Postcard Marketing for the Average Guy

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***tier3square.shtml***Postcard marketing can be very effective in the right context. If you're in the B2B world, I would question it's effectiveness. But it can be a great tool in the B2C world and I know from first hand experience. If anyone has some good B2B examples to share, I would really like to read about them.

As any type of customer relationship marketing, postcard marketing requires you to know something about the people you are targeting. Not just demographic or geographic attributes.  If you also know something about the timing of a situation, that can add a lot of power given an appropriately written message.

As I mentioned in my database marketing article, you can find a lot of powerful information with some basic data about sales and when they are made. Actually, most of that is discussed in a book I recommended called Drilling Down, by Jim Novo. He demonstrates how a small business with a limited budget can participate in powerful marketing initiatives comparable to the big boys. If you have this sort of information (and you can have it if you just learn how), the type of communication you use is maybe not so important. Whether it's a phone call, an email, or a postcard.

As a part time real estate investor...

When I got involved with a unique type of real estate investment a few years ago, I was lucky enough to have been mentored by a very seasoned marketer. His understanding of what to say, who to say it to, and when to say it was dead on. These are the keys to any type of marketing, but are just as important in postcard marketing.

I started off by learning how to use real estate data to identify those that could be in trouble after a few years. You know, little or now money down, mortgage 2-3 years old. My mentor helped me with a postcard that really got some results! The message was perfect. The target was as close as I could get. But, sometimes the timing wasn't completely right. But soon we began working on a different tactic.

Since timing was the problem, this tended to cost us a lot more than we should have been spending on postcard mailings. After all, we wanted to save money for the real estate. This new idea (new to me) required something that most people don't have access to. It required data we could only get on our local MLS system. Basically, you need to be a realtor and then have to pay for the service. Fortunately, both my mentor and I had family in the business, so this was no obstacle.

The concept was to send postcards to households who's homes had been on the market approaching 6 months. These people were, as our theory went, very dissatisfied with their realtor. People in this situation have a limited number of options. Take their house off the market, attempt to sell it themselves, or get another realtor who already has too many houses to sell.

These lucky folks got our postcard instead!

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Now put yourself in their shoes. For whatever reason, their house has been on the market for 6 months and it hasn't sold. Admit it, this is going to get your attention. And trust me, my phone rang off the hook and 7 out of 10 times the caller told me how much they hated their realtor! But the best part is on the back.

 
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This postcard got AMAZING results because we factored timing into the equation. This allowed us to locate an even more motivated group of sellers and it cost us less because we only had to send hundreds a month (sometimes less) as opposed to thousands. It wasn't just cost, my hands got numb handwriting the addresses and placing stamps on them (I like the personal touch).

Postcard marketing has worked very well for me. It can work well for you to, but you have to answer these three questions:

1. Who are you selling to

2. What do you need to say

3. When do you need to say it

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