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Marketing Your Property

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Omar Johnson
  • Jersey City, NJ
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Direct Mail Marketing for the Real Estate Entrepreneur

Omar Johnson
  • Jersey City, NJ
Posted Aug 3 2008, 10:45

Of all the different media available for broadcasting your marketing message to your target audience, one of the most effective places to get in front of prospects under certain circumstances is in their own homes. Marketing by direct mail allows you to do this as well as to establish a relationship with the prospect before they even meet you.

The basic principles of direct mail are simple. Craft a marketing message that can be written in a letter or on a postcard, obtain a list of the mailing addresses of members of your target audience, and mail your marketing materials to the list. Direct mail marketing is both easy to implement and scalable, meaning that you can send just a few mailings or a very many, and your responses will be proportional.

Do be aware, however, that a certain critical number of mailings will be required to get results; the normal range for responses rates to direct mail marketing is in the .5% - 5% range.

So where does a good mailing list come from? Generally it comes from a data service company that specializes in supplying this type of information. You can request just about any type of list you can imagine, but here are a few that you might consider:

- Owners of abandoned or condemned properties.
- Owners of properties with delinquent taxes.
- Owners of properties in pre-foreclosure.
- Owners of properties in probate.
- Absentee owners or landlords.
- Owners of free-and-clear properties.
- Owners of properties with expired listings.
- Owners of properties with code violations.
- Owners who live out of state

The list that you choose will be targeted according to the types of properties you want to acquire, and your marketing message will be targeted to the types of prospects you are mailing to. It should be something that speaks to and motivates the type of seller you are trying to persuade to call you, something they will identify with.

Your marketing message will include your phone number and instruct the seller to pick up the phone and call it. Make sure it is answered by a live person or you are likely to lose the interest of your prospect immediately.

The types of mailing materials you can use include postcards, letters, or anything else more creative you can think of to send through the mail. It is important to keep in mind that people often will not respond to your offer the first time they see it but will eventually respond if it keeps appearing in front of them. Therefore repeated exposure is key to increasing response rates.

Rather than sending the same letter or postcard over and over again, you might want to create a series of sequential mailings so that the prospects on your list will receive certain mailings in a certain order. This allows your direct mail pieces to tell a story and build confidence in the mind of the prospect.

If you are serious about growing your business then direct mail is something you want to be serious about implementing as one of the most effective ways to both get your marketing directly in front of your prospects and to scale your business to any size conceivable.

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