Dear Round Rock real estate agents:
Please stop littering my neighborhood with the promotional flyers you’ve been sticking into door frames. You know who you are.
You see, Central Texas is a pretty windy place, especially in the summer. So when you put hundreds or thousands of flyers into the door jambs around my neighborhood, many of them end up blowing away. I have pulled your flyers out of my plant beds, out of my trees, and out of the pond behind my house (the egrets and herons don’t like you much either).
I know, I know. You’re trying to save yourself a few dimes on postage by using flyers instead of postcards. But how much do you pay the folks who deliver the flyers for you? How much do you spend on printing? Surely you could use postcards (the kind that go into people’s mailboxes) without spending much more than you are now.
The primary offender in my neighborhood is some guy named Robert Fischer. His flyer informs me that he practices “Real Estate With a Servent’s Heart” — spelling left intact. I have emailed Mr. Fischer more than once, asking that he stop putting his flyers on my door. He has yet to respond.
Attention agents: Here are some better ways to market your Round Rock real estate services, rather than blanketing the neighborhoods with your promotional litter.
- Why not build a good web presence, so people can find you online when they’re actually looking for a local real estate agent? When you shove your message into people’s faces (and doors), you are playing a numbers game wherein the odds are stacked against you. What a waste of paper.
- Why not send direct mail postcards to selective addresses in your area of operation? It’s still a waste of paper, but at least it goes into a mailbox and doesn’t blow around the neighborhood (see aforementioned effects of wind on paper).
- Why no conduct home-buying seminars for people in your target neighborhoods?
- Why not do such a tremendous job for your clients that you enjoy a steady stream of referral leads?
In short, Round Rock real estate agents, I am recommending that you use the best practices of marketing that have come from decades of research. It is less wasteful, it is more effective, and it saves everyone time and hassle. But perhaps this logic-based appeal is all in vain. After all, everyone knows you don’t have to be a genius to get a real estate license — or even a good speller.
