I conducted a class about email marketing the other day, which opened up some great converations and made me excited to get back to my next post.
Which birds are we killing and why?
The two birds I’m aiming to kill are wasted money and environmental damage. Many of the Realtors I deal with in my day job love postcards. Others love “items of value” and handwritten notes. Some send newsletters through the mail. You may be completely wasting your time.
Generation Y and Direct Mail
I check my mail maybe once every other week. So if your postcard is time sensitive, you just wasted your time and money. Why don’t I check more regularly? All of my bills are online and none of my friends send me letters, they send me emails. So the only reason I check my mail is when I’m expecting something, like a movie or a package.
For those of you sending the items of value or handwritten notes, you’re doing better. Something personal in the mail is a novelty to me, so I’ll take a look at it. But those giant oval stickers telling me that you work on referrals and you want to download my contacts database so you can spam them too is an insult. I know why you’re contacting me, I don’t need it shoved in my face with a cheesy sticker.
Generation Y and Email
The number one question I get asked at all of my email marketing classes is “I get so much junk and delete it, why would I want to do this?” I would guess the average age of the Realtors in my classes is 45-50. Not Generation Y (keep reading, I’ll give my take on why Generation Y matters so much).
I grew up with email, as did many other Gen Y’ers. I have at least 10 accounts, 5 of which I check many times throughout the day. If you get my Hotmail account, sorry. Yahoo even worse. Work isn’t bad. Gmail means you’re a friend.
The bottom line is I’m efficient at checking my email. If I don’t want to keep getting something, I unsubscribe and if that doesn’t work, you get spam blocked. So I don’t mind 90% of the newsletters I get. According to a study put out by DoubleClick.com, 40% of people surveyed would like to have direct mail replaced by email. THEY WANT EMAIL.
Wasn’t there another bird somewhere?
The other bird that is more like a condor (in a bunch of ways) and it’s the environment. Call me a tree hugging hippie if you must, but hopefully somewhere deep inside you realize you should be doing something to help out. I’m biased, I live in the number 1 greenest city and spent my impressionable years in the number 5 city.
Sorry about calling your lovely postcard “junk”, but it immediately went into my recycle box. Some people think “Aha! But you at least saw it!” Yes I did, and I thought “How archaic and wasteful, I will NEVER work with that person”.
Generation Y? They’re just a bunch of self-centered punks!
People I work with always try to point out that Gen Y isn’t the largest real estate buying age group (yet). Many people I deal with are Baby Boomers and prefer to work with Baby Boomers because they see it as a huge group. My parents are Baby Boomers. I have a great relationship with my parents, which is typical of Generation Y.
My parents bought their house over 10 years ago and they love it. They will retire in it. They may need you for an investment property or a vacation home, but not all Boomers will. You are guaranteed only one more transaction out of them. A bit morbid, I know, but it’s the only guarantee you have.
I am a different story though. I will be moving out of my starter home to something nicer within the next 2-3 years. If I decide I want a family, I will move out of that house into another. I see the value of real estate investing, so I want several rental properties. I love my vacations, so I’ll take a vacation home too. Sure, these may be over the next 15 years, so if you’re only in the business for the next 5 years, feel free to ignore me.
The other thing is my parents (Boomers) are very busy people and will want my help with their real estate transactions. So I not only choose my Realtor, but I choose theirs too. So THAT’s why Generation Y is so important. We may not be the biggest group, but we have a lot of sway with the biggest group.
It’s so easy…
All of your direct mail marketing should now say “I’m trying to go green, would you rather receive this via email?” and have a sign in box on your web site that you refer people to. You will probably be amazed at the response you get. Do that a few times, then do a promotion (drawing for dinner/prize) to get those emails.
I’ll use Constant Contact and a local postcard company as examples. To send out 250 postcards will cost you $155. To send out an email newsletter to 250 people will cost you $15. If you decide you want to repeat it to announce a charitable cause, an open house or any other event, postcards will cost you another $155 but Constant Contact will cost you nothing more than the $15 you already spent.
So you’ve saved a ton of money, the environment, reached out to Generation Y (who helps Baby Boomers in their decision process), now get started!
