How to Break into a Farm

A common question that we get at Farming Cards is: “How many postcards or mail pieces should I be sending?” It’s an important question to ask if you are trying to break into a new farm and we have some answers.

For new farms, we recommend sending 3 pieces of mail per month for the first 4 months to get your foot in the door and generate name recognition. This could be a combination of Just Listed cards, Just Sold cards, or cards with any market updates. If there are holidays around the times you are sending these cards, you may want to send timely holiday material to your farm area. You can create a quarterly newsletter with market facts and relevant details about your business that you have not included on other cards. There are many creative ways for you to get your foot in the door in this opening marketing period.

At this point, you will have sent 12 pieces of mail demonstrating your strengths and the activity in your market. You want to encourage potential sellers to be active and make sure they’re thinking of you if they choose to pursue that opportunity. Your farming push can be connected to any other marketing (online, print, etc.) that you are pursuing, helping establish your brand in a competitive market.

Every month there after I would recommend sending 1-2 pieces of mail per month. You’ve established your name and business, now is the opportunity to maintain that presence. It is also a chance to divert those extra resources into a new farm or complementary marketing strategy to keep growing your business.

The key thing to remember with this farming strategy, however, is all of the lead capture methods you can and should be using. Cards, letters, and brochures should point back to a website that would convert recipients into real leads. For example, maybe a card directs them to a page on your site where the customer is offered a free CMA. In order to get this free CMA, you would need their first and last name, email address, physical address, and phone number so you can add the information to a database and continue to follow up with the new potential client. You may get results putting down name and number on a card; you’re going to get more results if you add in a simple, easy lead capture system.

If you have any questions about our farming program we would love to help you. Farming.cards is committed to helping our customers create effective, attractive marketing materials with flexible, timely mailings. Please give us a call at 888-768-5285.

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