Let’s take a look at why postcard farming for listing leads is a great strategy for your business. And why you should consider doing it as a real estate agent.

Postcard farming is successful for a few reasons. They create brand awareness, can be a profitable lead generation tool, and are a direct line to homeowners, who could potentially be home sellers. Postcard farming is inexpensive with a high probability that the message is read.

In real estate, you may have heard the saying “list to ‘last.” While this is true, sending postcards is a marathon, not a sprint. It’s a commitment that you have to make and go through. It can take up to 18 months for people to start recognizing and calling you, hence why it’s called “farming”. It takes time to get leads and referrals from your efforts in sending postcards.

When building a geographic farm, be intentional and factor in your budget. Make sure that you have enough set-aside and that you understand from the start that it’s an infinite game. Think about how many homes you want to target and how often you want to send to them. How long will you keep mailing to them before you stop to make adjustments? Will you host open houses and community events, or target the area on social media? You want to come up with a plan and establish a true presence. The most important part is committing to a plan. If you cut it off too soon, you’ll never see results.

As you come up with your plan, there are things to consider. Like how long you will make calls before stopping and if any of your leads will go into a CRM. Will you have a long-term nurture plan that includes automation and reminders? Are you going to mail anything to follow up? People are quick to forget so if you’re not really going after these leads, you won’t get the payoff you’re looking for.

When the time comes to design your postcard, the front should be unique with a design and content that changes monthly. The back should never change so that you’re building brand recognition each time someone receives the postcard. On every single postcard that you send, there needs to be a call to action. Try including a free market analysis website link or a qr code. The goal is to send them to a place where you can capture their address, phone number and email address. 

Get creative with your postcard farming and have fun doing it! Be proactive by designing and ordering 4 postcards up front that you can rotate quarterly. That will give you 12 months of mailers that only need postage and to be dropped in the mail. 

Listings are leverage so make postcard farming a priority and mail a postcard every single month without fail. He who controls the listings controls the market. Be consistent with the work you do and let others know that you’re trustworthy. In turn, that will get you more business.