While most people are heading to the Internet, they are leaving out one of the most profitable offline strategies available.
And even though we told you how to implement this method, saying something and doing it are two completely different things.
You see, if you’re reading this blog post, chances are you take action.
You want to implement what you’ve learned and measure its effectiveness.
The reason why you got into this business is to make money based on your efforts.
However, If you want to grow, you can’t always depend on yourself to get things done…
Creating a direct mail campaign requires multiple parts.
Juggling all of them at the same time is counterproductive and enough to make any agent go crazy.
That’s why we recommend you search for outside help.
Here’s why we believe you should outsource your direct mail campaigns.
Make your campaigns work immediately.
Whenever you start something new, there’s always going to be a learning curve.
Direct mail is no different.
It takes a lot of trial and error to get your campaigns to work.
And with so many variables that impact your end result, you can spend months tweaking and optimizing each variable until you start seeing satisfactory results.
Based on our experience, here are some of the most common mistakes we see:
You’ve got the wrong list
According to the 40/40/20 rule….
40% of your success comes down to targeting the right people, and only 20% is your creative (copy and design).
Sadly, most agents focus on the 20% for the majority of their campaigns.
The truth is: you should only work on your copy and design these after you know who you’re reaching out to.
By focusing on the creative parts first, you're ignoring your customers and the way they think.
And that's a terrible way to approach things since the most responsive direct-mail campaigns are customer-centric.
You’ve got the wrong offer
In the 40/40/20 rule, the other 40% is your offer.
Now, even though you may have the right list, you’re can probably send them something they have no interest in.
And If you can’t get people to take action, then your campaign is going to be a flop.
You’re not testing correctly
While direct mail has a proven set of principles that bring about great results, there are no 100% guarantees.
Running a campaign is a series of never-ending experiments. You have to consistently put all of your variables to test to see which ones will get you the best results.
Yet, what do most real estate agents do?
They test 2 - 3 campaigns at most.
If one of them gives a few results, they keep running it.
If not, then they blame direct mail and say it just doesn’t work anymore.
However, that’s far from the truth…
If you want to be successful in this arena, you’re better off working with people who have years of experience and know what works and what doesn’t.
This will eliminate your learning curve and help you to focus on what really matters…
Gain time and improve productivity
Growing real estate business is hard enough…
Every day you juggle your time doing various activities such as:
- Paperwork
- Planning and coordinating events
- Meeting clients
- Marketing
And so much more…
What we’ve seen time and time again is this:
If you want to grow your business, you need to focus on revenue generating activities.
As your business grows, your goal should be to get rid of any task that doesn’t contribute to bringing in more deals and clients.
But what do the majority of real estate agents do?
They keep doing everything themselves…
This causes them to spend the majority of their days being busy instead of productive.
So this is what typically happens...
A bunch of them are advertising on multiple platforms.
They are on Facebook, Google, Instagram, and more…
Then, once they discover the results that direct mail can generate for them, they want to do that too.
It’s shiny object syndrome at it’s finest.
They’re always looking for the next best tactic to help them take their business to the next level instead of focusing on the few actions that move them forward.
So they take on direct mail and slowly start to add more work to their pile...
At first, this sort of action is innocent enough...
They create an offer, get their postcards designed, and think that 90% of the job’s done.
However, they forget that:
They need to purchase and clean a list;
Follow some fundamental principles in their copy and design;
- Get it printed
- Get it addressed
- Get it delivered
And test each one of these (and the variables within them) to make sure their campaigns work.
What started as a “quick way to attract more business,” became a full-time job.
Real estate agents go through this entire process in a sloppy way, and their poor results are a consequence of this mindset.
They focus on doing so many things at once that they don’t do any of them well enough.
From our experience, it’s much to do a few things correctly instead of a bunch of stuff in a shallow way.
In this particular case, stick to being a real estate agent and let us, the direct mail experts, do all the hard work for you.
It’s cheaper in the long-run
You know they say… time is money.
One of the biggest mistakes that real estate agents make is failing to allocate their time towards the most critical tasks in their business.
You see, as we mentioned before it can be tempting to want to do things on your own.
However, have you noticed that some tasks just aren’t worth it?
If you were to start running direct mail campaigns for your business today, think of all the time you need to invest in making this work.
First, you would need to learn how to write copy.
Now, writing good copy years to learn, within a couple of weeks can become good enough.
Then, you need to learn graphic design to match your copy with a marketing piece to attract people’s attention. In this case, you need to learn how to create postcards and magazines.
That’s another couple of weeks and software purchases later.
When all is said and done, you still need to get your message out to people.
You need to:
- Rent a list
- Address people
- Mail your pieces
- And so much more…
Not to mention, the mistake shall make along the way and trips to the post office.
All you have to do is calculate how much your time is worth and how much money you spend on these activities.
Were positive that once you figure out this number, you’re much better off hiring experts to do this for you instead of spending months trying to get something that’s just “good enough” to start.
Here’s how we can help: LeadMatch
By now, I’m sure you understand the benefits of direct mail and want to get a campaign up and running.
However, you’re probably on the fence about how you should approach this too.
There are so many things that need to be done, and so many businesses offer direct mail as a service.
So how can you possibly know which one is the best option for your real estate business?
That’s where we can help…
We crafted a service that solves one of the most critical variables of a direct mail campaign and which many businesses neglect: tracking.
You see, not too long ago, The only way you could track your direct-mail results were by analyzing the end results.
For example, someone saw your postcard and wanted to receive your offer.
However, this is the old way of direct mail.
It’s very simplistic and objective.
Today there are tools available that allow you to get an advanced measurement on the effectiveness of your campaign.
We offer a service called LeadMatch that allows you to:
- See who came to your website from your direct mail campaign and what actions they took (leave or take action)
- See who landed on your website and was not on your mailing list (segmentation)
Here’s how it works:
- Your website visitors are matched back to postal addresses;
- The people who didn’t opt-in to your offer will be retargeted;
- You now have a chance to market to them again and build a relationship;
- And as a result, you increase conversion rates.
In a nutshell, you’ll be able to win back people who were interested in your offer but didn’t take action.
And as you know, people do business with those they like, know, and trust.
Therefore by implementing this method, you can increase your chances of gaining clients since you expose yourself enough times to make them feel comfortable in reaching out and wanting to learn more about you.
This new way of doing direct mail will allow you to reach your prospects in ways that your competitors can’t even imagine.
If you’d like to be one of the first to use this in your direct mail and lead gen campaigns, then click here to learn more about LeadMatch and how it can help grow your business.
