As I’ve preached before, positioning yourself as the real estate expert in the eyes of your clients and contact is very important if you expect them to call you when they need the help of a REALTOR®. Consistent communication with relevant real estate information is the key, but how do you get your message to them?
In today’s electronic world where everyone is connected and communication is easy with email and social media tools like Facebook, Twitter and Linkedin, many people get overwhelmed with communication overload! So how do you stand out from the crowd and get your information in front of your clients and contacts?
Email is the easiest method, but I’m not a big fan on email newsletters and e-postcards for marketing communications. These communications are just too easy to delete or pushed into a spam folder where they never get read…….and you’ll never even know it.
How many times a day to you look at the title of an email, glance at who it is from and easily decide that it is a marketing piece and instantly hit “DELETE” without ever opening the email? Your contacts do the same thing, so why would you saturate their inbox with the non-personal email messages? Wouldn’t you rather have your contacts see an email from you and be intrigued enough to open it to read a personal message send by you personally to them? Save email for personal messages.
Snail Mail
So, when you go to the mailbox, what do you expect to find? Anything good? Typically it consists of bills and people wanting money from you!
Believe it or not “snail mail” is a great method to connect with your contacts. I know, I know it will cost you a few bucks if you are mailing newsletters or postcards each month to a hundred people or so, but getting your name, company name, face and contact information in front of them is worth every penny.
Even if they look at the piece, note that their favorite REALTOR® (you) sent it to them and throw your newsletter or postcard into the trash can, they touched it, felt it, probably skimmed the headlines and subliminally got a few messages implanted in their brains;
- you are in real estate
- you value them enough to spend money on postage and printing to send them a message
They may not sit down and read the postcard or newsletter right away, but if any part of the message or a headline catches their eye, they will save it to read it later! It may sit on their counter or coffee table for a week or two before they get around to reading it. Even if they don’t ever read it and end up throwing it away, how many times did they look at it and think about your name and real estate?
Now that your message has been seen, touched, and mentally processed do you think when their family, friends or coworkers mention they are think about buying or selling a home, your name might be mentioned? Can you hear it now?
“If you’re ready to buy a home, you should give <insert your name> a call. He/she sends me a mailer every month with homeowner tips and local real estate market information. He/she really knows the market and I am sure he/she could help you find the perfect home!”
Much better than them saying;
“Well don’t call <insert your name>, they keep sending all this junk to my inbox that I never have time to read and I can’t figure out how to get off their mailing list!”
Ok, I may be playing to the extreme here, but it could happen. 
Tell us what you think!
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