Expired Listing Postcards

What is so good about expired listing postcards?

There are actually few great things about them. And that’s what this post is about.

In today’s world I think people are getting less tolerant of advertising which of course makes the job of keeping a steady flow of leads coming in to our real estate business more difficult.

And no matter what kind of business we are in if we don’t have a steady flow of new leads or new clients we won’t be in business very long!

The biggest challenge we have as agents is getting a steady flow of leads. But the good news is, as Realtors we have a target audience to market to like no other industry in the world and that’s of course expired listings.

There are a few options for us! We can visit them which is not the most efficient method, we can call them and attempt to use strong expired listing scripts, which is more efficient than visiting them but the main challenge with that is unless you have a cell phone number it is difficult to connect with very many expired listing sellers.

Then there is my favorite method and that’s expired listing postcards and letters. Now the biggest challenge with that is what do you put in the letters and postcards to get their attention? How often do you mail them and what frequency do you send them?

As far as what to put in them is a very difficult and is something I have studied for years. Copywriting is a very deep and complex subject that there are volumes of books written about as it is a science.

So I can help you with the last two items in this post. Here is what I have found to be very effective over the years.

In fact, recently I challenged one of my agents here at my company in Baton Rouge, Brenda Long to follow my system for 37 days and I assured her that she would get at least five listings!

At the time of this posting May 30, 2009 it’s day 27 of that challenge and she listed the expired listing today that was the seventh appointment set a couple of days ago.
 
Here is how the system works! Brenda either delivers or mails the initial letter the day the home comes up expired in the MLS! Then she mails them a postcard every two days until she mails them the full set of eight postcards!
 
She also tries to call them and she will even drive by the house again to speak with the ones that she can’t talk to over the phone. The great thing about this type of system it can be done consistently. And the biggest advantage of the expired listing postcard is they will see the message. It’s impossible not to see it!

Hope this gives you an idea as to how powerful expired listing postcards are, and what a huge impact they will have in your real estate marketing program! Also keep in mind Brenda Long was a buyers agent and rarely had more than a couple of listings in her personal inventory.