Believe it or not the residential real estate market has changed.  A study by Caslon & Co. revealed personalized marketing can generate three times the response rate.  Now is the time to accept the fact impersonalized direct mail marketing has gone the way of the Dodo Bird.

Personalized direct mail marketing has always known to be the better path. Yet excuses of its takes too much time to the inability to write effective marketing messages seem to still justify the use of impersonalized real estate marketing messages.

Given the majority of residential real estate agents do not have that many sales leads, personalization is quite easy, yet impersonalization continues.  Anyone can make a copy of a “canned” marketing flyer, hand write an envelope, put a first class stamp out and drop it in the mail. This is not take rocket science. Worse yet, some real estate agents make copies of a copy and believe that will attract positive attention.

What is forgotten are these 3 sales buying rules:

#1 – People buy from people they know and trust

#2 – People buy first on emotion; justified by logic

#3 – People buy on value unique to them

These 3 sales buying rules are why personalizing direct mail marketing is essential especially when these other two facts are thrown into the decision making process:

#1 – Today’s sellers and buyers are far better educated

#2 – Up to 60% of the buying decision has been made before you have connected with any sellers or buyers

As we are in the process of selling our home through For Sale By Owner, 100% of the direct mail marketing we have received has been:

• Impersonal
• Generic
• No value to us
• Poorly written or presented
• Waste of our time to even open or read it

Some of the residential real estate agents’ direct mail messages have attempted the old tricks of:

• Use fear
• Sell on commission (money)
• Use “top rated real estate agent”

Then there is the overriding factor of generally insulting the homeowner by mailing copies of a copy to not answering the phone even when we call the residential real estate agents all who assure us they want our business.  If you can’t answer the phone after the fourth ring, you truly aren’t that hungry for new sales leads.

Personalized direct mail marketing may require a little research regarding the seller of the residential real estate. With today’s Internet, that research can be conducted from any office or mobile device with Internet connections.

If you want to increase sales by securing more sales leads, then begin to invest the time to personalize your residential real estate direct mail marketing.  Stop with the impersonalized letters to what used to work.  Discover what is important to that seller of any home even if they have listed it as For Sale By Owner.  You just may discover selling real estate can become a lot easier and even a lot more fun.

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Leanne Hoagland-Smith is THE People and Process Problem Solver. She supports forward thinking leaders in bridging the gaps between the two problems restricting strategic business growth – people and processes. Leanne can be reached at 219.508.2859 central time USA.  Follow her on Twitter or check out her profile on LinkedIn