What Makes An Attractive Real Estate Postcard?
If you are a real estate investor looking for leads, you already know how important direct mail marketing is. But what can you do to ensure your real estate postcards convert as best as possible?
Direct mail marketing is a necessary investment if you want to contact homeowners and potential leads. One of the most popular mailings used by investors is real estate postcards. Regardless of the message you want to send to potential leads, you want to make sure your postcard is both eye-catching and informative. You want sellers to be drawn to your postcards enough for them to absorb and process your message. Sending out something boring or drab will not help your business unless your goal is to end up in the trash bin!
So what can you do to ensure your real estate postcards get noticed? Here are a few things that make an attractive, eye-catching postcard.
Clean Design
If you are creating a real estate postcard, you have to make sure you use a clean design that conveys your message. Creating a postcard that is overly complicated or has every inch filled with copy or color makes it hard to read and pulls focus from the message.
When designing a postcard, you want to ensure that your message is front, center, and clear. It is okay to add color and images but make sure you have a decent amount of white space left so it doesn’t feel overstuffed. Great designs often have big bold geometric elements that create clean lines that are easy for the eye to follow.
Eye-Catching Images
A good postcard gets views! You want to make sure your postcard stands out from all of the other mail a homeowner might get that day. That’s why you should include an eye-catching image or bold headline. Depending on your message, this image could be anything from a fun illustration to an image of you and your team to an image of the home itself.
Make sure that you select something visually interesting and also reflects the content of the postcard. If you are writing to introduce yourself, definitely add a photo of you or your team! If you are writing to let them know what you can do for them, create an image that reflects that. You want your image to make them want to continue reading while also getting your point across fast. A homeowner will only give a postcard a quick glance before deciding to either read it or trash it. Make sure whatever you include in the design catches their eye. Feel free to get creative! What kind of image would catch your eye?
Personalization
One of the most important aspects of any direct mail marketing campaign is personalization. Regardless of what channel you are using, personalized marketing campaigns get better results. Aside from creating targeted lists, you can also use personalized elements within your postcards and other mailings.
One way you can do this is with street view postcards. Street view postcards include a Google Street View image of a prospect’s home on the postcard itself. This is an extremely effective tool for getting your message read by homeowners. If you see an image of your home on a postcard, you are much more likely to read it and see why you are being contacted. This is also a great eye-catching image to include in a design!
Another way to give the appearance of personalization is to send real, handwritten messages. You can do this by using real penned technology. Real penned postcards are written by a machine using a real ballpoint pen, making it look like the message was handwritten by a human. This is a great way to get more eyes on your message or at least make the homeowner give your postcard a second look.
Branded Colors & Logo
When sending any direct mail campaign, you want to make sure you appear professional and your branding is recognizable. This is why you should always use branded colors and a company logo in your design.
Using branded elements will make it more likely that homeowners will take you seriously and allow you to build brand recognition through each subsequent send. Using consistent branding in all of your marketing efforts will tie all of your messages together. If you are also sending email messages to homeowners, they will recognize your logo across channels. That recognition is often the first step in creating a relationship with a potential lead.
If you want to play with color a bit, feel free to but make sure that you always include some branded elements to maintain consistency in design. If you send out postcards in a campaign you want to build up that recognition so that sellers remember who you are.
Simple & Direct
You don’t want to send a postcard that is covered in copy from margin to margin – no one wants to read an enormous block of text. If you want to write a novel, opt for sending something with a little more space, like a letter! Postcard copy should always be simple, concise, and direct. Let the homeowner know why you are reaching out and what you can do for them, and direct them to take action to learn more or get in touch. If you find yourself indenting for a new paragraph, you are probably writing too much.
Final Thoughts
Creating an attractive real estate postcard campaign is actually quite simple. Working with a direct mail partner like Open Letter Marketing will allow you to utilize several proven postcard templates that hit all of the design best practices. All you have to do is add your content, customize the branding, select your cadence, and you are ready to send!
If you choose to create designs of your own, always ensure that you are creating something that enhances your message and relays it in the most simple way possible.
