Choose a Class of Mail. Decide which service best fits your campaign. Which mail rate will you use. Find and target the right audience. If you don't have a clear picture of the people you're trying to.
- The Direct Marketing Association's DMAChoice mail preference service allows you to opt out of receiving unsolicited commercial mail from many national companies. When you register with this service, your name will be put on a 'delete' file and made available to direct-mail marketers and organizations. This will reduce most of your unsolicited mail.
- OR simply schedule your holiday cards to get mailed out for you!. Give your Christmas cards enough time to get delivered. This is 2020 and as with everything else, the deliver time for holiday mail will likely be quite different from years past. The holiday rush at the post office typically. slows mail time to around 14 days for domestic mail.
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Fortunately, direct mail is not a crowded marketing space.
Unfortunately, a good portion of mail ends up in the trash without a second look.
Reasons for this dismissive attitude vary, but above all, stands one glaring fact:
The recipient knows you're trying to sell something.
Because of this, mail that doesn't get to the point – and get there quickly – is tossed without being read. Succinct mail, on the other hand, has a higher chance of catching the eye of the intended audience.
In fact, your only chance of sending successful direct mail is to target the right audience, with the right message, at the right time.
How?
Here are 10 tips that give your real estate direct mail the best chance at catching the eye and landing leads.
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1. Target Your Audience
Find your audience.
If you don't have a target audience, then you don't have a message. If you don't have a message, then you don't have a direct mail campaign.
To discover your ideal recipient, ask yourself these questions.
- Do you want to target house buyers or house sellers?
- Do you want to target high or low-income housing?
- What is your desired end result, to get leads, or to build awareness?
With that information in mind, determine the ideal target area. A desire for high revenue leads will target high-income areas. Conversely, a desire for low-income leads will target low-income areas.
Every message has an audience because every audience has a problem. What problem are you solving and who are its victims? Target them.
2. Time Your Mail Correctly
It's no secret that seasonal trends dominate the real estate market.
Fortunately, these trends are predictable.
Data covering 1999 to 2015 shows this yearly arc in housing sales.
Image via HousingWire
November through mid-February win the award for slowest months of the year. In March, sales spike and continue to do so until they reach a peak in June and then steadily decrease to be revamped the next Spring.
Understanding this arc is critical for the success of your direct mail campaigns.
People sell more houses during the Spring to Fall months than winter months. Send the right campaign at the wrong time and you might as well throw the mail away yourself.
But use this arc to your advantage and your audience will be more receptive.
Data understood the best course of action is to preemptively strike the market mid-February and keep sending until the fall. In the winter, send holiday mail, not to land leads – because, statistically, you won't – but to increase brand awareness.
Since your goal isn't to sell and buy during the holidays, don't be pushy. Use something holiday friendly. Consider…
Image via Brokerforyou
Or even less salesy…
Image via PixelsPrinted
During the holidays, simply remind people that you are a friendly realtor in the area. Movistar mobile internet. During spring through fall, send direct offers.
Any great salesperson will tell you that timing is everything. In real estate, timing is dire. Follow the seasons.
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3. Find the Ideal Frequency
You don't want to annoy, but you also don't want to avoid.
Choosing the best frequency is largely a matter of experimenting with different frequencies and watching the impact. But, even though trial and error is a great way to learn, it might not be the most efficient.
So here's a good rule of thumb for direct mail frequency: send once a month.
This frequency will keep you regularly in touch with the people who matter without annoying them.
Having said that, don't hesitate to experiment with a higher frequency during the selling season – Spring through Fall – and a lower frequency during the holidays.
Whatever you choose, commit to a frequency and relentlessly hit your due dates.
4. Catch Your Audience's Eye
With the bulk of postcards and envelopes in everyone's mailbox, getting your message to stand out is tricky.
Luckily, you don't need your direct mail to stand out.
You just need to quickly give the recipient the appropriate information.
Because before throwing away, people glance at every piece of mail to make sure it's worthy of the trash.
Your only goal is to catch the eye of your intended audience.
Try and grab everyone's attention, and you'll get no one's. That is why you must determine who your audience is and target them with a bullseye focus.
Consider these examples that immediately, and in as few words as possible, explain what is being offered and what you can do about it if you're interested.
Image via BaltimoreWholesaleProperty
Image via BaltimoreWholesaleProperty
Image via PostcardMania
Image via PostcardMania
What do all of these postcards have in common?
Each one immediately tells the recipient if they are the intended audience. If yes, they'll hang onto the postcard or contact you right away. If no, the postcard gets tossed.
The quicker that you communicate who you're targeting, the better. Don't try to drag people along for a ride they don't want to go on. You'll upset a potential client, create distrust for your brand, and miss out on a sale.
A quick description of what you do, an easy to read font, and a short explanation of what the interested receiver can do are the ingredients for eye-catching direct mail.
5. Don't Crowd
It's important, particularly with postcards, that you use space wisely. There isn't much of it, so focus your space on three primary things.
- What you do.
- Who you are.
- And… what the recipient can do about it.
When it comes to real estate postcards, stick to these three things religiously.
Here are a few examples of this format in use.
Image via PostCardMania
Image via PostCardMania
Image via PostCardMania
Crowding your message is never a good thing. Only include a single CTA. Anything more and you'll confuse your audience. Anything less and you'll lose them.
6. Consider a Digest
USPS found that the daily average amount of time a person spends reading their mail is a staggering 30 minutes.
Now, you and I both know that they aren't spending 30 minutes reading postcards from real estate investors. Likely, they're looking at their bills, magazines, and catalogs. Which illustrates an important point for your direct mail campaign.
Namely, postcards are great, but they aren't looked at for 30 minutes. However, there is a type of mail that will naturally get more reading time:
A digest of the city's happenings.
Take, for example, the back of this direct mailer, which is riddled with events for February, March, and April.
Image via KopywritingKourse
Similarly, this piece of mail includes everything from best lunch items to a football schedule.
Image via KopywritingKourse
While grabbing the attention of your audience quickly and without reserve is important, so too is providing genuinely helpful and interesting information, when appropriate.
Strike a balance between the digest and the postcard and your offers will be taken more seriously and with greater consideration.
Get Your Free Direct Mail Checklist
7. Be Honest
Marketing can be difficult. Low response rates, open rates, and conversion rates plague nearly every type of marketing… including direct mail.
And, sometimes, that marketing difficulty causes people to try unorthodox tricks.
Email, the trick is typing 'Re:' or 'Fwd:' into the subject line. On the phone, it's pretending that your headset fell off at the beginning of the call. With direct mail, it's sending a dishonest or partially dishonest message to your recipient.
Using these tactics, though, only hurts your business in the long run — establishing yourself as a foundation for childish tricks and half lies.
Direct Mail Out List
To help you determine what not to do, here are some examples of dishonest real estate direct mail.
Image via Pinterest
Image via BiggerPockets
Direct Mail Out Companies
Image via YellowLetters
Dishonesty may grab attention… for a moment. But immediately after the recipient realizes they've been duped, they'll look away and throw away.
The temptation to submit to scheming marketing tactics is a real one. But don't.
In the end, it only makes your open, response, and conversion rates worse than they were before.
9. Be Consistent
The key to any type of marketing is consistency. Whether you blog, podcast, or send direct mail, consistency is king.
The amount of time between seeing an advertisement and actually purchasing is often lengthy – weeks or sometimes months. And thus, the importance of marketing, over and over again, can't be stressed enough.
Remember, you're not out to save the world with each piece of direct mail, you're simply out to remind people that you exist. Because, then, when they do need you, they'll find you.
Decide on your frequency and stick to it for a preset amount of time. Once you near the end, see if you can do anything better for the next period of time… so on and so forth, always improving.
10. Follow Up
Keep your phone nearby and your email notifications on.
The goal of direct mail is for the target audience to contact you. But, that means you need to be ready for their contact.
There's nothing more discouraging than reading a savior-esque piece of mail, contacting the investor, and not hearing back for a week or so.
If you take too long to respond to your leads, they'll either lose interest or find someone else to work with. It's important that, as much as possible, you're available to answer phone calls and respond to emails promptly.
Play for the Long Run
All marketing endeavors, including direct mail, are a long-term play. You won't send your first postcards and, overnight, spike your sales. But you will steadily increase your brand awareness and lead generation.
Like anything that's worth doing, it takes time.
Keep that in mind as you apply these tips to your direct mail campaign.
Even though your mail is going to get thrown in the trash, it's what happens immediately before that counts.
Namely, whether they read before they toss.
Get Your Free Direct Mail Checklist
Here are 47 creative direct mail examples to inspire your next marketing campaign.
Firstly, Mercedes cleverly use the flap of the envelope to demonstrate the convertible to stand out in the mail.
The shock and empathy used in this example is a questionable strategy, but consider using an emotional hook (fear, guilt, jealousy, greed etc.) to get the audience's attention and keep them engaged.
KitKat created a fake mail slip for forgotten post to emulate the royal mail missed delivery letter which is left in the letterbox when you miss deliveries. This is funny but also effective in grabbing the attention of the reader people's brains have been wired to associate these slips as being important.
Skoda added a penny to their postcard which invokes curiosity and draws attention because of how unusually it is. There are many ways to invoke curiosity effectively.
Email, the trick is typing 'Re:' or 'Fwd:' into the subject line. On the phone, it's pretending that your headset fell off at the beginning of the call. With direct mail, it's sending a dishonest or partially dishonest message to your recipient.
Using these tactics, though, only hurts your business in the long run — establishing yourself as a foundation for childish tricks and half lies.
Direct Mail Out List
To help you determine what not to do, here are some examples of dishonest real estate direct mail.
Image via Pinterest
Image via BiggerPockets
Direct Mail Out Companies
Image via YellowLetters
Dishonesty may grab attention… for a moment. But immediately after the recipient realizes they've been duped, they'll look away and throw away.
The temptation to submit to scheming marketing tactics is a real one. But don't.
In the end, it only makes your open, response, and conversion rates worse than they were before.
9. Be Consistent
The key to any type of marketing is consistency. Whether you blog, podcast, or send direct mail, consistency is king.
The amount of time between seeing an advertisement and actually purchasing is often lengthy – weeks or sometimes months. And thus, the importance of marketing, over and over again, can't be stressed enough.
Remember, you're not out to save the world with each piece of direct mail, you're simply out to remind people that you exist. Because, then, when they do need you, they'll find you.
Decide on your frequency and stick to it for a preset amount of time. Once you near the end, see if you can do anything better for the next period of time… so on and so forth, always improving.
10. Follow Up
Keep your phone nearby and your email notifications on.
The goal of direct mail is for the target audience to contact you. But, that means you need to be ready for their contact.
There's nothing more discouraging than reading a savior-esque piece of mail, contacting the investor, and not hearing back for a week or so.
If you take too long to respond to your leads, they'll either lose interest or find someone else to work with. It's important that, as much as possible, you're available to answer phone calls and respond to emails promptly.
Play for the Long Run
All marketing endeavors, including direct mail, are a long-term play. You won't send your first postcards and, overnight, spike your sales. But you will steadily increase your brand awareness and lead generation.
Like anything that's worth doing, it takes time.
Keep that in mind as you apply these tips to your direct mail campaign.
Even though your mail is going to get thrown in the trash, it's what happens immediately before that counts.
Namely, whether they read before they toss.
Get Your Free Direct Mail Checklist
Here are 47 creative direct mail examples to inspire your next marketing campaign.
Firstly, Mercedes cleverly use the flap of the envelope to demonstrate the convertible to stand out in the mail.
The shock and empathy used in this example is a questionable strategy, but consider using an emotional hook (fear, guilt, jealousy, greed etc.) to get the audience's attention and keep them engaged.
KitKat created a fake mail slip for forgotten post to emulate the royal mail missed delivery letter which is left in the letterbox when you miss deliveries. This is funny but also effective in grabbing the attention of the reader people's brains have been wired to associate these slips as being important.
Skoda added a penny to their postcard which invokes curiosity and draws attention because of how unusually it is. There are many ways to invoke curiosity effectively.
This hilarious marketing postcard for dental implants combines natural human impulse and comedy gold to get the attention of the reader. Using humour is a great way to build your brand and have your message retained and shared on social media.
Use jokes, puns, and try to come up with something original and clever like Neopost.
Use cut-outs to stand out and show off your brand
This borders on gorilla marketing, but what kind of materials could you be using, what ways can you use physical materials for people to engage with you in person?
The economist balloons send through the post grow the brain when inflated. A metaphor for subscribing to their magazine.
This Greenpeace glove demonstrates cleaning the waste with the iconic Greenpeace coloured glove. This example shows how being different and standing out will create a huge and lasting impression on whoever receives this.
Often marketers will use size to send oversized or large post. For the smart car the opposite was used, to show how small and nimble the car is for cities, being smaller can also help you stand out.
It's not just the message which matters, the timing is important too. Send postcards on people's birthdays or special occasions.
Create direct mail as an experience. BMW does a fantastic job with their mailers and create a luxury experience.
Make your marketing useful, one of the advantages of physical post is you have a much bigger range of things you can offer your audience to provide value beyond information.
Get creative with your envelopes. Try combining the exterior with the interior of the mailer.
What gets people attention more than cold hard cash? This has been done many times with a lot of success. Even including a peak of a fake 1 dollar note inside an envelope always gets the reader's attention. Just make sure you can relate it to your messaging or brand. Otherwise the reader will feel tricked.
Fold outs and cute animals.
When people receive letters, they are often important. Make sure you give something of value in your message. Best theme for elementor.
When people interact with your mail, they are more likely to remember your message and act on it longer. It's also more likely to be shared within the household or on social media.
Direct mail doesn't have to be paper, you can send anything.
Even an emergency box. Would you pay attention if you saw this in the post?
This in an old one, but the technique is good. Verizon cut holes in their mailer to demonstrate how you'd use their phone.
The interactive fish postcard.
The receiver of the gingerbread mailbox, is first delighted, and then curious as to why the foot is missing.
Google maps printed on the envelope to show directions or relay information.
Another incredibly creative example of humour in direct mail.
Send a balloon in a box.
Use origami on your mailing will make your post much more fun and interactive, especially if your product is aimed at households with children.
You'll notice that interactivity is a common theme in some of these examples. That's because it's effective at drawing attention and being retained in memory.
HelloFresh personalise the messages to each person. Think about how you can use personalisation in your post.
The matchbox mailer:
Use fold outs to create a journey and tell a story.
Humans react more to things which are unusual and haven't been seen before. Think about how you can do the same.
This example is to promote Macbeth at a Theatre.
Funny 'miss-fortune' cookies 😂
Having your message retained in the household means it will increase the chance of it being auctioned. Create something of value to your audience and encourage them to keep it, as was done well with these discount tickets.
If you send products to your customers, think about how you can incorporate direct mail principals into your packaging.
This one plays on the expression 'Peanut butter and jelly'
There is no limit to the number of shapes you can use for your mailings.
Origami is an effective way to be different and fun.
Direct Mail Campaign Examples
Remember when you were a kid, and in school you'd have popup books that you'd spend hours reading and experiencing. They would literally bring your stories to life. Well the same thing works for your mail, look at how Ikea have taken this principal for their marketing.
Bright coloured postcards stand out on the doormat
Check out this DIY Cycle helmet
Papa john – masters of direct mail, have send physical paper versions of their pizzas
Make your mail seem personal and direct. People don't receive as much mail as they used to and get excited and look favourably on mail which is humanised.
If you can send it in the post, it's direct mail.
This postcard has instructions to run it under water, and when you do the message shows.
Running a direct mail campaign can be time consuming, but there is a lot of opportunity in marketing with physical post because it's much easier to stand out and be noticed compared to digital clutter.
With Postary sending physical post to your customers is now as easy as sending emails. You can design and send beautiful personalised postcards directly to your contacts. Visit https://postary.com to get started today.
For tips on designing postcard marketing campaigns with direct mail, read the essential tips: Essential postcard marketing tips
