3 Reasons You CANNOT Ignore Postcard Marketing To Your Geographic Farms

One of the things I find fascinating about working with REALTORS® is the way that their world is full of absolutes. One of the most interesting ones I frequently see is when a REALTOR® tells us, "I'm going to stop doing xxx in my marketing and instead do xxx".

These days, perhaps the most common one is, "I'm cutting my postcard marketing and going to do email marketing instead".

Given the state of the economy, and considering that many REALTORS® have had to cut back on their marketing budgets, this is somewhat understandable. Things like email marketing and social media are new and attractive. One of the things that makes them even more attractive is the fact that these initiatives are VERY inexpensive and in some cases free.

That said though, I suggest that REALTORS® should take a stance of "in combination with," rather than "in place of," when selecting marketing vehicles. I state this for three reasons:

#1 You Should Use Your Print Marketing To Organically Grow Your Electronic Marketing Database

Unless you have purchased an email list to market to (and if you've done this, STOP IT. It's illegal and ineffective), you need to find ways to grow your email list. One great way to do this is through postcard marketing.

To do this simply, use variable data printed capture codes on your postcards. There are a few Real Estate Marketing Print providers, including our Leading Agent Real Estate Marketing system that offer this type of service. How it works is this:

• The homeowner gets a postcard in the mail and it has instructions to go to your website and punch in offer code "xxxxx", to get up-to-the-minute market information for their specific neighborhood.

• At your website, the homeowner punches in their offer code AND their email address. When they do so, they are directed to a map of THEIR neighborhood and a real-time listing of all the homes on the market in their neighborhood.

So you are giving something of value to the homeowners in your geo farm area, AND you are organically growing your email database, thus expanding your reach. A side bonus to this is also that you are able to track the results of your postcard mailing campaigns, in real-time (thus giving you trackable metrics for this portion of your marketing efforts).

#2 People Respond To Different Types Of Things At Different Times Of Day

Social media email marketing is "interactive marketing." Postcard marketing on the other hand is "reactive marketing." Both types of marketing are important, because there is no "one size fits all" type of marketing solution that reaches everyone.

For instance, I might be at work all day, dealing with email, looking at social media, etc. BUT, when I get home, I might want to just plop down on the couch, read my mail, a magazine, or watch some TV. If I'm that type of person, and you are trying to reach me at my home, without a postcard campaign, you would never get to me.

#3 Print Is Still Important Because It Directs People To Your Online Efforts

One thing that you should always keep in mind is that the Internet is MASSIVE. While your SEO efforts and your social media efforts will help people find you online, postcards are also a perfect vehicle to point people in the right direction, where they can go online and learn more about you and your services.

If you ask me today if postcards are always going to be around and if REALTORS® will always be farming geographic neighborhoods with them, I suppose I'd have to say eventually everything changes. Just look at the newspaper industry and how turbulent and troublesome it's been for those guys.

That fact though is that the saying, "Everything in Moderation" applies here. There is no "one size fits all" solution for your marketing efforts. Being successful in real estate requires doing many things, CONSISTENTLY, and working hard. This is one of the reasons that real estate is hard. If it were easy, and there was just one single thing you had to do, to be successful, everyone would become REALTORS®.