Postcard Marketing Tips for Real Estate Agents
If you've been practicing real estate for any length of time,
you've encountered postcard marketing in some form or fashion.
Real estate agents use postcard marketing (also known as direct
mail marketing) for a number of reasons. Among other things,
postcards are cost-effective, versatile and targeted.
But the purpose of this article is not to tell you why you
should use postcards to market your services. The purpose of
this article is to address the "how" of postcard marketing.
To be exact, this article will show you how to use postcards to
outperform the competition and increase your ROI. Now that I've
made a huge promise to you, let me deliver the goods:
Step 1 -- Identify Your Audience
When creating your postcard message, start by identifying your
audience. This is a critical step because the rest of the
process depends on it. To identify your core audience, you
simply have to ask yourself a series of questions.
Here's an example of how your Q&A might go:
1. What area do I want to represent? Happy Town, Vermont.
2. Am I focusing on buyers or sellers? Buyers.
3. Any particular type of buyer? First-time buyers.
4. Where might I find them? Apartments. Perhaps living with
relatives in the area.
5. What's important to them? Learning about the home-buying
process.
6. What else is important to them? Finding an agent they're
comfortable with.
Step 2 -- Create Your Audience Statement
When your list is complete, you should be able to combine the
answers into a paragraph. This paragraph is your audience
statement, and it will help you set your postcard marketing
objectives (Step 3).
Here's what the audience statement might look like from the
example above:
"I want to reach people looking to buy their first home in Happy
Town, Vermont. Being first-time buyers, they probably live in
nearby apartments or with relatives (so I should send my
postcards to homes and apartments in my farm area). These people
will want to learn about the home-buying process in order to
feel more comfortable with it."
You're probably starting to see the value of an audience
statement. In fact, you might even have ideas popping up on how
to connect with such an audience. And that leads us to our next
step...
Step 3 -- Determine Your Objective
Now that you know your audience, you can set the objective for
your postcard marketing campaign. Ask yourself, "What do I want
to happen as a result of sending my postcards?"
Here's the key to this step. Don't ask your postcards to do more
than they're capable of doing. For example, don't use postcards
to try and convince recipients that you offer superior service.
That's a common mistake, and it's too much to ask of an 8"x5"
piece of card stock.
"Superior service" cannot be conveyed through a postcard. It can
only be conveyed through a working relationship.
So let's scale back the objective until we find something that
(A) gives the postcard a more realistic task, (B) follows a more
natural sales progression, and (C) capitalizes on known consumer
behavior.
Let's use our postcards to generate a response from recipients.
Now that's something a postcard can handle -- especially if you
create a compelling message with a strong offer. And since we
know from statistics that most consumers end up choosing the
first real estate agent they contact, we're capitalizing on
known consumer behavior.
Following our first-time buyers example, maybe we will promote a
free home-buying seminar to generate interest and response.
After all, anyone can benefit from a home-buying seminar -- but
especially those who've never bought a house before.
Step 4 -- Conduct Your Mailing
This step will vary depending on your audience and your
objective. But you've done the most important parts already.
You've determined your audience. You've identified what it is
you want your audience to do. And you even have some ideas on
how to motivate them in that direction.
Continuing our first-time buyers example, this step might
involve sending a postcard that promotes a free home-buying
seminar.
Step 5 -- Evaluate Your Response Rates
Make sure you have some way to track the responses you get back
from each mailing. This will allow you to compare one postcard
message to another to see which one performs better.
In the first-time buyer example, this could be as simple as
tracking the number of RSVPs, or asking people in the seminar
how they heard about it. Record the number of people who attend
the seminar as a direct result of the postcard, and you've
measured your response rate.
Armed with this information, you can experiment with other
versions of the postcard to see which one performs or "pulls"
the best.
Conclusion
There you have it -- a structured and logical approach to
postcard marketing. Identify your audience. Create your audience
statement. Determine your objective. Conduct your mailing.
Evaluate the response. Five easy steps!
And here's a step that will follow automatically -- succeed.
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