Direct mail, at first glance, seems to have little in common with online marketing. But that doesn’t mean that there are not some cross over points that are important to keep in mind when you’re taking your real estate business to the web.

1. Have a targeted message. When you’re sending just listed postcards to those in the neighborhood of a home, what you’re really saying is “If you know people who have expressed an interest in living nearby, have them give me a call.” When you’re marketing your real estate business online, try to focus on having a clear message.
2. Recognize that part of your goal is just to get your name out there. Sending just sold postcards in a direct mail campaign isn’t so much about telling people that there’s someone new in their neighborhood, it’s about getting the word out that regardless of what the market is like in your area you sold a home - it’s about letting folks know that, if they’re thinking about selling you’re there for them. This is a good thing to keep in mind when you’re designing web pages and writing blog posts.
3. Sometimes there’s going to be a need to use clear information, other times you’re going to want to be a bit vague to attract more attention. This is something to keep in mind when you’re creating pay per click campaigns. Just as you may send out a direct mail campaign to announce a homebuyers seminar, and when you do you’ll include the basics of what they’ll find without the specifics, when you launch a PPC campaign, you’ll need to know which information will bait people who are interested enough to act.

Those three tie-ins between direct mail and marketing your business online are meant to get you thinking: what other connections between the two do you see?

Direct mail has long been a staple of real estate marketing. It’s always been a way of reaching out to those who live near a property you’ve just listed so that you can help get them on board and talking with their friends and acquaintances who have wanted to live in the area. It’s always been a great way of reaching out to FSBO sellers to tell them more about the services you offer.

Email marketing - electronic direct mail, if you will - works in a very similar sort of way. With an email marketing campaign, you can be sure that the buyers you are working with receive an email - with photos and details - of properties that are similar to what they are looking for.

That sort of relevancy is key to effectively marketing with email: you need to be sure that your prospects and leads are receiving the information that will help them with their search for a home. When someone signs up for your mailing list, consider the confirmation page that they land on when they subscribe: let them choose which specific newsletters they will receive.

Once they’ve subscribed, send a clear welcome message that tells them exactly what they can expect to find. This will help you to develop a strong first impression - and from that point forward, you’ll want to be sure that you’re living up to that impression and building your relationship with them.

Whether you’re providing sellers’ tips, suggestions for buyers so that they can better identify what they want and need in a home or helping to keep investors posted about the market in your area, with an electronic newsletter that’s well-scheduled, detailed and relevant, you can be sure that you’ll get results comparable to those from traditional direct mail campaigns.

When you buy a list of leads for your direct mail campaign you’re able to target your mailings to a certain demographic. This is a good thing, as you know: if you’ve got listing for condos that are available, you’ll want to be sure that you’re sending just listed postcards to a specific target - baby boomers looking to downsize or young married couples looking for a first home, depending on the condominium. If you’ve got larger properties, you want to be sure that new listing information makes it into the hands of those families who need the space or to those who have the income to make purchasing the property more viable.

This is a benefit that a great deal of online marketing doesn’t afford you - yet. Writing a blog only for young couples who may be interested in purchasing a home doesn’t make sense if your goal is to work with a wide range of people - unless you keep multiple blogs. Placing online classified ads in Craigslist, for example, is likely not going to help you reach a broad group of users; because often the site doesn’t attract a broad demographic - and the group of people you’re trying to reach may not use the site.

Marketing on the web is important; it’s a vital part of getting the word out to a large number of prospective buyers and sellers. Email marketing allows you the most comparable benefit to direct mail because you can sort out your database if you have a fair amount of information about your subscribers. Direct mail lets you know that the leads you’re contacting are right for the properties, allowing you to be as specific as possible in your marketing campaigns.

When most real estate agents think about direct mail their focus is on sending out Just Listed postcards or Just Sold postcards - a little something that lets buyers see that there’s a new home on the market in an area they’ve expressed interest in or that lets sellers see that there are still buyers out there (or, of course, just to let homeowners know that they’ve got new neighbors). In other words, the direct mail piece itself is the marketing material.

However, does that necessarily mean that you should only focus on physical locations or your services when you send out a mailing? Of course it doesn’t. Direct mail isn’t just about getting the word out about a home, a new agent in your business or even about your services: direct mail is a marketing opportunity - and that means that you should be focused on using it to its full potential.

When you send out postcards or promotional items, are you including links to your website? Are you adding a line that announces your new electronic newsletter? Are you directing people to your blog where you’re adding fresh listings along with buying and selling tips?

If you answered no to one or more of those questions, you could be getting more out of direct mail. Simply put, when you send out a postcard, people are going to look at it - even if they aren’t completely committed to buying, selling or talking with a real estate agent. If you’ve got links to your website (and a web address that’s easy to remember), you’ll see a spike in your traffic, allowing you to market your services more effectively.

Real estate agents and brokers who are new to an area are going to think about marketing their business online, but they’ll also want to keep the old marketing standbys in mind. Direct mail continues to be a valuable resource for many agents and brokers - so long as they remember that the letters they send out are more than just letters.

A farm letter, in the estimation of many agents, is a chance to send out a quick note that helps them let buyers and sellers know who they are. That definition is true, but it’s not completely true: the letter also needs to be a bit of a sales pitch. Your farm letter needs to be more than just an introduction, it needs to have an objective.

In other words, when you launch a direct mail campaign, what are you hoping to accomplish? If you’re sending the letters to FSBO sellers in the area, your objective should be to get them to list with you - an agent - instead. If you’re sending letters to prospective buyers (especially in a market where buying isn’t exactly a priority for them), you need your letter to explain all of the benefits of buying and of working with you to get that task done.

As a result, if you’re going to be launching a direct mail campaign, you’re going to want to take a look at common copywriting tools and use them while you’re writing the letter. If you’re not comfortable writing a sales pitch, you may even want to work with a copywriter who can craft your farm letter for you.

After all, do you really just want to introduce yourself or are you trying to attract clients?

When you work in real estate, you tend to have a fair number of leads and contacts within your farm area. Some of them you use when you’ve got a great condo on the market and you’re looking for empty-nesters who might be looking to downsize their home. Some of them you use when you’re putting a home on the market and you want to give folks in the neighborhood a chance to talk with their family members and friends who just might be looking to move into the area.

So here’s the question: you have leads and addresses, you use direct mail; why aren’t you using direct mail to market your real estate website or blog?

Maybe you have a knack for design and you do what you can to create eye-catching postcards and brochures; why not make sure that you’re adding your website address to the postcards that you send so that people in your farm area are aware of it? Maybe you have a real estate assistant who is fantastic at creating great marketing materials; why not see what he or she can do to market your website?

Not all internet marketing needs to take place online - something that those who are already using direct mail to get the word out about their sites already know. Some of the most successful campaigns out there are those that combine multiple forms of marketing that are proven to work. By combining direct mail and internet marketing techniques, you’ll be able to generate even more web traffic and more leads and clients as a result.

Real estate has long been one of those fields where the best way to get the word out about what you do involves direct mail. There are Just Listed postcards that you’ll send out when you get a new listing in the area. In part, these postcards that you send out within a neighborhood are baiting, trying to grab the attention of homeowners who are looking to upsize or downsize their homes; in part they serve to remind people within a community who may be thinking about selling that you’re representing another seller in the community.

Likewise, there are the Just Sold postcards. These direct mail pieces also go out for more than one reason. In part, the point is to get the word out that people will be getting a new neighbor and encourage them to be welcoming. On another level, admit it: when you send out a Just Sold postcard, the goal is to let people in the neighborhood see your success so that, if they are thinking about selling, they think about you.

Direct mail though, does not need to be only about printed mailings: it’s also possible for real estate professionals who want to get the word out about the products and services that they offer their clients by direct marketing with email.

The basic principal is very similar to traditional marketing: you gather leads (in the case of email marketing, typically you gather them from your website or blog), and you send a targeted message to them. Like Just Listed postcards, a Just Listed electronic newsletter can be sent to subscribers - a newsletter than includes pictures and information about available homes along with home buying tips. A newsletter targeted to sellers can provide information and success stories that will help them to make more progress or keep them from becoming discouraged.

Just as direct marketing takes many forms - and sometimes it takes a while to get your message “just so” - email marketing does too. There are rules that you’ll need to follow and “best practice policies” to remain aware of. However, what you’ll find is that it can be just as effective - sometimes even moreso.

When you launch a direct mail campaign in your area, there are going to be a few key points that you take a closer look at.

1. You’ll want to identify your target audience
2. You’ll need to define your message
3. You’ll need to design eye catching marketing materials
4. You’ll want to get your message out there
5. You’ll need to track the response to your message so that you know whether or not it’s effective

When you’re developing an internet marketing strategy for your real estate business, you’ll want to look at all of those same points.

Identifying your target audience: Who are you trying to reach with your website? Which buyers and sellers are most going to benefit from what you have to offer? Your website needs to be designed with this in mind.

Likewise, after you know who you are trying to reach you’ll want to figure out exactly what you want to tell them. Each particular internet marketing campaign that you start will need to have a clearly defined message.

Your marketing strategy will help you to determine the right design for your website and how to position your site online. That means you’ll need to work with someone who can help you create great content and to make sure that people see it - thanks to targeted PPC campaigns, keywords and more.

It’s only after you know what you want to do with a marketing campaign that you can see whether or not it’s working for you, and the right partner can track results, manage your campaigns and make sure that they’re working for you.

Direct mail: for years, postcards, newsletters and information sent directly to the mailbox of your prospective buyers and sellers has a been a great way of approaching your leads and turning them into clients.

More and more often, these days, even direct mail has taken on a new face: electronic newsletters. With electronic newsletters, you’re able to accomplish a number of things.

First, you’re able to ensure that you’re providing valuable information to your desired audience: you’re going to be sending information to people who have requested it from your real estate website.

Next, you’ll be able to save money because there are no printing costs associated with electronic newsletters. In exchange, however, you build customer loyalty, market your services and provide valuable information.

That doesn’t mean, however, that you won’t be able to have an electronic newsletter that looks great and holds the reader’s attention: for that, it’s all a matter of finding the right experienced partner to help manage your campaign.

With the right design, the right frequency - weekly or monthly - and a service that allows you to ensure that your message is “can spam” compliant, you can be sure that you’re effectively marketing your real estate business. It’s as simple as that.

Direct mail was once the favored approach for marketers everywhere: with it, you could get your information in a tangible form to those prospective clients who were likely to act on it.

For those of you in real estate, your direct mail campaigns include Just Listed and Just Sold Postcards, sending out schedules for a local baseball team with your contact information to the people on your lead lists.

However, along with marketing your real estate business on the web comes a need for a new direct mail tool. Enter email marketing.

By creating an opt in list, offering valuable information to newsletter subscribers and offering a few perks - like a discount to a certified home stager, for example - along with the information, you’ll find that you’re able to reach out to the people who visit your site in a whole new way.