Recently I spoke with an agent who intended to send one letter to his “farm” area. Just one. He said that if that worked out, he might send another.
I wanted to tell him that if he planned to mail just one letter he shouldn’t bother to do it at all. But he was one of those people who “know” things and thus don’t listen, even when you quote statistics.
It turns out that people who study such numbers have determined that of the responses you will get, only 2% will come from the first contact. And you know, when you’re writing to a cold list of homeowners, only a small percentage will ever respond.
The studies show that another 18% of the responses will come with the 2nd through 4th contacts, and that a full 80% of all responses come from the 5th to 12th contact with a prospect.
Why is this so? For a few reasons.
For one thing, if you try to give a prospect all the good reasons why they should call you in just one letter, the letter will be too long. Can you envision yourself sitting down to read a 10-page letter from a stranger?
Very few people will do that – even when it is information they’ve requested. It just seems like too much work and so unless the subject matter is compelling, long letters tend to be set aside to read later.
It might work for a stock market report or a health promotion, but even then, people skim. That’s why copywriters who craft those long messages use so many bold sub-headings.
Brief letters encourage reading…
On the other hand, when you send brief letters, your prospects are more likely to read them, because they won’t take long. And, if your P.S. lets them know that additional helpful information will be on its way in your next letter, they’ll be more apt to read it when it arrives.
And what if your letter arrives on one of those days when your prospect’s car broke down, or they just got word that out of town visitors will be arriving by dinner time, or one of the kids came down with Chicken Pox? On days like that, people toss any mail that doesn’t demand their immediate attention.
By the time your next letter arrives, those folks might be in a better frame of mind to open and read your message.
You build trust…
Next, by offering some helpful information along with another “reason why” in each of several subsequent letters, you have a chance to build their trust. When you plan these letters and present them much like a story presented in installments, each new “reason why” will build upon the last.
Finally, when you stay in touch regularly, your prospects will become familiar with you. They’ll come to feel that they know you, and we all tend to trust people just a little more when they aren’t complete strangers.
That is, of course, unless they’ve given us a reason not to trust them – but that’s another story.
Marte Cliff is a freelance copywriter specializing in writing for real estate and related fields. She offers custom copy for websites, email campaigns, press releases, postcards, direct mail letters, newsletters, and more.
Marte also offers pre-written real estate letters for agents who know they need to prospect but just don’t have the time or desire to write their own letters. See how she can help build your business by visiting www.copybymarte.com
For those who prefer the “do it yourself” method, Marte has a free report on how to organize and and write a “drip campaign” that will build trust and reel in new clients. Just visit her at www.copybymarte.com/dripmarketing.html to request your copy.
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I would think that with the progress of the internet, mailing letters to prospects is a thing of the past. The farming strategy seem to work. Is there a similar system for the internet? If yes, how do you get around the spamming? We get about 100 emails daily. Approximately 20 might be read. It is possible that we miss some good stuff.
So, if we apply real estate farming to the internet, you would have to send 12 emails, before you get any feedback from prospects. However, many prospects will be clicking “unsubscribe”.
Some say that a prospective customer has to hear of you 7 times before considering buying from your business. I agree that marketing has to be persistent. We helped a UK real estate agent to test his marketing by utilizing different telephone numbers to quantify his response. He trialed oval versus rectangular for sales signs and tagged these appropriately on their telephone systems. The rounded edge signs got noticed more which was measured by the volume of calls.