Book Review: Sold! Direct Marketing for the Real Estate Pro

Author: Lois K. Geller
Publisher: Capital Books
Year Published: 2006
Rating:
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One of the most common questions I receive from real estate agents is how can they make their mailings more effective? They’ve tried sending out all sorts of postcards and get little to no response. If mailing to prospects is so effective, why aren’t these campaigns working?

The problem is that many real estate agents send out very similar types of mailings, like:

• Recipe of the month - how is this relevant to selling real estate?
• Just sold - Whoopee! One picture of the home next to a huge picture of the proud agent who wants to do the same for me. (Imagine how much more compelling these would be if they showed a picture of the agent’s happy client rather than the agent and offered a glowing testimonial.)
• Generic - A photo and logo along with some vague tagline about being “honest” and “professional” or that this agent can “find my dream home.”
• Free Home Analysis - Slightly better than the first 3 but what agent doesn’t offer this? It’s not enough to set you apart from everyone else.

Even worse, I’ve received mailings that are printed crooked or are difficult to read or are downright baffling to figure out the intended pun or cutesy cartoon. These campaigns do nothing to set you apart from everyone else. They aren’t focused on a target market. They don’t have a compelling offer that would persuade people to contact you. And they don’t make the case for why you are different than all the other agents out there.

For agents looking to increase their mailing’s response rates, Lois Geller provides a refreshing, step-by-step guide to real estate marketing using proven direct marketing techniques in her book, Sold! Direct Marketing for the Real Estate Pro. If you aren’t familiar with the term “direct marketing,” she defines it as

“a measurable method of selling products and services, generating leads and developing mutually profitable relationships with carefully targeted prospects and good customers.”

This is in direct contract to the way most real estate agents market their services. Most real estate agents:

• Try to reach “anyone who will buy my services” rather than picking a highly targeted audience
• Only want to talk with those ready to buy or sell now, rather than developing a database of future prospects who have raised their hands and said they were thinking about it
• Focus on “getting their name out there” in front of new prospects rather than regularly keeping in touch with contacts and past clients
• Have no idea how effective their marketing campaign is because they don’t have a system in place to measure the results

In short, they waste a lot of money on very ineffective promotions.

In her 12-chapter book, Geller explains the main tenets of a great direct marketing campaign so agents can learn to use this powerful marketing technique and get more responses and sales for their marketing dollars. The 4 pillars of a successful campaign include:

1. A target audience - In direct marketing, having the right list is crucial to your marketing success. The best list you can use is your own list of all the people who have contacted you or that you’ve done business with. If you don’t have one of these yet, you can use a list broker to rent a highly targeted list. As those people respond to your mailings, you can add them to your company’s list and market to them directly. Keep in mind that a bad list can kill your marketing campaign but a good list is only half the battle.
2. A compelling offer - Your offer is just as important as your mailing list. Your offer should be unique, believable, and get people to take some type of action. It’s usually not enough to offer a “free home evaluation” or tell people to “call you for a consultation” - every other agent says that, so it’s just the “same old thing” to your prospects. Instead, you must focus on ways you can add significant value to your prospect’s life if they respond. That might mean giving entering them in a contest drawing if they refer someone to you, providing them with free moving boxes if they buy or sell with you, or providing them with an extensive “free relocation packet” that includes great information on the local community if they call your office.
3. Great creative - Your marketing piece has about a second to grab your prospect’s attention before they toss it into the trash. If your mailing doesn’t look professional or tell the reader “what’s the benefit to me to read this?” then you’ve wasted your money.
4. The ability to test and measure results - If you don’t measure your marketing, how will you know if it works? Every mailing you send should have a promotional code on it so you can tell which piece your prospect is responding to and keep track of things like how many responses you get and how many directly lead to sales.

Note the order in which I provided those tips - your mailing list comes first. Most agents do it backwards by coming up with the creative and offer first and then go looking for a mailing list. Yet if you don’t know who you are marketing to, how can you give them a compelling offer that will capture their attention? In short, you can’t. Focus on who you want to target first - then, learn everything you can about that audience including what would capture their attention and provide significant value. Once you know that, creating a compelling offer and creative that gets responses is far easier.

Geller also includes a chapter on how direct marketing applies to advertising and provides plenty of great examples of postcards, letters and advertisements that get responses vs ones that don’t. Each chapter ends with a worksheet so you can put the chapter ideas into practice immediately. The book also includes a glossary of direct marketing terms and a resource directory.

Geller’s book is a great introduction to direct marketing for both new and experienced real estate agents. Those already familiar with direct marketing will likely pick up a few new ideas to put into practice. If you do any type of promotional mailings - or want to start and aren’t sure how - pick up this highly recommended book.