To recruit new agents for its expanding offices in the region, Chase International, a high-end real estate agency in Lake Tahoe, realized it had to reach them at home and not the office.
Each month, it sent out about 2,300 highly tailored, oversize postcards to the home addresses of prospective agents in northern Nevada. A crew of temporary employees was hired to find the target audience — new realtors or those from competitors who were successful selling properties worth $600,000 or higher — through such sources as Whitepages.com and WhoWhere.com.
Through this campaign, Chase was able to recruit 25 new agents for its Reno office and around a dozen for its Lake Tahoe location, says Lee Koch, founder of Weber and Assoc., Chase’s agency.
Chase first found these names from realtor lists from local real estate multiple listing services and trade association files, as well as internal efforts “to confirm that we indeed had the cream of the crop on our direct mail target lists,” she notes.
Next, it found them at home.
“Naturally, in a situation like this, confidentiality is critical, especially if a top agent is thinking about making a shift,” says Koch.
Copy on the postcards changed monthly, always touting the benefits of working for Chase, such as free educational programs. The response devices were the private cell phone numbers of different Chase agents prospects could call to set up an appointment to come in and talk.
Got a direct mail tip to share? Contact Larry Riggs at [email protected]
Network
