In this YouTube monologue, Tyson Smith shares his practical approach to using direct‑mail as a lead‑generation channel for real‑estate wholesaling. He explains why he favors direct mail when a social‑media audience is lacking, outlines the high upfront cost and the need for a multi‑month budget, and sets a concrete ROI benchmark (at least 4× ROAS). He details his list‑segmentation strategy—targeting individually owned, owner‑occupied properties built between 1970‑1990, owned for at least seven years, and located in zip codes with known flip potential—while also distinguishing between pre‑foreclosure and inherited leads. Smith describes the variety of creative formats available on Batch Leads (flyers, “check” offers, street‑view images) and stresses the importance of testing multiple creatives because performance varies by market. He recommends a minimum of 3,000 pieces per month and a three‑month spend of roughly $10,000 to achieve the desired returns, citing a mentor’s 17× ROAS as proof of the channel’s upside when executed consistently. He also notes that direct mail should be part of a broader multi‑channel strategy that includes cold calling and online ads. The latter part of the video shifts to personal updates: a gym session, shoulder‑injury concerns, and three straightforward weight‑loss strategies (boring‑food diet, moderate‑food with hunger, or high‑cardio approach). The video ends with plans to attend a Batch Leads webinar in Tempe, grab golf clubs, hit the gym, and make live calls.
Chapters
Alright boys, today, this morning, we are on our way to the BatchLead headquarters for a webinar on direct mail because they have some new direct mail features and they've asked me to come talk about them, talk about how I do direct mail. So beforehand, I'm gonna give you guys a little sneak peek and just tell you guys my opinion on direct mail and tell you guys all my secrets about it. So first thing I will say is that I like direct mail a lot. Um, if I was in a situation where I needed more leads and I didn't have the social media audience that I have, I would do direct mail 100%. Um, however, there are some things you need to know. Number 1, probably not the most beginner-friendly strategy because It costs a fair amount of money to do direct mail, right? Typically, every single piece of mail you send is going to be about $1, and you need to be spending— you need to be sending out thousands of these every single month. In addition to that, it is not the— it is not— you don't get the quickest return on it. Meaning if I'm going to send it, let's say that I decide to start doing a direct mail campaign, I'm going to budget for at least at minimum 3 months of direct mailing pretty much the same list. And after 3 months, I would expect to be getting a very positive return, right? Um, we're looking for like at least a 4x ROAS, 4x return on ad spend, meaning if I put, let's say, $5,000 a month into direct mail for 3 months, I would want to have made at least 4 times that, so $45,000 in assignment fees. Um, and that's minimum, which is pretty simple to do. Or I'm sorry, $60,000. $5,000 times 3 for 3 months, $15,000 times 4 is $60,000. There we go, math. But, so what you need to know is number 1, the first time you send a piece of mail to somebody, it's not incredibly likely that they're gonna call you from it, right? It's when you've sent the mail 2, 3 times, 4 times, 5 times, right? So basically the strategy that I think works best is to pull a list of very likely to sell people and just very likely to be good wholesale deals. So I'm going to talk about this on the webinar, but essentially if I'm going to send out a direct mail list, I want it to be hyper-niched down. So I'm going to be filtering out only by individually owners, right? No LLC owners. I'm gonna be doing year built for sure on the property, right? So this depends on where you're at. Um, in Arizona, I'm gonna do something like built from 1970 to 1990, okay? Because those— that is just a sweet spot for flips here. Um, because earlier than 1970, you don't have to worry about— or I'm saying, I'm saying anything built, you know, 1970 or newer, you're not gonna have to worry about like big sewer issues, ripping out electrical, just big problems. Like, these are gonna be cosmetic flips where, right, the house is gonna be dated on the inside, rip that shit out, put in new stuff, it's gonna look great, right? And then 1990, we don't want anything newer than 1990 because that stuff is when you're gonna start to get people who think their property is worth a lot more and the house just has nicer stuff. So there's not gonna be as many value-add opportunities in the property. So we're definitely going to be doing individually owned, year built, and then ideally I would want to be in some zip codes where I know that there are some good, you know, some good flip opportunities. But honestly, in Arizona, as long as I did that, if I went Phoenix, Arizona, individually owned, 1970 or newer, and then also a length of ownership 7 years minimum, that'd be perfect. And then for From there, I would probably set it to a specific filter, right? So I would look at how many records I had and I would look at my budget and then I would probably want to mail just the pre-foreclosures or just the inherited. Inherited would be my ideal, but, um, pre-foreclosure is good too. And I would just set it up and I would do those exact same filters every single month for 3 months in a row and I would send the same people the direct mail piece. Now, one thing you can do is switch up what the actual direct mail piece you send is, right? They're not all the same. So there's like, if you go on Batch Leads, there's like 20 different options, right? There's tons of different, you know, the actual thing you can send. Like you can send them a little flyer that has a Google Street View images thing of the house. You could send them a check. Like it literally looks like they're getting a check in the mail. Now obviously it's not an actual check, but, and you can have it to where it'll actually, it'll have an offer on the check. Um, And basically you can just, it'll take like the Zestimate of the property and then offer them like 80% of it or something like that. And you can tweak all of those numbers based on how you want. That's something I've had success with in the past is sending out those checks like that. Anyway, there's just tons of different options and you want to kind of play around with them and try different ones. And here's another thing I'm going to tell you is it's completely going to depend market to market on what performs well. It's not like there's one direct mail cream. Creative, right? So the different kinds are called different creatives. There's not one that's just gonna perform way better than all the others across the board. Different people in different markets are going to have different tastes, so you want to switch it up, you want to play around with it, right? And this is kind of another reason why I don't think it's the best beginner strategy, is because it does take some testing to get right. However, direct mail is the marketing channel that I have heard of people having the highest ROAS on. Um, I had a mentor who was getting a 17x ROAS. So for every $1 he spent on direct mail, he was getting $17 back, right? So if he spent $10,000 on direct mail, he's getting $170,000 back. So, uh, it can be really good if you get it dialed in, you know, you're consistently mailing out the same list, you're mailing good data, right, from Batch Leads, and, uh, you're doing it consistently, right? Month after month, these people are getting letters. You'll really start to build up a farm and people will start to see your name over and over again. They're like, "Man, this person really wants to buy my house." And they'll be the first, they'll be the person they call when it comes time to sell. So, you know, in conclusion, direct mail is badass. You do need to be able to put some money into it. Right, and I would probably say that the sweet spot is you need to be sending out something like, I'd say a minimum of 3,000 pieces a month. Month, and I would have at least a 3-month budget for that. So I wouldn't get into direct mail until you have about $10,000 you're willing to invest into it. I think that should give you a nice return. And with all things, especially marketing in wholesaling, right? When wholesaling really starts to get crazy, where it's like all of a sudden you're popping these $100K+ months, is when you you have, you know, 1, 2, maybe 3 marketing strategies all dialed in. So you're doing direct mail, you're doing cold calling, you're getting lead solo leads, right? You're doing all of it. And that's when you really start to get crazy because you're getting just in touch with everybody because different people have different tastes, right? For me, I'm much more likely to respond to something based off an internet ad than I ever am gonna be from a cold call. And other people are gonna be different. So it's something to keep in mind. But, um, yeah, so we're gonna go to Batch Leads office. We're going to rip that webinar. It's in Tempe and my golf clubs are actually at a friend's house who lives in Tempe. So I'm going to swing by, grab those golf clubs, come back, we'll go hit the gym and then we'll make some calls. We'll make some calls on live. So it'll be a good time. Gym today, we got chest. Boys, I think it's time. I've decided I'm going to go find a doctor to go look at my shoulders because it's been too long and I got to figure out if there's something I can do that's going to make these things better. If they tell me physical therapy, I'm going to be insanely pissed because I hate physical therapy and I think it's ridiculous doing some stupid-ass stretches and some tiny-ass workouts. Hate it. And it's just so expensive for no reason. Lighting money on fire would probably be a better use of my time. But either way, we might have to go do that because I need to get my shoulders back in check so I can start, you know, taking the hundos for a spin on shoulder press again. But until then, you know, you gotta, you gotta get these things good. Uh, also, dude, my diet has been so good. Uh, this is another thing I'm going to talk about actually. I was going to jump off, but we got some time before we get there. I've realized when it comes to losing weight, there are 3 different strategies that work for losing weight, okay? And I'm not here to tell you, oh, keto, or if it fits 'Watch your macros.' No. I'm going to tell you actual strategies you don't need to be a scientist to understand, okay? You can pick one of these three. Number one, you can eat boring-ass food, and you can eat pretty much as much of it as you want, and you'll lose weight. Here's what I mean. If you only eat eggs, chicken breast, lean ground beef, and fish, and shredded lettuce, and broccoli, you can eat as much of that as you want throughout the day, and I guarantee I guarantee you right now, you do that for 90 days, you're gonna lose weight, right? So strategy number 1 is, all right, I wanna be full all the time. Well, it's okay, you can eat boring food then. Strategy number 2, you can eat decent food, but you're gonna be hungry. So what this means is you can start to mix in some other stuff, some cheese, right? Some carbs, right? Some steaks, things like that. Chicken thighs rather than chicken breast. But you're gonna be hungry, right? You can't eat every single time you're hungry. That's what I'm doing right now. This is what works best for me, right? So pretty much I wake up, I eat the majority, you know, I eat, I'd say half my carbs before my workout. After my workout, just some protein or maybe like a smoothie, something smaller though, right? Trying to keep it under 500 calories. And then for dinner, eating a pound of meat, like, you know, some rice, and then that's it. And then you're done. You don't eat, right? So you'll notice you are going to be hungry in between lunch— you're right, you're after workout meal— or for me, right, between like when I eat that and dinner, I am hungry for like 2 hours. Like, am I— you know, I'm hungry. And then after dinner, right, about 2 hours after dinner, I start to get hungry and you just have to body it. You just have to be hungry, okay? I'm telling you this, if you are, if you feel hungry for sustained amounts of time, 2 times a day, you are going to lose weight. And then the third option is you can eat as much good food as you want, but you have to do a shitload of cardio, okay? Now, I have never had success with this option because I do not like doing cardio. I don't think anybody does. But like, if you're somebody who's really into some kind of like sport that requires you to do a lot of cardio. So things like, you know, whatever, if you're really into swimming or running or you love to go play pickup basketball for 2 hours a day, this could be you, right? But if you love to do that, you're probably not trying to think about how to lose weight. But those are really the 3 ways it will work, okay? I mean, again, it's either eat bland-ass food and you're gonna be good, or it's, uh, eat good food but you got to be hungry a couple times throughout the day, or eat good food, not be hungry, and do a shitload of cardio. Do one of those, you'll be all right. But anyway, I actually got to look at my phone. I got to look at my GPS, figure out, make sure I'm going the right way here. I've been here like 10 times. For some reason I still got to use GPS. I feel like this is just part of getting older as a man, you just want to stop using GPS as much as possible, right? You just want to know how to get to places. I don't know if that's for everybody, but I know it certainly is for me. I like look down on using GPS a lot, but here we are. Anyway, we'll catch you guys when we are live. I'm making some calls.
