How To Use Post Cards to Locate Motivated Sellers and Buyers For Your Real Estate Investing Business

While I personally don’t use a lot of post card mailings in my real estate business, they definitely have their place. One of the main uses for a post card mailing is to either test a new list before spending a lot of money mailing to it, or to canvas large areas at very little cost to you. Post cards are also a very inexpensive effective means to building your buyers list.

If you are going to implement post card mailings, there are several different ways to do them effectively. On my web site at www.marketingmagiclady.com, I provide you with resources to find list brokers so you can focus on the specific mailing you want to do.

One effective way you can create these mailings is to download your list to usps.com and let them do the mailing for you for the cost of mailing the post card including printing. The post card is simply black and white, no frills, but can be used to canvas specific areas or large areas with your message.

There are some good reasons you might want to do this. One reason would be to do a sweep of a particular zip code range or group of subdivisions you want to mail to in order to find motivated sellers. This is a very inexpensive way to accomplish this. Another reason would be to do post card mailings to specific areas with high numbers of rentals in order to build your buyers list.

When using post cards make sure you have a “kick butt” headline to catch your reader’s attention immediately. Remember, you only have seconds before your reader decides to throw your post card in the trash. In fact, most people sort their mail over the trash can. One of my personal favorite headlines for locating motivated sellers is “Sell Your Home On The Date Of Your Choice For A Fair Price Without Doing Any Repairs”. This is a benefit driven headline that lets your potential seller know exactly what you can do for them. Then follow that up by telling the seller exactly what it is you want them to do.

For example, are you going to send them to a pre-recorded 24 hour message? Are you going to have them call an answering service or you directly or are you going to send them to a web site where they can give you all of their information and find out everything they need to know about you. These are all options when using a post card mailing to reach possibly motivated sellers. Sending them to a website or a 24 hour recorded message will help to pre-screen these prospects for you.

While a post card is not necessarily the best means to reach truly motivated sellers, it certainly is an inexpensive way for the beginner investor to get started in the real estate business. A post card is meant to be a part of your “shotgun” marketing approach. Basically, you want to reach high numbers of possible sellers for the least amount of dollars.

The way I personally use post cards is two-fold. One is to test a new list. If I have purchased a list and I’m not sure how current it is, a post card is an inexpensive way to test it. You can send out 500-1000 pieces and see how many are returned to you for bad addresses. This should never be more than about five percent of your total mailing if you are using a good list.

I also sometimes use Postcards to supplement my other mailings. For example, if I am doing a pre-foreclosure mailing that has several pieces to it, I will fill in with postcards. I will mail letter number one, then letter number two and maybe at that point fill in with a postcard for the next mailing. Then I would go on with letter number three, number four and so on.

The other way I really like to use post cards is to build my buyers list. This is probably one of the fastest and least expensive ways to do this. I send a post card mailing to areas with a high number of duplexes, apartment complexes and rental homes. I use a headline which goes something like this-“Tired of Paying Rent Every Month? Would You Like To Own Your Own Home?”, or “Are You Tired of Paying Someone Else’s Mortgage?” You can get very creative with your headline and then use a benefit driven message to get potential buyers to call you.

Once again, you have to tell your potential buyers exactly what you want them to do. You could also send them to your buyer’s website where you can capture their information, so this really can be a pretty much hands-off way to accumulate potential buyers for your properties.

While I personally prefer to use very targeted letter campaigns to reach highly motivated sellers, post cards can definitely be used in your business in a variety of ways.

Be sure and take a look at my website at www.marketingmagiclady.com and check out some of the post cards samples I have on my website. I also provide resources for you who are the best in the business at what they do which is to help you to locate more leads than you can deal with using promotional items like post cards. The resources I provide for you already have all the verbiage you need for your postcards and this saves you on artwork and set up fees, so basically all the work is done for you.