Online advertising may be where agents are putting most of their dollars, but many continue to see value in print. Case in point: More than 100,000 active agents send marketing postcards to prospective clients via direct mail company QuantumDigital.
A 2,000-agent brokerage in Atlanta, Solid Source Realty, is the latest to sign up for the firm’s 4-year-old direct mail marketing program, TriggerMarketing.
The program taps more than 2.4 million multiple listing service listings from ListHub and realtor.com nightly to let agents send “Just Listed” and “Just Sold” postcards to prospective clients, helping them bring in both buyers and sellers.
QuantumDigital has similar agreements with 13 brokerages that include Weichert, which has about 500 sales offices and 18,000 associates; Crye-Leike Realtors; Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices; Re/Max; and Century 21. Individual agents can also create an account with QuantumDigital to take advantage of TriggerMarketing.
The company plays in a competitive space with the likes of Market Leader, Imprev, Corefact and Kunversion.
TriggerMarketing is extremely fast and easy, according to Chief Marketing Officer Eric Cosway.
QuantumDigital charges a one-time $39 membership fee. Members get an email from TriggerMarketing as soon as their listing is posted on the MLS. The same happens when an agent sells a home.
The email gives an agent the option to select a “Yes” button to send out 50, 100 or 200 postcards to prospective clients around their listing, or to a specified group of people or geographic area of the agent’s choosing — the agent’s “farm.” Prices for postcard campaigns start at $69.
The postcards feature catchy headlines and artwork selected during creative sessions with agents conducted by QuantumDigital. They are sent out 24 hours after the agent gives TriggerMarketing the go-ahead.
Cosway said direct mail is the only way you can target real people at physical locations — a massive differentiation from Internet marketing campaigns.
“We’re not a banner ad or a spam email that you delete without opening it. We’re a postcard, with a 100 percent open rate. In that way we get more people interested,” Cosway said.
Cosway said the roughly 200,000 mailers that go out daily are a more intimate and direct router because response technologies — such as a QR code, short-number to send a text message, or a unique URL — invite prospective clients to access more information online and get in touch with agents.
Agents also receive an email alert when a postcard recipient seeks property information using one of the response technologies, curating a list of leads.
The Austin, Texas-based company was created 26 years ago by real estate agent Jim Damon to make local neighborhood marketing fast and easy with on-demand print orders and a telephonic service that made and sent postcards on behalf of agents.
Now they have access to a wide breadth of data from over 100,000 agents that can help them improve real estate marketing.
When a recipient reaches out to an agent via the postcard’s response technology, the company adds the prospective client’s name, address and demographic information into a growing database that could expand the information agents have about the neighborhoods they work in.
Agents can also track the effectiveness of their marketing campaigns with their QuantumDigital accounts.
In the future, TriggerMarketing plans to analyze the effectiveness of marketing strategies and pair that with the demographic information they gather with each new prospective client to tailor their services for agents across the U.S.
But right now agents and brokerages are sinking their teeth into TriggerMarketing’s rapidly changing technology first. During the initial stages agents gave TriggerMarketing permission to mail out simply made postcards, and now they can have a wide range of templates and headlines to choose from.
They also have farther reach with the ability to send out postcards to prospective clients outside of a particular listing’s geographic area.
“Real estate isn’t ready yet [for all the new marketing data], but there is so much potential, and we’re almost there,” Cosway said.
QuantumDigital is also the creator of the new online storefront QuantumPostcards.com and QCards, which the company says is the first direct mail marketing iPhone app for small businesses.