direct mail marketing

How to Make Your Marketing STAND OUT with Borders & Shadows!

Mar 24, 2022

Borders and shadows are an easy addition to your direct mail marketing pieces that make your home images stand out and draw attention to your agent photo or logo.

On ProspectsPLUS!, you now have the ability to add borders and shadows to all of our product templates including postcards, magazines, flyers, brochures, and so on.

The following are a few simple steps to follow to add a colored border or shadow to various templates on ProspectsPLUS.com.

HOW TO ADD AN IMAGE BORDER: STEP ONE

Choose a postcard or other marketing piece on ProspectsPLUS.com. Once you have clicked on the front (and back of your piece), hit the yellow button, “Click Here to Edit Your Template” to begin to edit your piece.

STEP TWO:

Choose an image in your template that you want to add a border to and click on it with your right mouse button. A drop-down menu will appear. Click on “Add Border”.

STEP THREE:

Arrow your cursor to the right to select the thickness of your border by clicking on it. A checkmark will appear next to your selection.

STEP FOUR

Arrow your cursor up to the word “Color” and click. A choice of colors will appear. Arrow up with your cursor to select a color and click on the selected color to choose it. You will notice the border on your photo change to that color. That’s it!

HOW TO ADD AN IMAGE SHADOW: STEP ONE

Then, choose an image in your template that you want to add a border to and click on it with your right mouse button. A drop-down menu will appear. Click on “Add Shadow”, then arrow right to choose your shadow thickness. Click on your choice and a checkmark will appear next to that choice.

STEP TWO:

Arrow your cursor up to the word “Color” and click. A choice of colors will appear. Arrow up with your cursor to select a color and click on the selected color to choose it. You will notice the shadow on your photo change to that color. That’s it!

To get your creative juices flowing, the following are samples of products on ProspectsPLUS.com that have been enhanced with borders and shadows.

The Team Homes & Life Magazine Cover with a photo border. See more, Click Here.

The Team Homes & Life Magazine feature property page with shadows added. See more, Click Here.

The Color Series Just Sold postcard with a border added. See more, Click Here.

The Seasonal Postcard back with a border added. See more, Click Here.

PLUS: When you have time…below are some marketing tools to help support your success.

1. Put Your Real Estate Business a Step Above with Your Own Branded Magazine

Homes & Life Magazine is a customizable magazine, with rich, full-color content, and a sharp, professional esthetic. It includes compelling, direct response-driven articles written by real estate industry experts, combined with engaging lifestyle content. Send out Homes & Life Magazine in Just Minutes – No Minimums Required. Or we’ll ship it to you.

Homes & Life Magazine is the ultimate “Coffee Table Lingerer”! …and, it costs less than sending a greeting card! – Click Here

2. The Free 12 Month Done-For-You Strategic Marketing Plan

The Real Estate Marketing Planner is a powerful 12-Month-Guide that strategically defines what marketing to do when. Four key market segments are included, niche Markets, geographic farming, sphere of influence, and past clients. – Click Here

3. The BusinessBase, SOI building system

The most effective thing you can do to build a real estate business is to become more visible, more likable, and remembered more often. The BusinessBASE™ not only checks all of these boxes, but it is a business building machine. In two easy steps, you can begin to build a robust sphere of influence that will provide you a lifetime of repeat business and referrals. – Click Here

4. The Free Interactive Real Estate Business Plan

The Free Interactive Real Estate Business Plan allows you to enter your business goals for this year and get a breakdown of how many prospects, listings, closing, and so on are needed to reach your goals. – Click Here

5. The Become a Listing Legend Free eBook

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Ready to take a vertical leap in your real estate career? If you’re looking for inspiration…and the tools and methods to dominate a market and go to the top in real estate…you’ll find them in this free book. – Click Here

6. The Take a Listing Today Podcast

Watch the ProspectsPLUS!, Take a Listing Today Podcast for actionable content to help you get more listings. – Click Here

Direct Mail Marketing on a Budget: How to Get the Best Bang for Your Buck

Oct 19, 2021

Why direct mail?

According to a CMO survey (a company that collects the opinions of top marketers), only 16.3 percent of marketers “are confident about recommending investing in social media marketing.”

If professional marketers aren’t able to justify spending their clients’ money on social media marketing, then you may want to pass for now, specifically if you’re working with a tight budget.

So where do you spend your marketing dollars when you’re funds are limited?

The proof is in the numbers

Direct mail marketings response rate, according to the DMA Response Rate Report, stands at nine percent to warm leads and five percent to cold.

In addition, the DMA states 56% of consumers believe print marketing is the most trustworthy of all marketing channels.

The email marketing response rate is one percent. Online display ads are even worse, at 0.30 percent.

Clearly, if you are looking for the best place to spend your limited marketing dollars, the answer is direct mail marketing.

How much should you allocate

Before getting clear on your budget you must understand your revenue goals and objectives.

As a guide, businesses spend, on average, 9.8 percent of revenue on marketing, according to the aforementioned CMO survey.

We see you wincing. But consider this: according to NAR, the overall budget item that agents spend the most money on every year is on their automobiles.

Cars aren’t exactly lead-generating machines, yet there you have it.

So, determine a percentage that you can feel comfortable with, based on your goals, and commit to spending that budget during the remainder of the year.

The following are three tips to get the most bang for your direct mail marketing budget

1. The List

For any marketing campaign to be successful you must know your audience. This is even more critical when you’re on a tight budget. Now is not the time to attempt to be all things to all people.

Call to Action Postcard Campaign is shown above

The easiest way to whittle down the audience is by first figuring out if you’re going after buyers or sellers. Make a choice.

This not only ensures that what you mail is relevant to the recipient, but helps you choose a farming area (subdivision vs apartment building, for instance).

Be very picky who you mail to. Throwing stuff against the wall to see what sticks is a sure way to burn through your budget with nothing to show for the time and money spent.

Once you have defined your target markets, use our mailing list tools to create your prospect list.

2. The marketing pieces

After taking into account how many mailed pieces your budget will allow you to send, it’s time to determine an economic format. Postcards are most likely your best bet. They’re inexpensive to print and mail.

If your budget is super tight, consider foregoing postage costs and delivering door hangers. The advantages to using door hangers include that they stand out more and because you’ll save on postage your list can be larger.

Disadvantages include the labor intensiveness of having to visit each home on your list. Also, door hangers aren’t quite as effective when used in neighborhoods where people routinely enter their homes through the garage.

3. Offer something

Come up with a compelling offer and feature that on your direct mail postcards. A free home price analysis, buy first vs sell first evaluation or a free home equity analysis are all effective options.

The idea is to move recipients to act or, at the very least, hang on to your postcard until they’re ready to act.

Bottom line

Now, when your budget is tight, isn’t the time to take chances with marketing your real estate business.

Jumping on time-consuming and costly social media bandwagons that don’t deliver your target audience or wasting time and resources on an email that may not be opened, let alone read, can wait.

Use your budget on marketing that has the highest response rate – direct mail marketing.

The Move-Up Market is a great market to target right now. Especially since, with our current sale, you can get the first 100 prospects on a Move-Up Market list for FREE!

Discover Move-Up Market prospects in Your Area and Get the First 100 for **FREE** with the Demographic Search Tool.

HOW TO FIND MOVE-UP MARKET PROSPECTS IN YOUR AREA.

Hit “CLICK HERE”, below (from a desktop or laptop computer) and choose the Demographic Search Tool.

USE PROMO CODE: MOVE100 to get the first 100 prospects free.

Discover Move-UP Market Prospects in your area, now, CLICK HERE!

This sale expires on 10/23/21. Please reach out to our support team at 866.405.3638 with questions or if there is anything we can do to help you with your success.

PLUS: When you have time…below are some helpful tools to support your success.

1. The Free 12 Month Done-For-You Strategic Marketing Plan

The Real Estate Marketing Planner is a powerful 12-Month-Guide that strategically defines what marketing to do when. Four key market segments are included, Niche Marketing, Get More Listings, Geographic Farming, and Sphere of Influence. –Click Here

2. The Free Interactive Real Estate Business Plan

3. The Automated Way to Become a Neighborhood Brand

Become branded in a specific neighborhood with a 12X15 marketing piece sent automatically each month to an exclusive carrier route. Watch this video to learn more or Click Here.

4. The Free Real Estate Mailing List Guide

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The Real Estate Mailing List Guide outlines the top tools for generating targeted prospecting lists including Baby Boomers, Empty Nesters, Investors, Lifestyle Interests, High-Income Renters, Move-Up Markets, and more. The Guide also defines done-for-you marketing campaigns to match these markets. –Click Here

5. The Become a Listing Legend Free eBook

6. The Free Online ROI Calculator

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Consistency and automation are the keys to success. Discover how effective direct mail marketing can dramatically increase your bottom line. Enter your statistics in our Free online ROI Calculator and click the ‘CALCULATE MY ROI’ button to see your results instantly! –Click Here

7. The Free Real Estate Marketing Guide “CRUSH IT”

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The “Crush It” Guide includes easy steps to launching an effective direct mail marketing campaign, how to create a targeted prospect list, the perfect way to layout marketing materials for success, seven opportunities available to target in your area right now. –Click Here

Want More Listings? Become a BIG FISH in a Small Pond

Sep 30, 2021

Social media. Pay-per-click. Email.

Digital marketing is hot with real estate agents. This provides an amazing opportunity for the agent who decides to take a different approach and become a BIG FISH in a small pond.

How do you do this? with direct mail.

Oh, I know what you’re thinking. “She works for a direct mail marketing company, of course, she will say this.”

Statistics, however, don’t lie. Direct mail marketing is not only strategic, but it can also be laser-focused to a particular audience and it works.

Why fish for listing leads in the huge ocean that is digital? Think about it; doesn’t it make more sense to cast your net in a smaller pond filled with people who you are certain ACTUALLY OWN HOMES?

Some things to consider

In a recent survey of real estate agents, 82% said their marketing goal this year is to “improve their social media presence,” according to Becky Brooks at theclose.com.

A worthy goal, but not very focused. Think about this: while they are chasing after Facebook leads, you’ll have little competition vying for attention in homeowners’ mailboxes.

With targeted direct mail you will not only reach homeowners. If you narrow your mailing list to only homeowners who have lived in their homes a certain number of years, or who live in starter homes or any other preferred criteria, you will have a far greater chance of taking listings than by randomly posting on social media.

For instance, by targeting homeowners who have been in their home for seven or more years, you’re creating a great list of potential fence-sitters to go after.

*Fence Sitter* postcard campaign shown above. To learn more, click **HERE**

Another thing to consider is the pandemic. In a recent USPS study, slightly more than 40% of Americans said that since the pandemic began, their excitement about receiving mail increased.

Nearly half of respondents said that a direct mail piece prompted them to go online to get more information about the sender.

The volume of direct mail plummeted from “… 213 billion pieces …” in 2016 to 120 billion last year. Interestingly, despite the drop in volume, the response rate skyrocketed nearly 200%.

You’ll have far less competition for eyes on your mail pieces and a better response rate than ever before.

Who makes up your potential seller audience?

Now that we’ve got you looking for listings in all the right places, what will you be sending? Keep in mind your audience – older generations, such as Baby Boomers and Gen X make up 75% of the real estate market combined.

When considering your direct mail marketing piece, don’t take valuable time out of your day to create marketing from scratch.

ProspectsPLUS! offers hundreds of marketing templates targeted specifically to your niche audience and designed by direct response experts.

Next, determine your recipient’s needs (boomers may want to downsize or move near their grown children) and offer a solution that is compelling (don’t worry ProspectsPLUS! has this covered for you as well). Check out the Empty Nest Series located under Farm campaigns.

Decide on the compelling offer to get those homeowners reaching out

A market update is always a good way to break the ice. Yes, it may be time-consuming, but it doesn’t have to be.

Direct Response Report, *Advice For Cash-Strapped Landlords*.

A simple chart of recently listeds, under contracts, and solds, along with bedrooms, baths, square footage, and prices, is something that hits my mailbox once a quarter. Do I read it?

You bet I do!

Then, there are the absentee owners to consider. Many have been hit hard by the rent moratorium and want out from under their investments. Take a look at what we offer to market to these possible listers.

If you have a freebie they can download or you can deliver, all the better. Offer them the Direct Response Report, Advice For Cash-Strapped Landlords.

Consistency is key in any lead generation campaign, so send just-listed and just-sold postcards when appropriate. Keep reminding them just how much their neighbors are getting for their homes in this on-fire sellers’ market.

FOMO (fear of missing out) is real.

Another way to keep those listings flowing? A YEAR ROUND Holiday Postcard Campaign. Staying top of mind with Your Sphere & Farm is easy with a Monthly Holiday Campaign.

And, Holiday Campaigns are ON SALE 10% OFF the first month – 3 More Days!

*Holiday* Postcard Campaign (shown above). Learn more, **HERE**

TO LAUNCH A HOLIDAY CAMPAIGN:

Hit the “CLICK HERE” link, below, to schedule your campaign (from a desktop or laptop computer).

USE PROMO CODE: HOLIDAY10 to get 10% Off at check out.

And, remember, YOU DON’T PAY for each mailing until it actually goes out (cancel or change up until the night before the mailing goes out). This sale expires 10/2/21.

Launch a Holiday Campaign Now, CLICK HERE!

Please reach out to our support team at 866.405.3638 with questions or if there is anything we can do to help you with your success.

PLUS: When you have time…below are some helpful tools to support your success.

1. The Free 12 Month Done-For-You Strategic Marketing Plan

2. The Free Interactive Real Estate Business Plan

3. The Automated Way to Become a Neighborhood Brand

Become branded in a specific neighborhood with a 12X15 marketing piece sent automatically each month to an exclusive carrier route. Watch this video to learn more or Click Here.

4. The Free Real Estate Mailing List Guide

5. The Become a Listing Legend Free eBook

6. The Free Online ROI Calculator

7. The Free Real Estate Marketing Guide “CRUSH IT”

Unleash the Power of the Real Estate Postcard the RIGHT Way

Sep 14, 2021

Ah, the humble postcard. So simple, yet filled with so much power.

For a time, it appeared that the selfie would replace the non-business postcard, but recent statistics say no.

In fact, in the recent Harris Poll Essential 100, Americans named the U.S. Postal Service as the number one most essential business’ in the country.

Never has this been more evident than in the real estate industry, which is seeing a resurgence in the use of “time-tested” marketing methods and direct mail is at the top of this list.

A late April Valassis survey found that 30% of consumers are spending more time reading the direct mail marketing pieces they receive.

There is an art to creating an effective postcard marketing campaign, though.

No, it’s not difficult, but there are certain strategies that work better than others. Let’s take a look at the most important of these.

It all starts with your audience

A Scheduled SOI Campaign is ideal for keeping in touch with your past clients and other VIPs in your sphere. And, ProspectsPLUS! offers a 3 extra closing guarantee when you Schedule a one-year SOI Campaign.

Postcards are also ideal for another type of lead generation – niche marketing. Decide on who it is you want to attract, buyers or sellers, and more specifically which niche of buyers and sellers, and launch a campaign.

The narrowing down of possible leads to focus on helps the rest of your marketing plan go more smoothly and increases your potential ROI.

If you’re looking for listings, find out the median duration of homeownership in your area. ATTOM Data Solutions’ most recent U.S. Home Sales Report shows that homeowners owned their homes an average of 7.95 years.

As we know, all real estate is local, so if you can find the data for your area, rely on that instead of the national numbers.

For instance, ATTOM also finds that homeowners in five Connecticut cities have the longest tenure, while those “… in Colorado Springs, CO … Oklahoma City, OK … Grand Rapids, MI …Denver, CO … and Minneapolis, MN had the shortest.

The Absentee Owner Campaign is shown above. Learn more **HERE**

This information helps you narrow your mailing list even further. You’re now looking for homeowners who purchased their homes at least six years ago (or whatever number is appropriate for your market).

How far back should you go?

“If someone bought last year or 30 years ago, they’re probably not looking to sell,” according to James McGrath, co-founder at Yoreevo in NYC.

“You want to be in that sweet spot of owners of 5-7 years,” he concludes.

The more you drill down in demographics, tenure, and the like with tools like the Demographic Search Tool (for niche marketing) and MapMyMail (for radial and pinpoint polygon lists), the more targeted the list and the better the response will be to your real estate direct mail campaign.

Absentee owners have been a popular target market this year. A targeted list of absentee owners in your local market can be easily created with the MapMyMail search tool (just select the “absentee owner” radio button in step 2).

We offer a number of brilliant Absentee Owner postcards as well. Make your marketing easy by scheduling an automated Absentee Owner Campaign.

Prefer targeting buyers?

Why not bring YOUR OWN buyer to the table. NAR states home buyers move within 15 miles of their last location. This means there’s a good chance your farm’s home buyers are renters located in the same area.

Geographic farming in some of the most popular apartment and condo complexes in your market is a good place to start. Narrow the search to tenants between the ages of 30 and 49. You might also want to narrow your target audience further, according to income.

Then create a targeted renter prospect list and launch a Rent By Numbers Campaign.

Ready to launch a targeted direct mail campaign?

Did you know our Farm, Get More Listings Scheduled Campaigns are currently on sale 10% OFF the first month?

Farm, *Get More Listings* Scheduled Campaign is shown above. Learn more, **HERE**

TO LAUNCH A GET MORE LISTINGS CAMPAIGN:

Hit “CLICK HERE”, below (from a desktop or laptop computer) and choose the Get More Listings Series of postcards.

USE PROMO CODE: LIST10 to get 10% Off at check out.

And, remember, YOU DON’T PAY for each mailing until it actually goes out (cancel or change each mailing up until the night before it goes out). This sale expires on 9/18/21.

Launch a Get More Listings Scheduled Campaign now, CLICK HERE!

Please reach out to our support team at 866.405.3638 with questions or if there is anything we can do to help you with your success.

PLUS: When you have time…below are some helpful tools to support your success.

1. The Free 12 Month Done-For-You Strategic Marketing Plan

2. The Free Interactive Real Estate Business Plan

3. The Automated Way to Become a Neighborhood Brand

Become branded in a specific neighborhood with a 12X15 marketing piece sent automatically each month to an exclusive carrier route. Watch this video to learn more or Click Here.

4. The Free Real Estate Mailing List Guide

5. The Become a Listing Legend Free eBook

6. The Free Online ROI Calculator

7. The Free Real Estate Marketing Guide “CRUSH IT”

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