Is Real Estate Direct Mail Marketing Still Useful for Agents?

As the real estate industry continues to embrace digital marketing, from Facebook ad targeting to live videos, blogs to email newsletters, agents have more ways than ever to quickly connect with current clients as well as leads, which begs the question -- is it still worthwhile for agents to invest in direct mail marketing?

The Pros & Cons of Direct Mail

Pros

• Direct mail produces the highest response rate of any medium, with rankings exceeding response rates of all digital channels combined.
• Direct mail is highly scalable. You can spend as little or as much as you want in terms of dollars and resources, and you can target mailers to specific individuals or audience segments that you want to reach. Other communications channels, such as social media, are different -- there are significant time investments required in order to keep up social media profiles, and while you can target your ideal audience with paid promotions, organic posts are sent to all followers who may or not be a target for you.
• Direct mail provides a personal touch. According to the USPS, 47% of people say they “like to discover what the mail brings every day and consider time spent looking at/reading mail time well spent.”
• Direct mail is tangible and memorable. Brand recall is 70% higher for direct mail pieces than digital advertisements.
• Total mail volume has declined by 29.85% since 2006 -- a good thing for marketers, because less clutter means less competition and a better shot for your brand to capture attention.

Cons

• Direct mail has the highest cost-per-acquisition of any medium.
• It’s time-consuming to create a targeted mailing list. A bad mailing list can render even the greatest real estate direct mail piece useless.
• Doing it all yourself -- designing your mailer, planning your campaign, and executing it -- can be an exhaustive, multi-step process.

Many of direct marketing’s cons can be easily mitigated by using a third party printing and mailing service to get your real estate direct mail to your ideal recipient list in a short timeframe. QuantumDigital’s AutoMail Plus provides unique targeting opportunities while allowing you to schedule a whole year’s worth of postcards at once. You can upload your own postcard design or use one of QuantumDigital’s pre-designed templates, making the entire process simple and efficient. Additionally, AutoMail Plus cards include a link to a free online market report, which provides the recipient with useful, timely neighborhood sales data as well as a home value estimate. When a postcard recipient views the webpage or fills out a form to download the report, you get lead information straight to your inbox.

The AutoMail Plus program is designed to address direct mail’s bottom line when it comes to impact: direct mail marketing works best when combined with other offline and online marketing strategies. As a brand, your consumers expect you to be available through multiple channels and mediums.

If you want to stay top of mind as an agent, you can’t rely solely on direct mail (or any other marketing medium for that matter) -- you need to think about how to connect with prospects on all of the offline and online places they’re engaging, in a streamlined, intuitive, and thoughtful way. This means that graphics, communications channel selection, user experience, and messaging should all connect back to your brand and brand promise. Meeting your prospects where they are will help you consistently stay in front of them, building relationships and recognition that leads to results.

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