Leadership in Land
Leadership in Land is a podcast for land investors who believe better decisions are made together. Hosted by Dave Denniston, this show focuses on the leadership side of land investing, how to think clearly, act responsibly, and grow with integrity in a business that is often misunderstood. Each episode draws from real-world experience, honest conversations, and the shared wisdom of investors who value collaboration over competition. As part of the REtipster Podcast Network, Leadership in Land is built for investors who care about long-term success, strong character, and learning from others who are walking the same path.
Leadership in Land
The Mailing Data Nobody Expected with Jessey Kwong
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Episode 16: Jessey Kwong from Pebble joins me to discuss what millions of land investing mailers reveal about today’s market.
We talk about direct mail response rates, postcards versus letters, remarketing strategies, rising mailing costs, hyper-personalization, AI, and what separates successful land investors from those who quit too early.
If you're a land investor looking to improve your marketing, generate more leads, and increase your return on ad spend, this conversation is packed with real-world data and actionable insights.
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You're listening to the R.E. Tipster Podcast Network. Okay, so quick question for you. Have you heard of our school community? I just want to make sure to invite you to check that out. If you're listening to this episode, it's actually kind of old to be honest with you. And so if you want our latest, if you want our greatest content, we're putting out, real conversations about leadership, decision making, building a land business that actually works in the real world, get inside our school community where you get access to the free leadership course, plus bonus episodes, discussions, and insights that honestly just don't make it onto the podcast. So if you're serious about this, you want to learn more about leadership, get in the community, check it out, leadershipinland.com or school.com slash leadership in land. All right, let's get in the episode. Hello, my friends. Welcome back to another episode of Leadership in Land. I'm your host, Dave Denniston of Generation Family Properties and the Land Unconference. Glad to have you back with us. I'm honored to have a returning guest to the show, the one, the only, Jesse Kuong from Pebble. Jesse, what's up, man? Hey, Dave.
SPEAKER_01Nothing much. Thanks for you know having me on the show here and to share some insights here with your listeners. But uh yeah, happy. It's been a while.
SPEAKER_00Um happy to be on be on the show here. It's been been a while, and you're um you're you're in Canadia and enjoying things up there.
SPEAKER_01It's some it's about summertime, right? Is the weather nice and it's getting outside? Yeah, yeah. I I never know what it is in Fahrenheit, but uh let's just say I've I've got t-shirt on here, so it's it's warm enough. It's warm enough, yeah. I was just out in uh Vermont uh last week uh with my co-founder and we were just spending time out there. And man, uh first of all, I I didn't realize how humid it can get already at this time of the year. We're recording this in like early in the year. But uh yeah, my goodness, uh some places in in uh across the states uh it can get quite humid already. So I I'm waiting for some more warmth.
SPEAKER_00Here in Minnesota, man, that's a land of extremes. Like today, it's May 28th and it's like 90 degrees, whereas a month, you know, a month ago it was like 40, you know. So ranges are wild. It's crazy. It's crazy. Um well I I as as we were emailing back and forth a little bit, you were said, hey Dave, I have some new new mailing stuff. And I'm particularly interested in this topic. I'm sure a lot of our audience is, and and uh as as we last year, we were sending out 40 to 60,000 mailers a month. And a lot of we had some properties we acquired and it turned out well, but we just see that ROAS number going down, down, down, down, down. And as much as we were trying to focus on, oh, let's do hotter areas or or do this or do that, and testing this, split testing this kind of blind offer letter versus this other uh one that we're doing. Let's do blue envelopes versus uh regular envelopes, let's do this and that. And so it's it's uh it's become harder and harder and and for a lot of us, but there are people that are succeeding at it. Um we've personally just kind of taken a pause from mailing for a while for our team, uh, just to number one, we have all this inventory we've been having to unload, which actually probably um by the the beginning of next month we'll be ready to mail again and start start acquiring some of those more expensive properties that that hopefully um this week I think we're on track to sell like five or six. So we're we're dwindling down our inventory, which is great, which we had a lot. I heard. And uh we're we've really been trying to do more on-market stuff and more um messy title type things. That's been the hot topic of conversation lately. So we're exploring all of that and trying to figure out where do we go when we're talking about mail again and focusing on on subdivides and how do we want to go about that. So I think this is personally timely for me. So I'm gonna be really curious to hear about what you have to say. And I'd just be curious to hear as well, too, Jesse, with you know, your purview of having Pebble and the CRM with a lot of different land investors have talked about how much they they love it over the years. Uh, you deal with a lot of land investors and their businesses, and I'm sure you see mail volume and what is happening or not happening there with some of the functioning you guys have of being able to send mail out from the CRM. So we'd love to hear you speak to your reaction to all of that and kind of what you're thinking.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, no, thank you. Uh, and and and that's one of the great things, you know, we're able to see sort of that end-to-end. You know, we're not sitting in front of computers and you know, analyzing everything, but you know, because we handle that mailing and then we handle the you know the responses on that and then the closed deals on that, we get much more of a holistic picture of things. Now, I do want to preface a couple things, right? So I'm gonna be talking in averages here, and so I want to share, like I was telling Dave, this is gonna be a pretty short episode. I'm just gonna fire off some stats for you guys and what you know, call it in. But I will I will sort of dive into some thoughts on certain things. But one thing I do want to say, you know, the these are averages. So there are nuances to this. And I know a lot of people are like, Jesse, you know, what's gonna work here? Well, like there, there's if it were that easy, right? But I think this will give some insight as to certain things that I've seen and I've talked to a lot of operators um that are doing high, high volume of mailing. And then it also confirms certain certain things, and there are some surprises when it comes to mailing. And I'd love to just kind of share some of that. Some of it's pretty juicy, and some of it is like, okay, that's cool, move along, Jesse. I don't have a lot, but I do want to dive into a couple of these things uh with you. And we we can sort of start with the first one. And I get asked a lot, right, Dave, what what mailer works? Oh man. And so, you know, I'm gonna tell you what works in terms of uh, you know, stats point of view. So we we what we do in terms of mailing here, we do, you know, everything from letters to to full windowed letters. I think that is an underutilized one, uh full windowed envelopes, sorry, I meant, and then uh postcards. And when I talk about postcards, we have the four by six and the and the uh six by nine. Now, of course, you can do all sorts of stuff, and those stuff we probably aren't measuring. I don't know if you're doing like priority mail and and express mail or whatever. Like we're gonna again talk about the masses here, okay? And so one thing that we saw when it came to mailing was the format. There was one particular format that outperformed everything else in terms of response rates, and this was one of the postcards. And I thought originally it's probably gonna be one of the postcards, but I didn't know it was gonna be 3x the amount of responses. I thought it was gonna be the larger one, but in fact, it was the four by six. The four by six had outperformed everything else. This was analyzed across three months, the last six months. This was basically all of 2025 and 2024, and this was pretty consistent across every window that this is this is uh not only deals generated but actual response rates, and so it was really interesting to see that. Now, I think there is a few reasons for these, and I don't have data on this, so I'm gonna be very transparent. I don't have data as to why it's performing better, but on my conclusion on a couple things is number one is the limited amount of real estate, no pun intended, but the amount of real estate on that postcard, that means you have to get across your messaging very, very concisely. And it comes down to two things, and I talk about this in one of the the webinars that I run, but it's really what is the problem you're here. What is the problem and what's the solution you're providing here? And so if this is sort of if you've pulled, you know, a list of messy properties that you know, messy title or whatever it is, you should speak to that. So that means there's gonna be a lot more upfront work when it comes to the mailing that you're doing. This is sort of like basic marketing one-on-one. I remember I had a 70-year-old guy come on to one of my calls and he comes from like the copywriting world, you know, back in the 80s, 70s, and the 90s, and he just talked about he like you know, basic marketing and and how a lot of people disregard that as well. And he also was a huge advocate of postcards. He's like, we knew this already in the marketing space. And if we look at parallel industries as well, things like uh solar or data centers now, they're you know, they're using Pebble for the same thing, and they've already known this. Like postcards is where it's at. You don't have to ask for permission to get that thing opened. And and please don't get fooled by some people that are sending postcards in an envelope. That is not a postcard, that is a letter. That is still a letter, just a cardboard letter inside of an envelope. You don't want that permission, you don't want to have to ask for permission. You want to be able to really quickly interrupt and then really communicate what are you there to solve? And then what is the answer to their call? Like, what do they get from that call to action? Are they gonna call you but for what? And keep it concise.
SPEAKER_00So let me um can I can I interrupt her just real quick? Yeah. So you said a four by six postcard, which of course that that could mean a lot of different things. Are you talking about like a very particular template or just in general, you know, a thousand land investors sent out blind offer letters versus neutral offers? You don't know what's on each of those things and how those templates are different. Yeah. As well as I I would wonder as well, like um as as you guys are looking at users, I'm sure there's some people that send out very little, and there's other people that send out a lot. So how could there be skew at all in that database?
SPEAKER_01There certainly could be. There certainly could be, but when we're and so that's why I said we're only looking at averages here, right? So the thing is there's probably gonna be a lot of different skews going on here. And so we sort of we're gonna make the assumption here that that kind of averages things out. Uh, but these are your initial outreach postcards. You know, what's on that postcard, we're not gonna be able to track, right? We're not analyzing, you know, what people are typing on their letter, what do they have on that letter? All I'm saying is the four by six has garnered three extra response. And I think that's a notable, pretty notable like difference there. The letters and the six by nine hover around the same in terms of response rates. I don't know why. It could be again, a lot of people are trying to jam too much information on the six by nine, but I will not dare to go and make those assumptions, but I I have my own theories and I I wanted to share some of those theories with you guys. Some of you guys might call it cherry picking or whatever, but these are the kind of things that I've noticed. I will also say the operators that are also sending out a lot of mailers uh you know are getting success with postcards. So uh take it for what it's worth. But uh 3x is is notable in that. So I don't have any more details to drill into that, and frankly, it'd be very hard to do that. But uh, you know, at least in terms of a format, that's where things kind of sit out.
SPEAKER_00Interesting. So what can you give us an idea of the volume? Like how how many postcards have been sent out versus like blank offer letters.
SPEAKER_01I don't know what the breakdown is, but it's pretty even across letters and postcards. But we're looking at across a few million in 2025 and then a few million in 2024. So we do we do a decent amount of mailing. I will say, you know, majority, a good half of the mailing is, you know, your templated stuff that people are always just sending out. Probably a little bit more than half of that. But uh yeah, it is sort of a a good volume there at least.
SPEAKER_00And do you part of the thing that we hear a lot of that I I've wondered about myself is of course, it's been tough the last few years for a lot of land investors. I know a number of land investors that got into a lot of debt and they're they're having to restart their business in a lot of senses. Of course, there's new people coming to the industry too, right? We have people that are staying, people have been around for a while, but then there's there's new people coming in, and there's some of these these other people that that are exiting. Like, what's what's your sense? What are you guys seeing, at least from from your business? Is it is there an overall decline like in users, in mail pieces? I'm I'm really curious to hear about that.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. I can't share everything on this show here in terms of numbers, but we've certainly certainly seen the turnover been a lot quicker. People are um I I have to be careful just because these are things that I see and I notice, and who knows, it could it could be totally skewed, right? So what I'm seeing is a lot of people coming in and out of the business a lot quicker. People are not sticking around as they once did, where you know, maybe somebody would stick around for 12 months to give it a shot. People are sticking around like two, three, four months and then and then bouncing. Interesting. We see a lot of people county hopping. So, you know, send out a mailer here, send another mailer here, totally different county, and then and then call it quits at the end of the day. We do see people scattering around and and changing sort of the marketing a lot quicker as well. And then, like when when we sort of look at some of the more serious operators, they're not doing anything different. So, like they're sticking to what works and they're doubling down on that. And it has been challenging for some of them. And then, you know, I also hear things on the opposite end. Well, follow the market, and and I've you know, I've they've closed more than they've ever closed, and you know, and these are real numbers that I'm seeing as well. So I think a lot of kind of going a different direction here, but I think a lot of people are not realizing this is an actual business. Yeah, yeah, for sure. For sure.
SPEAKER_00Well, I think I think I I've I've said too, I feel like there's a wider moat than there used to be, meaning that to cross over, it takes more capital and stuff than it ever did, which what you're saying seems to align with that thesis that I have. As well as those of us that are left, we're getting more market share, I believe. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Is is kind of the the bigger people are getting bigger, you know, is kind of been my my gap has widened a lot more. I mean, let's just take a look at mailing itself, too. Like mailing has gone down in total, but on average, deals done per mailing has gone up. Um and mailing is only gonna get less. I mean, I don't know when this is gonna release, but mailing rates are going up again. Uh we were just notified. I don't know the exact numbers yet, but at this time I hear it's several cents. I think it's always several cents. It's always when is it never several cents? When is it half a cent, you know? So it's it's it is going, and and so we continue to see that. Uh the amount of mailing. What another thing I've noticed, this wasn't planned to be shared here, is mailing sizes have gone down. Uh, people are getting very, very honed in with their list and where they're mailing. So yeah, I mean, ultimately, I think what what's happening is people are putting in the work. The people that are doing it are putting in the work and they realize this is a business, and they're like their returns are continuing to to to give. And and and that, like you said, the moat for people who want to get in or trying to get things started, it's getting more and more challenging for sure.
SPEAKER_00And and I think it it also leads to to more opportunity, right? So that's the flip side of the coin.
SPEAKER_01That's why like some people tell us they're happy when the mailing rates are going up. It's like, good. I I'm not joking. I literally have people telling me that. But good, uh, I'm glad you guys are raising the mail rates, and it's just like, okay. I yeah, it's not that means less people are gonna mail, but for them, they understand the game. It's it's it's a pay-to-play kind of win and game, and this is a business at the end of the day. Absolutely.
SPEAKER_00When it seems like what's so hard for myself, even as as I've been in this business since 2017, you know, we're going on nine, ten years being in the business, and the amount of options that are available before it was so simple. You send out a blind offer letter, uh, especially cheaper properties, one out of 200, one out of 300. Like it was like a simple formula, and then it you start questioning yourself: what's working, what's not working. Let's try a postcard, let's try a blind offer letter, let's try a neutral letter, let's do a different variation of this and different variation of that, which of course you you can't see, as you mentioned earlier, you know, all people doing different variations of different things to try and measure that.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Is is there is there something that you think is underutilized? Like, for example, the I know the Appkee brothers, and I assume you probably have something like this too, like a hand handwritten looking robot ink thing, uh, for example, you know, has been um uh bandied around as an idea. Um is there anything that's underutilized? Do you think, Jesse? That's man. This this could get a great response. Yeah, we've seen it work for people, but nobody or very few people are doing this kind of thing.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. One thing that I'm a huge advocate for hyperpersonalization. And I think like, first of all, messaging is like above all. And I think most people don't think of that. Like problem solution. And I that you know, that's an easy one. I think a lot of people again don't do. But in terms of like personalization, I think like handwriting, like some people swear by it, some people have tested this and haven't seen a difference. So you can sort of hear the two. I don't have data on that, but what I have data on is property image mailers when they are using our satellite image for their outreach, there is a 28, sorry exactly, 28.6, pretty pretty much a 30% lift in uh deals generated. And like, you know, there's no for us in Pebble to pull that map image, there's no extra charge. Yeah, and and we encourage people to do that because that's a pretty hefty lift. Uh, when sellers see their actual parcel on a postcard, you know, that becomes a huge interrupter. It really stands out of the crowd. I I got in trouble for doing this with USPS, but basically I had an envelope, a full windowed one. I don't think it's here anymore. Well, it imagine it was like this, right? So I had the map of the property here so they could see it, but I also had the priority stamp. I made my own USPS priority stamp. Nice. I got in trouble with that. But what I'm saying is people are noticing stuff on, you know, that doesn't require an envelope, doesn't ask for permission. But also that map image, when I throw it on there as well, has been great. And so coming back to the map image, I think it's one that most people don't think about uh doing because you know, where the the only platform they're gonna be doing that is on pebble. And so when we do that, yeah, I think that has been a huge advantage for a lot of people that are keeping it hush hush and and sending through mailing through us is to have their property image on there. And that that's been you know, that's been measured on our end where you know you're getting a 30% lift on that on average with having a map. So I think that's one sort of area again, hyperpersonalization, seeing their property when they see that when that mailer comes in. You only have a few seconds before that goes into that, you know, mailing filing bin, which is the trash can that they're sorting that through. So that is one thing that uh you know I see that has been working out quite well.
SPEAKER_00Well, one of the other things that I think is worth asking, which you you may not have the data, and that's okay, but I want to ask ask the question as uh there there I really see there's four kinds of land businesses or niches within land businesses. We could even say five. Sure. One being the stuff I started out on and learned through Land Geek, you know, the cheap people call them desert squares, they're not always desert squares, they're just cheaper, cheaper properties on average, sub $20,000 market value being one niche. Another one being what I would call medium-sized flips. For me, that I define that as between uh 20,000 and 100,000 market value, a third one being subdivides and going larger, a fourth one being uh entitless or those kinds of plays. So I'm missing something in there. But those are you know kind of your different kinds of business. As we look at the mailings and you mention the four by six, is that any idea? Is that regardless of the value of the underlying property, or is that it does any one thing work better as we look at subdivide play versus entitlement play versus medium flip versus small flip? Any any thoughts on that?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, unfortunately, I don't have any thoughts or or insights into that as well. You know what the investor ends up doing with that property typically doesn't end up on that initial mailing, you know, but again, it's typically going to revolve around what sort of value is being provided to that landowner. Are you providing them with options to exit out of the property? Are you reminding them to, you know, make use of the capital of that property? That's as far as it goes in terms of what I've seen as to what the exit strategy is. I'm not sure what that looks like.
SPEAKER_00I I believe one of the things that I haven't seen stats on that I think is underutilized, and I'd be curious to get pushback on this, but but um that I have a Thesis on is that for those more expensive things, entitlement plays, subdivide plays, things like that, where hey, you could make 200, 300, 400, 500,000 is lumpy mail, 3D type stuff. So that's a thesis that I have that that we're gonna be proving that out over the next year or two as we go about it. Get very snipered, you know, a small list, but your potential ROAS is huge. So you spend more money to acquire those clients, but you're doing it to a much smaller subset. I'd be curious to bounce that off of you, see what you think from your perspective, dealing with so many different landing.
SPEAKER_01Certainly, I think if you have that kind of budget and and and you're gonna do that kind of upfront work, I think it's worth it. You know, as we sort of you know continue to progress here, I think you people have to understand there is a lot more upfront work that needs to be done before marketing goes out. Yeah, and so I don't care if it's a lumpy envelope to Star Wars stamps to sticking coins on the envelope to you know, a postcard, like even a postcard, like it to me, like the great thing about postcard is it's scalable in terms of pricing-wise, and the messaging has to be directed to them. I'm a much more firmer believer in messaging over tactics, but I think if you have the bandwidth, if you have the budget, it's worth experimenting. And if you know the kind of you know, landowners you're dealing with and you can speak to them, you know, yeah, it it it it will matter. Now, I think what matters more also is like how persistent you are in terms of what I call remarketing or following up.
SPEAKER_00Yes, I was just about to ask about that. Let's talk about follow-up. You spend all this money to hear back from people, you finally hear back from them, yeah, and then a lot of land investors don't follow up the way.
SPEAKER_01I'm actually talking even before following up with a lead and following up with land owners. And so, what I mean by this is let's say you've done mailing to a specific area, you've gotten responses back doing a remarket to that same area, subtracting all the leads and communications you have only to those. And so, what's really interesting, and I want to share a number here with you guys, again, this is on average. When we send out a mailing and back to the same area, the second mailing typically on average garners over almost a double the response of the first. In fact, the third still outperforms the first. It isn't until the fourth, fifth, and sixth that we see diminishing returns, but overall you're still getting leads. Because what's really funny is when we get into the seventh, eighth, ninth, and tenth remailing, yes, certain people do do that, we see an increase. Now, an increase, but that happens only because I think the pool of mailing and people who mail the seventh, sixth, seventh, eighth, nine, ten is so small, and they probably know their area so well that the responses kind of just you know continue to climb up. So I kind of throw that out the window. Unless you know your area very, very well. Maybe it's a certain subdivision, you know it's gonna continue to give. What we should look at is that first three to four. I mean, heck, even remailing that second, and I know the next question is gonna come is like, okay, Jesse, so when should we remail? I don't have a number for that because the time window we were we weren't able to get that data. But what we saw was that the second remailing does still get you a good amount of responses, some you know, on average, almost double your first, and the same with your third. So if anything, if you guys are thinking about like, cool, I work this area, I got a uh got a few responses, and I'm gonna hop into another place. No, in the next three to four months, make sure you mail back out to that same area. Now, if you've gotten no responses, you may want to check what you're mailing out there. I don't know what what kind of mailers are garnering that in, you know, what what what sort of remailing is going out there that is increasing. Again, I'm just looking at averages.
SPEAKER_00And let me let me repeat that back just to make sure that everyone's catching this, what you're saying. And please correct me if I've captured this wrong. Yeah. That essentially what you're saying, okay, you send out one mailer, and then some people have responded, but we know usually nowadays, I mean, heck, if if at you get them half a percent response rate, that's good, right? So you're saying the half a percent that have responded, okay, we're not mailing to them again. We're gonna mail to the 99.5% that haven't responded yet, and then you do it a third time and then a fourth time, so that that list gets smaller and smaller and smaller as people do respond. Am I understanding that, right? Correct.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and what I'm saying also is on that the second time you respond, let's say to the 99.5% that didn't respond, you are gonna get more. Well, on average, people got more responses than their first one. Um and then even on the third, on average, has outdone the first response rates, and not until the fourth one, things are start becoming less than that first one. What's happening there? I'm not sure, but again, this is across millions of mailings, but we do see that pretty consistently.
SPEAKER_00So I would I I would wonder as part of that, is there back in the day we would just send the same letter, right? It's in the same blind offer letter again to the same people. So we would do re-mailings. It was a very typical thing that you would do. As a matter of fact, you probably wouldn't scrub out people who responded before. Hey, I'm just gonna hit the whole list again. That was very, very typical at the time with the the thought being, hey, Visa, MasterCard, they send out credit card offers all the time. They hit you up eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve times, right? So with with this particular idea, do you have any idea? And maybe you don't, and that's okay, but I figured it's we we have to ask the question, yeah. What what is the kind of sequence? Are people going blind to neutral or postcard to blind to neutral? Is it the same thing over and over again? Any any thoughts or stats you can give us about no stats on that.
SPEAKER_01Uh we're seeing we're seeing a good mix of stuff. Uh what we have noticed is people are because it's so easy inside of Pebble to just slot in another template, uh, that people are taking advantage of that fact and sending something else different to that, to that list. But in terms of what's being out sent out there, whether it's a blind or neutral, uh, I know a lot of people are gravitating towards a neutral more recently because they just want a response and they want to get them on the phone. You know, that could be a try that that is sort of a trend that I'm seeing. I don't have any solid numbers on that, but that's what I'm I'm I'm seeing and hearing as well.
SPEAKER_00It's fascinating as we went through all of our data of the last two years as we were doing, okay, hey, what what what how did this go and what what did happen? What we found for us, and this is just for us. So everyone has a different story and a different uh thing. So please, everybody, don't do what we do. You gotta figure this out for yourself. 100%. We found that neutral did give us the highest response, but ultimately it was always blind offers that got us the most deals at the end of the day. Yeah. So you have to be careful about measuring response rates versus what actually gives you what you're looking the result of what you're looking for. So as everyone looks at this stuff, and you have the volume too. Like you can't send out a thousand letters and think that's sufficient volume in today's world. You know, it's gotta be. Uh what do you think, Jesse? 10,000, 20,000? What's a large enough sample size knowing average response rates nowadays to be able to say, okay, this is a large enough number that we can make a judgment call based off of this? We know it's not a thousand. What what what is that?
SPEAKER_01I'll take whatever I can. It's sort of one of those things. I mean, the more obviously the more you know a million beats a hundred thousand, a hundred thousand beats, twenty thousand. Yeah, it hits hard. And and so that's why I'm here to share some numbers that are in the millions and can sort of give some insight. Even still, there's so many nuances, like you said. Is it is it offers? Is it is it neutral? And the the thing about offers is like you better get your pricing right too. And and you better you better know what you're offering out there, because if it's otherwise you can get disqualified just as easily, and and that's you know, that that can be also challenging as well. So I don't know what the question was, but uh I don't have any insight as to you know what specific you know letters are going out there in terms in terms of follow-up and and whatnot. Love it.
SPEAKER_00Well what uh well what else? I know I know you had different things to share. You thought it would be short. Here we are, 30 minutes later.
SPEAKER_01No, I got I got one more quick thing here and uh to to to wrap it up. I really hope this is valuable. You know, uh with AI now, we're able to finally look at some of these patterns. And it took us a while to get this kind of data together. And and one of the cool things is inside of Pebble, we've launched a new insights area where uh you're gonna be able to drill down into your performance of your accounties, your performance of your letters, your response base, your ROAS. That's that's all that's just got launched a couple weeks ago. We're making remailing a lot easier as well. Like we're a huge believer in re-I call it remarketing, we're calling it inside Pebble remarketing, where you're sort of remarketing to a list, uh excluding you know people. Anyways, I do I do want to touch upon one point that we mentioned earlier. This is not really going to be super useful, but maybe for those that are getting into this and kind of like have one foot in and one foot out type of thing. And and as we sort of talk about this, moat is getting a lot bigger and bigger. So we Pebble has a completely free plan. You can go in there and actually get mailing out completely free, other than you have to pay for the printing and USPS, of course. Some people think like, is that free? No, you still have to pay for that, uh, but you can get access and get your first mailing out. But one of the things that I thought was interesting that those that are taking this seriously, like a business, versus those that are just like one foot in, one foot out. And I don't know if your listeners, you're probably listeners are a lot more serious than this, but if you're you're thinking about getting into more land and doing this, you do really have to run this like a business. Because when we look at our free users, which are you know, a lot of free users in there, the the ones that are actually generating deals and leads are almost doing a 1300%, or well, let's just say a 14x more amount of leads that are generated uh compared to those that are just you know getting a county out and doing one mailing and then sort of giving up. And that's like you really have to think about this as a business. We cannot think of this as a turnkey turnkey model where we just come in and plug and play everything. And I this has been uh probably talked about for so many years. Now it's again, it's yes, it was like that back in the day, unfortunately. And it's not like that at all. You really have to treat this like a business, and it will be as challenging as any other business. There is nothing special about land, I think. It is just another business. So don't get bought into the woo-woos and the wahwas of how great this thing is. It's it's challenging.
SPEAKER_00It is, it really is, and uh very rewarding though. And what what a great community that that we are all blessed with, those of us that are in this business. I mean, just some of the most incredible, kind, generous people I've ever met in my life.
SPEAKER_01I that's the one thing about land that is really strange. I used to be in the household setting space. I don't want to talk crap, but you know, when I was there, it felt very predatory. It felt very, I don't know. Uh maybe it was my own issue, but I felt like I was being sold snake oil all the time when I was in the household setting space. When I came into land, I don't know what it is. It just people seem to be a lot more helpful. And if I had to suggest anything, even with any kind of business, is to build a network, get into meet a few people. Honestly, it doesn't when I think network, like oh gosh, don't have to go into a conference room and like meet all these people. Sorry, Dave, I know you're running out of land in conference event, but it's great, those things are great because you can meet a few people there that you're gonna, you know, that you become your little own little group where you share things. And they these are the kind of things that where I see people have and they accelerate so much quicker and they stick around much longer and they get a lot more success in the end, and you actually and and end up building some really genuine friendships as well. So uh, but that's you know, with any business as well. All ultimately what I want to say is please treat this like a business because the numbers say it.
SPEAKER_00Absolutely. Oh, some some some other general principles I would share from my own experiences, which again, please push back on this if you disagree is I think uh less is more as we tested out even blind offer letters we we and neutral letters. The more words we had on a page, the the less response we had. The the less the words, the better the response. You know, keep keeping it more simple. I think the other thing that we really noticed as a trend, which again, please push back on this if you if you know something different, yeah, is a two-page letter outperformed consistently a one-page lever letter every single time. That's not something I've even thought of to look into.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, that's really interesting. That's really, really interesting.
SPEAKER_00Do you agree with with uh the less is more or 100%?
SPEAKER_01And so I keep my first postcard still on my desk. I'm like, how the so why was it back in the day we could get away with something? You can't see on the camera, but like it is a full postcard of text. Back in the day, it was like the complete opposite where you really had to filter people out. It's the opposite now, and I think this things have normalized, just like in the marketing world, less is more, concise communication is more important. You know, that's probably why YouTube and TikTok have invested into short-term form videos. You know, they know the attention span is a lot shorter, but I think it also challenges the the um the investor to you know, again, to get to the point uh and and really think about what am I doing here? What am what sort of value am I providing here? Uh get to your benefits. Again, I'll speak with parallel industries. Like we're working with uh some solar folks now, and you know, they're really good at that. They they they know they're just like visual, like, okay, this is as they're reaching out to farmers, you know, and and here's why you want to work, here's why you want solar panels, and and and and you know, this benefit, this benefit, minus benefit huge icons done, get the call. You know, they the the farmers know exactly what they're getting into. Um, and I think we need to start thinking more like marketers as well. And I know most of us are, but uh, yeah, sometimes we sort of get pulled away from that because you know, we're running this entire business, there's so many things going on, and yeah, I I completely agree with you. Sorry for rambling there.
SPEAKER_00No, no, it's okay, and I I think sometimes too it's it's kind of the classic sales thing of you talk, you talk and you talk and you talk, and and I think that's kind of that on a letter that that your spirit is good in that, but it actually defeats the purpose of the other person talking more than you do, kind of a thing. So I think that's that's the same on the letters where it's like, yeah, I just just get to the point already, idiot. You know, but it is interesting though that even though I just said that, I also said a two-page letter. And I think maybe it's it's the attention thing that you said of there's such a short attention span, you have to have bigger font, less words, but it gets spread over a couple of pages to have people keep looking at it. Yeah. As well as I think still the concern a lot of people have today is this a scam. You know, that there are scams out there. And so answering that in your marketing one way or the other, I think is so, so important now because there are scams out there and it it is a thing that and now with AI and everything, all of us are more wary of what's happening out. There. Any thoughts on that?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I I think you're uh you hit it right, right, right on there. Uh yeah, there there are scams, and we are sort of a lot more sensitive to the our BS radar is just a lot more sensitive. We we're like constantly seeing things. So keeping things concise and and short is important. And and that makes me think about oh gosh, how long did I ramble on here? It didn't need should I have been more concise on this podcast?
SPEAKER_00People know when they listen to podcasts. We we're gonna we're gonna ramble a little bit as we rabbit trail down different places. Well, I guess Jesse, let's uh let's wrap this up. Thank you so much for your time and just being transparent about what you're seeing out there and and and the data and and all that kind of stuff. And yeah, if you ever get to some of those really specifics, I would love to talk more about like uh the the the sequences that are working and not working or yeah um uh I certainly will dive into a little bit more.
SPEAKER_01You've gotten me to think about a couple other things, but yeah, I'd love to come back one of these days and share more that I can find. Awesome.
SPEAKER_00And obviously we talked about um Pebble, and of course you have you have your podcast. Yeah. Where where can people find you? Why don't you plug that away so people can check it out?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah. You can uh the podcast is the Land Investing Business Secrets Podcast. And then you if you like really want to find me, you could like literally go to PebbleREI.com and there's a book a demo, and you'll literally find me. We'll be on a college like this with me and you. Um so I'm not hard to find. That's where I pretty much live at. Um so you can find me those places. Sometimes I'm on LinkedIn. I'm trying to figure that out. I'm sometimes on on Facebook, but yeah, if you want to just hop on a call with me directly, you know where to find me.
SPEAKER_00Love it, love it. And now I'll do a quick uh shout out for Pebble in that I'm not a user, but I think uh one thing I've seen you guys do is constantly iterate and improve it. You know, I've I've seen other CRMs in my time in the land business that went bye-bye and they they didn't ever improve it. And I think you guys do a good job of constantly trying to iterate. So kudos to you guys for still being here years into it and doing your thing and making the best product you can. So check it out, guys, if you don't have a CRM or you're wanting to figure out what's what's uh what's capable uh versus what you're doing now. So appreciate it. All right, thanks, Jesse. Appreciate you. We'll see you next time. Thanks so much, Dave. Take care.