Do you know what WIIFM stands for? It’s not the latest internet radio. It’s actually an acronym for a direct marketing principle that every good real investor should be aware of. WIIFM means What’s In It For Me? This is the first question that your customer will ask upon receiving your postcard. You should be able to grab their attention, or else, your postcard will end up in the garbage bin.
Your offer should be something useful to them. Strip it down to the basics; your customers do not care about the glitz and glamour. The benefits are what the customers are after, not the features. WIIFM is a clearcut guide on how to distinguish the benefits from the rest.
If your postcard gives a solution to the question What’s in it For Me, then you can be assured that your customer will pay attention to your postcard. Some real estate investors fall into the trap of giving too many details on the features and not focusing primarily on the benefits.
While on paper, it is a good idea to list your credentials. In the real world however, it does not work at all! Your customer does not care if you sold one million worth of houses of you’ve been named as the Real Estate Investor of the Year. Remember, those are all features, NOT benefits.
Just listing what you can do and have done for others in the past is not good enough in real estate marketing. The question in the mind of your prospective customers is, “How can you help me with what I need right now?” Hence, you need to change the angle from you are the best realtor, to offering benefits to your prospective customer.
But of course, to offer the right benefits, you should get to know your customers first. Find out what is your customers’ greatest need or pain. You may need to segment your customers and deal with each differently. One group of customers may have trouble paying their mortgage and are in pre-foreclosure or foreclosure. Their greatest need is to get out of their financial problems fast and have enough so they can start-over.
Another group of customers may be people who are close to retiring and whose children have moved out. Their greatest need is to get the best return for their investment to fund their retirement. These people may also care for their neighborhoods and homes. Don’t ignore their emotional need to look for buyers who will fit in their community and care for the houses that contain much of their history.
Aside from that you can also offer affirmation to your customer that whoever will buy his house will take care of it. Nothing beats a personal comfort.
So how can you make your customers feel better? Is it with more cash in their hands? Yes. But it could also mean, increasing their feeling of security that their houses will be sold quickly or by responding to their emotional need to preserve their homes.
Offer the benefits they will get from your services. But what would make your postcard unique is to give a more personal touch by comforting your clients during these tough times. If you follow this tip, you’ll surely amass a large number of interested clients.
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