expresscopy.com > Direct Mail Case Studies > Cardano Realtors
Taking the Guesswork Out of Spotting Potential Sellers
Case Study: Cardano Realtors
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Customer: Diane Cardano-Casacio Company: Cardano Realtors Industry: Real Estate Agent |
The Challenge: Like many real estate agents in this challenging market, Diane was looking for new, creative ways to reach potential sellers, and to move homes that were having trouble selling.
The Campaign: Diane came up with a great tactic for reeling in homeowners frustrated by the For Sale By Owner route, or whose current realtors just weren't cutting it. Instead of trying to guess who might be selling, she focused on people who had already tried, and failed, to sell their home. "We use expresscopy for our postcards to mail to home owners who had their home on the market and then it did not sell. We have a series of 15 postcards that we mail out over a 30 day period after their home comes off the market."
The Design: Diane's team uploaded their own postcard designs, created in Microsoft Publisher. We have found Publisher to be a fantastic design and layout solution because, compared to professional applications like Adobe's Creative Suite, it's easy for non-designers to pick up and it's relatively inexpensive. expresscopy.com is proud to be one of the few online printers that can accept Publisher files as-is.
To make sure her mailings look as sharp as agency-created campaigns, she depends on our eye-catching Jumbo size postcards in laminated cover stock. "People love our postcards and the quality of the piece."
The Results: "This year we had 4 new clients so far come to us and sell their home and they have referred more people. We will spend about $4,000 this year and have made over $40K and have a few more months left yet this year. Also, now we have clients for life who will refer us even more business for life!!"
Why expresscopy.com? "We love using expresscopy because of their speedy turnaround, the quality of their flyers/postcards and their excellent customer service."
Creativity Counts for a Lot!
In today's real estate market, agents are forced to get creative in their prospecting efforts. The days when a steady stream of eager sellers could be matched up with an equally steady stream of deep-pocketed buyers are gone. Instead, agents need to be able to adapt to buyers and sellers with all kinds of special circumstances. The strength of Diane's campaign was her ability to target frustrated sellers at just the right moment.
Here's just a couple ideas for specialized real estate prospecting campaigns:
- 1st Time Home Buyers: The 1st time home buyer tax credit may be going away but this is still a strong buyers market, especially for 1st timers. And, as the economy shows signs of improvement, even more people will be looking to invest in their 1st home before property values begin to climb out of reach again. Try combining one of our 1st time buyer postcard designs, coupled with a targeted mailing list of, say, (1) married couples, with (2) a combined household income over $60,000, who are (3) currently renting.
- Distressed Homeowners: The worst of the recession might be behind us, but there will still be a huge volume of homeowners fighting foreclosure notices or faced with short sale situations in 2010. expresscopy.com offers plenty of customizable designs for such campaigns. But, how do you target your campaign? You could identify good short sale candidates simply by paying close attention to market conditions for specific subdivisions or neighborhoods. If an area is "underwater," they certainly don't want to see more Just Listed mailings! Instead, make sure they know you're an expert is short sales (then maybe, make sure they DO get a Just Sold mailing or two, so they know homes are moving in their area).
