Online advertising means that we need to change our own strategies as salespeople and marketing experts. However, I think that it is all too easy to brush off some of the classics when they are still perfectly viable! An example of this is direct mail marketing, which I will be covering here today.
Perhaps you are sitting there thinking, “well, how is it effective? Don’t most people just throw out their junk mail?” While that might be true, when it comes to the real estate market, most potential customers tend to pay a bit more attention to the letters in their mailboxes. Let me explain.
What it is
Put simply, direct mail marketing is when you send personalized mail to your past clients or to potential new ones. You do not have to limit yourself to exclusively sending the materials to homes – businesses can also work. What matters is that the intention here is to generate leads.
Regarding what the actual materials are, that can vary depending on your own personal tastes and what you feel will be most effective at garnering attention! Some examples are pamphlets, flyers, or booklets. Even posters can work sometimes, although they are not as common in comparison. 
How it Works
The key component of this method of lead generation is to create content that is relevant, eye-catching, and more than just marketing for your brand. If you do the latter, there is a higher chance that your mailer will simply be discarded into the junk mail pile. Obviously, that is not something that anyone wants!
What should you include, then? Well, you may want to check out pages like this one, https://kristamashore.com/direct-mail-marketing-for-real-estate-agents/, to get some inspiration. Really, your materials should include ways that your company or brand can assist customers and bring them needed services, rather than glorifying its own image.
How does that look in practice? It could take the form of a list of details about your real estate services, or provide information about what you have to offer that makes you better than your competitors. Anything that can draw their attention and makes potential customers intrigued by your brand can work, so long as it stays positive.
Why Use it?
Why Use it?Now that you know what it is, you may be wondering why you would use it over other types of marketing. Note – rather than suggesting that you switch all of your advertising to this method, I would recommend incorporating it into your current strategies. In a cutthroat business like real estate, it certainly does not hurt to employ every advantage that we can to our disposal!
As far as what makes direct mail marketing effective, it is largely in that you are creating brand recognition as well as exposure in your nearby area. Geography has a lot to do with sales in real estate, so the fact that you are getting your name out there in this manner is quite key. You want the people near you to be aware of your brand.
In addition to that, as you can see on this website, it makes you stand out from the crowd on a few levels. Think about the ways that you see advertisements these days – it is almost always in a digital format, right? When we think about it that way, it means that physical mail marketing has actually become more impactful just by virtue of not being yet another email dropped into the spam folder and forgotten about.
Sorting through all of them is annoying for anyone, and it stands to reason that customers will be appreciative that you are striving to do something different than your competitors. While it may not always work, there is plenty of evidence that demonstrates it is an effective way to generate leads for real estate agents.
The market is certainly crazy right now – in some parts of the country things seem to be booming, while in others property is not selling as well as it did last year. Because of this, we should all be seeking out more ways to reach our customers, and utilizing a method like this one may just be the change that works.
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