If you're like most agents, you're probably throwing away thousands of dollars each year on ineffective mailing strategies. Isn't it time to stop?

Every month I receive about ten different marketing pieces from agents who prospect the area where I live. When I receive "Just Listed" and "Just Sold" cards, I normally look at the property address and the price. I also receive lots pretty color postcards with the agent's picture prominently displayed. I can't for the life of me remember a single name of any one who sent me those cards. One agent who knows my husband clips out cartoons and puts those in her mailing. Guess what—I don't remember her name either. One of my neighbors included me in the Brian Buffini "By Referral" mailing program. The color brochures are nice—I don't remember what they were about and I usually skip reading the letter. Like it or not, most of the people you mail to are exactly like me.

95% of the agents who market by mail are wasting their money. The reasons are simple. Marketing by mail is passive, it glorifies the agent rather than focusing on the consumer, and does little, if anything, to create the personal connection necessary to do business. If you want to be in the 5% who use this medium effectively, here's how to do it.

1. Real Estate is about personal connection
   Personal connection is created face-to-face—not from mailing and almost never from the web. If you're going to use traditional mailing, use it with people with whom you already have a personal connection. Next, ask yourself whether or not this particular mailing will increase your connection with the person receiving it. If not, don't waste your money.

2. Stop using mailing pieces to "get your name out there"
   Business in the 21st Century has undergone a dramatic shift from being "Agent-centered" (i.e. the "Look at how great I am approach) to being client centered. The person receiving your mailing pieces has absolutely no interest in how great you are or how many transactions you closed. Instead, most people will call an agent either due to a personal connection or because the agent services a specific niche in which the individual has an interest. Remember, marketing is about "What's in it for me"—not what's in it for the agent. If you can't clearly identify a benefit someone would receive from your mailing, then the odds are you've just wasted a lot of money for nothing.

3. Just Listed and Sold Cards Promote Your Broker's Brand—Not Your Brand
   If you're sending "Just Listed" or "Just Sold" cards into an area where you have no name recognition, all you're really doing is promoting your broker's branding efforts rather than your own. I don't remember the names of the agents who mail to my area, but I can tell you where they work. If your broker provides this service for you, by all means, take advantage of it. If not, it's usually a waste of money unless you have something the recipient wants, you name is memorable, or your mailing piece is so unusual people will definitely remember it.

4. Stop wasting money building the floor broker's business
   What phone number did you use on your mailings? If you don't have a call capture system or your own 800 number, guess who is getting most of the phone calls your mailings generated—the floor broker. If you're going to market using traditional mailings, a small investment in a call capture system is well worth the money. Not only do you get all of your leads, you also get close to100% accuracy in terms of their phone numbers and up to 60% accuracy in terms of their mailing addresses.

5. Wake-up and build your awareness
   Are you tracking the leads generated from each mailing? If not, you have no idea which postcards are effective marketing pieces and which are a waste of money. Just because a marketing company has attractive cards doesn't mean those cards will generate money for you. You need to track which parts of your market respond to your marketing efforts. Dump those market segments where your efforts do not create business and work on expanding those areas where you do have success.

6. Stop using the "shot gun"
   Effective marketing needs to be targeted. The most successful marketers go deep into a niche by meeting specific needs for specific groups of people rather than trying to be everything to everybody.

If you're going to market by mail, be smart about how you do it—focus on building connection, market to the specific needs of specific groups, keep track of what works, and make sure that when you do spend your hard-earned money, that the leads you generate go to you rather than someone else.

If you want to learn how to Market and Prospect for Real Estate Like Crazy, click here to learn more about our new audio tape training program that will show you how! http://www.realestatecoach.com/training/marketandprospect.html

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Bernice Ross, Ph.D. and Byron Van Arsdale own and operate www.RealEstateCoach.com, the most comprehensive source for training and coaching via telephone in the real estate industry. If you enjoyed this article, sign up for our complimentary newsletter, Real Clues on our web site at www.RealEstateCoach.com. While you're visiting our site, check out our training and coaching programs as well as over 200 pages of ideas on how to have a great life and a great business.

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