Real Estate Marketing Corkboard

The other day I walked into my local grocery store and was standing by the deli counter and there is this community corkboard. It was a complete collage of hundreds of business cards, paper notices, flyers, advertisements of all sorts. About eleven or twelve of the business cards were real estate cards, all of which were buried under the mishmash, all with the agents’ glamour shots smiling out at the world of the market from this grocery store corkboard. Sure, some of these cards were prettier than others, but none of them had any draw to them, items of value none contained that certain something that would inspire me to stop and pull that card down, and take the time to physically call or contact them. Take a look. Honestly tell me if this is how we currently market real estate?

Now, don’t completely misunderstand my intent here. I am not saying that these corkboards are useless and completely without value. Job boards or corkboards can be useful to advertise many different things, but think about it: Do you really think that your card is going to be picked up out of the eleven other agent cards just because yours has your typical glamor shot, an address, fax number, and your company logo? Where is the item of value?

If you are going to go out of the way to put the card up, go out of your way to put a card up that makes sense! Add some call to action, add something that is not on the other cards:

Free Home Buyer E-Book,
Free Short Sale Process,
What your home is worth today,

…what your neighbor sold for, what the house down the street sold for, call for a free home evaluation, Free Guide to today’s real estate marketing conditions, and on and on! Put something on there that they can pick up and put it in their pocket and when they are emptying their pockets, they pull out your card and are inspired to call you.

That’s what’s going to get you a lead. Not just, “Oh, look that picture is better than that other one, so I’ll call this one instead and have them sell my house.” Unfortunately, it doesn’t work that way. Don’t put your card on this mess of a corkboard unless you know that you know you are going to outshine the mess.