It’s been a couple years since the last time I wrote about direct response marketing.  Boy, time really does fly!

Direct Response Marketing – Overview

If you do direct response marketing, you’re including a call to action in your marketing initiatives that encourages your audience to do something very specific.  For example, you’ve seen those crazy product commercials on TV that encourage the audience to call an 800 number for a special offer – usually only for the next 10 minutes! 

That is a direct response ad.  Make this phone call – get something valuable in return.  It’s direct contact between the consumer and the advertiser.  It’s different than a more traditional ad.  Traditional television commercials don’t use direct response principals.  You’ve never seen a TV commercial for corn flakes that displays an 800 number that can be called to order two boxes for the price of one!

Does direct response marketing work?  I guess it must since they keep producing those types of commercials.  The key is that the advertiser can tell if it’s working because they can simply count the number of calls received by that 800 number.  And, the advertiser can tell if  they’re getting a reasonable return on investment, too.  They can compare the revenue generated by the phone calls to the cost of the TV ad.

What Does Direct Response Marketing in Real Estate  Look Like?

I’ll start this discussion by describing what is not direct response marketing.  I received a series of postcards from a local real estate agent.   If I had to give them a name, I’d say they were “image” pieces.  The content talked mostly about the agent; the path the agent had taken to come to be a real estate agent and so forth.  Written in type so small I almost needed a magnifying glass.  One part of the card did contain somewhat larger type and offered this call to action:

• Ready to buy or sell your next home?  Call [the agent] for a copy of her personal brochure to learn more about her successful approach to selling your home.

The italics were on the postcard, not my idea.  I guess the agent thought that receiving a copy of a personal brochure was the irrestible offer that would get people to call.  And, if you looked at the card very closely, you’d finally notice that her telephone number was printed in very small letters at the bottom of the card, in a color that blended so well with the background as to make it almost unnoticeable.

I’m not sure if this agent thought she was doing direct response marketing, but I certainly hope not.  Needless to say, a search for her name related to real estate in Georgia produces no results!

So, what does direct response marketing in real estate look like?  Stay tuned for part two!