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Direct Mail Campaign Idea
Marketing to Your Sphere of Influence
When it comes to generating repeat business and referrals, there is no better investment than marketing to your sphere of influence.
By maintaining connection with this key group, professionals can tap into a valuable source of deals through leveraging the trust and familiarity that has already been established.
Why Should You Market to Your Sphere of Influence?
To answer this question, we must begin with what your sphere of influence (SOI) is. Your SOI is your database of friends, family, past clients, past prospects, neighbors... the people you know and have a relationship with. They trust you and would be willing to refer you, you just have to remind them to.
This key group represents a goldmine of opportunity for professionals across various industries. For example, the National Association of Realtors released a study reporting that real estate agents making over $100k a year said they got nearly two-thirds of their annual deals from either repeat business or referrals.
If your SOI has the potential to bring in 66% of your yearly business, then marketing to your SOI is not just a good idea - it should be a prioritized necessity!
What makes your SOI such a rich goldmine? The people that are part of your database are warm leads, compared to cold leads you may try to generate. In competitive markets, the cost of acquiring a new client as opposed to keeping an existing one can be 5-10 times higher.
Let's say you have invested considerable effort in cultivating relationships that eventually become your clients. However, as time passes, communication dwindles. Suddenly, you discover they're using another professional in your same field for services you could have provided.
The impact extends far beyond missing out on just one deal; it represents missed opportunities for recurring business and someone who could potentially champion your business by being an excellent referral partner.
The cost of losing touch with your SOI is too high. Keep reading for cost-effective strategies on how to consistently stay in touch with your database.
How Do You Market to Your Sphere of Influence?
In order to build to consistently stay in touch with your sphere of influence, there is one marketing channel that we believe can best serve as the cornerstone of your strategy.
Direct mail is a time-tested marketing channel that can be used to target the exact audience you want to reach, during the most effective time to reach them, and in a medium that remains relevant in our ever-evolving world.
Your direct mail strategy to stay in touch with your SOI can be broken up into 3 different parts: budget, database, and content.
BUDGET
Consistency is key when it comes to doing direct mail. If you must, plant fewer seeds and water them more frequently. Mailing 12 times a year to a smaller audience will yield a far better result than once or twice to a larger group. Plan your budget around what will allow you to stay in front of your SOI at least 6 times a year.
DATABASE
Your direct mail campaigns will only be as good as your data is, so you will need to commit to keeping your database clean and up to date. If you need help putting together your database or keeping it clean you can utilize this free guide or reach out to our team for help.
CONTENT
When you are deciding what content to put on your mail piece, there are two different types of content you can send out: value content and promotion content. Value Content is information that will be helpful to your audience. Promotion Content is information that is directly related to your offer of services. The best way to build trust with your audience is to send them a balance of value and promotion content. Check out our postcard examples for ideas.
For over 20 years, our team has specialized in helping real estate agents, mortgage loan officers, and professionals from other like industries stay in touch with their spheres of influence. We are ready to assist you by facilitating an automated, drip marketing program on your behalf.
The results speak for themselves. We have clients who started with us over 20 years ago and are still mailing postcards to their SOI because it works!