When you’re a real estate professional, you’ll take any edge you can get to have a customer work with you instead of a competitor, right? One of the common forms of marketing that a real estate professional will do on their own involves postcards being mailed out to a specific community, zip code, or other defined and targeted region. Just a plain postcard with your smiling face and a sales pitch, however, isn’t going to be enough to tempt people to work with you.
This type of marketing is very cost-effective and it reaches people at home and gives them a reference to use in the future, so it is a good tool when used correctly. If you’re tired of having your real estate postcards getting tossed into the trash after they’re received, here are a few ways that you can make some small changes that can lead to big results.
Best Ways to Market with Real Estate Postcards
1. Talk about the results that you’ve achieved in that targeted community in the recent past so that your potential customers who might want to buy or sell can see your record of success. Provide them with the highlights and be sure to give them a place to start on their own research so they can see your complete sales history if they wish.
2. You’re not writing a novella. You’re simply sending out something that is short, sweet, and to the point. If your content isn’t on target with the postcard, then you won’t see any results because you’ll confuse your customers.
3. Make sure you put on contact information that is easy for people to reach you. If people don’t know who you are, then they’re probably not going to want to call you or visit your office if they have a question. Email addresses, websites, and even social media pages can help to provide a level of ease that someone may need.
4. Your postcard should be able to catch someone’s eye without being overly gaudy. Use high quality photos of the properties that you represent. Make sure the printer utilizes a high gloss finish so that you get that extra level of glistening when the postcard is in a prospect’s hand. Use colors that will inspire specific emotions that you want too: green, for example, is relaxing.
5. Remember that there are two sides to the postcard. If you only use one side of the postcard to market yourself, you’re not using 50% of the space available to you! Use the mailing side to convey all of your personal information in an attractive way and then use the message side to convey the information you want to relay to others.
6. A postcard has a sense of urgency to it, which means you can take advantage of this natural psychological reaction by incorporating deadlines into the language of your message. “Act now before the first of the month!” will create a level of scarcity and urgency that will spur many people who have an interest in real estate to react.
7. Think about your postcard headlines as if they were a newspaper headline. Sum up the entire message you’re trying to relay in just one short, concise sentence so that people can see what your sales pitch happens to be at a glance. When you do that, you’ll convey all of the initial information that you wanted to convey, even if the rest of the card isn’t ever read.
8. If you can afford it, market using postcards that are oversized. A postcard that is a 6×11 will carry more overall information than a standard postcard and will let you use a lot more graphics, coupons, and photos that can tell your story. There are some even real estate postcards that include maps to an office or a specific property.
9. Skimping on the costs of the postcard can either work very well for you because you’ll be seen as frugal or it will backfire on you because you’ll be seen as cheap. Take time to budget out what you know you’ll be able to afford and then get the best deal possible on the best product possible from your printer.
10. Don’t outsource the printing of your postcards to a company you found online because this doesn’t give you the chance to form another relationship. Use a local printing company, even if their costs are a little more, because you’ll get even more opportunities to establish your name and brand on the local real estate market.
11. Stay away from the trap of using real estate postcards for just one purpose because this tool can be used in a variety of different ways. Gift certificates, reminders of a property that has been popular in a neighborhood, and even the announcement of new properties on the market with a zip code or community that you represent are all great ways to maximize the use of this marketing medium.
12. Make sure you’ve got an excellent call to action on every postcard you send out even if all you’re doing is sending out a card to help keep your sales efforts at the top of a prospect’s mind. Calls to quick action will spur results and it’s up to you to encourage people to act. Without a call to action, even when someone wants to take action, they often won’t pull the trigger.
13. Incorporate humor when appropriate because it is one of the universe’s common languages. Self-depreciating humor is often appreciated as well and if you use your humor to convey a specific marketing point, that one marketing message will come across loud and clear.
14. Consistency is everything. If your brand is all over the map, then prospects aren’t going to trust you at all.
15. Track and analyze your results so you can know what is working for you and what needs to be changed. It’s a good thing to send out real estate postcards, but it’s better to get the feedback from the responses that you get… or the lack of responses there are. As you track results, you’ll be able to fine-tune a marketing campaign that can help you dominate your local industry.
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