Thinking of Selling? Real estate postcard designed to attract potential home sellers.

In 2012, I was charged with the task of creating a direct mail postcard to encourage potential home sellers to list their properties. It was a very strange time to work in real estate because things were just beginning to transition from a buyer’s to a seller’s market. This meant that there were a great many buyers in the Hudson Valley looking for great deals, but most homeowners were squeamish about listing their properties because of the perceived depreciation in market value.

A bold message was required to convince home sellers that it was in fact a good time to list their homes. The message was simple, “Thinking of Selling?” on the front with the headline on the back “Now’s The Time.” A brief message explaining the current market conditions with just enough information to entice prospective home sellers that they could potentially get a good price for their home. All it states is, “If you are thinking of selling this is the time. Lots of buyers out there waiting for the right home to come to market. Inventory is low. Curious about the value of your home in today’s market? Call me at 914-424-7160”

The postcard was created using Adobe Photoshop and InDesign. The standard Better Homes and Gardens grass and sky branding background was utilized, but in a unique fashion. In this case I silhouetted the grass, which proved to be very time consuming, so that it could overlay a pocket watch. The pocket watch is the compelling image in this design and it is used to tie the “Now’s the Time” concept between the front and back of the postcard.

The postcard utilized variable data in print production so that the designs could be personalized for the individual real estate agents. This way they are able to include their name, photo and contact information reaching the mail boxes of their sphere of influence. This postcard design proved to be fairly effective in bringing in listing leads.

If you have a direct mail project that you would like to have produced yesterday, you better stop the clock and contact Ortner Graphics immediately.

Anniversary Card commemorating the purchase of home, which utilizes variable data for both the client and real estate agent.

Here’s an interesting concept for the use of variable data with direct mail as a way to maintain a continued relationship with past customers. The anniversary card design is a great tool for keeping your business in the minds of your old clients. In this example, which was designed for Better Homes and Gardens Rand Realty, the anniversary of a home purchase is commemorated. However, this same concept could be useful as marketing collateral to remind past customers about any big ticket purchase such as a car or appliance.

Because this example commemorates a home purchase, an elegant anniversary card graphic was created. It utilizes Better Homes and Gardens Rand Realty’s standard green branding spot color and what could be considered a typical scrolling, flower motif on the front cover. While the inside of the card utilizes variable data printed in four color on a digital press.

On the inside of the card, variable data consisting of the Real Estate Agent’s photo and contact information is printed on the left side.  The inside right panel of the anniversary card uses variable data of the client’s name giving the direct mail piece a vPery personalized appearance.

To minimize production costs, only the inside of the card is produced using a variable, digital press. The outside of the card is printed on a traditional offset press and left un-scored or folded. The print vendor then stores these shells and prints the variable agent and client data as the anniversary date arrives. The print vendor and mailing house also produces a personally addressed, envelope and then stuffs and fulfills the mailing.

The beauty of this project is that it is a drip campaign that essentially maintains itself using a minimal amount of information. All that is required is a database of the sales staff that maintains their contact information, a corresponding photo, and a list of the names and addresses of their past clients. This data is then fed to the print vendor and mailing house with next to no intervention from you. Just imagine the possibilities of this project for your retail business.

Thinking of Selling? We'll showcase your home on all of the top national and local real estate websites. This is a variable direct mail post card for use in the real estate industry.

Creating an engaging direct mail post card design can be a challenging task. Especially in the field of real estate where postcard designs are most often simply a photo of a MLS listing along with a brief description of the property on the back. The above design breaks the mold of standard real estate postcard designs.

The Thinking of Selling concept pictured above promotes Better Homes and Gardens Rand Realty’s listing syndication through social media and real estate websites such as Facebook, Trulia, Realtor.com and Zillow, to name just a few. A stock photo of a laptop computer was used to drive home the fact that this message is about an information technology service that the company offers. The real estate websites logos were then assembled in Adobe Illustrator and warped to match the laptop photo’s perspective in Adobe Photoshop. The Laptop was also silhouetted in Photoshop so that it could then be imported into Adobe InDesign and placed over Rand Realty’s standard grass/sky background branding image. The text was also written and typeset in InDesign and the logo was placed in the top right corner in accordance with Better Homes and Gardens Real Estate’s branding standards.

To ensure a cohesion between the front and back of the postcards the grass/sky image was used again as a background for the text. The body copy on the back further drives home the point to the card’s audience the significance of getting the potential lead’s home on as many websites as possible.

Better Homes and Gardens Rand Realty utilizes a direct mail vendor with the ability to create postcards with variable text and photos. This gives their agents the opportunity to include all of their contact information along with headshot on the card. They also could customize the message on the back of the card to suit their needs.  This all ads up to an effective direct mail campaign. The postcard was so successful and popular with the real estate agents that the design was modified and resized to run in several of the Hudson Valley region’s publications as a branding ad.