Plenty of real estate agents have told me that they don’t mail prospecting letters because they “don’t work.”
The first one was a man I worked with many, many years ago. He came into the office and saw me typing letters and asked if I was prospecting. When I said yes, he informed me that I was wasting my time. “Prospecting letters don’t work.”
Later on I found the basis for his proclamation. He had written one letter and mailed it once – to one person. I just shook my head.
Giving up too soon is one of the primary reasons why real estate prospecting letters fail.
Direct marketers over a variety of industries have done the tests and documented the results. Their conclusion is that it takes a minimum of 5 touches to get a response from the majority of cold prospects. If you only mail one or two letters, you’ll be very lucky to get even a 1% response.
So think about that. Prospecting by mail does work for thousands of agents. But it requires consistency. Mailing just one letter will more than likely be a waste of both your time and your money.
Your first letter, and perhaps even the second, might not be read at all.
Why would someone, especially someone who wants to sell their home, not read your letters?
For several reasons:
The most obvious is that they don’t know you and don’t yet have a reason to trust you. You’re a stranger reaching out to solicit business. (How do YOU react to those messages?)
Not only that, it could be that your letter is all about you or that it asks for business before offering proof that you have something good to offer. Too many agents send “Hi, I’m wonderful, choose me” letters.
If you’ve mailed a letter in which the first word is “I,” then you were just asking for rejection.
Check out these Five Rules for Writing Prospecting Letters to Homeowners.
Other reasons relate to the timing.
On the day your letter arrives, they might be:
- Swamped with work, with no time to read your message
- Swamped with email messages, so yours gets deleted unread
- Ill – or awaiting medical test results that have them worried
- Caring for a sick child
- In the middle of a personal crisis of some other kind
- In the middle of planning some kind of event
- Entertaining house guests
- Packing for a trip
- Out of town
- Depressed and discouraged about the chance of selling
- Inundated with similar letters (But that’s unlikely. Most agents don’t really prospect.)
In other words, they might be interested, but today is not the day. So your message goes unread.
Consistency in Real Estate Marketing Overcomes Those Problems
When you keep appearing in front of those prospects, your chances of having the message read go up 
with each mailing. And once your prospect reads one message and finds good information, the chance that he or she will read your next message and the next one increases… until at last they’re convinced that YOU are the agent they need.
If you know you need to prospect, but don't want to write your own letters, do use the ones I've written for you!
You'll find a wide variety at: https://www.copybymarte.com/prospecting-letters/
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