Discover imaginative ways to use a custom real estate magazine to nurture relationships and generate leads and referrals.

If you’re an agent who’s thinking about adding a custom real estate magazine to your marketing toolbox but aren’t quite sure of its value, then this blog is for you. Beyond mailing them to recipients and hoping for the best, there are many ways—including those described below—you can use them to nurture relationships and generate leads and referrals that you may not have thought of.

Another quandary you may be facing is weighing your options from among the many custom real estate magazines available. To help simplify the decision, you’re invited to check out ours.

31% of magazine recipients reported they were prompted to refer their professional because they received the magazine. (2023 Reader Study; conducted by GfK MRI)

At ReminderMedia, we publish four customizable magazines for real estate agents and other small business owners and entrepreneurs, and we’re confident that you won’t find a higher quality publication or receive a better value anywhere. Request a free estimate, and see if you aren’t as impressed as we are proud.

1. Make them available at open houses

Offer copies of your custom real estate magazine to would-be home buyers who attend your open houses. These magazines have staying power—potential leads will hold on to them, enjoy reading them, and share them with others. They also strengthen perceptions of your professionalism and success, which is especially relevant if you are a newer agent.

An exceptionally creative use of your magazine is to customize it with one of our delicious cookie recipes and then bake the cookies to offer during open houses. You can tell attendees that the recipe is in your magazine!

Our custom real estate magazines feature your photo and contact information in six key places, making them far superior to a typical business card that will be unceremoniously tossed into the trash can as soon as attendees get home.

Visit our Resource Library for more free resources, including additional lead magnets, e-books, and printables.

2. Incentivize partnerships with local businesses

You don’t want a client to ask, “Can you recommend a good plumber?” and not be able to offer a name. That’s why having a list of recommended business referral partners a necessity. You can then add value to these arrangements by promoting these businesses in your magazine.

With our custom real estate magazine, you can use the Back Inside Cover, the Back Cover, or one of the two Tear Out Cards to advertise another business. Many of our clients find that once they’ve shown a  partner their magazine, that business owner is happy to share the cost of an ad.

A second strategy is to leave promotional copies in businesses like coffee shops, hair salons, auto repair garages, doctor’s and dentist’s offices, senior centers, and other establishments where people tend to spend a bit of time. You can do the same at noncompetitive businesses that share similar clients, such as banks, mortgage lenders, interior designers, insurance brokers, and lawyers. Invite them to display your magazine to attract potential clients who might be considering a move, creating a mini network of referral points.

3. Circulate them at community and networking events

Bring copies of your custom real estate magazine to community events, homeowners association meetings, chamber of commerce meetings, or business networking functions. Attendance at these events will not only demonstrate your involvement in the local community but also give you an opportunity to introduce yourself and gift copies of your magazine to those you meet, or promote an upcoming event in your magazine on one of the ad pages or Tear Out Cards.

4. Give them out at client appreciation events

We’ve had a slew of Stay Paid podcast guests, many of them real estate agents, who have raved about the benefits of hosting client appreciation events. The boost these get-togethers give to your relationships and the referrals they generate from the reciprocity felt by attendees are absolutely priceless (especially since they don’t need to be all that costly in the first place). And when you encourage clients to invite friends and family, the number of potential new clients multiplies.  

Listen to get 12 outstanding client appreciation event ideas—that’s one for every month of the year!

When hosting one of these events, send your guests home with a goody bag that includes a copy of your custom real estate magazine as a gift. Create some anticipation by letting them know you’ll be featuring pictures of the event in your next issue. (For a fee, our team of professional designers can help create a custom Back Cover or Back Inside Cover featuring your images.) Knowing this, attendees will be encouraged to provide you with their contact information so you can add them to your list of magazine recipients. Be sure to include these new leads in your database and drip campaigns!

5. Display them at educational seminars

If you haven’t made educational seminars a part of your marketing strategy, you’re missing out on a golden opportunity to establish yourself as an expert, enhance your credibility, promote your brand, and collect warm leads. Use the advice in this blog to get started. (It’s far easier than you might think.)

As many of our clients do for open houses, we also suggest they make one of the recipes they’ve selected to include in their latest issue and bring it to their seminars along with a stack of their magazines. They should then let their audiences know that the recipe can be found in the magazine and that they’re welcome to take a copy home. As a result, attendees walk away with an attractive publication they’re likely to hang on to and our clients’ contact information, which will be readily available when needed.

6. Use them to support charities

We frequently assist clients who want to use their custom real estate magazine to encourage support of a charitable organization. These clients and their teams serve as volunteers, and, for a fee, we create layouts for their Back Covers and Back Inside Covers displaying images of the charity, their activities, and their team members who lend a hand. This use of the magazine allows clients to demonstrate their commitment to the community, promote their values, and garner goodwill.

Use your custom real estate magazine to show your involvement in the community.

Acree Brothers Realty Team in Lynchburg, Virginia, promote their ongoing support of a local food bank through numerous channels as a way of endearing themselves to the community while genuinely providing much-needed assistance to a worthy cause. (Full disclosure: the founder of this team, Stephen Acree, is one of our president’s brothers.)

7. Let them serve as an organic reason to follow up

Perhaps the most fitting way to use a custom real estate magazine (and the purpose for which we designed our publications) is as a natural reason for following up with your clients and, in doing so, nurture lasting relationships.

Many agents don’t keep in touch with clients after a transaction because they feel awkward, assuming that the only reason to call would be to pitch their services. A custom real estate magazine, such as ours, eliminates this worry by making it easy to connect with clients about interests they have. Here’s how we suggest using our magazines to connect:

Step 1. Request and read your magazine

Be sure to include yourself on your list of recipients or request that we email you a proof. Become familiar with the topics covered in the articles, and revisit the Tear Out Cards you selected for inclusion, whether they are recipes, DIY tips, helpful advice, or something else.

Step 2. Determine which recipients you will call the week your magazine arrives

Ideally, you want to follow up with each of your recipients, but this isn’t always a feasible option. That’s why we provide clients with a free service we call Likely to Move. Using predictive analytics, we create a monthly scored list of their recipients that indicates who is likely to move in the next 12 months. We then advise clients to increase their efficiency by calling those recipients with the highest scores and, thus, most likely to need their expertise.

Combined with the fact that your list of recipients is exclusive to you (no one else can mail to your list), these lists and your calls are the perfect way to ensure you are the first agent to connect with possible leads. Considering 81% of recent sellers and 71% of home buyers contacted only one agent before selecting the one they will work with, the importance of your speed-to-lead is obvious.

Step 3. Consult your client database

Once you’ve identified who to follow up with, refresh your memory by revisiting their records in your database.

In addition to significant dates like birthdays, anniversaries, and transactions, each client’s entry should include information about their family and pets, occupation, recreational preferences, and so forth. (If you don’t have a client database, check out “How to Build an Effective Contact Database in Under 5 Minutes.”)

Step 4. Select something from your magazine that speaks to each client’s interests

All four of our magazines include 48 pages of eye-catching photos and engaging articles that inform and entertain. Within their pages is a variety of popular subjects.

• American Lifestyle features travel, art, cooking, and lifestyle content.
• Good to Be Home explores home improvement, interior design, and gardening.
• Start Healthy promotes healthy living and well-being.
• Business in Action showcases entrepreneurial insights, leadership-building advice, executive spotlights, and marketing tips.

Click here to request a free estimate.

Perhaps you have a client who’s a vegetarian and might enjoy a black bean and barley burrito recipe. Another may be a car enthusiast you know would appreciate an article about automobile restoration. A third may have expressed a desire to vacation in Maine, in which case they’d be interested in reading about the state’s lobster festival. And you’re sure the crafter on your list would love the idea of making decorative stepping stones for their garden.

Step 5. Call your clients

The reason for calling is not to pitch your services but rather to ask a client how they are and whether they enjoy receiving your magazine and to let them know you thought of them when you saw the article about X, the recipe for Y, or the instructions for project Z.

After that, let the conversation evolve naturally. Whether your chat is short and sweet or an extended gabfest, simply end the call by expressing your appreciation for their business and extending an invitation to call you if they or someone they know could use your help. Marketing is a game of inches, and these calls are a great way of staying top of mind and fostering authentic relationships with the people in your sphere.

Attract high-quality leads, cultivate lasting relationships, and watch your business flourish

With a high-quality custom real estate magazine and these proven strategies, you’ll gain a distinct edge over your competitors. And while there are many such magazines to choose from, they pale in comparison to the unrivaled quality and value of ours. Personalized to you, our magazines epitomize beautiful marketing and are guaranteed to get you past the garbage can and into the home.

Perceived as a gift, our custom real estate magazines are filled with gorgeous images and evergreen content your clients will appreciate.

Let us prove it—request a free copy, and we’ll immediately send it to your inbox. Scroll through its pages, immerse yourself in the articles, and enjoy the captivating images. Then imagine the delight your clients will experience when they receive their copy in the mail. And don’t be surprised when they call you to express their pleasure and thanks.