Real estate investors, flippers, and agents all have to find ways in order to find new deals. With the MLS being overloaded with competition, the only way to win is to differentiate yourself.

Most investors use direct mail as you can specifically target certain residences that might be in foreclosure or suffering from code violations. However, this method of advertising is often expensive and the returns aren’t that great.

In this real estate flyer guide, we’ll go over the best designs and strategy that you can use to get leads that wouldn’t be available to your competitors.

Real Estate Flyers

Distributing flyers on foot has some of the same advantages of direct mail but it is often more effective. The reason is that when someone gets home and grabs their mail, they aren’t looking to see what new offers might’ve come in. They’re looking to see which bills came in and then they’ll toss your piece in the trash.

Not the most effective method of advertising since you’re competing with priority mail. On the other hand, flyer distribution will reach the customer at their front door.

Everyone has a front door and your piece will ideally be placed there. They have no choice but to acknowledge your flyer there. You won’t have to compete with any other piece as your flyer will be the only one there.

Benefits of Real Estate Flyer Distribution

Cost-Savings: The cost of having flyers distributed on foot is much lower than the cost of having direct mail sent out. With direct mail, you have to secure the right list so that your pieces go to targeted homeowners. However, this list will often cost a considerable amount. This doesn’t even include the postage for direct mail as well as the printing.

Targeted distribution: As discussed earlier, door hangers are designed to go right on the doorknob of homes. Studies have shown that door hangers can have up to 3-5% conversion rates which is astronomical if you’re sending out tons of flyers

More Pieces: Since the cost of distribution is lower, you can afford to put out more pieces. As anything, this becomes a numbers game. The more flyers you put out, the more calls you’ll get.

Human Connection: The closest thing you’ll get to a human connection with direct mail is when the postman drops it off. This isn’t the best case scenario with real estate investing because your ultimate customer is the homeowner. With flyer distribution, homeowners will sometimes be outside and a distributor can directly hand the flyer over to them.

This allows for a more personal connection and also the opportunity for the distributor to engage and interact with a potential client. This adds a face to your brand and offer.

Real Estate Flyer Design

The design of the flyer is one of the most important factors in deciding what kind of response you can expect. You’ve seen the street signs and flyers that say “WE BUY HOUSES” promising cash offers in less than 10 days. You’d have to send out thousands of these to see any actual real returns.

What has worked tremendously in the past is for the offer to be hand written. Imagine a flyer that is designed to look as a handwritten note. It would say, “Hi my name is _____ and I’d like to buy your house. Please give me a call at ______”. As simple as this sounds, it actually works.

What happens is that the flyer looks personalized and custom to the specific house that it is being left at. This type of flyer usually gets a much higher call rate than a generic “WE BUY HOUSES” one.

Real Estate Flyer Strategies

We’ve often seen the real estate agent yard signs or the “WE BUY HOUSES” bandit signs posted alongside the road. But how do personal flyers differ from these strategies?

Personal flyers usually have the agent’s name and picture which is a less intrusive way of introducing yourself and what you do. Think of it more as brand awareness as opposed to dropping a bunch of flyers offering to buy a house.

Picture Flyers: You can place these around the houses where you are currently doing deals or have properties under contract. The best part of of this is that you can narrow the flyer down right to the exact street.

“My name is John and I have the 33-33 54th st house for sale. If you or someone you know may be interested please give a call at 555-555-5555.”

These types of flyers can be dropped over and over. The end goal is to ultimately build up a list of potential prospects who have your flyer (business card) in the case that they need your services. Like any type of marketing, volume equates for the success of any campaign

Mass Flyer Drops: Most of the time your flyers won’t get much of a response. To be conservative, we can estimate that 1 percent of our flyers will result in calls. Now, out of that 1 percent, we may receive 50 calls but not all of them will be qualified or result in a sale.

For that reason, you have to think in terms of mass flyer drops. It could be spread out over multiple cities or it could even be in the same zip code over the period of a year. This sample size will be large enough for you to actually get value of the campaign. Most often times marketers try out a new flyer design with 2,500 flyers and then wonder why they don’t get a satisfactory response.

The reason is that people won’t buy of you the first time they come into contact with your product or service. They might like the offer but aren’t ready to buy just yet or don’t know you enough to move forward. That’s why multiple mass mailings work. If they continue to see your flyer hung on their door monthly, they know you’re a serious brand who can afford to advertise on their front door!

Can flyers be tracked?

Flyers are hard to measure without any call to action which is why we include our phone numbers on them. What if we want to know exactly how many calls our flyers received?

The best way to measure it is to simply register a phone number specific to the flyer campaign. This is easy to do nowadays and you can even have those calls routed to your cellphone.

With this approach in mind, you can start to split-test the flyer designs against each other. You can test a more personal flyer vs a generic one to see which has better conversions.

Off-Market Opportunities

What makes the most successful real estate companies stand out is their commitment to their marketing. Any large company will attest to the importance of consistent advertising. The best way to differentiate yourself is to explore avenues where your competitors aren’t.

With online marketing, you’re competing and bidding with the next guy for the coveted top spots on Google or Facebook. With flyer marketing, your only competition is the wind. You hope that it won’t knock your flyer out before your potential customer gets a chance to see it.

You can make a good case for direct mail but then your competitors become other companies doing it as well as priority mail like bills. With flyer marketing, you can have your flyer placed on the front door of the house where only YOUR ad is being seen.

Creativity is essential when trying to find deals off market and flyers happen to be one of the most tried and true methods for finding them.

If you’d like to get started on a flyer distribution campaign, click here to get pricing on services.