How to Use Free Reports the Right Way... You'll Explode Your Listing Inventory
Dear Friend and REALTOR®,
How would you like to have a list of 300 prospects that each month, when you mailed them a letter, you got anywhere from 8 to 12 of them to list with you. Sound impossible? It’s not. Not if the prospects you’re mailing have indicated an interest in selling at some point in the near future. How do you get a list like that? By using the free "educational report" strategy that I’m going to explain.
One of our agents explains it like this, "I advertise an offer for a free educational report about how to sell your home quickly and for more money. It works really well when I run the free report ads right along with my listings in the homes magazine. The caller who requests the report is obviously thinking about selling. It may not be today or even next month, but I have them in my database and I can mail them a letter once a month to stay in touch. My database is growing, I now have about 300 prospects who’ve requested reports in the last eight months, and each month I mail all 300 of them a letter. Generally I will get 12-15 calls, 10-12 appointments, and I close over 90% of them with the listing presentation you showed me."
Not bad huh? This is how you target market. By getting prospects to raise their hand and tell you they are interested in information about selling, you identify them. They are part of the "active market". Now you can target them every month until they respond to your message.
Most of the agents we work with, if they did any mailings prior to this strategy, would get dismal results at best. Agents would average maybe a half percent and that’s if they were lucky. Most of our agents used to get such bad results from their direct mail that they simply stopped doing it. This approach changes that. Why? Because the prospects you are mailing have elevated themselves to a new level. They have told you something about themselves. Now, is every one of your prospects going to respond? No. But your response rates will be excellent and very profitable, if you consistently follow through.
Understand it takes a little time and consistent effort. The listing leads you get with this strategy will be A, B and C prospects. Some will want you to come out for a listing appointment right away, but those are the minority. The majority of your prospects are responding in the early part of their "thinking about selling" process. Which is perfect because you capture them before any other agent has an opportunity to get their hooks into them. Now you simply have to consistently stay in touch with them until they are ready.
I have another suggestion. If you don’t have the ability to stay in touch with a large number of prospects consistently I suggest you invest in a contact management program. Goldmine, Act, Top Producer, On-Line Agent, Agent 2000... whatever. You need to have something in place that will help you quickly and easily stay in touch with lots of prospects. To make this particular strategy effective it's crucial to stay in touch. A good contact manager will help you do that.
How Much Is It Worth to Stay In Touch?
You’ve generated a prospect who will eventually list with someone. The cost of staying in touch with that prospect once a month for the next year, if necessary, is about $8. Now, according to Craig Proctor’s organization, 79% of their prospects list within the first six months. But let’s be conservative and say only one in ten of these prospects lists their home in the next year. Again remember, this prospect requested an educational report about how to sell their home quickly and for the most money. They are thinking about selling! But let's say only one in ten does something in the next year. That means a single listing would cost you $80 to generate. Ten prospects x a year’s follow up cost = cost of generating one listing (10 x $8 = $80).
Would you invest $80 for a good listing? What’s the cost if you don’t spend the $80 to stay in touch? One of your competitors cashes the check!
With this strategy, look at the bigger picture. This is a longer-term strategy that could position you to be very dominant in your market. By capturing prospects early in the process, you close-out your competition as long as you consistently stay in touch. And all you need to stay in touch is a "personal" letter once a month until they list. It’s pretty simple! But…it takes a little bit of work to get the system set up so it doesn’t take you any time to follow through.
If you had to personally write a letter to 300 prospects a month it would be far too cumbersome to ever work long term. Again, you need to automate the process with a contact manager.
Your need these tools so you can personalize every letter you send to prospects. You don’t want to send them cold, impersonal letters. That’s not staying in touch. Staying in touch requires a "personal touch."
Steps to Successfully Using Free Educational Reports In Your Marketing
Our agent mailing 300 prospects per month had some additional insights she explained, "When I mail the report out, I wait three days and then I follow up by phone. I’m very gentle and service-oriented, but I’m still looking for an appointment if possible. If I get it great. If not, I let them know I will be staying in touch and if there is any way I can be of service, I want them to feel comfortable calling me. Then I put them in the database and mail them a follow-up letter every month. With my database growing like it is, I now stage my mailings so that only one fourth of my prospects get mailed each week. This way every prospect gets a letter once a month. And by doing it this way, it enables me to follow-up by phone, too. I follow up by phone a few days after I mail them a letter. But, I only do this every other month because that’s about as much as my prospects seem to feel comfortable with."
The steps to success as our agents outlined them are:
- Use the free educational report ads that are included in your direct response ad kit
- Run your free report ads along with your listings in your homes magazines or newspaper
- Understand the strategy is a longer-term strategy that takes a little time.
- Build your database of prospects
- Mail them the follow-up materials (included in your course materials) every month
- Follow-up (using scripts from your course materials) a few days after you send the report
- Follow-up by phone, every other month, a few days after you send a letter
Make your prospects an offer, give them a reason to pick up the phone to call you. Make them feel comfortable. Close your letters and follow-up calls in a very service- minded way. Try to disarm them and make them feel totally at ease.
If you can get your prospects to begin an ongoing dialog with you, you’re in. You own their business. By serving them at this high level you effectively shut out the competition. You have what Jack Trout, author of "Positioning: The Battle for Your Mind," refers to as "complete mind-share." When that prospect thinks real estate the first and only name that comes to mind is yours!
In Conclusion
This strategy is just the beginning of what you can do with this system. It’s virtually unlimited the number of things you can do, when you begin to think both strategically and tactically. I’ve given you one powerful tactical strategy and our course materials give you virtually all the follow-up materials to support them. But I hope you will begin to look at the bigger picture and see the underlying principles that make this system so effective.
My very best to you in your business-building. Until next time...
Warmest wishes for your success,
Gary Elwood
Founder and Chairman
