Having a steady flow of clients is easy if you have a database of quality contacts with which you regularly communicate. Here’s a great way to build your database by offering a valuable service to prospects and clients.

Agent Salome Janse Van Rensburg creates a flyer offering a “community update” service, informing subscribers on anything from interest rate changes to new tax laws. She could distribute this flyer to neighborhoods in her farm, pass them out at her open houses, or include it with her regular mailings. This is a versatile tool and there are some important details …

1. Attention Grabbing Headline: ‘PUBLIC NOTICE.’ This gets under a prospect’s radar that filters out ’sales messages,’
2. Offering something of value to target audience (updates include information buyers and sellers seek),
3. Making it easy for people to respond (include both phone and email contact), and
4. Letting a person choose how they want to receive updates (via email or sms message).

Here’s what Salome said this strategy is doing for her:

“This was my idea to try and get more people on my database, so far it has worked for me! I have had people contacting me on a daily basis and giving me referrals of friends and family that would like to sell/buy a home.”

You can click on the image below to see the full flyer as a pdf:

The following is a great example of “marketing leverage.” Rather than simply create a listing flyer describing the details of a listed home, Wes presents multiple reasons for a prospect to call him by offering a “teaser list” of other homes for sale on his flyer.

You’ll notice that the homes he lists are all within a specific price range and/or area of the listed home (by the way, if your listing client asks why you’re promoting other homes, you tell them that it’s in everyone’s best interest to get buyers to call – even if it’s on another home – this way you can direct them back to your primary listing, and it’s in your best interests to sell that home first. If they don’t call, you never know they are out there.)

The important lesson here is this: If you’re going to spend the money crating a beautiful listing flyer (or ad or any other promotion), why not look for additional ways to make it draw new business for you. One of those ways is to offer additional listings in a similar area/price as this listing – thus motivating buyer calls (that’s who visits your listings and opens your info tubes/boxes, right?). Another might be to offer Free Consumer Reports for Buyers and Sellers by calling your hotline or visiting your web site.

You cannot expect people to call you without a meaningful, specific reason for calling. This idea is similar to our “Premier Properties Flyer” in Step 2 of the 3-Steps System (www.3-steps.com). Now, here’s Wes’ short description and his flyer (click on flyer to see full size)…

“On your listing flyer include summary data of other homes in the area that are the market with the offer to also show these properties to prospective buyers. This tends to give the prospects the feeling that you are interested in finding ‘the right home for their family’ instead of just selling them a house.”

This is one of my favorite “low buck” marketing plans. I locate one of the busier pizza delivery places in town and ask to speak to the manager.

What I propose is for them to use my flyers as “box tops”. They would include a flyer with every order they send out. In return I pay for the flyers. I would also buy a gift certificate from the pizza shop and include them in my “welcome packet”.

Pizza shops get free exposure to new residents…new homeowners love the convenience of having some free pizza delivered on their moving day…and I get lots of exposure for the price of some copies and a gift certificate. Cheap and simple!

“I have had a lot of success generating clients by doing hand-outs at the ‘big box’ stores. The majority of people who go to these stores (Home Depot, Sam’s Clubs, etc.) are homeowners.

“I hand out market evaluations and introductory newsletters to these people for an hour on Saturday mornings. I am lucky to see homeowners and people who take pride in improving their homes.

“If that is not your cup of tea, try the local municipal airport. Executives arrive, book a car and jet into town to do their business. They also arrive before their families and if I am their welcoming person, then I make an impression. Do the same thing. Hand out market evaluations and your newsletter.

“Mass mailings cover a lot of area fast, but the face-to-face approach gets conversations going and helps develop a relationship with the potential client.”