Effective Strategies for Developing Sales Letters in Commercial Real Estate Brokerage
The idea of direct marketing supported by sales letters and success letters is not unique and it has been around for years. In saying that, it really does work as part of marketing and prospecting in commercial real estate brokerage. But, you have to do things specifically and professionally. (NB – you can get our free commercial real estate tips and ideas here)
Poorly crafted letters of little relevance to a location and that are not followed up, are literally ‘rubbish’ and will achieve nothing. A marketing letter is expensive and has to be well crafted in every way possible. A letter of this type also has to be followed up in every way possible with a call or a personal meeting.
Starting your direct mail marketing processes
To get things going in a positive way, you should have a contact strategy and a tracking process as part of the letter model. Your database software can keep you on track, so you know who you have sent letters to, when you followed them up, and what potential someone can offer you as a client or prospect. Change the letters regularly as you mount a campaign of contact.
The traditional letter approach will allow you to connect with prospects and clients in your location in a regular and meaningful way. In saying that, follow up each and every letter that you send out. There is a cost to the letter process, so optimize the money that you spend in sending marketing letters to your targeted people. Get the fullest value possible from the process.
In this day and age of emails, why is it that the basic letter can do more for you with leads and opportunities than emails sent? The fact of the matter is that emails are all too easily deleted, and many people will not open an email from someone they do not know.
So what has to happen with direct mail marketing?
The letters need to be specific to the location and or the challenges that people face in commercial property investment in a town or city. When you target the letter to an issue and a location, the relevance allows you to attract the interest of people.
So some real conversions can occur when you get the letters out and when you follow them up with a telephone call. To help you with that, here are some real strategies to use as part of your property marketing process around the strategy of letters and direct mail:
- Pick quality property campaigns – a good property for sale or lease will always assist your campaign.
- Focus on target markets – get specific in why you are sending a letter and to what groups of people.
- Use simplicity for immediate attraction – don’t make your letter complex, or cloud the message with too much information; keep the message to 4 paragraphs at the most, and have one key focus factor or invitation that you are working to (perhaps inviting them to call you on a specific matter).
- Professional letter copy – make your message attractive with some professionally crafted words and phrases.
- Get the headline right – the letter headline really does have to be good in every respect so that people are interested to read the 3 or 4 paragraphs that follow.
- Use dot points in your correspondence – four or five dot points on key issues will help the person understand if they have an interest in going further; choose those feature points with care and consideration to the target audience.
So there are some good things that you can do here with direct mail to attract interest and inquiry on commercial property matters. Good quality letters that are carefully crafted will always convert inquiry more successfully.
