real estate direct mail marketing is one of the most tried and true methods for real estate investors and agents to generate leads and find business.
Unfortunately, a good deal of mail ends up in the trash without a second look. mailboxes are so overcrowded that unopened envelopes are tossed aside.
The average mailbox is filled with junk mail, bills, and other correspondence from various sources telling you about deals or offering their services. It can be easy for an envelope containing information about real estate opportunities to land in a corner, forgotten in all the noise, which means missing out on potential leads!
Your only chance of successful direct mail is to target the right audience at the right time with the right message. how?
Let’s not waste any more time. Here are 15 tips to get the most out of your real estate direct mail campaign.
direct mail checklist for investors and real estate agents
Make sure you consistently send remarkable emails that generate leads, increase your business revenue, and make your campaigns more sustainable.
15 Real Estate Direct Mail Tips From Industry Experts
1. build a high converting website
You’re here for tips on real estate direct mail, so you may be surprised to find the first tip that suggests you need to have a high-converting website.
but if you want to scale, if you’re in business for the long haul, you need a high converting website.
why?
Put yourself in the recipient’s shoes. If you get an email from a real estate company you’ve never heard of before, your first question is likely to be “is this a scam?”
and therefore some people interested in what you offer will not call you right away. They’ll get on their computer and Google your business. will search for the company that does not appear on the first page of results.
however, if your business shows up when they search for it and if you have good reviews and a good brand image, the potential customer is likely to call you.
The only caveat is that you don’t want just any website.
You want a website designed to build a relationship, express your brand values, and most importantly, convert that person into a potential customer by capturing their email address or phone number.
those are the high converting websites we build at carrot, for investors and agents.
learn more here!
2. address your audience
If you don’t have a target audience, you don’t have a message. if you don’t have a message, you don’t have a direct mail campaign.
To discover your ideal recipient, ask yourself these questions.
- Do you want to target home buyers or sellers?
- Do you want to target high-income or low-income housing?
- What is the desired outcome? to get leads or create awareness?
With that information in mind, determine the ideal target area. a desire for high-income leads will target high-income areas. conversely, a desire for low-income leads will target low-income areas.
every message has an audience because every audience has a problem. what problem are you solving and who are its victims? orient them.
some of the most popular mailing lists for investors are…
- tax defaults
- vacant homes
- expired listings
- before foreclosure
- out-of-state owners
real estate agents can target different zip codes or demographics where they want to buy and sell homes.
3. stack of lists
The main challenge with direct mail marketing is standing out from all the other mail people get, especially from other investors and agents.
The more general (and less specific) your direct mail campaigns are, the more you’ll be competing with other investors and agents for potential customer attention.
That’s where list stacking comes in.
Property Listing Manager defines List Stacking as “an innovative method of filtering and managing properties that helps you identify only the most motivated sellers across all of your listings.”
That means not only targeting prior foreclosures, but also prior foreclosures with high value and out-of-state owners, or maybe it means targeting out-of-state owners who have defaulted on their rent payments .
list building results in more targeted direct mail campaigns, which means less money. you can use a tool like reisoft to do this.
4. time your mail correctly
It’s no secret that seasonal trends dominate the real estate market.
Unfortunately, trends in recent years have been unpredictable.
In “normal” years, November to mid-February wins the award for slowest months of the year. in March sales increase and continue to increase until they peak in June and then steadily decline to renew the following spring.
Understanding this arc is critical to the success of your direct mail campaigns.
Again, typically, people sell more homes during the spring through fall months than the winter months. send the right campaign at the wrong time and you might as well drop the mail yourself.
The best course of action is to pre-emptively attack the market in mid-February and continue shipping through the fall. in the winter, send holiday emails not to get leads, because statistically you won’t, but to increase brand awareness.
don’t be pushy as your goal isn’t to sell and buy during the holidays. wear something holiday friendly. consider…
image agent for you
or even less commercial…
printed image pixels
during the holidays, remind people that you are a friendly real estate agent in the area. spring through fall, send direct bids.
Any great salesperson will tell you that timing is everything. in real estate, the timing is dire. follow the seasons.