The key to having more fun in real estate while increasing productivity is to have systems in place to develop more prospects than you can work. The advantage is to pick the best prospects to work with; the ones that will lead to immediate sales and salable listings.

Direct mail can be an important part of the system because it gives you the ability to target a specific audience so that you are not paying for advertising coverage you can't use. You pay only for the coverage you want, unlike classified ads that go out to the entire market area of the newspaper, which is how they base their charges.

Direct mail allows you to personalize your messages to targeted parties, which will greatly increase the results.

Direct mail gives you the ability to measure your response rate to justify your investment. By knowing the results you are getting specifically from your direct mail campaign, you can make any necessary adjustments to increase the response.

Direct mail is a cost-effective method of advertising and prospecting because it can be done in small numbers and without expensive costs of massive mailings or institutional advertising.

• Postcards are less expensive to send compared to newsletters. A typical newsletter will cost about 30 cents each and will have to be mailed at either the letter rate or at the bulk rate. They may involve folding and stuffing in envelopes.
• Postcards are cheaper to mail than first-class letters. A qualified postcard can be sent for about two-third the postage cost of a letter and it will go first-class mail.
• Postcards have high visual impact when they are designed like a billboard with large letters so they can be easily read.
• Postcards are taller than standard size letters so they stand out when a person sorts his or her mail.
• Postcards stand out when they are printed on bright color card stock because the majority of business mail is either white or manila in color.
• Postcards are "fast food for thought" because the messages are short and to the point.
• Postcards will always be read because even if they are only looked at while being thrown away, it is long enough to read the message.
• Postcards are effective because the objective is to get your name in front of customers and clients.

• Plan your mailing strategy one year in advance.
• Print just-in-time before mailing.
• Mailing labels should be generated by computer.

Note: An alternate method of addressing cards is to have one card printed four-up on a page and to address them directly on the card. You'll save the cost of the label as well as the time it takes to apply it.

• A computer with the right software will act as an assistant by generating the mailing in minutes rather than the hours or days it has taken in the past.

Direct Mail Equals Direct Results

• Direct mail should be sent out often enough to remind the person you are in real estate. A bare minimum is once a month. You can't expect to tell a person one time and have them remember it.
• There are plenty of agents who sent out announcements when they started a career in real estate but never sent out anything else because they didn't want to bother their friends, relatives, or neighbors. You can't expect your friends to remember you're in real estate and you want to help them by mailing them gentle reminders.
• It is your responsibility to remind them you are in real estate. It is not their responsibility to remember you are in real estate.

• Whenever direct mail is mentioned, visions of stacks of thousands of mailers in canvas bags come to mind. You don't have to do large volumes of mail to get satisfactory results. In fact, a smaller number of mailings can be more efficient and more effective than large numbers.

• Having the correct target in mind when you start a mailing program is much more important than the volume of mail. Choose the market segment that will give you the best results and mail to them specifically. It will be important to realize that the strategy of the mailing will be different for different targets so the messages must be different as well.
• Target markets for real estate agents are past customers and clients, friends, relatives, neighbors, geographic farms, first time homebuyers, out of town agents, best agents in town, for sale by owners, and expired listings.

• The quality of the mailing is important when you realize the largest investment most people have is in their home, and they want to do business with a professional. The mailing should be professionally designed and typeset. It should be printed and not run through a copy machine to give it a crisp look.

• A direct mail program should not be started unless it is going to be maintained for one year. The people receiving the cards need several impressions before they start to remember the mailings. You should resolve yourself to stay with the program for one year even if no business comes in.

Tips on Direct Mail

60% of the success of a direct mail campaign is based on the quality of the database. It is very important to maintain the quality of the list by knowing to whom you are mailing.

If you have something the competition doesn't have, they'll copy it within a month. It is part of the "me too" society that we work in. You need to promote the results of your efforts and do it in a way that is difficult to duplicate. Create a barrier to entry by automating your process that most of your competition will find difficult to duplicate.

Have a strategy in mind whenever you develop a mailer. You must be able to "push the hot button" of the person receiving it. There are different market segments you will be targeting and each segment requires a different approach.

Your strategy with a person on your Sphere of Influence list will be to not only get them to do business with you, but maybe more importantly, to refer business to you. Since that person may not move but once every seven years, the likelihood of them doing business directly with you is not as great at that of them referring someone to you.

Keep your message simple and easy to read. You will only have a few seconds to make the impression you want, and if the print is too small or there is too much to read, the mailer will be discarded.

The $21,000 Idea

A friend of mine, by the name of Dick Dillingham, is one of the best agents in the country, and all of his business comes strictly from Spheres of Influence. He stays in touch with about 1,700 people each month using postcards.

One December he was updating his list and there was a name he did not have an address for. It was his brother's college roommate. It took a little effort and several phone calls, but Dick got a good address and started sending him cards.

In March, the brother's ex-college roommate called Dick to come out and list their home. At the end of the appointment as Dick was leaving with a $350,000 listing, the seller said, "By the way, the postcards work."

The seller had the home listed the year before with the neighbor across the street but it didn't sell. They had planned to list it with her again but started getting Dick's cards. They told him they should have thought of him before, but he was out of sight, and unfortunately, out of mind.

The good news is the house sold within 30 days for almost full price. Then, a week after it sold, the seller called Dick to tell him they had wandered into a builder's open house over the weekend and it was just what they wanted, so they wrote a contract; and they registered Dick as their agent. All he needed to do was to go out there and sign the contract. When Dick got there he was told, in addition to the commission, there was a one-percent bonus on the home.

Dick earned over $21,000 in commissions because of sending a few postcards to a very qualified person. It is critically important to get all the names we can on our list.

Pat Zaby is the President of PREP™ Software, developers of the REAL Suite that includes contact management, presentation, financial, and multimedia in one integrated package. He has been a REALTOR� since 1968 and has been involved with automating real estate agents for over 12 years and speaks to tens of thousands of people a year on the subject.

PREP™ Prospecting is easy-to understand, requires less keystrokes, and gives you more control than any other contact manager. It comes loaded with valuable letters, postcards, action plans, and telephone scripts that you can start using immediately. Wizards guide you through tasks effortlessly that are tedious routines in other programs. The data moves seamlessly throughout the entire PREP™ suite of products.

If you are thinking of changing from another contact manager, PREP™ Prospecting has automatic imports to transfer your data effortlessly so you can start enjoying the marketing power you expect from PREP Software. For information on competitive upgrades, phone 972-991-1998 or [email protected] or the website at http://www.prepsoftware.com.