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Do Any of You do Direct Mail to Realtors

I send email newsletters, go to open houses, pass out cards, etc. My business is still not where I need it to be. There are a huge number of people I am not reaching. What do you all think about direct mail to realtors (a very definite target market)? I know that to the general population, direct mail is a poor way to go, but since realtors are a target market, might the return be better?

David Helm, Inspector, Helm Home Inspections Bellingham, Washington Licensed Home Inspector #272 WSDA Licensed Structural Pest Inspector #69844 http://www.helmhomeinspections.com HelmHomeInspections@yahoo.com

Posted by David Helm, Bellingham, Wa. Licensed Home Insp on 06/18/2007 04:46 PM

Comments (24)

24 Comments on Do Any of You do Direct Mail to Realtors

JUN

2007

David;

There are a number of discussions here about direct mail marketing

Post cards vs. letters vs.flyers Pro printing or home printing... etc etc. etc.

worth a look

I tend to think, they are people like anyone else, they have habits like everyone else, and so i bet most of them just toss out direct mail stuff like lots of people seem to do.

just saying..

I was thinking about doing that but with realestate attorneys .

Thanks Victor. I actually forgot about Russel's forum. I need to take some time and get caught up on it.

Joseph, Are there a lot of RE Attorneys where you live? Here attorneys seldom get involved in RE trancactions.

JUN

2007

David,

I do direct mailing to the Realtors in my area, and I get the typical 3-5% responce What has made that number jump a little bit is that I also have a source that lets me know who just got the real estate licence and I target them first. So far it's been pretty good. My thinking is if I get them first and do a great job with their clients I am theirs for life.

Shawn Martin

Thanks Shawn. Where do you get the new licensees? Here the local realtor association used to allow affiliates to speak at the newbies orientation but stopped over a year ago. Since that was the only real benefit of membership, I dropped mine.

I have a friend that works for a title company and she forwards all the new names to me about once a month

So as always, it's who you know

Yea I guess in this case it is

Yes there seems to be a good number of RE attorneys here in Chicago land.

So do RE attorneys do the contracts instead of realtors? It seems to me that getting attorneys involved would increase the cost of closing.

JUN

2007

Well in the big city here, I tend to think it is money well spent when you protect your self in any way possible especially in real estate. I ALWAYS tell my clients to have an attorney go through their stuff so they don't get jerked around.

In your direct mails, what kind of info do you send? I don't think a brochure is the right thing. I'm thinking that something more personal would be in order. This question is for everyone.

JUN

2007

If I am not mistaken, Scott Patterson has a system of direct mailing Realtors that I think has produced results for him. I have been thinking of following his example, but haven't gotten around to it yet (been a thankfully busy summer) You may want to ask Scott about it. He has had to build his business twice (he relocated) and knows what he is doing. I am working off of memory but as I recall, he puts a few cards and an introductory letter in an envelope and mails them to about 10 Realtors a week. Do that every week and you are covering some ground.

Tim

JUN

2007

I like the "ten letters per week" idea that Tim mentioned. I did my first ten to put in the mail tomorrow. I typed an "introduction" letter stating my qualifications. It doesn't take long to customize ten letters in MS Word. I put four business cards in each envelope. One of the four cards has a 30% discount coupon printed on the back (including an expiration date), and I mention that fact in the letter. (I have been printing my own cards so far. The sheets for printing business cards are very cheap at Sams Club.)

I created an Excel file to keep track of those I've mailed, and I used the Excel file to generate mailing labels. It should be fairly easy to crank out ten of these letters per week.

Hope it works.

David,

Let me know how it works for you I have done it in the past but have gotten away from it. I mostly use e-mail now. There is a service in town that will hand deliver a black and white flyer to over 1500 agents in my area for $40 buck a month $300 for color flyers, but I have a stack of new cards and brouchers. So I might start doing it again.

I have not had very good success with emails. I will try the personalized letter process that Tim and David described. I think the idea of a letter makes it much more personal (and maybe effective) than brochures. We'll see.

My experience with emails hasn't been good either. I've had maybe a 1% response rate and virtually no actual jobs from that. Of course, the good thing about email is it's free and you can add a link that takes them directly to your web site. The bad thing about email is it's free, so everyone is bombarded with spam.

Of course, a lot of print mail is junk too, but I'm thinking a letter addressed to a specific individual and from from a local business is more likely to get a look. (At least that's what I'm hoping for.) A mass mailing of customized letters would be time consuming and expensive, but I'm thinking that 10 per week is easily manageable. If I don't see any results in a few months, I can stop without having made a huge investment in time and money.

I thought about doing this: When I see a real estate sign in front of a house, write down the name of company, agent, and the address of the house. Then write a letter to the agent something like:

Century 21

Attn: Mr, John Doe

Street

City, State Zip

Month Day, 2007

Dear Mr. Doe:

I noticed one of your signs at 112 Maple St. I don't believe we have met, so I would like to introduce myself.

[Remainder of letter is a form letter stating my credentials; my experience; why you should hire me , etc. ]

------------------------------------------------------------------

I'm thinking that might make the letters feel more personal.

That sounds pretty good David. What I am thinking about is getting the local alphabetical listing of realtors, sending letters to the As (that way the letters don't just flood an office and look like a mass mailing) then the Bs etc. I'll be hand addressing the envelopes; also doesn't look like a mass mailing, and, in my opinion, more apt to be opened. I'll probably do more than ten a week though. It will be interesting to compare notes after a certain period of time has passed.

JUL

2007

Hi David,

Any results yet? I've sent out 40 letters so far to realtors, loan officers, & lawyers. (Ten of those I just mailed today.) No one has made use of the "30 percent off" coupon cards yet. On this last batch, I shortened the expiration date to see if that has any effect. (I'm going for a "use it or lose it" effect.)

So far, I'm getting 10% (one out of ten) back as "undeliverable."

JUL

2007

No results yet because I haven't started. Got busy so the program got put on hold. I'll try to get it going this week.

JUL

2007

This week I am trying the "new licensees" suggestion that Shawn made. The Texas Real Estate Commission has a data base of licensees. Since license numbers are issued sequentially, I worked backwards to deduce which numbers were issued in the past three months. I then downloaded the entire database (in ASCII format) and deleted everyone with a license number less than 573000. Then I sorted the remainder by county and deleted everyone outside my service area. Then I deleted all the names who are not yet associated with a broker. That left me with 9 names to mail

Wow David! You have computer skills I haven't even thought of. Data base management is way over my head!

JUL

2007

I came up with some more interesting information while messing around with the TREC on-line database.

Note: Apparently records are purged from the Texas on-line data base after a licensee has become inactive for some period of time. So the "inactive" statistic below are for those who have fairly recently allowed their licenses to expire.

Sales Agents
Number of active sales agents: 82,757
Number of inactive sales agents: 27,449
Percentage of sales agents recently washed out: 24.9%
Brokers
Number of active brokers (individuals): 36,048
Number of inactive brokers (individuals): 1592
Percentage of brokers (individuals) who recently washed out: 4.2%
Inspectors
Number of active inspectors: 4,243
Number of inactive inspectors: 209
Percentage of inspectors who recently washed out: 4.7%
Ratios
Active Sales Agents to Active Inspectors: 19.5 to 1
Active Brokers to Active Inspectors: 6.5 to 1

I was also interested to find that only three of the inactive folks were actually "suspended" (two brokers and one inspector) None of the sales agents were suspended. I guess that shows we're almost all highly ethical and competent, and sales agents are the most ethical and competent of all. :)

("There are three kinds of lies: Lies, Damned Lies, and Statistics." --attributed to various people)

SEP

2007

The ten letters a week might be a good start. Someone said a comment today to me, "You scatter many seeds and before you know it you will have a harvest"

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