By now, I'm sure you have a solid grasp of internet marketing.
- You've learned the 80/20 approach of how everything works.
- You've learned about the top three platforms (Facebook, Instagram, Google Display Network) and how they can help you take a more proactive approach to get people to see your message.
- And finally, you've also learned how to get the most out of that traffic, by retargeting your ads to people who landed on your website and interacted with your brand.
As you can tell from our guides - these things work!
All you need is the right strategies in place and execute them with consistency.
It’s not a matter of IF it works, but UNTIL it works.
Now, I’m sure by now you’ve probably noticed something with all of these resources.
It’s a common trend we see, and that’s exactly why we talked about it for so long...
These are all ways to promote your services online.
You see, everybody's focused on digital marketing these days.
They say that's where people’s attention is focused on.
Everybody's glued to their smartphones, computers, and tablets.
And while they get you results, you may be missing out on a way to dramatically increase what you’re already doing right now, and that is...
Promoting your services offline.
No matter how much time you spend online, you still live in the real world.
As a real estate agent, all of your transactions are done locally.
To grow your business, you need to meet, greet, and build relationships with your clients.
When you are selling a home, you are selling them something physical.
It's not something that can be downloaded or shipped to your door.
It requires you actually being there.
Now if you can’t do 100% your job online, why would you do that with your marketing too?
That's why we advise you to take an omnipresent approach.
You need to be advertising both online and offline if you want to get the best results.
And frankly, there’s never been a better time to be doing offline marketing.
Everybody is neglecting it and focusing exclusively on the online space.
And from our experience, the best way to start doing this is through direct mail.
What is Direct Mail
Direct Mail is when you send a physical piece of marketing material to a person’s home.
Your goal is simple: get them to respond.
This can be done in many ways and it depends on your goals.
You can ask people to:
- Visit your website
- Schedule a phone call
- Ask for a sale
- And more...
Now, before we go any further I’m sure you're probably saying…
“I hate those things!”
“That’s junk mail!”
“I never sign up for that, I just throw it out!”
And we completely understand you.
You see, these reactions are a result of bad direct mail campaigns.
When you get anything that's unsolicited and are presented with an offer that has no value, of course, you're not going to like it.
It's just like dealing with a bad sales representative.
When you feel like you're being sold to, lied, and manipulated, you don't want to do any business with that person. Something feels icky and off.
However, when you receive something that adds value and genuinely helps you in any way, you want to learn more about it.
That's the difference between good direct mail and bad direct mail.
Good direct mail: provides value (the right offer to the right person)
Bad direct mail: provide no value.
The Psychology of Direct Mail
Now while the principles of marketing remain the same, the psychology of how people come across your message changes.
People use the internet for two reasons: work or play.
However, when they get something physical in the mail, they have a whole different set of emotions at play.
You see, most people check their mail when they get back from work.
They’re tired, have more things to do, and mail is just another reminder that they have bills to pay.
Now, if you’re like most people you read your mail front of the trash can.
The first thing you do is sift through the “junk mail” and the real mail.
Anything that's junk goes in the trash.
And anything that's real will be opened and read.
Therefore one of the most important things you need to take note of is:
Make sure you grab their attention immediately and it looks like real mail.
As you may have noticed, you can tell when something is junk mail.
These tricks have been used on us far too many times, so we got used to it.
That’s why the first thing you need to do is grab people's attention.
Don’t let them throw out your mailing.
If that happens, all your work building a list, writing copy, and creating an offer is useless if your prospects don’t open your direct mail piece.
If you can get past this step, the next one is to get them to read it.
This is done by clearly addressing their needs in the headline and reinforcing your statement throughout your copy.
The formula for this is simple.
- Attention
- Interest
- Desire
- Action
By having these things down, you are on your way to creating a successful direct mail campaign that will bring in results for your business.
Why Use Direct Mail
By now you've probably noticed that it's certainly a way to stand out from most real estate agents.
Yeah, you're probably still unsure as to whether you should invest in this strategy.
Don't worry, that’s completely normal.
This is a result of bad direct mail experiences over a long period of time.
When done correctly, here are the reasons why you should use direct mail:
The ROI is higher than most digital marketing channels
According to marketing charts, direct mail has an ROI of 29%.
It’s higher than both PPC and display ads.
While most people would think otherwise since the market is focused on digital right now, if you know what you’re doing, not only will you stand out, but you’ll get better returns too.
You can combine it with digital marketing
While you can certainly get better results doing just direct mail, we always take the omnipresent approach.
Today, you can easily take offline strategies and bring them online.
Here are some of the things you can do:
Collect their contact information: A lot of people are quick to say that it's hard to keep track of your direct mail efforts, but we disagree. these days, someone can read your direct mail piece instead of replying through the mail as well, you can easily send them to your landing page. that way, you can get them to enter your online sales funnel from your offline marketing strategy.
Retargeting ads: when people receive your direct mail piece, one of the actions you can ask them to take is to visit your website. If you have a retargeting campaign up and running on Facebook and Google display, as soon as they land on your web page, they’ll start seeing your ads on the internet later on. This allows you to keep marketing to them over and over again and increase your brand awareness.
Call Tracking: If one of your calls-to-action is to schedule a meeting, you can get a different phone number, that redirects to your main line, and when someone calls you from your direct mail piece you'll know that's exactly where it came from. This allows you to track how many people came in contact with you based on this method.
Best Direct Mail Pieces
As you know, the modern buyer has gotten smarter.
What worked in the past probably wouldn’t work these days.
In the old days of direct mail, people would send out packets and long-form sales letters that would easily exceed 30 pages.
They’d be filled with different fonts, colors, and formats in order to persuade you into a sale.
These days, something like this probably wouldn't work as well.
That's because we don't blindly trust a letter we get in the mail.
Before we make purchases, we make sure to do our research online.
We look for case studies, testimonials, reviews and so much more.
And the most important concept to grasp is that we don't spend our time reading through 30 pages of a sales pitch.
The modern buyer wants convenience.
If your message isn't clear and straight to the point, you’ll lose their attention.
Nobody has the time or patience to read all that.
The solution is to build relationships through direct mail by providing massive value to your prospects over time.
We buy from people we like, know, and trust.
These three things can't be achieved through a single piece of marketing.
You need to nurture your relationship with prospects over time.
The more you help them, the more inclined they are to do business with you.
And the best way we found to do this with direct mail is through magazines and postcards.
Magazines
It all starts with the psychology of this medium.
Magazines are known to be informative and educational.
While you'll certainly see ads in them, the majority of the content is not to make a sale.
They have a fair share of long stories, with vivid graphics, and go into great depth on the topics that are being discussed.
This makes it the perfect medium for building relationships with prospects because it’s entire purpose is to exchange valuable experiences.
Here’s why we recommend you start with magazines:
It’s a one of a kind experience:
There's nothing better than physically reading something in your hands.
While everyone strives to take all their marketing into the digital space, few people forget the enjoyment that you receive from using something tangible.
Reading a magazine is an experience in and of itself.
Having something physical to read doesn't require you to be worried about when your battery is going to run out
You can easily sort through the content that's meaningful to you.
You can skim it through and look for things that catch your attention.
And if you like something, you can lend it to your peers later on.
None of these things are possible with digital marketing.
And as a matter of fact, since so many people are used to reading content by scrolling web pages that when you give them something to hold onto, you’ll provide them with a unique and valuable experience.
Superior value
One of the good things about digital marketing is the cost.
It's cheap to send an email blast to your audience.
However, when you spend money on print, graphic design, content, shipping and more, you create a higher perceived value in the eyes of your prospect.
They see that you're willing to spend real money to provide them with a better experience.
Now, compare that with people who are trying to save every penny by keeping things online.
You'll be able to position yourself as someone who gives them a premium experience.
You're not just doing this to try and get a sale.
And you're providing them with useful and insightful content that adds value to their lives.
Cuts through the noise
Let’s compare email with real mail.
People get hundreds of emails everyday.
This makes it hard to get a hold of someone's attention in their inbox.
With so many personal emails to go through and respond, it's easy to overlook or delete something if it looks like an advertisement.
Now, compare this with real mail.
Most of the stuff you receive is personal and they come in small quantities.
Since most businesses stopped focusing on Direct Mail, this leaves you with a channel that very little people are using.
And the ones who do use it, are probably not doing a very good job.
Postcards
If you've used magazines to begin and nurture relationships with your prospects, the next step would be to move them towards a bigger commitment.
Unlike magazines, postcards have very little room to display information.
That's why you need to have a solid strategy in place of what you'd like to achieve.
The most common goals are to make announcements, promotions, and get readers to take some form of action.
From our experience, you use magazines to build relationships and provide value first.
Once prospects are used to receiving information from you, and they begin to like, know, and trust you, you can make them an offer.
As we mentioned before, the best way to do this is to combine offline and online strategies.
You can expect the best results by creating a postcard that asks people to visit a website.
You can then create a landing page specifically for that postcard.
This will allow you to track your efforts and get people to enter your online sales funnel.
Conclusion
People are putting a huge emphasis on internet marketing right now.
And we don't blame them - it works.
However, if you really want to stand out then you should go where people aren't advertising as much.
One of the best places to do this right now is in your prospects mailbox.
Direct Mail allows you to reach them where they can't ignore you.
Now, most people are quick to dismiss it because they think it's junk mail.
However, that's just a result of bad Direct Mail marketing.
From my experience, you need to give them something that’s valuable and easy to consume instead of a blatant 30-page sales letter.
That's why we recommend you start this process through magazines by providing them with insightful content and following up with postcards that ask for a bigger commitment.
When implementing these strategies, you should always strive to combine both online and offline strategies.
This will help you to be seen in various places and achieve the results you're looking for.
