Real Estate Marketing Blog

Do you need a tax write off?

Don’t miss your opportunity to make one last marketing write off for the year! We are now taking last-minute orders from hundreds of our customers so they can take advantage of the tax benefits of 2017.

We will be open and working over time to get orders, proofed, printed and shipped by Friday, December 29th. In addition, when you order by Tuesday, December 26th, we will give you additional discounts:
$25 off orders of $149 or more OR
$50 off an order of $299 or more

Mention or enter this special offer code: Save2550

In addition, we are still accepting calendar orders where you can save up to 30% off and use the same offer code above for additional savings! One last reminder: the order deadline for 2018 Spring Time Change items is Sunday, February 25th.

Hurry, don’t wait to get your marketing materials for 2018! Call us at 1-800-932-2957 if you have any questions.

What comes to mind when someone mentions they got a new magnetic calendar in the mail? Just another mini advertisement from your local insurance agent? Something to clutter up the refrigerator front? Another supply of “tacks” for your child’s artwork? With a little creativity and thoughtful design, the 2018 magnetic calendars you send out this year can do so much more than occupy a spot on the cold storage locker in your kitchen!

We’ve all seen the magnets with a handy list of national holidays displayed, cooking substitutes and metric conversion charts. But, there are some unique ways to use your mailers as an extension of your community outreach and overarching marketing strategy. You can create beautiful real estate marketing pieces designed to make life easier for your farm with these Reamark tips.

1. Use the generous space to showcase local upcoming charity events.
2. Provide names, addresses and phone numbers for businesses every homeowner may need at some point during the year – think plumbers, HVAC service companies, small engine repair shops for the lawnmower or snowblower, emergency maid service, roofers, landscapers, insurance agents, and on-demand contractors.
3. Create a list of public service contacts – the mayor, constable, police, commissioners, animal control, and other elected officials.

Draw attention to special classes or community events your agency hosts. If you routinely carve out a couple of hours a month to present informative talks at the Senior Citizens Center or local college, take this opportunity to post your annual schedule.

Here’s a tip: If offering free workshops isn’t already part of your marketing plan, consider it. No-strings-attached presentations let your community know you care about them, even if they aren’t currently working with you. You can personalize talks for diverse groups. For example, seniors often look for information on retirement planning, converting a residence to a short-term rental while they head south for the winter and tips on downsizing. College students will appreciate educational content concerning saving for a down payment, finding a low-interest loan and tips on reducing student debt.

A calendar can be a tool to simply locate the date, or a valuable resource that homeowners refer to frequently throughout the year. Intentional, thoughtful design ensures your name stays in front of current and potential clients.

Inspired to create a unique marketing piece that reflects your agency values? Call a live Reamark operator to get started designing your professional custom 2018 magnetic calendars today. The call is free and so is the consultation.

The most successful real estate careers are built on solid, enduring relationships with clients. With fall now firmly entrenched and the holiday season fast approaching, many agents are thinking about their client relationships and how they can keep them healthy and productive in 2018.

Successful Agents Rely on a Time-Tested Relationship Builder

Using greeting cards for real estate marketing is a time-tested marketing strategy that successful real estate agents and brokers have relied on for years. Surprisingly, many are finding them to more successful now than ever before. With most communication now handled through impersonal email, the receipt of a brightly colored holiday card with a personal message from their real estate agent or broker is more apt to be warmly remembered and cherished than ever before. The only question then becomes how to make sure that any greeting card for real estate mailings you do will have even more impact.

Customizing the Mailing to Stand Out From the Crowd

While any holiday card mailing is a positive message that tells your clients that your remember and care about them, there are still some ways in which you can maximize your efforts. One excellent way is to consider sending out a holiday card for Thanksgiving or New Years, instead of a traditional mid-December holiday card.

If sending a Thanksgiving card, consider adding extra value by choosing postcards with turkey cooking tips or a delicious recipe to help the recipients enjoy turkey leftovers. When sending a New Year’s greeting card, consider including a customizable magnetic calendar for their fridge to help them keep you top of mind throughout 2018.

Streamline the Process With These Holiday Card Mailing Tips

The holidays are busy times for agents and brokers both at home and at work. Unfortunately, this level of activity can push marketing activities to the back burner, even when agents and brokers know how critical they are to their continued success.

To avoid this problem and ensure that your holiday card mailings are sent out exactly when you need them to be, speak with your ReaMark customer service specialist about ordering early and having them handle the entire mailing process. By doing this, busy agents and brokers can relax and enjoy their own holiday season, all while knowing they have successfully reached out to all their past and current clients and their entire sphere of influence.

Real estate brokers and agents have more control of their real estate marketing than ever before. They can control their branding through blogs, social media, email campaigns, and more. Along the way, however, print marketing has been taking more of a backseat. That can be a big mistake.

1. Print marketing and direct mail have been proven to be effective in real estate marketing.
2. Printed materials, calendars, and sports schedules have a long shelf life.
3. Mail boxes are less cluttered, giving your pieces bigger impact.
4. Print material builds your brand and positions you in the marketplace.
5. A well-planned real estate marketing plan that includes printed and promotional material can keep you on track.

As some young agents move toward digital marketing, and older agents retire, it is leaving a big opportunity in some markets for other agents and brokers to take the lead using direct mail marketing. At ReaMark, we’ve been helping real estate professionals grow their businesses for 17 years. We’ve been able to help agents plan a real estate marketing schedule to help them farm and nurture real estate markets throughout the country.

January – Plan out quarterly newsletters
February– Spring time Change Postcards
March, April, May, June – “Real Estate Season”- Choose from promotional postcards such as “Just Listed”, “Just Sold”, and “Free Home Evaluation”. Use door hangers and magnetic baseball schedules
July, August – Football schedules and back to school calendars. Consider calendars for the upcoming year
September – Fall time-change postcards and calendars
October – Thanksgiving greeting cards and calendars
November – Holiday recipes and promotional materials
December – Holiday greetings

Not including print and direct mail in your marketing plan can put you on a slippery slope. Don’t make the mistake of believing all of your prospects are online, all the time. There is great value in reaching out to them where they live and ReaMark can help. Contact us today for our “buy 5 get 1 design free” and “buy 10 get two free” postcard specials.

Stop me if you’ve heard this one:

“I can’t tell if my direct mail marketing is working!”

Well, now we have a way for you to track the success of all of your individual print campaigns with branded short links. The result will be a link similar to rea.mark/roi that you can customize for each piece of marketing that you send out. You can then track how many people went to your website for more details on the property or offer! Sounds great, right? Follow these steps to combine the power of direct marketing with your website.

Warning: This post is not for the faint of heart when it comes to technology, BUT it is very effective. Proceed at your own risk.*

What you will need:

• A website with Google Analytics installed
• A spare domain name
• A free Rebrandly account
• A few great print marketing ideas

Part 1: Purchase a short Domain Name

The first thing you will need is a domain name that is different from your regular website.

Why?

In order to create customized links, we have to have a separate domain to add to a link shortening service, like Rebrandly.

To get a short domain, go to a domain registrar such as GoDaddy and search for your desired domain. Or, to make things really easy, you can go straight to Rebrandly, login, and click “Domains” > “New Domain.”

The goal of this new domain is to try for something as short as possible that is a variation of your brand name.

Here’s an Example:

Say your firm name is The A Team (and kudos to you for having such a cool name!) you could search for one of these variations:

TheA.team      A.Team       ATeam.RE       TheATeam.RE

Notice that these don’t end in .com? That’s because we are no longer confined to a .com .net world! Not all variations are available just yet, but there are a lot of great ones out there. Play around with it, but make sure you keep the goal in mind: keep it short and on brand.

Once you’ve found the perfect short domain, go ahead and purchase it. It should be less than $20 per year and many are as low as $4.99 per year. Don’t get bamboozled into spending $10k on a domain when there are plenty of variations out there to choose from.

Part 2: Set up your Branded Short link

There are a bunch of URL shortener services out there, but we are going to show you how to do this in Rebrandly for a few reasons: they’ve been around for a while, they have a convenient Chrome browser plugin, and, best of all, it is free.

If you haven’t already, open an account at Rebrandly.com and go to “Domains.” If you purchased your domain on another website, you will need to click on “Set Up DNS (for experts only)” then follow the instructions on getting your branded domain set up.

Not an expert? Go ahead and call your registrar’s support line and have THOSE experts set this part up for you.

Part 3: Use your Branded URL to Track ROI

Now you’re ready to start tracking visitors from your postcards!

The Rebrandly Chrome extension makes this really easy.

1. Navigate to your website page to which you want to track visits.
2. Click on the Rebrandly icon in the top right of your browser window. A pop-up window will appear with your link.
3. Click on the sprocket icon to expand settings.
4. Click on “UTM Brander.” (This allows you to track visits in Google Analytics Campaigns)
   1. You want to fill out these three fields:
      1. Campaign Source = postcard (or EDDM or newsletter, which ever type you will be sending.)
      2. Campaign Medium = print
      3. Campaign Name = select one or two words specific to this marketing piece
         1. Example: cherry-lane, q4-update, or seapoint-estates
5. Next, from the drop down box, make sure your shortened branded domain is selected. Then – and this is the best part – you can customize the end of the URL!
   1. Example: A.Team/Q4
6. Make sure “Copy to Clipboard” is selected (it will be green) and click “Save.”

How easy is that to include on your print marketing?!

NOTE: You must be sure that this EXACT URL is in your marketing materials. We would also recommend testing it out yourself to make sure that everything is working properly before sending out any marketing campaigns.

Part 4: Order Your ReaMark Print Marketing Material

At this point, you’ve probably already selected a postcard or marketing piece from our website that you’d like to send. You can either order online or give us a call and we will make sure that your short, trackable URL is included in your design by our professional designers.

Part 5: Track Your Website Visits

You didn’t think you were done, did you? Now you have to see how many people actually visited your website! You can see how many clicks you got right in your Rebrandly dashboard OR you can dig deeper with Google Analytics (GA). That’s the whole reason we used the URL builder, right?

To see how many visits you got in GA, log into your account and click on Acquisition > All Campaigns. There in the first column, you will see the name of your campaign, how many visits came to the website, how long they stayed, and much more!

Do this consistently for all of your real estate marketing materials and you will really see what is working for you and what needs improvement.

Bookmark this article and share it with your friends!

*Because of the sensitive nature of domain registrars and third party applications, the Reamark team will not be able to set the short domains up for you. Please have your short URL ready when you place your order with us. We will be happy to add the shortened, trackable links to your professional print marketing materials!

This article is intended as a suggestion and we make no guarantees about the functionality of third party websites. We also assume no financial or legal responsibility for results of following the advice given here.

Real estate season is just kicking off, and you can be ahead of the game with targeted real estate postcards sent right to the neighborhood of your choice! Early in real estate season, promotional postcards keep you top of mind and position you as the local expert. Bright images, relevant stats, and key messaging such as “just listed,” “just sold,” and “free home evaluation” are just right for this time of year, and show that you understand what your potential customers are looking for, and where they are in the listing or buying process.

Every Door Direct Mail (EDDM) is a service that allows you to stand out to your farm with timely postcards delivered only to the specific zip code(s) of your choice! Using EDDM allows you to market to a highly-targeted audience, even to a specific subdivision or neighborhood. As real estate season begins, send a neighborhood marketing postcard to ensure that you are the first person thought of when homeowners are ready to sell their home, or begin the search for a new home.

Additional options for Spring include images of colorful flowers, fun humor, recipes, and adorable animals. Postcards like these keep you connected with your community and provide great options for staying in touch with prospects, leads, and previous customers – who just may be ready to be new customers again.

You can make your marketing even more effective by following up your postcard with a door hanger or magnet. Door hangers are personalized, highly-visible twists on classic messaging, while sports fans will surely appreciate magnetic baseball schedules, which showcase your services each time someone visits the fridge!

Sending postcards is a fantastic way to get a jump on the competition, too! Let your prospects and customers know you’re there when they need you, and that you understand their needs and can help them meet their home buying and selling goals. Right now, you can buy 5 designs, get 1 free or buy 10, get 2 free. Start your season the right way, and keep it going strong with monthly messaging that provides guidance and takes your leads through the conversion process.

Have you mailed real estate newsletters to your farm lately? With our great selection of newsletter designs, the process has never been easier! If you haven’t yet included these mailings in your real estate marketing, now is the perfect time to add them to your marketing plan for a few reasons.

Become the Local Expert

Newsletters help you show your farm that you’re the authority in the area. Highlighting community events, local businesses, and attractions illustrates to potential real estate clients that you have intimate knowledge of the area. After you’ve established your authority, clients will be contacting you for your expert home evaluation.

In addition to the included recipes and helpful articles that already come with the newsletters, you can use the two large customizable areas to offer a free home evaluation or discuss current financing options that are available. You could also have a list of local resources for the neighborhood, like plumbers, landscapers and popular restaurants. Finally, make sure to include all your credentials and just sold properties, so your readers can see all that you’ve achieved. By incorporating elements like these, you establish yourself as the local real estate thought leader.

Build Trust

When you send marketing newsletters on a consistent basis, your farm will see that you’re a real player in the local real estate market. When you send out your quarterly mailing, you help your recipients connect with you and your business. After a time, they will expect to find your newsletter in their mailbox. If you’ve made sure the content is timely and relevant, your readers will eagerly look forward to receiving and reading your mailing each time. This build up of trust helps you form a bond with your readers, and makes your name more memorable when it comes time for them to buy or sell property.

Become a Presence in Their Home

When you have an interesting newsletter, your recipients will look forward to sitting down and reading it. In the meantime, you become a presence in the home, sitting on the coffee table or kitchen table while they relax or have a meal. This helps to keep your name in front of your potential clients in a similar way to calendars and sports schedules. Providing great resources might even spark family conversation about an upcoming event or home tip you’ve provided.

Newsletters are a tried and true method of marketing that really work. Why not get started now with your newsletter marketing plan? There has never been a better time!

As a new real estate licensee, you already know that obtaining the license is just the first step in building a professional career that can be both personally and financially rewarding. But you also know that you need to have a plan for gaining market recognition and establishing yourself as the trusted real estate professional in your area and the use of well-chosen real estate promotional materials should be part of that plan.

How Real Estate Promotional Materials Can Help New Agents

For most Americans today, the family home is likely to be the most expensive investment they will make in their lifetime. Because buying or selling a home represents such a significant portion of a family’s overall net worth, buyers and sellers want to be sure they are working with an agent they know and trust to take care of their interests. As a new agent, building this type of bond with the prospective clients you want to serve begins with making sure that your name becomes recognized and associated with real estate services throughout your market area.

A good way to build this type of name recognition is through the use of quality real estate promotional materials capable of offering 24/7 exposure. Items like calendars, postcards, and notepads allows the new agent to easily place their name and contact information in front of each potential buyer and seller in their farming area. Unlike email drip campaigns and phone calls that have no real staying power and risk annoying potential clients, hand-delivering small, but useful items to each home in your farm is a great way to introduce yourself and make a positive, no-pressure first impression. Since these are items that most households will find useful, your name and contact information is likely to remain in their home, boosting your name recognition each time they use the item.

Getting Maximum Impact from the Use of Real Estate Promotional Materials

Building name recognition is not an overnight process. Instead, it requires a continued effort to make sure that new agents see maximum benefits. To do this effectively, new agents should devise a workable plan to visit each home in their market area, introduce themselves to the occupant, and offer a small gift, such as a notepad or memo board. While this may sound like a huge undertaking, setting aside just an hour or two each day for walking your farm area is an easy way to achieve your goal.

Once new agents have initially canvassed their entire farm area, it is important to continue to remain in contact with each household. This can be done in an affordable, efficient way by setting up a monthly or quarterly postcard mailing. Reamark, a leading supplier of high-quality real estate promotional materials, offers specially trained order consultants to answer questions about using real estate promotional materials and help new real estate agents design an automatic, customized postcard mailing program that can be scaled to fit most any budget.

Real estate professionals who have been in the business for a few years often experience feelings that their marketing is becoming stagnant and no longer capable of generating the leads they need for growth. This is especially true in markets that are highly competitive or those that are being impacted by economic trends capable of affecting the local real estate market. But slowing business growth can also occur when agents fail to maintain quality contact with their current and past clients. Allowing this to happens causes agents to fail in maximizing the potential for referrals from these groups, and effectively losing out on valuable leads for new business. If you are an agent feeling the impact of local market trends or one who is struggling to maintain the level of contact required for good business growth, real estate marketing postcards can be an excellent, cost-effective vehicle to help you rev up your lead generation machine and restore and maintain healthy levels of business growth.

Strategy One: Using Postcards for Realtors to Renew Contact with Past Clients

Past sellers and buyers are a prospecting gold mine because you have already demonstrated your real estate skills by helping them successfully buy or sell property in the past. Maintaining contact with them through a quarterly mailing of postcards for realtors is a great way to make sure they continue to remember you and refer their friends, neighbors, relatives, and coworkers to you.

Strategy Two: Using Postcards to Increase Name Recognition in Your Farm Area

Farming is another marketing activity that can be made much more effective by utilizing a series of monthly contacts through the use of informational real estate marketing postcards after your initial meeting. A long established marketing rule has proven that successful marketing requires at least seven contacts before most people are likely to begin to really recognize your name and think about doing business with you.

Strategy Three: Instituting a Postcard Campaign for Lead Generation

Maintaining contact with new prospects, especially those who call to find out more about one of your listings or those with general questions about the buying and selling process can get lost in the rush to service active buyers and sellers. But busy agents who find an effective way to remain in contact with these future buyers and sellers are working to fill their lead pipeline for years to come. Choosing to contact these prospects through a quarterly postcard campaign for lead generation purposes is a very easy and affordable way to make this happen.

No matter where you are in your real estate career, ReaMark, a market leader in real estate promotional supplies, can help. Take a moment today and contact one of our specially trained customer service specialists for information on special value options and helpful tips on customizing your real estate marketing to get the best possible results.

As 2017 comes to a rapid close, many real estate agents are scrambling to find that perfect last-minute gift to send to their real estate clients. Many agents are looking to touch base with past clients or continue the conversation with new leads. At Reamark, we have great marketing products that fit any budget or need and can still ship before the new year.

Calendars for any budget

Calendars are a great choice for any real estate agent looking to send a gift that will be on the fridge, wall, or desk all year long. We have several different types of calendars to meet any budget requirement. Are most popular calendars are the wall calendars that come with large date blocks so that clients can easily write events, appointments, birthdays, and anniversaries. We also offer desk calendars that can be customized and pricing can be as little as $1.09 each. Other popular calendar styles include our home tips and recipe magnetic tear off calendars that provide helpful information to your leads throughout the year. For those agents who are looking for a quick solution to their end-of-the-year gift giving, we also have Peel and stick calendars that come in a variety of designs. You simply place your business card and send!  Right now you can save 20% on peel and stick calendars and get them for as low as $.29 each.

Stand out with magnetic memo boards

If you’re looking for an alternative to sending a 2017 calendar this year, consider sending a customizable magnetic memo board. Memo boards typically go right up on the fridge and are used on a daily basis so you’re name gets seen every time they make a note. These products are a great value because they last three or more years and come with a free dry erase pen. Memo boards are 8 1/2″ by 10 7/8″ incoming variety of styles to fit your brand. Save 20% when you order now and get these memo boards for as little as $.89 each.

For those agents who are REALLY in a hurry we also offer memo boards that allow you to peel and stick your business card. These memo boards usually ship within the next business day and arrive within 1 to 5 business days depending on shipping location.

Customized booklets that add value

Stand out this year by sending one of our customizable cookbooks or info books. Cookbook styles include “Good for you” recipes or gluten free recipes that are very popular these days. We also offer info books such as “101 ways to prepare your home for sale” or a home information book which is a great tool for homeowners. These books have full color personalization on the front page with a laminated cover to protect your information. Book sizes are 5.5″ x 8.5″ with twin loop binding. Each book is 88 pages long and cost as well as $2.49 each. These books take 8 to 10 business days for production so you want to order as soon as possible to ensure arrival before the new year. Call us at 800-932-2957 and we will be happy to send you free samples.

We offer thousands of real estate marketing products for any season or occasion. We’ve helped thousands of agents generate more leads, listings, and sales in our 16 years in business. Our professional marketing specialists are more than happy to help you select products that right for your budget and needs. Browse through our inventory or give us a call today.