How much marketing can you do on a 4×6 index card?
We have a fun Saturday routine. Mom gets a break and I venture out to the grocery store with the kids. The kids are obedient and fun co-pilots as we stock up with food and drink for the week. For them, the big WIN is at the checkout line: balloons and stickers. It does not take much to keep them smiling.
After our usual grocery store excursion, we returned to our car and found a card on the door. This wasn’t a business card, but a 4×6 special gram. Don’t you hate that? Doesn’t it feel like an invasion of space? Putting items on my door at home is one thing, but now on my car? Talk about an invasion of privacy. The only item I ‘expect’, but don’t hope to see on my car is a parking ticket. Anything else is a HUGE intrusion. I don’t really want someone’s grimy, grungy fingertips on my car door.
What’s next? Business cards secretly slipped into my back pocket?
This particular direct marketing blast was a ‘HOME FOR SALE’ flyer and it went directly into my garbage.
The Austin real estate market is ‘decent enough’ that I would imagine that ‘some’ people might be in the target market, but this realtor is REALLY casting a wide net to catch a fish.
I appreciate this realtor’s initiative, but the particular direct mail piece gave me a headache. Because I am interested in effective marketing, I put aside my derision around the ‘invasion of privacy’ and gave it a read.
Can you say too much? Let’s say it again: TOO MUCH.
I know the market is ‘challenging’ right now and some people just must move, but does all this need to be said to get me to bite? Does your ‘harried’ grocery shopper (usually with kids) have the brainpower to digest all of this data? If this home is truly ‘can’t-miss’, give me a few things to remember, not 15.
If I were designing this ‘flyer’, I’d stress the following in bulleted form:
- Price
- Square Feet
- Location
- Number of Bedrooms
- Number of Bathrooms
- Age of Home
- Map (Where is it?)
- Whom to contact for more information
- And (maybe) one line about why this is ‘the home’. (although this could be tough considering all the various demographics that inhabit the grocery store parking lot on a Saturday)
The realtor’s desire to include ‘everything’ on a small 4 by 6 inch card rendered it utterly ineffective.
The medium (drive-by drops on car windshields) and execution (155 words -yes, I counted- jammed on a small card) were both flops.
Let’s learn from this and deliver direct mails pieces that are simple, memorable, and shareable.
I’d be embarrassed to share this piece with a friend. And, please: stay away from bombing cars with your ‘can’t miss’ information.
Until next time,
Dan Naden