You don’t need me to tell you how competitive the real estate market is—no matter what direction home prices are headed—and how distinguishing yourself as the preferred agent in your area is tough, even under the best circumstances.

In such an environment, a personalized real estate magazine acts like a battering ram that breaks through the noise to get you past the trash can and into people’s homes. Here you’ll discover how they work and why you need to make a real estate marketing magazine a central component of your marketing plan.

How to brand yourself in real estate

You face an ongoing challenge every day: how to brand yourself as a real estate agent.

When you think about the work it takes to promote your mission, vision, and value proposition; the prolonged period required to become known, liked, and trusted; and the effort to convince would-be homebuyers and sellers to do business with you rather than another agent . . . well, it can make your head spin.

Successful agents make consistent marketing and communication with their sphere a central part of their daily activities.

And while these tasks are the domain of expert, full-time marketers, most independent real estate agents I’ve encountered don’t have the resources to put one of these professionals on the payroll. Consequently, marketing becomes something agents do on the side. Ironically, it’s something they can’t afford to make a central part of their daily activities, but they also can’t afford to neglect communication with their sphere.

This is why it’s imperative for agents to have a way to consistently nurture the relationships they already have with their past clients.

Not only are past clients the foundation of repeat business, they’re also the best source of referrals for new business. And, as I’m about to show you, nothing works better than a high-quality, value-laden, personally branded magazine to keep you top of mind—it’s like marketing on steroids.

A personally branded real estate magazine disrupts the pattern to get you noticed

The majority of real estate agents rely solely on more traditional direct mail advertising like postcards. Don’t get me wrong—real estate postcards absolutely have their role in an agent’s marketing strategy. They’re economical, efficient, effective for farming, and a great way to increase brand awareness, recognition, and recall.

But postcards function a lot like a lottery.

Postcards, while an essential part of an agent’s marketing strategy, are a hit-or-miss tactic. You can’t rely on them alone to generate new leads.

Smart agents repeatedly play the odds and send them to several hundred addresses every few weeks. They bank on a couple of them arriving in mailboxes at the precise moment when a recipient is thinking about buying or selling and needs an agent. If they’ve selected a postcard that offers genuine value to their audience, it may get stuck to a refrigerator door for a few weeks or stashed in a drawer.

Still, most will inevitably end up in the trash can, which is why you can’t restrict yourself to just this one format.

On the other hand, a personally branded real estate magazine is, first and foremost, a magazine. Think about your own experience when you go to your mailbox. You flip through the bills and toss the junk mail, but when you see a magazine, it gets your attention. You pull it out from the pile, and if you don’t stop to look through its pages immediately, you put it on the kitchen countertop or table to read later.

A customizable magazine for clients will stand out and above less compelling direct mail advertising. Click to download your free sample.

However, not all magazines for clients are created equal. This is especially true when it comes to personally branded real estate magazines.

While I can’t speak about the customizable magazines for real estate agents that other companies provide, I can tell you about the ones we’ve been producing for nearly 20 years for our 200,000 plus clients. Frankly, while other companies offer publications, you’d be challenged to find anything that comes close to the quality, value, and referral-generating power of the magazines written, designed, and printed in-house by ReminderMedia’s professional staff—and we have the numbers to prove it.

Explore the best personally branded real estate magazine available

Here’s a fair warning: we’re super proud of our mission to help entrepreneurs like real estate agents live a life of freedom by closing more deals and retaining more business, which is why I’m about to gush about our magazines and how well they perform so well for our clients.

If you’d prefer to bypass the descriptions, statistics, and testimonials and get down to business, then let me urge you to download a free PDF copy of our most recent issue to see whether the claims I make below stand up to scrutiny.

Choose to examine one or all four of our differently themed publications, and we’ll send them to your inbox immediately. There’s no obligation. Just be sure to notice the following:

• Your branding is seen by readers in six highly prominent places. Your image, company information and logo, and contact information are clearly visible on the Front Cover, Inside Front Cover, Back Cover, Inside Back Cover, and on two Tear Out Cards (a feature unique to our publications that makes sharing your brand super easy).
• You can connect with individual recipients by including a personalized letter on the Inside Front Cover at no extra cost. Imagine the lasting impression a letter personally addressed to any of your recipients will make. You can use your letter in numerous ways—to provide updates on the market; share company, neighborhood, or personal news; or recognize a birthday, an anniversary, or other special occasion. I’ve sent my magazine with a holiday letter personalized to each person on my list. I always get a huge response thanking me for the magazine and letting me know they’re excited to make the holiday recipes I’ve included on my Tear Out Cards.

Unique to a personally branded magazine from ReminderMedia are the two, branded Tear Out Cards included in every issue. They’re perfect for sharing. Get your free sample here.

They have staying power

Simply put, our personally branded magazines are too nice to throw away.

GfK is one of the world’s largest market research companies. We recently hired them to conduct an independent survey of recipients of our magazines. Among the findings, they reported:

• 42% of recipients keep their issues for four weeks, while 20% keep it for 10 or more weeks, which means they’re saving them for repeat use.
• 52% of recipients prominently display the magazine on their coffee table, while 29% keep it on their kitchen table and within easy reach.
• 65% of recipients spend between 30 minutes and two hours reading the magazine.

Each 48-page issue features a gorgeous, seasonally appropriate cover image of your choice that instantly grabs attention. Equally beautiful, glossy photos on the pages inside encourage readers to linger. Our photos, not to mention the quality of the paper on which they appear, are on par with those seen in Better Homes and Gardens, Architectural Digest, Men’s Health, and Inc. magazines.

With four themes to choose from, select the one your audience will enjoy most. And if you want to switch between mailings, that’s okay. You can try them all!

Your magazine acts like a billboard in the home, proudly displayed and shared with family members, friends, neighbors, contractors, and other visitors. The Tear Out Cards—also branded to you—can be printed with tempting recipes, handy DIY tips, business tips, or custom information and are as easy to share as they are to keep. Among survey respondents:

• 39% reported passing along an interesting article from their magazine
• 38% saved an issue of their magazine for future reference
• 42% shared a Tear Out Card featuring a recipe
• 55% saved a Tear Out Card with a recipe

Every issue includes two, personally branded Tear Out Cards that recipients save, share, and use. Pick your designs, or we’ll select them for you. So easy!

They’re not a solicitation for business

As a piece of marketing collateral, these magazines function like a Trojan horse: they’re perceived as a gift that gets you past the trash can and into the home where they subtly keep you top of mind. It’s marketing your clients want to receive.

Because this is your magazine, there’s no other advertising within its covers. It’s a mechanism purely devoted to nurturing relationships with your sphere by providing consistent value they appreciate receiving.

The Back Cover and Back Inside are two additional places where you can further customize your magazine. Click and we’ll send a free sample to your inbox.

It’s also a humble way to include elements of trust that make you the preferred agent in your market. Articles reflecting the theme of your magazine choice serve to educate and entertain readers. You can use your magazine to share your accolades, testimonials you’ve received, client stories and case studies, and highlights of your team and their activities. You can also use it to demonstrate your expertise—the Back Inside and Outside Covers are perfect spots to include educational information.

They provide genuine, outstanding value

When you see these magazines and hold them in your hand, it’s easy to understand why survey respondents said they’d pay nearly $23 for an annual subscription. But we can provide you with six new issues every year where each copy is less than the price of a typical greeting card—which makes sending a personally branded magazine a cost-effective solution that’s also scalable.

How do we make these magazines so affordable? We manage every aspect of production in-house, which not only allows us to perfect the system we use to print and automatically mail each issue to your exclusive list of addresses (no one else can mail to your list), but also gives us complete control to meet any clients unique needs.

Our professional team of writers and designers will work with you to create exactly what you need to make your magazine truly unique to you.

They’re a spectacular impression piece

For every open house, listing presentation, industry show, and meeting with a potential lead, the typical agent leaves behind a business card with instructions to “call me.” But the average business card is nothing more than a piece of card stock that’s going to get either misplaced, forgotten, or tossed in the trash.

Imagine instead that your signature leave-behind piece was a personally branded magazine that looks like it came straight from your office. That would be something different and memorable. That would be something to hang on to. That would be impressive.

They give you the opportunity to work with strategic referral partners

Our clients often use their magazines to cross-promote strategic referral partners and their products and services. These partners will share the cost of the magazine with the benefit of being featured on Tear Out Cards, Back Covers, and Back Inside Covers. Clients are able to augment the value they deliver to their recipients by featuring preferred mortgage lenders, insurance brokers, title companies, lawn care specialists, HVAC professionals, painters, roofers, and other service providers homebuyers and sellers usually need.

Provide even more value to your magazine recipients by featuring your strategic referral partners and have them share in the cost.

Another strategic use of your magazine is to feature charities you work with. Giving back to your community is a way to demonstrate your local involvement and concern for the well-being and development of your area. Charity leaders are also well-connected and act as influencers. By showcasing your support and affiliation with their organizations, you and your business benefit from an enhanced public impression and more trust.

Will a personally branded real estate magazine produce more business?

One of the most gratifying results seen in our independent survey is how much referred and repeat business our magazines produce for our clients. Because of the magazine, of the 1,942 people who responded:

• 33% referred the professional who sent it to them; more than 20% made multiple referrals
• 84% reported they were likely or very likely to refer the professional who sent it to them
• 69% reported doing repeat business with the professional who sent it to them

As exciting as these results are, they’re not news to many of our clients eager to share their experiences in the hundreds of reviews we’ve received. These are just a few:

Marketing is a game of inches

You’ve been around the block enough times to know there is no magic bullet when it comes to generating leads. Your success as a real estate agent is the cumulative result of dozens of different actions. Every effort to stand out, get noticed, develop relationships, and be remembered comes together to land that next client.

A personally branded magazine gives you that extra visibility that makes a positive impact on your repeat business and referral rates.

Sending a personally branded magazine to your top clients and raving fans is another one of those lead-generating actions that works especially well to give you an extra edge. In the world of marketing, it’s something unique.

It keeps you in consistent touch with your clients by providing a regular source of value in an attractive package that nurtures relationships and is appreciated by clients. With it’s prominent placement of your branding, it sustains top of mind awareness so that when someone needs an agent, your name is the first and only one they think of. And it makes your clients feel good when they can reciprocate your thoughtful gift by sending referrals your way.

Download a free sample now (it costs you nothing to take a look), and we’ll send a PDF copy to your inbox.