What do you think of when somebody says "referral marketing letters", in terms of marketing tips? I'll bet you $20 you figure I'm talking about getting letters of recommendation and testimonials from your former clients, right? That's a marvelous plan for marketing as well. However, I'm referring to you getting a career-long flow of clients from other respected professionals in your community. The best part is that it'll only call for a personalized letter scripted by you, the coolest Realtor in the area.
Here's the referral letter marketing idea for Realtors or agents in a nutshell: make a list of professionals that are likely to have clients that could potentially be your clients too. Then you need to create a personalized letter about yourself and mail it, by regular mail, to your list of professionals.
Be sure you get unique and use an envelope that stands out from every other white, stock envelope in the mail. Follow up with each professional by telephone, if possible, and proceed to mail/contact them once per month.
There are a ton of "top producing" Realtors who practice this single tactic to bring about the bulk of their closings. Don't worry, there's nothing dishonest with copying what the "big boys" practice.
The first step in this process is making a list of these well-thought-of professionals that you need to build relationships with...
- Certified Public Accountants
- Home Loan Consultants (I'm confident you recognize this one)
- Certified Financial Planners
- Real Estate Attorneys
- Remodeling Companies
- Certified Appraisers
- Residential Electricians
- Plumbers
- Residential Landscapers
- Roofers
- Tree Cutting Professionals
- Handyman Contractors
- You see the idea...
Are you questioning how to get the information for these professionals so you might send them your letter? Wonderful question, glad you asked. You've got a pair of options but they depend on your marketing budget.
The on-line yellow pages is certainly an alternative for you. As a Realtor, you already have a region you operate in so stay within that geographic region, in general. The time consuming component about this option is the manual labor.
You have to go through each person listed and find their name, phone number and mailing address. This choice is totally free but definitely more time consuming than some Realtors might like.
Another choice for building this marketing list of professionals is to easily buy a list. Pretty much every profession has their own list that the general public can pay money for, just like you're on a list of Realtors out there someplace.
This isn't some kind of "black market" or immoral list, don't worry. These kinds of compiled, professional lists are regularly for sale because professionals (like us real estate agents) freely sign up for random subscriptions, associations, events, etc.
Are you a little bit shocked? Now you realize why you get so much real estate junk mail and email.
You have more than enough choices when it comes to picking a list company to purchase your list from. Try to pick a list company that has all the professions you're searching for, rather than going to separate list companies for each profession. I assure you, it'll cost you a few dollars for this list but it's going to salvage you hours of precious time!
Whether you prefer to buy your list or compile it yourself, as soon as you have it, you can set off crafting your referral letter for these professionals. I'm not going to get into how to compose sales copy here though. That's definitely a topic all on it's own.
For now, you need to know that this letter can't be a general "sales" letter that you'd mass mail to a farm area to create listing leads, ok?
Even though you may copy some or most of your referral marketing letter and send it to other professionals on your list, when these professionals get your letter, they need to feel like they're the only one who received it.
Imagine about how you'd talk to these professionals face-to-face and compose your letter in that way, that's the big idea here. Don't use a bunch of "salsey" cliches` and standard "professional jargon" that you read in the letters you get from your bank. Catch their interest and write to them as you'd write to a personal acquaintance.
As a side remark, personalizing your marketing goes for all your Realtor marketing information, like postcards, emails, articles, ads, etc.
What the spirit of this letter needs to tell them is that you desire to refer business back and forth, not just take and take and take from them. You want to be their "go to" Realtor or agent for the rest of their career. You need to emphasize how they'll benefit from this relationship without doing any selling, got it?
One way to personalize your letter is to drop in something you know about their company, if you happen to know an interesting tid bit. If a professional has helped a customer you know, feel free to write that in your letter also. Unless you babble about their mom, for some reason, it's almost impossible for you to get excessively personal in your letter.
I'd wholeheartedly suggest that you jot down your referral letter yourself, rather than hire somebody else to do it. But if you simply detest writing this style of marketing material, you can rent an inexpensive self-employed writer to do it for you.
Doing a search on Google will pull up several choices of self-employed writers and companies for you to pick from. A few of these companies take self-employed writer listings from all over the globe for you to pick from. It's dandy since you can sometimes see their reviews, pricing and even forward them a question to "interview them". You can even post the job you're looking to fulfill and have writers to come to you. It's terrific.
Ok, so now that you have your marketing list and referral letter written, it's time to send it out. Only please, no matter what you do, do not send your letter in an ordinary, simple envelope similar to every other "schmuck" does that sends mail to these professionals... please!
Find another unusual mailing package or envelope with a little color or size to it. You want that letter to stand out from all the additional mail this gentleman or gal is receiving that day. Also, a good way to personalize your letter and have it opened, is to have the mailing and return addresses hand-written.
Simply think how you opened your mail today. Hand-written addresses go to the top of the stack, every time.
The next thing you need to do is enclose a special marketing piece, apart from your referral letter. A creative marketing suggestion could be a DVD that you produce through Animoto, showcasing yourself (not as scary as it sounds).
One of my friends, a life insurance salesman, sent out a similar mailing and included poker chips with his contact information on them. This friend of mine printed "Do not gamble with your life" on all the poker chips.
Isn't that brilliant? If you want to be a top producing Realtor like the "big boys", that's the kind of thought you want to come up with, or at least know where to get them!
With this referral letter, make certain you specify for these professionals to not just call your telephone, if they want, but also to check out your blog or website. Be certain you give them both choices. Some Individuals would rather call you and others would rather look over your site first.
Our final step possibly could be more critical than all the others. Repetition is vital with any marketing technique you select, particularly when mailing letters, as we're talking about. Statistics from the marketing industry establish that a future client needs to be exposed to your message at least 7 times, on average, before they are comfortable enough to respond.
So keep following up with these professionals on your marketing list. After your initial mailing, I'd urge you to follow up with them by telephone or another letter about 1 time a month. If you were able to get or purchase their email address, feel free to begin emailing them as well.
As it is with dating, you want to be careful to not smother and annoy them or else you can count on never getting referrals from them, ever. You don't need to let them forget who you are but you also don't want to be calling or mailing them every other day.
As a side note, if you have the marketing money but don't have the time, think about hiring a teenager or college kid to stuff these mailers. write down the letters yourself but have your hired-help stuff the envelopes with your letters and marketing pieces.
It's inexpensive labor, just like US companies do when they employ overseas workers for their customer servicing call centers (did I just throw in a cheap shot?).
In all seriousness, when it comes to Realtor marketing tips, referral letter marketing will set you up as a top real estate agent for years and years to follow. If you establish these relationships correctly, they can create you so many leads that you won't need to actively advertise or market your real estate business in any other way.
Josh F. Sanders is a Real Estate Broker and the Founder of Shiloh Street University in Seattle, WA. SSU is an online marketing school for Realtors, dedicated to “Creating Wealthy Agents through World-Class Marketing” by providing step-by-step video lead-generation tutorials. Get your "FREE 5 Day Sneak Peek" at Shiloh Street University.
