Five Best Practices for Real Estate Postcards

We know that real estate marketing is tough. Our specialty is helping realtors build authority in an area by targeting specific neighborhoods so that they can generate new clients. This is a list of our five best practices for sending out real estate postcards. You can use these tips to farm areas for new clients or build relationships which exiting ones.

1. Make the Postcard Pop

Your postcard’s design needs to stand out so that it captures the attention of a potential client. If you make good choices in your branding, you can make prospective customers in your targeted area remember you down the road.

An eye-catching design starts with a great color scheme. Then, look at the layout. One heading and a couple of subheadings will usually do the trick. You want to make sure that the eye is being drawn to the right places, such as a call to action.

There are Real Estate Postcard Templates that can be used as a starting point. These postcards for realtors are a great starting point for your campaign.

2. Postcard Targeting

It’s important to target the right homes with attributes that are complementary to your campaign’s objective. You’ll get better conversion rates from your campaign by mailing to the right household addresses.

Targeting Examples for Real Estate:

• Farming for Customers using Area Mail: Save money on postage and lower your cost of customer acquisition by mailing to entire neighborhoods using Every Door Direct Mail mapping software. This is one of the most cost effective ways to send a postcard campaign. Carrier routes can be targeted based on household income, median age, home ownership, and type of home. Use EDDM to farm for new clients or to promote an open house.
• Mail 1:1 using Targeted Mail: We connect consumer data from 110 billion intent signals to individual household addresses. Realtors use Targeted Mail Software to target specific prospective clients based on 180 different attributes. For example, a real estate agent could engage homeowners who are over the age of 60, have lived in their home for more than 10 years, and have children who have recently moved out for a campaign focused on empty nesters.
• Engage your Loyal Audience: Stay top of mind by mailing a personalized campaigns to your existing mailing list of former or prospective clients is a great way to generate new clients. We’ve seen campaigns work that ask for referrals, provide quarterly updates with a market analysis, or simply wish the former client a happy holiday.

Realtors that use audience and location intelligence for targeting will have results from their campaigns exceed expectations.

This postcard from Century 21 targets seniors who are looking for help to downsize their home.

3. Personalizing Real Estate Postcards

Personalizing postcard campaigns maximizes their effectiveness for real estate agents. Your marketing initiatives can generate a 30% higher response by personalizing your postcard.

Try adding the neighborhood’s name, recent sales or new listings. Another trick is to include market trends, housing data, local testimonials, and other informative content that adds to your credibility. These tactics will set up your office as the local experts in the local area.

4.  Keep It Clear and Simple

You don’t want to overwhelm your audience. Postcards for real estate agents should be clear and feature a simple design. The most important elements of your postcard will be your offer, your call to action and your contact information. Don’t let those things get cluttered with complex design elements and wordy sales pitches.

Often we’ll see a realtor to try send a piece with a ton of different listings. The less elements on the postcard, the more potent the remaining ones are. Make your value proposition clear by removing distractions and highlighting relevant content with a clear call to action.

4.  Test, Track and Optimize Your Postcard Design

Each postcard campaign should generate better results than the last one. That’s because you should be testing and tracking each campaign to calculate the campaign’s cost per lead.

Realtors will see a radical increase in ROI by taking these three steps:

1. Add Tracking: Use a unique call tracking number and landing pages so that you know the source of every client. This way you can see exactly how many leads a specific postcard generates.
2. Experiment: Try testing different variations of your postcard. Send test campaigns using different targeting attributes, geographies or templates. Consider experimenting with just listed or just sold campaigns.
3. Analyze Response: Take time to analyze the results of your campaign. Collect response data from the tracking setup in step one to see how the variables affect response rates.

We frequently see direct mailers who can’t answer how a campaign performed or the quantity of leads received from a postcard. These steps allow you to see what works best and where you should be prioritize your marketing dollars.

Running a Postcard Campaign

Creating postcards for real estate marketing doesn’t have to be complicated. Using these tips will allow you to create an effective marketing tool to grow your business.

Ready to start designing your first postcard? Grow Mail’s team can help you craft the perfect  postcard marketing campaign.