So many real estate teams and agents are eager to place most of their theoretical eggs in the email marketing basket when they want to reach prospective clients. Although there are plenty of valid reasons why email has plenty of advantages, it doesn’t necessarily mean that it is the only strategy that agents can follow.
In fact, there are three key reasons that direct mail can be just as effective when it comes to reaching prospective clients. In this post, we will provide more information regarding why the combination of direct mail and email marketing campaigns is a worthwhile strategy:
Direct Mail Cannot Be Filtered By Spam or Secondary E-mail Folders
Just about every free and paid email service provides more than the simple “Inbox” folder nowadays. For example, Gmail now includes a Promotions and Social Folders, while Outlook has Focused and Other folders.
These folders act as secondary filters and will route certain categories of emails into a specific folder (e.g. Facebook notifications will usually end up in the Social folder). As a result, unless your mailing list sifts through every folder and sees every email, the chances of your emails even being seen decreases.
The same cannot be said for direct mail postcards. Since direct mail can be intermingled with important mail, most of your postcards will at least get a brief glance. It still may end up in the trash, but it’s better than never getting seen at all.
Direct Mail is Tangible and Can Be Shared Personally
About 20 years ago, email chains were incredibly popular. If someone found an email to be particularly interesting, they would simply forward it to a friend, and that friend would forward it to another, etc.
In 2019, however, email chains are all but non-existent, and forwarding an email seems archaic in a world of text- and instant-messaging. The advantage of direct mail is it can be physically handed to someone who might be able to use it.
As an example, let’s say an agent mails a Quarterly Market Report to their prospecting area. One of those prospective clients may be interested in listing their home, and that informative postcard can be attached to the refrigerator, or handed to their spouse.
Despite the fact that most of our lives are spent utilizing digital mediums, people still appreciate the tangibility of direct mail as long as it aligns with their desires.
Direct Mail Produces Results With Less Competition
Statistics show that Direct Mail is far from dead. In fact, statistics from a 2017 survey show that direct mail produces a higher return on investment (ROI) than paid search! Additionally, direct mail also has a significantly higher response rate than a standard email campaign.
One of the reasons why direct mail tends to still be effective is its scarcity. In the late 1990s, mailboxes were filled with a variety of direct mail from just about every industry imaginable. Today, mailboxes are considerably less empty, and the companies that do produce direct mail have a much better chance of standing out and being noticed.
Share Your Experience Using Direct Mail Versus Email Marketing
Direct mail still has a purpose, even in a mostly-digital landscape. What has your experience been between direct mail vs. email marketing? Has one performed better than the other in terms of ROI? Let us know in the comments below!
Creating and distributing direct mail doesn’t have to be hard. You can create a free account with no credit card to see how Wise Pelican works by clicking here.
