flyer to pass out door to door. ideas???

This is a post card size flyer I am planning on putting on the front door of homes around a lake and homes within 1 mile of the lake. I designed it as a post card to mail but until I make a sale I don't have the money to mail it. ;st

What are your thoughts? The phone number is not active yet but will be before I distribute it. (duh.) Big question is will I be able to pass out enough for this to work as opposed to mailing 1,000?

Thanks in advance!
Doug H.




SPECIAL ANNOUNCEMENT
THINKING ABOUT SELLING YOUR
MORSE LAKE HOME?

-dough

dough

Have you already printed these post cards? If not, I think you might be better served by taking your money and put it into an advertising schedule. You can get your message to many more with probably less money. I am not sure what the cost is for having these printed but I am sure it is not cheap. Or put an ad in a real estate magazine. That is my opinion. -MPrince

Someone in your area is thinking about selling. You just have to find out who. Am I right? People on the move leave clues. They tell others, they make inquiries. See if you can get to know others and become known by others in your community. Try to get others on your side who can keep an eye open for people on the move or pass along the good word about you.

You could use your flyer as a way of meeting people in the area. Is there a multiple listing service in your area because if there is you could canvass the homes near another agent's new listing saying the home was just listed and you wanted to let all the neighbors know in case they knew someone who might be interested. That's one more way to meet people in your area. -Johnny Fairplay

Yes, there is an MLS, It is a suburb of Indianapolis. Printing cost is virtually free, costs of paper only. I already own a big copier/printer from my old office that I closed down.

Ads would be more time effective and are in my long term plan, just have to get a couple sales first to provide the funding of all the other stuff I know to do. Plus ads are not as geographically specific as I want to be since there is not a newspaper for this area, only one for Indy. I am trying to get in with the 4 homeowners associations in the area but no luck yet.

The area I am specializing in is an area within 1 mile of this lake. The market there had 203 sales in the last 12 months with an average sale price of 200,000. No one agent had more than 5 of them so it is a wide open area.

I'm doing the flyer just to get started in this area that I'm new to and don't have a sphere of influence yet. -dough

Doug...

I'm not a marketing expert like Mary/Martha is, and you already have suggested that you will be embarking on a longer term marketing campaign in the future but here is my observation of your plan.

If you walked the district, you'd meet each home, and hopefully you'd meet the occupants as well. If not, you could surely scribble a note "you're the only ones with roses on your block" or whatever.. and you could say those nice things about what is unique to each home by doing that.... "Yer poodle thought I was the mailman and went postal on me... I'm ok, the ambulance service needs your insurance agents name.... :)

Other than a new pair of shoes and maybe 20 pounds, you'd probably enjoy the effort.

Aloha... :cool: shds; -rattus58

That is an excellent idea! Simple and easy! And hopefully will make me more memorable. Thanks! -dough

In that case I say go for it...just be sure your print job looks professional because if not it will hurt you more than help you. -MPrince

Hi,

That' s great idea. I agree that besides the common local advertising routes, such as Newspaper Ads, Yellow Pages, Etc., another effective (and inexpensive) way to advertise locally is to post business related flyers around your community. Thanks for sharing such wonderful post. -mary92130

Hi Doug,

Here's what will work at a far better rate than either mailing postcards or leaving junk mail on the front doors of potential future clients:

Knock on doors.

Yep. That's it. Knock on the doors, and leave your postcard in your pocket. Introduce yourself, be positive, look your suspect in the guy and engage the homeowner, and see where it takes you. You'll have people slam their door on you, and say rude things to you, but you'll also likely get some people to talk to you.

Say something like this:

"I have a number of buyers looking for homes in the XYZ lake area, and I wanted to stop buy and see what thoughts you had about possibly putting your home up for sale this spring. What do you think?" (open-ended = +++)

Then be quiet and listen. Don't you dare start talking about your postcard. Leave it in your pocket. Some people will tell you they're not interested, some will tell you maybe next year, or maybe five years (that's good for you to know, right?), some will tell you they aren't interested but they know someone at church who would be, etc, etc, etc.

It takes guts and persistence and resilience to door know. But the success rate far outweighs direct mail or flyers left at doors.

Get a comfy pair of shoes. tune-up your smile, use some Listerine, and hit the road. 25 people per day and you'll find someone who either becomes a prospect or points you in a helpful direction.

We had a garage sale five years ago. A Real estate agent stopped by and introduced himself to see if we were moving. But since then, he's dropped by our home, included us in his greater marketing plan, etc. Just the other day my wife said, "You know, when we're ready to sell this place or buy another place, I think we should go with George so-and-so." I agreed. He's the guy...the ONLY GUY (or woman) who is a r.e. agent who has personally stopped by our home in the 8.5 years that we've owned it! Do you think there might be a connection? Yes!

One other comment: Your free report is a good idea. But the subject of your report is over-used, tired, and full on generalities and ho-hum language! (sorry for being so blunt!).

Instead of offering a special report on "How to Sell Your Home Quickly" or "How to Sell Your Home for the Most Money", how about:

- How I sold five homes in five days.

- Find out what I did that made one of my customers bake a homemade apple pie for me.

- Five little known secrets to get a buyer to write an offer TODAY!

- 25 no cost and low cost home improvements that will make your home sell 32 days quicker than your neighbor's home.

- How I know if your home will sell within one week.

- The number one mistake homeowners make when selling their home.

- What the XYZ Lake Customer Wants and Will Pay Thousands for.

I don't know if these are the best titles, but you've got to grab the attention of the people that get your cards (whether via mail or via their front door). "How to sell your home quickly" is probably the title of free reports from 10,000 Realtors across the country. Don't do the same thing they do...do something new, different, exciting, something that stands out!

Best to you,

Skip Anderson -Skip Anderson

I knocked on 30 doors Tuesday. Only found 8 at home.

I did hand them the postcard when they opened the door. I said "I'm Doug Heron with Morse Lake Realty and we have a house for sale just around the corner from you and I wondered who you know that might like to move to the area"

I had one lady tell me that her nieghbor 2 doors over is thinking about moving and 2 tell me that prices are low enough that they have been thinking about buying as an investment. only a couple were rude.

No calls yet from the 30 flyers I passed out.

I guess thats a good start. thmbp2; I was suprised how long it took to do that. Over 2.5 hours so I gotta get better shoes. the only hard thing is I know I could have called 150 in the same time on the phone but not worth the risk of $11,000 fine! -dough

That is a good start!

But I want to make this point: Canvassing door-to-door is different than passing out flyers door-to-door. I think it's important to look at your task as SELLING, not PASSING OUT FLYERS. You can hire someone for minimum wage, or have a neighborhood teen pass out flyers. But salespeople sell, and flyer passer-outers pass out flyers.

Which will bring more results? Selling. Asking, Engaging, etc. It sounds like you did a good job of doing that and had some decent interest in your 30 door knock-a-thon. Keep up the good work, and remember, engage, engage, engage. You're not there to pass out flyers (so keep them in your pocket)...talk to your prospect as a human being- that's much, much more effective than calling their attention to your postcard. You're much more interesting then a postcard, right?

Skip

p.s. Keep us posted on your progress. We're cheering you on! -Skip Anderson

I still think the postcard would work but...it need re-wording to be more in line with Skip's comments.

"If you or someone you know is thinking of selling their home soon, we have a FREE report that will help you sell more quickly for more money. Simply call (don't speak) and leave your address and I'll send you the report by return. Many thanks." -helisell

[quote=Skip Anderson;41368

Get a comfy pair of shoes. tune-up your smile, use some Listerine, and hit the road. 25 people per day and you'll find someone who either becomes a prospect or points you in a helpful direction.

Skip Anderson[/quote]

What a "gold nugget" that is! thmbp2; Skip, you must do very well at whatever it is you do! I need to apply that to my own business each day, (I work on the phone, but the same principle applies..it's all a numbers game!) mmmmm... I can smell the success ;co -lisamom

Although I've never delved into MLM (Network Marketing), I've been very impressed with the thoughts of some of the educators in that field. Many of their ideas can transfer well to other venues.

Randy Gage advised that if you want to do big business in MLM, don't engage in small business marketing.

Having run, owned, or managed businesses of various sizes, I think his advice on that is great. -Ace Coldiron

I pass out flyers (I'm a realtor) for every 3/4k I get 1/2 leads. (Which is huge in real estate) -richardgale