testing was another data source that I'd heard that was doing really well in the area. So I'm like, hey, let's test this. And the KPIs told me that, yes, I got a better response rate off of it. And then also while I was tracking that, I found a couple other things. Since we sent this exact same check three times in a row, that third touch showed me that, OK, three times in a row was too much. that either I need to refresh the data or I need to change that mail piece up because they recognized it or we're at the end of that data set. So then that led me into more testing to figure out, okay, I need to do this, this, and this, which has really led to knowing we're coming out of the mailbox with a different approach each time with a different thought process.
Yeah, so essentially, no matter what you do in your business, you should be able to tie an ROI to the money you're spending. You should have a mechanism for tracking. It doesn't matter if it's direct mail, if it's feed, wherever you're spending money, you've got to tie it back to a KPI and an ROI. Is that what I'm hearing you say?
Yeah, I mean, to put it really dumb it down, KPIs are the lights in the industry. If you walk into a stranger's house and the lights are off, you're going to bump into things. If you turn the lights on and you know where everything's at, you can maneuver through your own market and through other markets and even start to test things outside of your market of where are you going to go? What's your next market? How are you going to grow and scale? If you don't have the numbers or the math to it, it's the science inside of the industry. That's a great analogy.
I've never heard anybody say that. Just made it up. Yeah. So from a data perspective, what is it that You guys have discovered something, and I know you can't give it all to us, but, you know, why do you think your data is just so good compared to what else is out there?
Well, you know, just out of that conversation at KPIs of tracking what they're responding to, whether it's, you know, for example, owner-occupied staffs and tees are really niching down a list to fit that individual customer. So a lot of people will come in with a broad brush approach and say 300, you know, anything under 300k. Well, if you're looking for a fix and flip, you don't want those trap houses. You don't want because the market's not going to be there. So we're able to get in there through KPIs and know what we're looking for in the area so we can better suit that. So that's where our coaching comes in, is we sit down and analyze your market, what you're looking for, and then find that best day to set the custom fit to your needs. And then with technology now, we can really quickly go through and figure out what's the problem with that homeowner. We can not only go and look at, you know, what their credit situations are, if they've ever sold a house under wholesale, how they trade their cars. And, you know, that's a wholesale deal there. So we can start to really know who we're targeting and then we can weed out the ones that aren't going to respond to us that simply just, you know, they always sell at market value and those aren't our ideal clients. The internet and the technology, the AI in it, will really help you filter and sort out. I equate it to a cup of coffee. You have your coffee grounds, you have your coffee, and then you have your cream at the top. We all know we want that cream. There's good deals in the coffee. There's no good deals in the coffee grounds at the bottom. So at that point, you know, we're able to utilize your money better to find those deals through AI and through learned algorithms.
So, you know, we're a huge believer here on the show that real estate is a path to wealth. And you got to find deals. Number one, you got to find good deals and you got to try to find deals that no one else is going after at the same time. So one of the things that Scott's company has helped me do, which is REI Printmail, is, you know, for stuff we're going to hold or we're going to flip or in a wholesale, he's helped us find kind of the diamonds in the rough. And what I would tell you, whether you use Scott's company or whoever you use, I'd obviously suggest you use them because of my experience with them. But you've got to find data in the market. You've got to find the pockets in the market that are going to work, that you can do fix and flips in, that you can do wholesales in. Or, you know, location is everything. The stuff that you're going to buy and hold. Man, knowledge is power when it comes to the real estate game. And data is the key. That's like the recipe to the sauce. If you don't figure these things out, you're going to have a freaking problem.
Right. And oftentimes what I coach on is when when people funnel their data down is, you know, we talk about, you know, the price point, the style of house. You talk about all of these variations that, you know, the length of time that they've owned the property, things like that. Well, all that does is funnel down to what I call competition. is everybody has the same metrics that they funnel to. But those outliers, the ones that are just outside of that, is what we're trying to find. We're able to use our AI data to go in there and find those pockets, get into those owner-occupieds that is a vast amount of people. Well, we don't want to spend a ton of money on them because the response rate's low. So let's go find the ones that are good. And that's what the new technologies are really helping us with.
So go deeper a little bit on that. Like what data sets are you seeing really work right now?
I mean, I'm a big proponent on one of my favorite things to do is, of course, the absentee vacant list. I don't want to go after the big portfolio owners. I have something specific to set aside for them to target them. But I want to go after the Possibly the uneducated or the inherited portfolio owner that has bought a few properties. They've inherited a few properties they're not in an LLC and You might own five or six and then all of a sudden there's a roof issue a bad tenant or something They get a bad taste in their mouth and they want to dispo and the reason why I like that absentee list is just simply there's nobody there to stop the sale. It's an extra property. So they trade them a little bit more like trading cards. Somebody tears this one up, they'll sell that one at a wholesale, they'll go buy this one over here that's in a better area. So the movement inside of the list is really good. Owner-occupieds, to be honest with you, it definitely has my eyebrow up this next year with interest rates dropping to say around a six. I think that's going to be the new three. So all of these families that have been holding tight inside of their house, especially, and this is probably going to be really good in the PPC market of the, you know, the millennials or, you know, as their families are growing, they're going to need a bigger house. They've been sitting tight for the last 18 months waiting for that lower interest rate. All of a sudden it's coming down. Somebody is going to pull the trigger. Yeah. And then, you know, the same thing with, you know, as the interest rate drops, buyers pick up. So a lot of what we target is, you know, the 55 plus, because what is it, 65% of homes are owned by people 55 years of age. And their last trusted resource was direct mail or through the mailbox or a newspaper. So something physically in their hands. And in us targeting them is they're going to retire, they're getting towards the end of life cycle. So they're going into retirement, assisted living, moving in with family. That's where direct mail actually outperforms everybody out there. And in targeting them with the lower interest rates, we're able to also make that move now. Before, if they made it, it was a lateral move. And even it being a lateral move, they were paying more per month and they couldn't really afford to do so with the inflated prices of the economy.
I'm guessing, but you could tell me if I'm wrong. One of the things you guys do is you send out a mail piece that looks like a legitimate official check. That's essentially give somebody an offer on their house. Unless I'm way off on this, I would assume that's one of your best performing mail pieces.
It's, I mean, by far, it's the one that gets open and investigated. What we focus on the most is it's almost, you know, I look at it seasonally for mail. I mean, what's going on right now? We're all filing our taxes. People are getting a tax check back. So, of course, we're going to mimic tax checks. Yeah. January, February, you know, was a lot of things that look like a W-2. Going into March, April, May, you have graduation season, you have birthdays, you have wedding season, all of that. So invitation style envelopes, same with Christmas and New Year.
So you guys actually think about what you put the mail in.
Right. Yeah, because ultimately, you know, we all we all make the journey from the mailbox. We go straight to the trash can. Yeah. And I pass three trash cans before I get read. And I'm in the mail industry and I still will sort through if it's got a gutter on it, a window or anything like that. It's straight to the trash on a postcard. Postcards don't get read. If you're going to be on a postcard, it better be a medium one and you better have an offer on it. Right. You know, because you want to be the first thing that they engage with on the kitchen counter or wherever they're reading their mail at. You want to be the first thing that they pick up and engage with. And we all know that that's checks. If we can come in as money, and I'll tell you what not to do is send it looking like a bill. Yeah. Because anybody, because we're targeting people in financial distress. Right. The need to sell. If they get a bill, they're going to be pissed. Well, it's not that they're pissed. They avoid it. How do people get into financial situations? Is they avoid the problems. They put them off. They procrastinate. So a bill is a natural procrastination piece. So they take it and they just go. We'll get to that later. And they will not engage with it. What we're trying to do is create curiosity coming out of the mailbox enough to get read before we're thrown away or to be read at the kitchen counter and then engaged with from there.
Got it, that makes sense. A lot of great information and you've given actual tactical stuff. You know, what is a piece of advice you would give to someone from a data standpoint that, you know, maybe as a new investor or a seasoned investor or whatever of like really dialing this process in and getting a handle on it?
Well, you know, it depends on what we're looking for. For the most part, that's where it stops. The foundation of all of this is the disposition side. No, there's no money made till somebody pays for it. Yeah. So if we can get in to figure out who's buying, if we can find who our buyers are, what they're buying, and then we go shop for them, you know, we door dash find the buyer first. Yeah. Know what they want. And if so, you're not going to go. and be able to disposition, you know, fix and holds or buy and hold properties to a fix and flipper. They don't want those because typically those are in markets that are capped out or slow growing. You know, good Section 8 markets, now if the guy's a buy and hold person, then that's where you're going to go target, is to figure out who's buying your properties. and what they're buying. And a lot of times you can get in, like you can jump on a call with me, we can look at the actual data in your area and see where the cash buyers are happening or where's the area that has the most absentee vacants because that's a high-end rental area. So we know we can start to manipulate that data set to target what you're specifically looking for so we can be more efficient in what we do.
I think you made a really good point there, where this is where I think a lot of people fall short, is you got to make a data-driven decision. Not a, I think it's this, or this is what a couple of comps are saying, or whatever the case is. Or a friend told me. Yeah, or to your point, you can actually go look at the data and say, this is where buyers are, this is where cash buyers are, this is the concentration. It's actually making, you made a good point, find the buyer first, but also find the buyer based on a data-driven decision. and not some just shit I'm picking it out of the air.
Right. And that's, you know, where a lot of people fail is they come in and they think that the contract to get, you know, I have many clients that come in and be like, I got a contract. I got a contract. And that doesn't mean anything to me. I want to know a closing. Yeah. You know, how many closings did we get out of it? Because that's when we get paid. We got to get them to the table. 20 contracts and you only get 10 to the table, then you have a closing issue and we need to figure that out. And that's, you know, a lot of people associate us by our name, REI Printmail. And they just think that we print mail. Pretty self-explanatory. That's what we started as. But as we've grown inside of the industry and tracking everything, we've added the things that our clients need as tools. And, you know, people come in and be like, oh, so-and-so can do it for this or so-and-so can do it for that. Well, we're not a printing company. Yeah, we are a data-analyzed, knowledge-driven print company. Yeah, so we're sending things out the door with knowledge and power behind them because ultimately we want, and why we're free, is we want to be able to give you the knowledge to make better decisions in your industry because we want to be partners for a very, very long time.
Yep, and I would co-sign that you guys are legit because I've used a lot of companies. I've never had the response. To your point, response is one thing. I've never had the tie it to actual deals and closings at the rate that I've had it with you guys.
Not even close. Well, and this is a thought that just came in because of the clients and the friends that we share is Every market is so different. True. And it's oftentimes when we give advice, we give advice from our market. And it's the same with data is certain data companies started in certain areas. Certain data companies will beat other data companies because they analyze this specific data. Well, that data repeats itself in other areas that other ones don't. Yeah. And so we get advice from people. We have to stop and think, OK, what's their market? How does their market look at our market? Because, you know, if you're in any major city in Florida, highly competitive cost per deal is a lot more than say my market in St. Louis, Missouri, where we're at roughly at $2,200 a deal, $2,000 a deal.
That makes sense. So I ask everybody this on the show, and it can be whatever version it is to you. We call the show waking up to wealth. What is waking up to wealth mean to you? It's a great question.
I hadn't really thought about this before. I mean, I just I say it all the time. Hey, I'm awake. I'm alive. I'm above ground. So I mean, waking up to wealth to me is, I guess, would be equated with happiness because it with wealth gives you freedom, with freedom You can do what you want as far as I love to teach my kids. I love to engage with my kids. I have three kids and we work every day on different things. I love asking them engaging questions. So it just gives me more time to do that. And because I want to lead them a lot better than I was. I had at one point in time, I had all my family members living at my house and I was in my early twenties. Yeah. So I want them to have something to start with so they have a better foot forward. Understood.
So if someone is listening to this or they're watching this and they're interested in what you do, which I would highly advise if you're a real estate investor, but you guys do trades and stuff. It's not just investing, right?
No, we do on the other side in Graphics Connections Group and that we do also anything mail, anything that's printed, we'll put your name on a kayak. I mean, if it's in the printing industry, Graphics Connections Group is our mothership. We have, I think we're at 32 companies and we're 30 years deep since Jeff Charlton started that. Yeah, 30 years ago.
So someone wants to reach out to you for your services, what's the easiest way for them to get to you?
Pretty simple. Sign up for a coach. Ask for Scott. Ask any one of us. We work really good as a team. Even our junior coaches that are just starting out. They are knocking on the door so if you are on a zoom with us you will see us get interrupted constantly because other people are asking questions because we all work in house. None of us are remote. All of our knowledge is power. Every other week we're sitting down to go over our, you know, we call it a what's working meeting. Let's bring three things that work and one that doesn't. And so we can start to share that knowledge inside of the office.
Brother, I greatly appreciate it. This is long overdue. I should have had you on before, but it was the first time me and you were in the same spot at the same time. I greatly appreciate you coming on here to spend some time with us today.
Man, I'm always thankful for the invite. You know, it's always fun because you get into these conversations or in front of you, I learned something, you learned something and we all grow together, right?
Absolutely, brother. Thank you. Thank you.
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