Yes, do put your photo on your real estate business card!
Successful real estate agents market themselves in many ways. Without self-promotion, they wouldn’t stay in business.
I believe including your photo on your business card is one of the most effective things any agent can do.
Of course, I know some people disagree – and they will never put a photo on their real estate business card. The reason given is that it’s not “professional.” Doctors and lawyers don’t put their photos on their cards, so why should a real estate professional?
I believe you need a photo on your business cards because you’re not a doctor or a lawyer – and you don’t get clients the same way doctors and lawyers do.
You get clients only partly because of your expertise.
You get clients through referrals. You get clients because prospects read your website and your blog posts. You get clients because someone met you and liked you. And you get clients because people see you “everywhere” and come to think of you as the top agent, or the expert in their community.
The fact is, how people feel about you can play just as important a role as your professional credentials.You wouldn’t say that about a doctor or a lawyer.
The problem with name-only cards is that would-be prospects meet a lot of people. And not all of those prospects are good with remembering names. Most people, however, do remember faces.
So if you put a good likeness of yourself on a business card and hand it to a new acquaintance, when they see the card they’ll remember you, AND how they felt about you. Your name alone won’t do that. In fact, if they have 5 cards laying in a drawer, they might not be able to remember which one was “That agent I met that I liked.”
But of course, you haven’t met all of your potential prospects.
That’s why I believe you should use the same picture on all of your marketing materials – so that those prospects see you and recognize you over and over. The more times people see you, the more they’ll come to believe that you’re the expert. And if they’ve met you and liked you, you’ve got a double benefit.
I don’t think your photo needs to go on yard signs, because those are supposed to be about the house. But I do think it should go on your website, your blog, your flyers, your brochures, your postcards and your letterhead. And of course, if you place space ads in the local paper, it should be included. It also can’t hurt to add your photo to your email signature.
Now you might ask… “If using the same photo is important, why does Marte have an old photo on that business card?”
The answer is simple. My cards aren’t important because none of my business comes through people I meet. All of it comes from my website, from my weekly mailings, and from my blog posts here and on Active Rain.
