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How to Get Your Marketing Message Out All Year
by Richard Roop

I recently ordered my 2002 calendar greeting cards. Each year I mail them around Christmas time to most everyone on my contact list with a brief personal note and my $100 bill business card. What's great is people put them up and see them all year. Here's what I had imprinted on the bottom of them:

Bottom Line RESULT$, Inc. Sell Your House in 9 Days at a Fair Price! No fee.
No commission. Quick, easy and professional. FREE recorded info 24/7 at
1-888-499-1051 Box 5151 Bus: 719-687-4472 • Fax: 719-687-4471 • blresults@aol.com

I also recently ordered some high quality brass barrel pens from www.amsterdamprinting.com. Most people just imprint their name and phone number (boring!). They limited me to 5 lines of 45 characters each and I used just about every character:

SELL YOUR HOUSE IN 9 DAYS AT A FAIR PRICE! Local company needs
to buy 7 houses monthly. No fee/commission. Quick/easy/professional.
For FREE recorded info, call 1-888-499-1051 Box 5151, then call Martha at (719) 687-6885

I now give a pen to all new acquaintances including all prospective buyers and sellers. I also leave a handful at the title company, bank, or coffee shop each time I visit. They have a high perceived value (unlike cheap plastic pens) and tend to float around. They are valued at $3.79 and cost $1.79 in bulk. They are a great "lumpy mail" item to send with a sales letter to a qualified list of prospective sellers.

Amsterdam Printing has a matching brass barrel key tag that I will soon order and give to my new occupants. Also looking into custom "welcome mats" as a house warming gift. The cost can be justified with a well organized referral and follow up program. We are working on ours and will share it with you in a future issue.

You'll notice that my new advertising refers buyers and sellers to call Martha. Martha is an independent contractor. She works from her own home office. I forward one of my phone numbers to her office. After a buyer or seller goes through my voice mail system, they are invited to call Martha. She will complete a property information sheet on sellers and fax to my office for me to follow up. She will complete a buyer's information sheet on buyers and fax to our office for my sale manager Eric to follow up. She also she's an initial mail out to sellers. She adds both buyer and seller to a mailing list and emails a copy to us each week.

We were lucky to stumble across Martha. You can seek out your own "Martha" once you have the volume to justify it. A similar but different "answering and messaging" service designed for managing your buyers, check out www.BuyerMD.com.

Bio:

Full-time investor Richard Roop has been called The Marketing Consultant for Real Estate Entrepreneurs. He is the President of Bottom Line Results, Inc., a real estate acquisition company located in Woodland Park, Colorado since 1996. As a successful marketing consultant since 1984, Richard specializes in providing innovative business and marketing advice to real estate entrepreneurs. He is the author of the "How to Sell Your Home in 9 Days" book. Richard Roop's articles have appeared in various entrepreneurial, real estate and marketing newsletters across the nation.