Real Estate Foreclosure Marketing Secrets

Posts Tagged ‘Postcard Mailing’

Is there anything more stifling to a good real estate postcard mailing than a blank computer screen?

Consider this scenario (not an uncommon one for many a direct marketer in any area):  Your mailing list has been carefully chosen.  Your printer is waiting for your postcard copy.  And there you sit staring at a blank screen.  You haven’t written a single sentence yet.

Your first instinct is to panic.  (At least that would be mine!)  But don’t. Because you’re about to learn how to turn your competitors ideas and words to inspire you.  And in the process learn the one of the reasons crafting a sales letter is often called “copy” writing.

No doubt you’ve got a stack of postcards that you’ve sent out in the past or from your competitors’ mailings.  Now’s the time to go through them.  Go, ahead.  Gather them in one place and start reading through these.  This, you’re about to learn, is more than an exercise in idle reading.

Pick out the words, phrases, ideas that strike you as particularly good. Use these as your inspiration.  Recreate a headline idea.  Grab a good idea for a lead paragraph.  What you don’t want to do, though, is to plagiarize.  Don’t grab any sentence, paragraph or all the copy from another mailing wholesale and try to pass it off as your own.

But you can – and should – get some really good ideas for your own mailing.  Soon, you’ll discover that blank computer screen you’re staring at is taking shape as a sure-fire direct-mail campaign.

I learned this trick many years ago when I first started working for a direct mail firm.  The owner told me about his very first mailing.  It was several pages long.  He had never written copy before, but he didn’t have the money to hire a professional copywriter.  He wasn’t about to let the lack of funds stop him.

He gathered up all the direct sales material he had been collecting, pulled out his trusty portable typewriter (yes, it was that long ago!) and started assimilating ideas, phrases and other inspirational copy from these various other sources.

It took him several hours to write a couple pages, but finally he had a sales letter that had his distinct imprint.  And original document to call his own.  And he mailed it.

And do you know what?  It produced very good results for him.  And some 30 years later, he’s still enjoying outstanding success in the business.

And just for your information, he still has a hand in writing all his copy.  And he still gets some of his best inspiration from the advertising material that lands in his mail box.

So the next time you’re sitting at the computer screen wishing that a form of direct-marketing inspiration would strike you, gather up all the marketing material you can find.  It’s time to kick start that inspiration into high gear with a little help from your . . . uh, competitors.
By Mark Bradley

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Want to power up your next postcard mailing?

Then go one step beyond merely telling your audience what your real investment business has done for others in the past – have your customers tell them.

No you don’t have to enlist your former customers to telephone prospects.  Instead use the powerful direct-marketing tool called the testimonial.  If you’ve been in business long enough, it’s easy enough to ask a satisfied customer to write a couple sentences (it really doesn’t need to be any long than this) about how they benefited from your services.

A true, honest and compelling testimonial from a satisfied customer is much like a picture – it’s worth a thousand words.

You can try to convince  your audience till your pen runs out of ink that your service is well worth their time and energy.  But, face it, you’ve got a vested interested in telling people that – you want to make money.

On the other hand, a person who is volunteering their very positive experience is much more persuasive.  I’ve seen some direct-mail for products that is nothing but two page or more of testimonials.

You can give this testimonial a clever headline. “Let our customers speak for us.”  “Our customers say it much better than we can ever!”

The point is that your message will have a more powerful impact when you add a testimonial that praises your services.

Your next question, no doubt, is just where do you place these testimonials.  You may truly believe that one area of your postcard is simply better than another.  Well, as far as direct marketers can tell right now from research, no single area is really any more effective than another.

If you feel you don’t have space on the message side of your postcard, look to the front.  That’s right the area that’s reserved for the address.  Why not put a short testimonial or two on the front.

When I worked as a copywriter for a nutritional supplement company, we routinely placed to testimonials on the front side of any postcard mailing we’d create.  And I must tell you that our postcards received an absolutely outstanding response rate!
Of course, if you can place them any where on the other side as well it only increases the potency of your marketing campaign.

Testimonials tell your audience that you’ve already done business in a professional manner.  More than that, they show your audience that you’re just not generating hype. Anyone can send a postcard telling you they can buy your house in 48 hours.  But not everyone can actually do that.  If you have a customer – or two or three – you can tell them for you, then you’ve overcome their initial, innate hesitancy.

So, be sure to include one or more testimonials in your next postcard mailing.  If you’ve never used them before, just be prepared for an increased response in your real estate investment campaign.
By Mark Bradley

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Every good sales pitch contains several vital ingredients.  And your postcard mailing for your real investing venture is no different.  Every successful marketer uses a very simple – but highly effective — formula for keeping him headed in the proper direction in his copy.

As you progress in your direct-marketing career, you’ll instantly know it by its acronym alone:  AIDS.  It stands for Attention, Interest, Desire and Action. It’s very self explanatory. You need to get the attention of your reader . . . keep his interest . . .build his desire for wanting to sell to you . . . and then actually encourage him to act.

Unfortunately, even the best of us who write for a living sometimes neglect to emphasize the last component of a good sales letter . . . the call to action.  Too often, we simply assume that we know what the consumer will do.  The truth of the matter is that sometimes (most of the time, actually) we have to lead the reader to the final steps of our sales pitch:  the call to action.

And if you’re new to the writing of marketing materials, you may even feel a bit shy about actually writing a call to action.  It may remind you of those commercials on television. “And if you’re the first 200 callers you’ll also receive at . . . “

But do you know why just about every commercial on TV is written like that?  Because they work.  Direct marketers will stick with a style, a wording, an entire ad campaign as long as it’s pulling in the sales for them.  They take the phrase “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” to a whole new level.

For your postcard mailing to be effective, you must rise above any hesitancy about asking people to call you.  You can do every other portion of your mailing absolutely correctly.  But if you don’t remind people to act it’s doubtful if your mailing will ever be successful.

But more than asking them to act, you need to write your call to action so they feel it’s absolutely necessary that they act today.  In fact, they need to act while they have that postcard in hand.  Far too often with direct mailing the old adage of “out of sight, out of mind” applies.

If you can generate enough interest in your sales pitch to get people excited about the prospect of your service, then you need to capitalize on that while the individual reader has that postcard in hand.  Don’t be afraid to urge him to pick up the phone right now.

Give them a reason – even an obvious reason – to act RIGHT NOW!

Remember, there are reasons why the television commercials continue to urge viewers to call within the next 10 minutes.  They are reasons why incentives are given to those “first 200 callers.”

Create that kind of interest and excitement in your real estate investment service and your postcard mailing will generate you some substantial profits – guaranteed!

By Mark Bradley

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Every good sales pitch contains several vital ingredients. And your postcard mailing for your real investing venture is no different. Every successful marketer uses a very simple - but highly effective -- formula for keeping him headed in the proper direction in his copy.

by Mark Bradley Want to power up your next postcard mailing? Then go one step beyond merely telling your audience what your real investment business has done for others in the past - have your customers tell them. No you don’t have to secure your late customers to phone prospects. Instead use the right direct-marketing ride titled the testimonial. If you’ve been in commerce interminable enough, it’s unproblematic to ask a slaked consumer to create a twosome sentences (it rattling doesn’t nec