Are Your Real Estate Flyers Working for You?

When you make a flyer for your newest listing is it new, fresh and unique or is it a cookie cutter template that you just change a few photos and adjust the wording?  Do you get phone calls off your flyers after the first or second week that they are at the property?

It is surprising that so many Real Estate Agents use the same basic format or template for their listing flyers.  In some things imitation may be the highest form of flattery, but in this case it isn’t fair to your clients.  Clients expect certain things when you list their property, they expect you to work hard for them, they expect you to care about their sale as if it were your own, and they expect professional individualized advertising.  When you place flyers in their home or on the sign out front you are advertising their property for sale, but if your flyer is generic, unimaginative or a black and white copy of a copy of a copy until the page is so fuzzy you can’t read it - all you’ve accomplished is telling your clients that their property and the advertising of said property isn’t that important to you.  Ouch - not the impression you were planning on, was it.

So how do you change your flyers so that they work not only for your client but for you?  Think outside the box, step away from a flyer that looks like every other flyer in town.  Be bold, be creative, showcase property in the flyer.  In other word, if you’ve got a million dollar listing your flyer aught to look like a Million-plus, but that same Million-plus wouldn’t go over too well for a $24,000 mobile home in a park.  Here are a few ideas to make your flyers sell.

The Basics

1. Use full color printing - we are in the 21st century, it is expected.
2. Use quality paper, using cheap paper shows, it gets tattered easily, it sags in the flyer box and if you happen to print double sided flyers the bleed through is just tacky.
3. For your paper choose either the brightest white you can find or try light colors or cream tones that add to the look you are trying to achieve - dark colors such as bright reds, greens and even canary yellows are difficult to read when printed and hard on the eye.
4. Use a font(s) that are easy to read, it is very aggrevating to have to set and attempt to decipher what is on a flyer when the font is difficult to understand.
5. If you are not as computer friendly as others, or your creativity runs to the art of sales and not so much toward designing flyers - Find some one to do them for you.  Hire an assistant.  Enlist your Spouse, significant other or friend.  Talk to the Computer Science teacher at the local High School or Community College - they can easily recommend a student who wouldn’t mind a bit of extra cash and the experience gained from the work.

The Nitty-Gritty or Some Food for Thought

• Do something that everyone else doesn’t do.  Make your flyer booklet or brochure style using 11×14 or even 17×14 size paper
• Make your flyer Landscape instead of portrait
• Forget the paper and make CD presentations instead of flyers (if you have to pay for color copies and upgraded paper this could even be cheaper - I have found CD disks for sale for a penny a piece.
• Leave an important piece of information off the flyer, like the price, square footage, or the multiple listing number - It generates calls.  Oh you will hear from another agent or two, letting you know that you missed something, but the real payoffs are the calls from potential clients that you can convert to actual clients.  Word of caution, make sure your client knows that you are intentionally leaving something off and approves it.
• It is tempting to cram every bit of available space on your flyer with photos or text.  But if you were to speak to someone in the advertising business you would find out the white space is important.  Areas not covered allow you to focus more easily on the important information.
• Try perking up flyers with a bit of festivities, use clip art for adding seasonal or holiday touch.
• Evoking feelings by adding something like “Spend those cold winter nights snuggled up in front of the beautiful marble fronted fireplace enjoying a warm cup of your favortite cocoa”.  Bringing emotions into the home shown on a piece of paper the same way you do when you help your client visualize how their furniture or art work would fit the home during a home tour.
• Instead of using those pesky bullet points to detail the home (great on something like this article, but not really warm or inticing when it comes to selling someone a dream) Try your hand a telling a story, begin at the front door and lead the reader through their new home, you may find that this is quite apealing to both your seller and to potential clients who want to know what the home is really like.
• This may be the hardest part of the whole flyer - so I’ll apologize in advance.  Limit the space you use for your contact information.  Don’t not put it on, and don’t leave anything important out (like your phone number) Instead, let the property shine, and add a small tasteful corner of contact information, large enough to read easily but not so ‘in your face’ that it distracts from the property.

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