Finding address data for handwritten mail campaign? - Searchfunder

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by a searcher from Western Washington University
in San Francisco, CA, USA

5mos ago

Finding address data for handwritten mail campaign?

I'm looking to do a handwritten mail campaign, and looking to get owner's home address information. Does anyone have a good source for this? I remember hearing that a few traditional search funds were relying heavily on handwritten mail as one of their channels.

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reply by a searcher 5mos ago
in Westborough, MA, USA

A little outside of your question but have mixed feelings about this approach, given I'm a business owner of a commercial cleaning company and am contacted via business channels daily regarding a possible sale. Before I bought the company (at 50, corporate refugee self-funded ETA), I was an ad executive for 25+ years. So appreciate the letter-to-the-home approach might have a better chance of breaking through. But on the other hand, getting business solicitations to my home address feels a bit like a line being crossed. I do feel a truly handwritten note - and envelope - does work. I've received a couple and have opened all while the other "handwritten" DM letters typically have not been opened. Again - take this with a grain of salt - can see how this can be argued both ways.

reply by an investor 5mos ago
from Harvard University in Dallas, TX, USA

I think we were the ones that did handwritten letters at scale. The advice above is how we got addresses. County sites are good. You have to assume they wont respond though and build a process. We wrote the initial letter and a follow up letter at the same time. Then we also penned an email and put it in our calendar to call them. We'd also send a further letter when there was a conference upcoming. Buy great quality paper. Ours looked like wedding invitations and we put scottiah toffee bars in them which meant they also had to be hand franked at the post office. We'd send the follow up letter 2 weeks later, the email 2 weeks after that. And try and call after that. A large amount of the business owners would take the call because of the effort taken in the letters. We'd talk about the letters process and the blend between new tech ideas and old school approaches. That then often led to the conversation about what we'd do with their business and how growth could best happen. Compared to emails you have much much higher quality conversations when you do get owners. People appreciate effort. I get sent approximately 25 letters a week, all garbage automated sales stuff. I dont open them. Anything that stands out I open. I like going to the mail box and im in a much more open frame of mind than when im doing email. Do you know how many search funders raising have sent me a letter in the last 15 years? One. As private equity has gone heavily into home services, I now get deluged with texts, spam and nonsense from them. You will stand out with well crafted letters

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