Direct Mail Marketing

Marketing is vital whether buying or selling but, as I’m sure you know, it can be quite expensive. I’ve written many posts about marketing and even listed 100 ways to create real estate leads.

Our favorite, and to date, most effective method of marketing is direct mail. No doubt the post office is thrilled to hear that!

One of your first concerns with direct mailing, besides the cost, will be how to get people to open it. An obvious solution, in my mind, is to use post cards.  If you want your message to be seen, all the receiver has to do is take it out of the mailbox! With post cards, the critical piece becomes the messaging rather than the packaging.

We’ve found that it really doesn’t matter much about the size and type. We’ve used a variety of post cards from the small (3″ x 5″) done in color to the large post cards (8 1/2″ x 5 1/2″) in yellow with black print.  We’ve put our photo on them, generic photos and no photos. They really all seem to give about the same response because, again, if someone takes it out of the mailbox, with a good headline, they see your message.

Personally, I prefer colored post cards with very little print, but I recognize that some people like to sit and read a lot of description so it’s important to mix up your message in order to appeal to the largest possible audience.

We market to very condensed areas which enables us to do “multi-layer” marketing, paving the way for more success with our direct mailings. Some of the other marketing strategies we use regularly are:

1. signs in neighborhoods

2. flyers on doors and/or post-it notes

3. ads in neighborhood newsletters

Concerns related to marketing are always addressed in the context of time and money. You have both (probably never enough of either). The question is, in what proportion? If you have more time than money, you may choose to walk the neighborhoods handing out flyers and posting signs and post-it notes. If you have more money, a consistent use of post cards and other direct marketing has proven to be our most effective way to generate inbound contacts.

Depending upon the quantity you’ll be mailing (hundreds vs. tens of thousands) know that postcards, rather than letters, help keep costs low.

What have you tried and how is it working for you?