In an era dominated by digital communication, the debate over the effectiveness of email versus traditional mail continues to be a hot topic, especially when it comes to newsletters.
While email newsletters have become a standard in many marketing strategies, there’s a compelling case to be made for the enduring impact of mailed newsletters.
The following are five advantages printed newsletters have over emailed newsletters.
1. A Tangible Impact Mailed newsletters have a physical presence that digital communication lacks. The tactile experience of holding a well-designed, professionally printed newsletter can leave a lasting impression.
This tangible impact contributes to increased retention and engagement as recipients are more likely to spend time with a physical piece of mail than a fleeting email in their crowded inbox.
2. Avoids the Abyss of an Email Inbox Email inboxes are often inundated with a barrage of messages, making it challenging for your newsletter to stand out.
Mailed newsletters, on the other hand, don’t compete for attention like in a crowded digital space.
When your newsletter arrives in the mailbox, it can command undivided attention, escaping the often-overlooked fate of an unopened email.
The Market Dominator Newsletter Tri-fold is shown above. To learn more, Click Here.
3. A Higher Perceived Value Printed newsletters are associated with a higher perceived value. The effort and cost involved in creating and physically mailing a newsletter convey a sense of commitment and importance.
This translates to your audience assigning a higher value to the content within a printed newsletter compared to an easily created and dismissible email.
4. Enhanced Brand Recall A well-crafted mailed newsletter has the potential to enhance brand recall. The visual and tactile elements, coupled with the sensory experience of reading through the content, in hand, create a memorable interaction.
This can contribute to a stronger connection between your audience and your brand, fostering long-term engagement.
5. Less Competition Equals More Attention With the saturation of digital content, your email newsletter might get lost in the shuffle.
Mailed newsletters face less competition, providing you with a better chance of capturing your market’s attention. By arriving in a less cluttered space, your message is more likely to be noticed and absorbed.
The unique benefits offered by mailed newsletters make them a vital addition to any comprehensive marketing strategy.
The tactile nature, avoidance of inbox saturation, perceived value, and enhanced brand recall contribute to the high level of effectiveness established by mailed newsletters.
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 Magazin
Homes & Life Magazine is a customizable magazine with rich, full-color content and a sharp, professional aesthetic. It includes compelling, direct, response-driven articles written by real estate industry experts and 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
The Real Estate Marketing Planner is a powerful 6-Month Guide that strategically defines what marketing to do and when. Four key market segments include niche Markets, geographic farming, sphere of influence, and past clients. – Click Here
3. The Free Online Real Estate Business Plan
The Real Estate Business Plan allows you to enter your business goals for the year and get a breakdown of how many prospects, listings, closings, and so on are needed to reach your financial goals. – Click Here
4. The Become a Listing Legend Free eBook
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
Direct mail marketing for your real estate business is still vastly more effective than email marketing.
Sure, it isn’t free, which explains why we receive so many emails daily. Who doesn’t like free stuff?
The problem is the email burnout factor. Another is the fact that marketing email is impersonal and annoying to many.
If one marketing method brings more clients and, therefore, more income, it should warrant a marketer’s attention, don’t you think? The increase in GCI you’ll realize by using direct mail may just pay for the campaign.
If you think I’m biased, read on for the latest statistics.
What do marketers in other industries say?
If email marketing is the end-all, be-all, ask yourself why companies such as Google, Amazon. LinkedIn, Adobe, and more rely heavily on direct mail marketing?
To “… acquire new customers and keep current ones loyal,” according to Paul Bobnak at Whosmailingwhat.com.
Now there’s something all agents aspire to.
What about consumers?
A surprising headline from The California Business Journal Newswire: “People Give 65% Of Postcards In Their Mail Full Attention Vs. 35% Of Emails.”
Want more?
Direct mail advertising pieces are more often read than emails by all demographics.USPS
“A record 96% of all mail was engaged with. This is an increase from 2019 which was at 91%.” JICMAIL
75% of business mail stays home for over four weeks and is revisited an average of 5 times. MarketReach
Response rates for direct mail are compelling. In fact, they are five to nine times “… higher than any other advertising channel,” according to The Data & Marketing Association
One of the most important statistics for real estate agents is about your target audience, baby boomers. According to the USPS, half of those surveyed preferred direct mail advertisements.
Who knows what this current market is going to morph into? Whether a buyer, seller or eventually a balanced market, honing in on your target client via direct mail is a habit, you should start now.
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 aesthetic. It includes compelling, direct response-driven articles written by real estate industry experts and 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 6-Month Done-For-You Strategic Marketing Plan
The Real Estate Marketing Planner is a powerful 6-Month Guide that strategically defines what marketing to do and when. Four key market segments include niche Markets, geographic farming, sphere of influence, and past clients. – Click Here
3. The Free Interactive 6-Month Real Estate Business Review
The Free Interactive 6-Month Real Estate Business Review allows you to enter your business goals for the remainder of the year and get a breakdown of how many prospects, listings, closing, and so on are needed to reach your goals. – Click Here
4. The Become a Listing Legend Free eBook
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
Before you launch your next direct mail campaign let’s take a moment to review the three rules for direct mail marketing success.
Choose the right prospect list
Provide a compelling offer
Follow best practices for marketing piece design
Read on to discover how to launch a successful real estate direct mail campaign.
1. Choose the right prospect list
Reaching the right people at the right time is key to the success of any type of marketing, including direct mail. Choosing the people who populate your prospect list is your first job.
To decide who goes on the list, determine your purpose with each direct mail campaign. Are you trying to build brand awareness in a farm area? Generate new clients? Which type, buyers, or sellers? What niche specifically renters, move-up market, baby boomers, fence-sitters, absentee owners, or luxury market (to name a few)?
It’s critical to determine your “why” and “who” before you begin. “Why am I conducting a direct mail campaign? Who do I want to reach?”
Suppose you want buyer leads from a particular subdivision. Sure, homeowners may be thinking of moving, but it’s more likely that those currently renting are the best prospects. NAR states most buyers purchase a home within an average of 15 miles from their previous residence.
Or, you may want to target homes in the subdivision owned by absentee owners but target the tenants living in them with theMapMyMail tool.
2. Provide a compelling offer
The second rule refers to your offer, the second most important aspect of a successful direct mail campaign.
Retailers have an easier time with this one. Offering a percentage off, free shipping or buy-one, get-one-free are all popular.
What about real estate agents? What can you offer that might compel a recipient of their postcards to act?
A free report on the importance of timing your home sale. The direct response report,“Timing is Everything”is ideal.
If you offer enticing seller services, such as free home staging or a free pre-sale home inspection, by all means, play that up as your offer.
If you don’t offer free services, consider choosing one to use as your offer just for the direct mail campaign.
Keep in mind, however, that the number of hoops you force your prospects to jump through to take advantage of the offer impacts the response rate, according to Bob McCarthy at DMNNews.com.
The more they have to do, the lower the response rate.
3. Direct mail piece design best practices
“One strategy we use to get our highest response rates is to make the offer the centerpiece of the direct mail piece”, McCarthy claims.
Whether you choose to include an image of the free report or use text to describe it, mention it boldly and repeatedly.
Your message (its length and graphic requirements) will determine the medium. Keeping it plain and simple? A standard-sized postcard may do the trick, although jumbo, panoramic and mega-sized postcards stand out in the mailbox which makes for a genuinely lasting impression.
If it’s graphics-heavy and you’ll include substantial copy, using one of the larger postcard sizes (jumbo or panoramic) becomes even more important.
Choose a font that’s easy to scan as people sift through their mail. Many direct mail experts recommend using a sans serif font, such as Arial, rather than Times New Roman or another serif font.
Consider varying the font size throughout the text, with more important items highlighted with a larger version of the chosen font.
Additional design tips to keep in mind include:
Ensure your headline is bold and compelling yet short and specific.
Use lots of white space to make the piece appear to be easily digestible.
Sub-headings help guide the reader through the text.
Use a high-resolution photograph.
Avoid placing text over photos.
Ensure that your offer stands out and that your contact information is easy to find.
To save time, take advantage of our already professionally done-for-you postcard designs covering a variety of niches and topics.
4. Send it out . . . and keep sending
Consistency is key when it comes to sending direct mail to your prospect list. Whether you choose to run your campaign bi-monthly or monthly follow the laws of branding and keep sending.
Market conditions may prompt a change in frequency as well. New listings, just sold-homes, and other real estate news deserve an additional “mention” to everyone in your farm area.
5. Track your results
Tracking your results is vital to your direct mail campaign. One of the most popular methods used by agents is the creation of a dedicated landing page on their websites. The URL should be unique to the campaign so that you’ll be able to learn your exact response rate (number of responses divided by the total number of pieces sent).
Marketing experts vary when quoting an “average response rate” for direct mail. The most recent figure puts it at 9% percent. How close or far you are from that figure depends on how closely you follow the guidelines outlined above.
Ready to Launch a Direct Mail Campaign? Schedule a FARM, Call to Action Campaign in Just Minutes.
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FARM, Call to Action Scheduled Campaign (shown above). Learn more, HERE
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Hit “CLICK HERE”, below, to schedule your campaign (from a desktop or laptop computer).
Use promo code: ACTION10 to save 10% off the first month.
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).
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…here are some helpful resources we’ve made available 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
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
3. 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
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. Become a Listing Legend Free eBook
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 Free Online ROI Calculator
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”
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
“… why are so many business owners still creating, producing, printing, and mailing real newsletters?”
Interesting question.
There’s a perception out there that digital wears the crown as king-of-marketing-methods (placed there primarily by digital marketing companies).
Why would any business actually pay to mail a newsletter?
It’s Kim Walsh-Phillips, author and founder of Powerful Professionals, a multi-seven-figure business, who is asking that question. She hangs out on stages across the globe with the likes of Tony Robbins and Gary Vaynerchuk.
She claims that the effect of printed, mailed newsletters “… cannot be replicated.”
“My business empire has been built with print newsletters as its foundation and a centerpiece around which everything else orbits,” Walsh-Phillips explains.
“Well over 50% of my high-value private clients rise up out of my newsletter subscriber base …”
She’s not alone.
The Market Dominator (shown above)
In the category of “highly-effective” real estate newsletters, the Market Dominator is a branding masterpiece, that stands alone.
Not only is the Market Dominator automated, making your life easier, it’s updated every month with New, relevant content, including direct response offers to promote inbound calls.
Visually, the Dominator packs a punch with its 12 x 15 mega-size is impossible to miss in the mailbox.
If you’re interested in adding a newsletter to your marketing arsenal this year, the Market Dominator is the ideal choice.
Here’s the proof
“Print and direct mail marketing boasts a 9% customer response rate compared to other digital marketing channels, which hover around 1% … or less,” according to a study cited at rcbrayshaw.com.
The Direct Mail Marketing Association finds a minimum 15% ROI from direct mail pieces.
You do understand, don’t you, that your email newsletters are most likely not even opened? A recent study by SuperOffice Marketing finds that only a smidge over 22 percent of business emails were opened.
The response rate, or CTR, is even more abysmal, at slightly more than 2.5%. Compare that to direct mail’s response rate of 9%.
When you think about why there’s such a vast difference, it makes sense.
“Direct mail advertisements give people time to think,” notes Chris Barr, director of marketing for Taradell, LLC at neilpatel.com.
“With print advertisements, we’re not anticipating the next click … We’re not bombarded with competing ads from half a dozen alternatives who bid for our attention … It’s quiet,” he concludes.
Don’t have a newsletter?
While we consider the real estate newsletter as the cornerstone of any successful real estate practice, we are a bit biased. Our Community Newsletters are packed with valuable information for both potential clients and homeowners.
You can even upload your own creation to our website, and we’ll take it from there.
Here are some tips to ensure you create a successful real estate newsletter:
Keep it engaging
Create an eye-catching design.
Keep content focused on one audience. You may need to create several iterations of your newsletter; one for buyers, one for sellers, one for past clients, one for tenants, another for landlords, etc.
Use lots of photos.
Brand it.
Ensure the content is professionally written and of high value.
Give them the news they want, not what you want them to know.
Sneak in a testimonial or two here and there.
Add an occasional human-interest story.
The Market Dominator
Make 2021 the year you ditch the email newsletters that don’t get opened, let alone read and focus on a newsletter that delivers on ROI like the Market Dominator.
Need help targeting a specific niche of buyers or sellers? Use our prospect list tools to create the ideal list (it’s easy) or call our support team for assistance at 866.405.3638!
PLUS: When you have time…here are some helpful resources we’ve made available 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
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
3. 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
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. Become a Listing Legend Free eBook
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 Free Online ROI Calculator
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
