The Do’s and Don’ts of Real Estate Print Marketing

When you first think about marketing for real estate, you’re probably considering posting on Trulia, Realtor.com, or Zillow. While that isn’t necessarily a bad approach, as a real estate agent, you should realize that there is still a wealth of opportunity in print marketing.

In fact, WebsiteBox conducted a survey and found that 66 percent of realtors design their own print pieces, such as flyers, posters, postcards, business cards, lawn signs, and letterheads. According to the source, these individuals are leveraging online tools to create marketing materials, and specifically, they’re using online managed print services.

By turning to online printing services, realtors are reducing their spending and improving productivity, not to mention the fact that printed materials are attracting new clients and driving business growth. You’re in real estate, however, not design. While you might have a knack for graphics and computer skills, you likely don’t know where to start. So, here are some do’s and don’ts when it comes to real estate print marketing.

Do: Combine print and digital

Consumers today switch channels as often as they check their Instagram accounts. This means advertising across print, the Web and social networks becomes necessary for your brand.

When creating business cards, flyers, and posters, make sure to list your website, email address, and social networks. Furthermore, with clients checking out different channels, you need to ensure that themes are consistent across everything. That means using the same colors, logos, and fonts.

Don’t: Forget to calculate your ROI

Just because you haven’t invested a truck-ton of money into printers and ink, you are still putting some revenue toward managed print services. They will be far less expensive, but this is still business, and budgets matter.

By calculating the return on your printing investments, you can identify which printed media is attracting the most clientele, allowing you to put more eggs in that basket next time.

Do: Find a great cloud-based printing service provider

The Sourcing Interests Group reported that outsourcing is a great way to reduce costs, but by partnering with experts and great service providers, employee productivity can increase as well. Choose managed printing services that offer best-in-class printing materials and speedy delivery.

Don’t: Skimp out on spending

According to WebsiteBox, 80 percent of real estate agents believe they should spend more on print marketing. Invest now! If those realtors would buy more promotional items, they stated that they would place postcards and brand folders in the top five most desired materials, the source discovered. What does your office need?

Do: Look Fantastic

If your flyers and business cards look shabby, what will clients think your listings look like? Creating a brand that is consistent across all of your real estate marketing materials increases the validity of your brand (both personal and professional).

In short, that means making your lawn signs match your posters, which should look like your website, and so on.

Top Tip: Add a picture of yourself. A friendly face is a great way to attract happy clients.

When it comes to designing your real estate marketing materials, keep in mind these core design elements that impact how people perceive your brand:

Font

The font you choose for your brand will have its own unique characteristics that impact your branding. Make sure those characteristics match the style of properties and clients that you’re involved with.

For instance, serif fonts (much like this one) are popular with brands that convey class and appear across many high-end brands. Selling pricey listings to mature buyers? Serif fonts are typically the way to go.

Perhaps you’re looking for a more approachable aesthetic, one that encourages a wider demographic of property hunters to choose you to help with their search. In that case, you may want to go with a sans-serif font.

Sans-serif fonts are a little more casual than their serif counterparts and pair well with modern brands that are focused on friendly service.

Color

When designing your printed real estate materials, selecting colors is a crucial step. Like fonts, colors weigh heavily on brand perception.

Selling luxury properties? Black, gold, and silver are your best bet. Work with eco-friendly, LEED-certified buildings? Green is a no-brainer.

Each color has its own associations, so make sure you choose the best one when building your real estate documents!

Marketing Materials

Once you have your brand aesthetics established, consider how you want to spread awareness. If you’re a broker who’s always on the go, stock up on flyers and business cards which are easy to carry and pass out. If you’re hoping to bring more traffic to your site or office, get some posters and brochures circulating.

The quality of these documents certainly matter as they serve as a first impression for you and your brand!

Use Mimeo to Help With All of Your Real Estate Printing Needs

Mimeo was created to give people back time. Users can upload content to their digital library and organize files by folders. Want a hard copy printed? Build, proof, and ship in a few minutes. Content can even be shared with varying levels of permissions to other Mimeo users. No order minimums, no commitments, 24/7 support! 

Users can place a print order for delivery to hundreds of locations with a single click. Instead of hundreds of emails, easily view and map the status of each shipment. What would have once been a massive undertaking is now organized on one screen.

Click around a free account and start organizing your content, regardless if it’s a single poster or 1,000 different corporate brochures varying by geographic region or brand.  No minimums, and real-time pricing.

Now cross a content-related project off of your to-do list!