Finding the Perfect Direct Mail Solution Can Be Like a Roller-coaster Ride Without This Formula
It is a fact that letters sent to a targeted audience of business owners or investors in commercial real estate, will produce results. Those results will be in calls, meetings, and repeat business. It takes some time to build a position of ‘relevance’ as an agent or broker in the local property market.
In your town or city, the marketing letters that you send out will help you build your real estate business in a consistent way. They will help you ‘sell your brand’.
Over time those letters become (or should become) a key part of a new business prospecting model. They are effective in creating attention; perhaps more so than ever before as emails become commonplace and therefore less relevant in spreading a marketing story.
Why Do This?
Why should you send those letters? The simple answer is you want ‘engagement’ with people. There are things that you must do on a regular basis to achieve that position. A well-crafted piece of correspondence will help you achieve that.
Here is a formula approach to direct mail marketing in commercial real estate brokerage. The strategy can shape to your property business, your location, and your precinct targets:
- Calendar considerations – start with an analysis of when you should be sending the letters. Review the best times of the year based on the seasonal business activity, the local holidays, and the best days of the week. Ultimately you want your letters to be read and appreciated by people. You want the targeted people to be available to do that and to be under less ‘pressure’. The beginning of every week is always busy for most people. Send your letters, so they are received around Wednesday. Timing is important.
- Target market – choose your focus on people and places. That means you can send letters to locations, buildings, businesses in buildings, precincts, and property types. That makes it a lot easier to build a core message. Your ability to make that message deep and relevant to people will encourage results. Stay well away from the generic approach to mail and correspondence. It is better to send a small number of letters that are well crafted, than hundreds of letters that are ‘bland’ and ‘self-centred’. The letter should be about the person you are writing to and their situation. Successful marketing approaches are about the ‘receiver’ and not the ‘sender’.
- Simplicity and build a local twist – make your messages simple and locally focused. Talk about the local things that you know others can relate. That may be a change in property market conditions, a sale, a lease, or a shift in regional development and roads. Keep your correspondence local.
- Business card and call to action – the ‘leave behind’ in every letter sent is your business card. Enclose it with all your mail pieces. Ensure that you get out plenty of business cards every day with the letters you send out. The business card is perhaps the most effective marketing tool that you have. It is likely to be retained.
- Follow-through – if you send a letter, ensure that you make the calls and follow through where you can. The letter will allow you to create a conversation if you take the time to connect with people. A professional approach is required. A conversation will then be the leverage to open the door on property market requirements and the investment needs of others.
These strategies are both simple and effective in helping any agent or broker with a direct mail marketing campaign. Develop your special promotional campaigns incorporating some of these important actions. The growth of market share for you will then be quite possible in an ongoing way.
Take the time to build a client list and then start sending your letters every 60 days. That will then be six campaigns for the year. Track your inbound calls and meetings as part of the process. You will see that your meeting conversions increase through the year as part of that.