How to Design a Prospecting Letter System in Commercial Real Estate
In commercial real estate brokerage, a prospecting letter system will help you with networking and increasing your client base. That being said, the letters sent within this system require real strategy and momentum at a personal level for each broker or agent. Every letter sent will involve cost and time.
Consistency and relevance will get you the results that you require when you send letters to your clients and prospects. Many brokers and agents struggle with the factors of consistency that go with the letter based system. It does take some months if not years to consolidate sizeable results from sending regular prospecting letters.
Letters of this nature need to be sent at least once every 90 days to segments within the marketplace. You can segment your market by territory and also by property type. In this way the messages conveyed in the letters can be quite specific and real to the people that you send them to.
Here are some categories to consider as part of designing separate marketing letters for this effective prospecting process:
- Landlords looking to lease vacant premises
- Landlords require in property management services
- Property owners considering selling
- Property investors considering purchase
- Property developers considering a new project
If this system is for you, make sure that you are tracking the results and the calls that come back to you as result of sending the letters. In that way you will understand when things are improving and the results are occurring. You can also improve on the letters that are bringing you the results.
To improve the inbound enquiries coming from each letter campaign, you can get the letter professionally copy written. That will help with the essential message, and the required words and phrases that sell your professional services.
You need to set some rules with prospecting letters to ensure that you get the results you require as or broker or as an agent. Here are some ideas to help:
- The frequency of the letters sent should be at least once every 90 days. You can shorten the cycle providing you have the necessary administrative support to get the letters out in a timely and an efficient way.
- As a general rule, you should be following up those letters with a direct telephone call to the right people. That telephone call should happen within the four or five days following the receipt of the letter. Use your letters to build market share with new prospects.
- Design your letters for the separate markets of sales, leasing, and property management. Within each letter, tell a story about the local area and some recent successes that are interesting to the reader.
- Letters of this type should be no more than one page in layout and format. Everything should be contained on the first page in two or three paragraphs. Keep the message simple. Sign the letter in blue ink so that the personal approach is evident.
- Make it easy for people to contact you as a result of the letter process. Your contact telephone and E mail should feature in the last paragraph of the letter layout.
If this system is for you, then understand that it is a long-term project with a requirement for personal input and consistency. If you are going to send these marketing and prospecting letters, then stage the process over a 12 month period within the territory and with the separate market segments. Build the letters to give you the inbound enquiries that you require. Track and measure the results that you get.
