Believe you can’t get noticed with direct mail? Think again.
Looking across the headlines these days, there are some highly-evident truisms:
- There’s strife in the Middle East
- Our elected leaders are squabbling
- It’s a tough market to sell a home
A quick drive around most neighborhoods will find ‘For Sale/For Rent’ signs placed in many front yards. In some cases, these signs try to command attention for a 6 to 9 month period.
It’s a stressful time for many. People are concerned about their jobs. Homeowners are underwater with their current properties and don’t want to lose money in transactions.
My hope is that we begin to start to see an uptick this home buying season, or shortly thereafter.
But for now, if your neighborhood is like mine, realtors are always on the lookout for new business. They’ve the stats to show the age of a neighborhood and likelihood that a particular homeowner might want to upgrade or downgrade into a different home.
Our e-mail box is clamoring with ‘buy or sell now’ noise, and we’ll typically ignore old (newspapers) media real estate advertisements, unless we have a heavy block of leisure time on a lazy Sunday afternoon.
A tactic that realtors still use to get our attention is direct mail.
Recently, a direct mail piece arrived in my mailbox, hit me square between the eyes and had me thinking: That’s good marketing!!
- It uses color and shape effectively in a readable, memorable way.
- The headline puts you in an unrelenting vice grip: “Your Home sold in 88 days or I’ll pay you $2,000!
- This realtor’s track record is impressive. Sold in 88 days! How about 19 days? 18 days? 4 days? Now that’s over performance.
I like the simplicity and confidence from this ‘flyer’ and realtor. Don’t discount the effectiveness of a well-positioned direct mail piece. The old adage goes: “If you don’t believe in yourself, no one else will.”
Until next time,
Dan Naden
