Commercial Real Estate – The Key Components of a Successful Direct Mail Campaign

In commercial real estate brokerage, the direct mail marketing process is quite valuable as a part of local area coverage and new business generation.

The well crafted and relevant letters that you regularly send to the people in your client and prospect list will help you improve your real estate profile and potentially your new business opportunities in your town or city.

First and foremost we are marketing people, and the profiles that we create for ourselves locally are critical to brokerage results and opportunities.

Direct Mail Budgets and Strategies

Of course, there is a cost to the process of sending letters to people on your list and you need a budget for that. However, a planned approach with the mail marketing system will usually convert through to more inquiry and client conversions over time.

So, the cost is a factor to control and budget for; more reason to track the inbound inquiries from your marketing letters and client updates.

Here are some proven ways to strengthen and diversify a mail strategy of this nature in commercial real estate:

1. Targeted audience – design the letter or email with a specific target audience in mind. The types of property listings quoted, or your listing specialty will help you boost inquiry and inbound calls.
2. Core message – every letter that you send out should be centre on a core message; that then makes it a lot easier to capture and direct the attention and interest of the reader. Keep your letters short and direct; don’t confuse your messages and concepts.
3. Local stories – you will know facts and stories about the local area that you can feed into your direct mail copy. When you do that, people understand that you know local issues and property facts.
4. Property facts – go deeper in what you are saying about the location and or property.
5. Frequency of contact – as you send more letters over time, the ‘brand’ and message that you are wanting to convey will get through; frequency is necessary. That then says you should be sending at least 4 to 6 letters per year to the people in your client list.
6. Make follow-up calls – given that you have paid for the message to be created and sent, make follow-up calls to the people where you have the telephone numbers. The conversions to new business via a phone call after a direct mail piece are always notable.
7. Testimonials are valuable – any honest and recent testimonial from a local client will be valuable as part of your next direct mail dispatch.
8. Link to websites – don’t forget to provide the link detail to your listing online, and or the address of the property. Make it easy for people to understand and review the facts of what you are saying.
9. Call to action and create scarcity – let people know how to contact you at any time with any questions. Add some ‘time critical’ statement to the property and or the letter you are sending, so everyone reading it knows that now is the time to act or make the inquiry.
10. Timing of message – there are different times of year where marketing makes real sense and is more successful. The same observation applies to sending direct mail pieces. Consider the timing of what you are doing and how you can use the timing of the letter to the best advantage.

Given these factors, create the layout, the message, and the wordage with the target audience and the required result in mind.  Simplicity always ‘wins’ more attention in commercial real estate marketing.

Many agents and brokers create a series of letters or emails for the 12 months ahead in particularly targeted groups, and then they get a professional copywriter to improve the core message and text.   If this is currently beyond your budget, then you can use a simple thesaurus to improve your marketing messages and letters.