Tips for Designing Effective Real Estate Postcards

In the digital arena of social media, email, and online advertising, something as simple as a paper postcard often gets overlooked by real estate agents as a potential marketing tool. But when you weigh the cost and the exposure, postcards may provide a positive return on investment.

The Why of Real Estate Postcards

It might seem like a hopelessly old-school approach, but real estate postcards are still a viable option. In fact, they are the preferred option for some agents. Here are a few of their reasons.

• Cost-effective. Real estate postcards don’t cost much. All you have to pay for are the card and postage. Even given the recent increases in postage rates, it still qualifies as a cost-effective choice.
• Easy to track. Sometimes it’s difficult to know where your leads originate. With postcards, you have easy ways to track where your leads come from. (You can even differentiate between multiple postcard designs and iterations.)
• Stands out. It used to be that you had to go digital to stand out. Today, every agent has a digital presence. It’s become possible to stand out by reverting back to postcards (which many agents have forgotten about, or never had any prior experience with).

While you might not be able to build a thriving business solely on the backs of postcards, you can absolutely make it your bread and butter. The key is to deliver the right message to the proper people. At the end of the day, it comes down to design.

Six Real Estate Postcard Design Tips

Designing a compelling postcard doesn’t have to be as onerous as many real estate agents believe it to be. Here are six helpful tips.

1.Use What Works

There’s no need to reinvent the wheel. If you look around online, you can find real estate postcard templates. Sometimes the best approach is to emulate these formats and insert your own information. Don’t overcomplicate the process if you don’t have to!

2. Make the Colors Pop

People receive a lot of mail. The key is to try to make your postcard stand out and grab everyone’s attention. Otherwise, it’s going to end up in the trash can.

One of the best ways to get a postcard to distinguish itself is by employing a contrasting color scheme. Setting a bright color against a black background is one style that works well. Orange and black, yellow and black, and pink and black are particularly eye-catching.

3. Keep it Focused on One CTA

Don’t try to be all things to all folks. Attention spans are short. People don’t have the capacity to consume tons of information on a single card.

Improve your results by using just one call-to-action. You can mention the CTA in multiple places on the card, but it should always drive people to the same action.

4. Include Social Proof

Without overcrowding your postcard’s design, look for ways to integrate social proof as effortlessly as possible in the form of testimonials, quotes, past sales data, and other elements that support your reputation and ability to deliver results.

5. Prod the Pain

A good real estate postcard touches people where it hurts. (Not in a cruel manner, but in an understanding way.) You want to communicate the fact that you hear people.

If your target client is intimidated by the complexity of the real estate process, dig into that. If they’re looking for a way to avoid high commissions and fees, make that your focus. The best marketing prods the pain and then communicates how your solution can reduce or even prevent it.

6. Highlight the Benefits

Once you’ve prodded the pain, you position yourself as the most obvious choice to avoid it and ensure a positive outcome. This is where you highlight the benefits of working with you.

Make sure your benefits are properly aligned with the pain. In other words, if your seller is worried about giving away a massive percentage of hard-earned equity at the closing table, your benefit statement should highlight the fact that you save your clients X percentage. Proper alignment is crucial.

Adding It All Up

Integrating strategically designed postcards into your real estate lead generation strategy can dramatically improve your results and provide a significant lift across the board. It probably won’t work overnight, but a steady commitment will yield profitable results.