Real estate marketing postcards are more powerful than ever. They deliver your information directly into the hands of potential customers for the price of a stamp, paper, and some ink.
Relying on the Internet to drive customers to you is simply not enough. In fact, I doubt the Internet will ever become the only source of leads for an agent. Remember: the Internet is vast and expansive; your farm is not. You already know exactly where the people you want to reach are, and the US Post Office is ready to personally deliver anything you want.
I have been helping Southern California agents identify their respective estates since 2005 with my custom real estate marketing postcards. I learned a lot during that time, mainly by analyzing my competition. Here are the three biggest mistakes I see from real estate agents and brokers:
1) Don’t talk about your sales history, even if you are the #1 agent in the state or the US. Why? Because while you’re babbling about how good you are with potential customers; their ears are deafened, their eyes sparkle, and their minds go elsewhere. This is true of all encounters, not just postcard marketing. People want to know about themselves; not you. If you want to keep people interested and keep their eyes on your postcard, discuss your achievements, your goals, and your needs. How do you talk about those things when you don’t know the specific person you’re emailing? That is easy. Talk about their neighborhood (or their city) and they will pay attention to what you have to share. Follow this rule in all walks of life and you will see a noticeable change in the way people interact with you.
2) Do not slander another agent. This may seem hard to understand, but I have seen it many times. An agent sends a postcard to your farm and writes something like this on the cover: “Jane Doe sold her neighbor’s house for only $585,000! She would never undersell her house or devalue her neighborhood! Contact me…” Negativism breeds itself. Remember that. Instead of trying to tarnish another agent who is marketing inside your farm, be positive and send an upbeat message to your prospect. If you blatantly try to demean a fellow real estate agent, How do you think that reflects on your integrity in the eyes of the recipient of the postcard?
3) Do not make spelling or grammatical errors. I have seen countless real estate marketing postcards containing the simplest spelling and grammatical errors. Before you print a thousand copies of your postcard, make sure you have two or three people proofread it. Most of the time, they will point out a very obvious mistake that you have somehow missed. After correcting any spelling or grammatical errors, ask someone else to correct it. Repeat this process until the postcard is grammatically sound. Professionalism must be maintained in real estate at all times. When you send a postcard to a homeowner (or prospective homeowner), every inch of that postcard must be perfect. If not, and you send a postcard with misspellings or grammatical errors, you’re effectively tarnishing your own name, and your prospect may look elsewhere for an agent when they finally need one.
Copyright 2007, Christian Blake. This article is free to republish as long as the author’s signature and hyperlinks are preserved.