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 regards,
Gary Elwood
Founder and Chairman
