When you prospect for new real estate clients, should you use letters or postcards?
Real estate prospecting letters allow you to say a bit more than
you can say on a postcard. They let you enter into the mental conversations that your prospects may be having as they read your message. They let you offer up a bit of free information and allow you to demonstrate your expertise.
The drawback – those who aren’t interested in a message from a real estate professional will toss the letters without opening them.
Does that matter? Probably not. People who aren’t interested in real estate are not your potential prospects.
Real estate prospecting postcards have a benefit in that they don’t have to be opened to be noticed and perhaps read. The recipient has to look at least briefly at your message in order to pick it up and toss it.
The drawback is that there isn’t room to say much. The message must necessarily be brief. You can’t do much more than call attention to yourself and perhaps offer one benefit.
Again, if they aren’t interested in buying or selling at the moment, the card will find its way to the trash.
But that doesn’t make the postcards a waste of time and money. If you’re consistent in your mailings, those people will begin to subconsciously recognize you as a persistent, knowledgeable real estate professional. Your face and your name may come to mind on that day when they do begin to think of buying or selling a home.
One of the best uses for real estate prospecting postcards is “Just listed,” “Under contract,” and “Just sold” cards. When the people in your geographic territory or niche keep seeing your name and face associated with success, they can’t help but begin to think of you as an agent who gets things done.
Follow those up with letters that are obviously from you, and those who are interested in selling will be enticed to open and read your messages.
While most of the prospecting letters I sell are letter size, many are short enough for use on oversized postcards. And I do recommend mixing it up, since you can’t control or predict your potential prospects’ habits and don’t know their preferences.
Image courtesy of mapichai at FreeDigitalPhotos.net
