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What do you imagine if you hear the marketing phrase, referral letter marketing? I’ll bet you $100 you’re guessing that I’m talking about testimonials and recommendations from past clients.

That’s not a shabby marketing approach for Realtors either. Although, what I’m getting at is collecting a stream of client referrals from other professionals such as mortgage brokers, landscapers, attorneys and contractors. And the only thing you’ll need to do is write a nice little letter, written by the greatest real estate agent (you!).

What referral letter marketing really boils down to for Realtors is this: locate a list of professionals with clients likely to purchase or sell a house. Then you just write down a personal letter that truthfully shows off who you are and send it to this list in the regular mail (no email).

Be sure you get unique and use an envelope that stands out from every other white, standard envelope in the mail. Follow up with each professional by telephone, if possible, and go on to mail/contact them once per month.

You’d be surprised how numerous successful Realtors use this marketing technique for their entire careers, very nearly eliminating marketing expenses to acquire clients. Don’t worry, there’s nothing wrong with copying what the “big boys” practice.

1st, let’s get a list of professionals that really have the clients you possibly could work with…

- CPA’s

- Lenders (apparent, right?)

- Financial Planners and Advisors

- Real Estate Lawyers

- General Contractors

- Appraisers

- Residential Electricians

- Residential Plumbers

- Residential Landscapers

- Roofing Contractors

- Tree Cutting Professionals

- Residential Handymen

- Get the concept?…

That list should get you off and running but there’s many more you can add in the future.

So how can you get a full list of all the professionals you’ll wish to work with? Wonderful question, glad you asked. You have a duo of options, depending on how much cash you retain in your marketing budget.

One choice is to explore the yellow pages on-line. As a Realtor, you already have a region you operate in so stay within that geographical region, in general. If you don’t mind the manual labor, this can be a perfect choice for you.

You’ll sift through to get the entire name, phone number and mailing address of each professional. This alternative is totally free of charge but certainly more time consuming than a number of Realtors might like.

A separate option for compiling your list of respected professionals is to just buy a list. In the same way you’re probably on one or more Realtor or agent lists being sold out there, just about every profession has their own list for sale too.

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Relax, these types of lists aren’t dishonest or unethical. Several people don’t know but these types of lists are compiled and available for sale when professionals, like us real estate agents, join an association or give their info to a publication that they subscribe to.

There are quite a few list companies out there to pick from. Attempt to pick a list company that has all the professions you’re searching for, rather than going to separate list companies for each profession. Buying your list will cost you a few marketing dollars but you’ll save yourself a pant load of agony and working hours.

Once you’ve obtained your marketing list (whichever way you decide to get it), it’s time to start writing this personal letter to send to your list. I don’t have space here to tell you about copywriting, unfortunately. That’s a topic all by itself.

All you need to realize right now is that this letter can’t be “salesy” like a letter you’d mail to your farm list of homeowners.

You can replicate and re-use your letter for each professional but the referral letter itself needs to make each professional who gets it, to feel like they’re the sole one in the world that you sent it to.

The point is that you ought to write this referral marketing letter as if you were talking to them face-to-face. Don’t apply the same flavorless language that your bank does when they mail you a boring letter in the mail. Speak to them like a real person and catch their curiosity.

This is off subject but this form of “real person” marketing goes for all your marketing pieces: classified ads, emails, postcards, etc.

The “meat and potatoes” of the letter needs to explain that you would like to create a professional relationship with them where you can refer business to one another. Your goal is to be their “pocket Realtor” who gets all their referrals, for free! You want to emphasize how they’ll profit from this relationship without doing any selling, got it?

You could happen to know something about the company one of these professionals work for so feel free to drop that in your letter to make it more personal. Maybe you personally know of a client who’s used that professional, toss that in the letter also. Unless you blab about their mom, for some reason, it’s almost impossible for you to get too personal in your letter.

My suggestion would be to definitely jot down this referral marketing letter in your own words. But if you just detest penning this style of marketing material, you can rent an economical self-employed writer to do it for you.

Perform a Google search for “self-employed writers” and you’ll understand a number of companies to choose from. With a few of the sites you’ll find, you can choose freelance writers from all over the world, which is somewhat handy. The excellent thing is several of these companies let you check reviews on each writer, how much they charge and even contact them with “consultation questions”. You might go as far as posting the project you want accomplished and waiting for writers to apply. It’s wonderful.

Okay, so far you have your marketing list of professionals and your marketing letter completed, now it’s time to send it and get some clientele. Just please don’t just mail it in a plain white envelope similar to everyone else… please, please, please!

Get another unusual mailing package or envelope with some color or size to it. The idea is that you need your mailing piece to stand out amongst every other letter that professional is receiving that day. Also, a good way to personalize your letter and have it opened, is to have the mailing and return addresses hand-written.

When you collect your mail, which pieces do you open straight away and which ones do you discard without a second look? Exactly, letters that have hand-scripted addresses constantly have priority!

In addition to the referral letter you wrote, the next thing you’ll want is to throw in a distinctive marketing piece. One marketing thought would be to put together a video with Animoto, burn it on a DVD and mail it with your letter.

A buddy of mine used poker chips as his marketing object when he sent out a mailing for his life insurance business. The slogan he printed on the poker chips was “Don’t even think about gambling with your life”.

Isn’t that brilliant? That’s an example of what I’m talking about when it comes to getting creative with your marketing, precisely like the top real estate agents do.

With this referral letter, make sure you specify for these professionals to not only call your telephone, if they want, but also to check out your blog or site. It’s crucial to give them the choice of how to contact you. You simply don’t know which professionals prefer the phone or to suss you out on your site first.

The final step we’ll address is absolutely critical. The mother of all marketing principles is “repetition”. If you look at marketing stats in general, it’s been shown that consumers and prospects need to hear or view the same marketing message more than 6-7 times before they feel comfortable enough to answer back.

Following up with this marketing list of professionals is crucial to getting the highest reply rate that you can. Following up with these professionals with another letter or a phone call every 4 weeks or so would be my suggestion. If you have it, using a professional’s e-mail address would be a fine follow up also.

But please be careful about not suffocating them, however you decide to follow-up. Be courteous and give them space but at the same time, don’t let them forget which Realtor or agent they have to be sending clients to.

A little time saving tip: if there’s money in your marketing budget, try hiring a college student or high school teenager to stuff your mailers for you. I’d still tell you to create your referral letter yourself but feel free to pay somebody else to address the envelopes and stick the letters inside.

This sort of hired-hand will be about as cheap as you can get and you’ll salvage so much time that you won’t understand what to do with yourself.

Bottom line, I just think this is one of the better marketing ideas for Realtors or agents out there. As long as you are consistent about building these relationships, you can garner yourself a career-long stream of free customer referrals.