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Lindsay: Direct mail is not dead. A lot of people think that direct mail is dead but it is not dead, especially for the real estate industry. There’s a couple of reasons for why that’s the case. I’m Lindsay Favazza with Crush It In Real Estate. I want to talk to you all about direct mail, all the postcards, letters, all the things that you can be putting in people’s mailboxes.
I actually was just having a conversation with someone about branding themselves and branding in general for real estate. One of the biggest things that we talked about is the fact that you need to have your face in multiple places and all the time. I think that a lot of agents get a little bit concerned about how much money they would have to spend on direct mail. The first thing I want to say to you today is, let’s start with a small budget.
Most real estate companies will provide you with some kind of print house where you can get a postcard made with your face on it, with the company’s branding, and so on. If you have something like that, then what you will want to do is make a radius list. Either if you have to buy a list for that, that’s okay. Those are pretty inexpensive, or if you’re a print provider provides that for you. We use Xpressdocs here at Lamacchia Realty, and Xpressdocs does either a radius list or you can pick certain streets. Let’s just start with 100 of the closest addresses to your house because I’m assuming you would want to sell in your neighborhood. If it’s not in your neighborhood, then target the neighborhood that you want to sell in. Let’s make a plan.
First things first, you’re going to send out a postcard that introduces you to that neighborhood. Let’s say you do something along these lines. “I’m new to the area,” if you are new to the area, or introducing your local realtor or, “I’d like to meet you. I am your local realtor.” This is a great option. There’s also options like something like this where it just says, “I don’t just sell here. I live here.” These are some great options for a way for you to enter into that neighborhood.
The first couple of postcards that you do, send something out that introduces you to the space. I love the idea of saying like, “I’m not just your local realtor, I’m your neighbor.” This is a great way to introduce yourself to this whole entire audience. Now what’s going to happen is these 100 closest homes, they’re going to see you out in your yard doing yard work. They’re going to see you walking the dog down the street, they’re going to see you at the grocery store. It puts you within your community, so they’re going to start to recognize your face because you’re going to put your face on the postcard. You’re going to have your headshot and your picture.
Now on top of that, they might see you on Facebook. They might see you in these other places. You’re going to be doing video because we’ve talked about that and you totally listened to all my advice, right? You’re going to be in all these different places, and they’re going to get these postcards from you, and they’re going to look at it as a value add. You’re adding value to them.
Next thing I want to talk about is that value proposition. Could it just be that you’re only putting out a postcard when you have a property to sell? If that’s all you do, then you’re only appealing to the people that want to buy that one property. You need to be doing more than that. Just the same as you do on your social media pages, what are the different things that you can talk to clients about? You can talk to them about seller tips. This is 2019, I had some old examples, but you guys get the point. How to avoid costly mistakes. Think about some different tips. Maybe it’s something that they go to your website and they download a free guide or something along those lines.
Maybe it is, if we have a buyer for your home, this is something that we do here because we have off-market properties.
You could put something out saying, “I know of some properties that are not yet on the market. Would you like to hear about them? Please give me a call.” Or it could just be, “Want to talk about the real estate market? Give me a call.” Those are all options. You can also do– This was a cute one that we did a while back and it had this little girl on the front. It says, “Selling your home does not have to be rocket science.” Use just a fun picture and talk to them about the different ways that you can help them sell their home. Obviously, put your picture on it.
Another great thing to do for direct mail is sports schedules. Now that the world is opening back up and these are a little bit more reliable these days, get back to it. Red Sox schedules, Patriot schedules, Bruin schedules if you’re in Massachusetts and if you’re not in Massachusetts, then don’t send out your schedules because no one cares. I’m just kidding. Make sure you’re doing sports schedules. Maybe there’s something for the local schools and you can put something like that on a schedule. Whatever it is, get those messages out.
Another thing that you could do is start to increase the size of the postcard. This will incrementally add a little bit more cost to each postcard, but when we do 100 closest addresses here, it costs us about $85 to do these postcards. Then with these postcards, it goes up to maybe $95. It’s a little bit more but it’s a bigger impact. You can start to mess with this after a little while and mess with the sizing, do different pictures, different messages. Maybe some messages are to sellers, some messages are to buyers. You could do recipe cards. I’ve seen a lot of people that send out a recipe. Maybe it’s going into 4th of July weekend. You say, “Happy 4th of July,” on your postcard, and you say, “Here’s a barbecue recipe, something to throw on the grill.” That is a great way to be top of mind with all the people within your neighborhood. It’s an easy way to do direct mail.
Now if we’re talking from a budget standpoint, loop it back into the budget that I was saying at the beginning. If you take $100 a month and put that aside for your direct mail campaign, and you go after those 100 people that are closest to your home, I guarantee you’re going to have a big impact and people will start to call you.
Now, in addition to those, also have it a little bit more budgeted so that when you do have a property that closes, you can send out a just sold, so that way they know that you are actively doing business in that area. Just sold, just listeds, and these monthly postcards are so important. Don’t forget them as a part of your mix. Thanks, everybody. If you have questions, reach out to us on the page. We’ll be happy to help you.