Contact rates dropped again, so do you buy more records or dial the same ones harder?

Before you decide, read your vendor agreement on what a contacted record means. I've seen definitions where a voicemail counts and definitions where only a two-way conversation counts, and the same 4 percent looks like two different businesses depending on which one you signed. If you're billed per contacted record and voicemail counts, widening is a price increase dressed as a strategy.

Dumb question from the bottom of the ladder: does the contact rate drop mean fewer people answering, or worse phone numbers on the same people? Those seem like different problems with different fixes.

@ember that's not a dumb question, it's the whole thread. Hollow, do you have the split? If your right-party contact rate held and your answer rate fell, that's screening. If your wrong-number rate climbed, your data aged and re-tracing the same 4,000 records is cheaper than buying 8,000 new ones.

Voted split. I'm building a list right now for a similar sized market and the thing I keep landing on is that a small county list isn't static. Deeds record, people die, taxes go delinquent. Even if you never add a county, you should be refreshing the same 4,000 quarterly, and that's a third option that doesn't feel like widening or deepening.

Deepen. In thin markets the seller you want isn't reachable on the schedule you want them on.

@arbor put it better than I would. I work land in small counties and my longest gap between first contact and a signed contract was fourteen months, and there were seven touches in between including two mail pieces. If Hollow goes wide he'll be paying to start fourteen month clocks in counties he doesn't want to own in. Though I'll say the callers hating it is a real cost. Turnover on a team that dials the same names all year is brutal and Hollow will end up paying for it in a way that never shows on the invoice.

Nobody's put numbers on it so I will. 4,000 records at four touches is 16,000 attempts. 12,000 records at four touches is 48,000, and at a 4 percent live rate that's roughly 1,900 conversations against 640. Deepening on 4,000 at twelve touches is also 48,000 attempts, but attempts five through twelve on the same record convert worse than attempt one, because the easy answerers already answered. My guess is the deep version produces maybe 1,100 conversations for the same spend, and they're better conversations. So the wide option wins on count and the deep option wins on quality per conversation, and Hollow's answer depends entirely on whether his callers can actually work 1,900 conversations without dropping the follow-up. What's your caller headcount?

@ledger's last question is the one that matters. I widened last year against a two person team and drowned. We generated more leads and closed fewer deals, because everything past the first conversation fell on the floor. Went back to a smaller list and a real CRM cadence and closed three in the following six months off fewer than half the leads.

I had to sit with this a while. Extra leads can actually leave you worse off. That's not what I expected when I started.

@rigging it's the same everywhere. More options, same amount of attention.

Check the vendor's contract for exclusivity on your counties before you pick either option. If they're working the same 4,000 records for another investor, your deepening plan is really a shared cadence and those owners are getting twenty four touches, not twelve, and they will start hanging up on your name specifically. Ask for it in writing. Most of them won't give exclusivity in a rural market because it isn't worth their while, and knowing that changes the math on staying deep.