In an era dominated by digital marketing, real estate professionals often wonder if direct mail is still effective. The short answer? Yes! Despite the rise of online advertising, direct mail remains a powerful tool for real estate agents looking to generate leads, nurture relationships, and establish a strong local presence.

Why Direct Mail Still Works in 2025

1. High Engagement Rates: Direct mail boasts an open rate of over 90%, making it one of the most engaging marketing methods.
2. Less Competition: With businesses focusing on digital ads, the mailbox is less crowded, allowing mailers to stand out.
3. Tangible & Personal: People trust physical mail more than digital ads, making direct mail a reliable marketing tool.
4. Targeted Marketing: Direct mail allows hyper-local targeting, ensuring realtors reach the right audience.
5. Integration with Digital Strategies: QR codes and personalized URLs bridge the gap between direct mail and online lead capture.

What Is the Success Rate of Direct Mail in Real Estate?

Direct mail achieves a 4.9% response rate for house lists and 2.9% for prospect lists, outperforming email marketing. A well-optimized campaign can yield an ROI of 29% or higher, especially when combined with QR codes, personalized URLs, and strong follow-ups. Consistency and audience targeting are key to maximizing success.

Cost-Effective Ways to Do Direct Mail

• Postcards: Affordable and ideal for just-listed or just-sold announcements.
• Every Door Direct Mail (EDDM): USPS program to mail to entire neighborhoods.
• Bulk Mailing: Reduces postage costs with bulk mail permits.
• Partnerships: Co-marketing with mortgage lenders can help lower costs.

Drawbacks of Direct Mail

• Cost: Printing and postage can add up.
• Follow-Up Required: Best combined with digital or phone follow-ups.
• Design Matters: Poorly designed mailers can be ineffective.

How to Market Through Direct Mail

Discover can help streamline and enhance your direct mail marketing efforts by providing specialized resources tailored to real estate agents. With our platform, agents can easily define their target audience by focusing on specific zip codes and areas, ensuring that your message reaches the right potential clients.

1. Define your target audience.
2. Craft a compelling message.
3. Choose the right format.
4. Use tracking methods (QR codes, special landing pages).
5. Be consistent (monthly or quarterly mailers work best).

Future of Direct Mail in Real Estate

As automation grows and digital ad costs rise, direct mail remains a vital tool for real estate marketing beyond 2025. Innovations from USPS and personalized mail campaigns ensure direct mail stays effective, offering a unique, tangible connection that digital ads can’t replicate. With targeted outreach and tracking methods like QR codes, it continues to deliver strong engagement and results.

Top 10 Questions About Direct Mail in Real Estate 2025

1. What is the success rate of direct mail in real estate? Around 4.9% for house lists and 2.9% for prospects.
2. Is direct mail still effective in 2025? Yes, thanks to high engagement rates and rising digital ad costs.
3. What is the cheapest way to do direct mail? EDDM and bulk mailing.
4. How do I send direct mail to a neighborhood? Through EDDM, targeted mailing lists, or bulk mailing.
5. What is a good ROI for direct mail? 29% or higher.
6. Is direct mail profitable for real estate agents? Yes, with the right targeting and follow-up strategy.
7. Do Millennials respond to direct mail? Surprisingly, yes! Many prefer physical mail over digital ads.
8. How does Every Door Direct Mail (EDDM) work? It allows mailing to all homes in a chosen area without needing addresses.
9. How often should I send direct mail for real estate? Monthly mailers provide the best results.
10. What is the best day to send direct mail? Midweek (Tuesday-Thursday) yields the best response rates.

Final Thoughts

Direct mail continues to be an effective marketing tool for real estate agents in 2025. By integrating it with digital strategies, optimizing costs, and staying consistent, realtors can achieve impressive results. Whether targeting new leads or nurturing existing ones, a well-planned direct mail campaign can be a game-changer.

How Real Estate Agents should measure Marketing ROI: the Right Way and the Well Intentioned Way

As Agents work to pivot and re-group, we’re seeing an influx of new agents and a resurgence of effort from existing agents. With so many realtors in the game, carefully selected marketing has become a key differentiator of the best agents. And when it comes to marketing, there have never been so many choices… so knowing what works for you in your market has never been so important.

So let’s talk marketing ROI, and why we should be a little more careful in how we analyze it.

ROI is just “return on investment.” In the real estate business, this usually refers to the amount gross profit off of marketing-generated leads (less marketing expenses) as a percentage of marketing dollars spent in the same time period. That’s:

But beware!

Oftentimes it is this very equation that causes an agent to abort good efforts in the name of “business sense.” Why? Two reasons: first, a marketing effort by itself might not work. Your marketing plan should be a concert of several different channels playing in harmony with each other, delivering a consistent, top-notch message; and second, marketing programs often need a year or more to truly build traction, especially for agents with less than 5% market share. The standard marketing ROI equation ignores these truths.

So, we’d like to offer a slightly modified ROI equation with the big caveat of be prepared to wait. For this equation, we let the marketing do its magic, then we calculate.

First, let’s define the pieces of the puzzle:

• Average customer commission. This is how much commission you earned in total last year divided by the number of sides you completed.
• Lead conversion rate. This is the percentage of leads that become customers. Do you track this? If not, take an educated guess.
• Marketing cost. This is the total cost of the marketing program you are honing into. This can be actual or anticipated and must span a specific time period. Include a percentage of staff time dedicated to helping with this type of marketing.
• Leads generated. How many leads did you receive from the marketing program you are honing into? This must be measured over the same time period as your marketing costs.

Next, you’ll want to determine your Time to Break-Even. Because so much of your marketing is intended to communicate what you’re already doing, the more active you are now, the quicker you will get results from new marketing efforts. So if this is a new plan, or one you are considering but have not yet tried, put a deadline on the break-even and discipline yourself to wait until that date before you decide to measure marketing ROI and being running calculations.

In general, your Time to Break-Even should be set based on what the industry declares, and then adjusted based your market share. It is simple to figure out your market-share:

If you’re unfamiliar with housing turnover, it is simply a measure of how often people in your target market move. If 100 homes sell in your neighborhood of 1000, your turnover rate is 10%, and there are 100 listing prospects in your area per year. Here is a great article from Joe Manusa on housing turnover.

A good baseline on any new channel, especially direct mail, is 1 year (if you are hitting your farm with quality mail at least once per month). If you have greater than 20% market share, you might expect results a little sooner, and if you have less than 5% market share, you might be waiting 2 or more years. You should also adjust your time to break-even according to the turnover in your area. If you’re marketing to 10,000 homes with a 5% turnover, you should expect to wait longer (paying more in marketing costs) than if you marketed to 5,000 homes with a 10% turnover.

Now that you have established your Time to Break-Even, here are two ways to look at your marketing efforts. The first is a way to see what the performance of efforts should look like after they have already broken even. The second is a way to “spit out” how many leads you need to generate from the marketing channel for it to pay for itself, so you can gauge how realistic the new method is. If you only need a few leads a year to make it break-even, you might adjust your Time to Break even.

Measure Marketing ROI after Break-even:

Number of Leads needed in 1 year to Break-Even:

We hope this helps as you forge ahead this year. Best of luck, and never hesitate to reach out to us here at Discover if you’d like feedback on any of your marketing decisions. Please click below to download a complimentary calculator.

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A 7-Question Litmus Test for Real Estate Marketing

Today, it’s more important than ever to market in ways that will help you stand out, and there are a million products that can make that possible. But agents need to know how to evaluate real estate marketing products; just because the product itself stands out to you does not mean it will stand out in the market.

Conferences underscore this better than anything we know of. Just browse through the rows of exhibitors at the shows such as NAR, RE/MAX, Inman, Keller Williams, Century 21, ERA, Better Homes & Gardens, on and on. Vendors know that real estate agents are always in search of the next big thing that will differentiate them from the crowd. Most of the offerings are uncannily reminiscent of the television commercial in the early days of the Internet: A young web designer is enthusiastically showing off his creation to the business client. “Look, look, music plays, it spins wildly, and then fire comes out of the top!” The client looks very disenchanted and says, “But does it update our inventory?” Alas, where’s the beef?

Successful Innovation is a very tough commodity and we don’t intend to short-sell ideas that don’t quite hit the mark. Many of these ideas are wonderful and can really help you stand apart from your competitors, even to the point of exclusivity in some cases. However, we’d like to offer a short litmus test to increase the odds that your marketing campaigns hit the mark, get you remembered, and build your listing inventory:

1. Is the product unique? Have your prospects received anything like it from competing agents?

Real estate direct mail, for example, is dominated by postcards and the occasional envelope or newsletter. Agents that want to know how to evaluate real estate marketing products for geographic farming can eliminate thousands of options with this simple question: how different it is? Will homeowners actually open, read, and engage with it?

2.Does the product have a real value, not just perceived value?

Before signing up for a new service, ask around the industry. Make sure the company has multiple case studies they are willing to provide, and multiple clients they will put you in touch with. Read Zillow or Trulia reviews on the service, if there are any. If too many agents are griping about wasted money or lackluster results, it might be best to move on.

3. Does the vendor give you the right of exclusivity to a marketing area?

Exclusive territories are of paramount importance, especially with unique marketing that an agent could not easily replicate. For example, Discover Pubs locks up clients’ ZIP Codes (even the homes in their ZIPs they actually don’t mail to, in some cases), which prevents copy-cat competitors from watering down results. Any agent in the business for a few years with a decent amount of marketshare knows that competitors do play follow the leader.

4. Can other competing agents reproduce your product easily?

Products that are complex are ideal for preventing competitors from trying to duplicate your efforts, which is important if you are fortunate enough to have an exclusive territory for an effective product. For instance, competitors are hard-pressed to write, design, print, sort, and mail their own newspaper every month, and there isn’t a second company out there that can do all that for them. There are many great examples of exclusive marketing products in real estate that are unique and hard to replicate.

5. Is the product used by other successful real estate agents?

Indeed, agents using a particular service are the best benchmarks for how to evaluate real estate marketing products offered by a company. Again, ask for case studies and references and look to see who those agents are. Have you heard of them? How big are they? How many homes do they sell? If successful agents use the product or service, and have for many years consecutively, odds are it’s working for them.

6. Do past and current users vouch for claims of achieving substantial ROI?

When checking references or reading case studies from real estate marketing service providers, look for concrete evidence of effectiveness. While results widely vary with just about every product (because agents vary so much, and not all have the best conversion systems in place), if a significant volume of users are getting substantial ROI, you should too.

7. Does the product endure over time and can you use it repeatedly with similar strong impact?

Many agents get stumped about how to evaluate real estate marketing products that are new or seem to be constantly in flux. If a product is brand new, it’s a risk – with you as the crash test dummy. And if a product is adding and subtracting features every few months, get curious about that. It may be smart innovation, but, more likely, something about it isn’t working. Products with stable histories (so long as they keep up with the times) are likely to have a stable future.

We hope you found this information useful. When you attend your next conference, think about these 7 questions and you will feel much better about availing yourself of a new marketing service.

Why Salesy Real Estate Marketing Fails with Today’s Sellers

Quick: take a look at these two headlines. Each appears on the front cover of a real estate agent’s local newsletter or publication.

1. “Peter Pumpkin-eater named #1 Producer at Joker Broker Inc!” (by Peter Pumpkin-eater)
2. “Record High Prices for Sunnytown Homes this Season!” (by Berta Experta)

Which article would appeal to you, a homeowner in Sunnytown? How much would you care about Peter Pumpkin-eater’s awards, even if you happened to know him? After getting a newsletter with a cover story like Peter’s, month after month, you’d probably start throwing it right in the recycle bin without so much as a glance.

But what about receiving a newsletter – or publication – with cover stories like Berta’s, month after month? You might begin to anticipate some useful market information when it appears in your mailbox. Instead of pitching it, you might toss it on the counter, and read it the next morning while your coffee brews. This all seems obvious, but yet we see it every day: agents who wouldn’t give two hoots about, for example, their insurance agent “hitting goal” turn around and build huge expensive campaigns about their personal awesomeness.

You’ve probably already made massive changes to your business in the wake of Coronavirus, so what better time to take a good hard look at your marketing messages!

Fact: buying patterns have changed dramatically in the last 10 years.

As more advertising mediums become available, the more consumers are becoming conditioned to tune out to anything that seems “promotional.” Content Plus found that 70% of consumers prefer getting to know a company via articles rather than ads, and a TMG Custom Media study revealed that 78% of consumers believe that organizations that offer custom content are interested in building good relationships with them. While it’s important to communicate the value you offer – and to share real-life success stories about who you’ve helped – building a trust-based connection is the foundation for generating listings and referrals.

Trust is built in the emotional part of the brain, deep in the subconscious.

We don’t decide to trust a person; rather, we one day realize that we trust someone. Add to that the the fact that big decisions – including most major purchase decisions – happen in the part of the brain where emotions are processed. Trust is an emotion. To put it very simply: trust = purchase.

A brain scan study by Mart Lindstrom in 2015 backed up claims that 90% of purchasing decisions are not made consciously, and that brands that are intentional about evoking our emotions always win. Decision-making may be wired to our emotions for very good reasons. For one, it is impossible to consciously tally, process, score, and react to the hundreds of facts and other non-overt pieces of information coming at us. Our emotional subconscious does this for us and outputs a “gut feeling,” without our awareness.

The beautiful thing is that this “gut” is very efficient at making the right call. It’s in no way a shortcut. In fact, relying on a well-honed instinct is indeed more efficient than manually – consciously – wading through a million variables. We’re built to rely on it – in extreme cases, our very survival depends on trusting our gut rather than a painstaking conscious calculation. For most people, the emotional brain is a well-oiled super-computer so it’s no surprise that decision making occurs there.

What does this mean for real estate agents?

The key take-away for real estate agents is this: if two agents are competing for a listing, the one who has taken time to embed themselves in the emotional brain of the homeowner will get the listing, even if they’re younger or less successful.

“Embed themselves in the emotional brain” means marketing and prospecting in a way that resonates at a human level, garners an emotional response, and leaves the prospect feeling that the agent knows and cares about the market, gets great results, and can be trusted.

In order to develop these emotions about the agent, the homeowner needs to repeatedly experience these emotions while at the same time learning about or engaging with the agent’s brand. For this to happen, the agent must truly be trustworthy, get good results, and care – because those are the things he or she need to impart through their marketing. Otherwise, no amount of “messaging” will seed legitimate emotional headspace in prospects.

So, how can you do this?

How to implant yourself as the Real Estate Agent of Choice
in the emotional brain of homeowners in your farm

First, you must show (not just tell) your prospects that you care about them, the community, and ultimately, their home sale. Marketing with information they personally care about accomplishes this much faster than sending information they don’t care about. Against our best advice, we’ve worked with agents over the years who’ve insisted on publishing self-promoting articles on the front covers of their publications. After investing thousands of dollars, they either learn the hard way and begin publishing community-related content, or they quit publishing altogether in frustration (and to be blunt, arrogance). We encourage agents to keep their custom content focused on the community; for example, during the pandemic, we published articles for agents about how Coronavirus was impacting the local housing market. Similarly, we take care to ensure the general articles (the syndicated stories we publish inside each client’s paper) hit home and resonate with homeowners. Whether you publish with us or do your own newsletter, these principals apply.

And here’s the key: make sure your picture and branding is on the header and all throughout your marketing, so that when the reader is engaged with an article or feature, they implant you in their emotional brain as they read and react to it.

Branding remains paramount

When you regularly supply your prospects with interesting, valuable information (such as with your newsletter, publication, emails, social posts, webinars, etc.), you need to be front and center. This doesn’t mean how great you are, but your branding must be prominent. Otherwise, you’ll be cultivating meaningful emotional responses, but the connection to you will be lost.

Additionally, it’s important to layer in messages about what you do and how you can really help. Do this in ways that actually resonate; for example, instead of a dry testimonial, run a short feature called “Sunnytown Success Story” with a photo of a happy couple you helped, and tell the story of how they needed to move quickly, how you helped them with fix-ups and staging, and how you marketed it to your broker network for multiple offers. Or instead of an ad about being #1, present an infograph of exactly how you stack up to other agents (Average Sunnydale Agent: Sells 2 homes per year. Berta Experta: Sold 28 homes last year. / Average Sold Price in Sunnydale: $200k. Average Sold Price for Berta’s Clients: $235k). This communicates to the homeowner that you don’t expect them to hire you just because of a fancy award – that you mean business and get tangible results.

The most important message here is that self-promotion fails as the core of any marketing strategy. Think instead of how to show the area you are a caring, knowledgeable, trusted expert. And make sure they know it’s from you.

Publish a Custom Neighborhood Newspaper Faster and for Less Money

With 2020 quickly approaching, we’re overjoyed to roll out perhaps the fastest, easiest, and least expensive custom direct mail real estate publication the industry has ever seen: our Fast Track Publication. This new, quick and easy custom farming publication is available for mailbox delivery as early as January 1, 2020.

The Fast Track will save agents both time and money (See the price rates for the Fast Track), and still has all the lead generating power of Discover’s standard edition. In fact, it’s likely to generate even more leads – because agents using an easier direct mail tool are likely to mail more often.

What’s a Custom Farming Publication?

Back in 1993, Discover Publications created the first-ever custom farming publication for real estate agents (or any industry, for that matter, since nothing like it had ever been created). Put simply, a custom farming publication is a direct mail marketing tool that looks like a little community newspaper.

Below we outline the three major elements of a custom publication (whether it’s a standard or Fast Track edition). From design to mailbox deliver, Discover handles every single step for the agent.

1. Custom without all the Cost

Each publication is customized to just one real estate agent (on the front, back, and throughout), while also containing national articles that appeal to homeowners. This mix of hyper-local customization and nationally syndicated content keeps the production cost of each publication very reasonable.

Because each publication has just the right amount of custom, local content, it’s highly encouraged that agents do not attempt to customize further. Making every page of a paper custom takes an enormous amount of time away from the agent’s day-to-day, and the cost-benefit just isn’t there. Agents report that publications with syndicated content inside are just as effective as publications that are painstakingly customized throughout.

The power of a custom publication truly is the front and back. Even if a reader never opens it, the agent is branded as a big deal; as a leader capable of publishing a thick 12-pager.

2. Hyper-local Content

Every publication (including the new Fast Track) contains a good deal of hyper-local content. The agent has 100% creative control over all their local content; however, Discover does 100% of the work for them. This includes:

• Custom-written, hyper-local cover story (this is written by Discover in the agent’s name). Typically, it’s a local market update or an article about selling a home locally
• Second custom-written, hyper-local article on Page 3 (also written by Discover in the agent’s name). Most often, this article features local events
• Hyper-local housing market stats
• Calls to action (advertisements) about the local agent
• The agent’s local listings or recently sold homes

The most important part of a real estate direct mail marketing is what’s visible on the front. The customization of a publication focuses mainly on the front and back, for this reason. If the content on the front is local, chances are better that the homeowner will pull it aside instead of tossing it in the recycle bin.

Each publication is created 100% by Discover, and then sent to the agent for final approval.

3. Mailed to your Farm

Once a custom publication is designed, it is printed, addressed, sorted, and mailed to the carrier routes in an agent’s exclusive farming area. The agent selects their target areas online, and Discover handles the rest.

Some agents will mail their paper to their past clients in addition to their farm; in those cases, they simply send a spreadsheet of addresses to Discover and those homes are added to the list. Once a publication is in the hands of the post office, the agent receives a notification.

How is the Fast Track Publication different from a Standard one?

As a farming tool, the Fast Track is 95% similar Discover’s standard 12-page paper

Both editions include:

• 12 pages
• Extensive customization (see above)
• 2 custom-written local articles in the agent’s name
• Full-service graphic designer
• Mailing lists
• Mail service (sorting, addressing, USPS delivery)
• Advertising program (to help agents get vendors to offset the cost)

What’s different about the Fast Track is a slightly tweaked layout, a lower price, and a pre-scheduled print date. Here’s a closer look at exactly how a Fast Track and Standard edition differ.

How “Calls to Action” (agent or vendor ads) appear

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 The Fast Track has four “Call to Action” boxes, which are essentially blank spaces filled by the designer. Two of these boxes are designed to advertise the agent, and the other two are reserved for vendor advertisements. If the agent doesn’t have enough vendors to fill both of the two vendor spots, Q&A real estate articles are placed in those spaces instead.

In a Standard edition, there are five total Call to Action boxes. Rather than being earmarked either for the agent or a vendor, they are customized however the agent wishes.

Location of Market Stats

Both editions contain hyper-local, custom market stats. In the Fast Track, these stats appear on the back cover. In the Standard edition, they can be found on Page 3.

 Layout modifications

The Fast Track contains a good deal of customization (see above, under “Hyper-local Content”). The agent has 100% creative control over their front and back covers, Call to Action boxes, and hyper-local articles. But outside of these custom areas, the layout of each Fast Track cannot be adjusted at all. This means that the agent cannot swap articles, re-order pages, or request any design modifications to any “non-custom” parts of the publication.

In the Standard Edition, the agent has a little more room to move things around and add additional custom content (but fees do apply in cases of extreme alterations).

Discover’s pricing continues to rise on the Standard Edition due, in part, to increases in the average time it takes to put each paper out. Many agents tend to customize just as much as they can without triggering a fee; spread across all the agents we serve, these production hours add up to more cost for everyone. Rather than improving results, too much customization instead causes farming to be inconsistent, resulting in patchy branding, reduced lead flow, and fewer listings generated.

The Fast Track is a way we can pass along the lower cost of a truly turn-key publication to any agent who wishes to take advantage of it – all without sacrificing leads or listings.

Lower cost

A Fast Track edition starts at $0.85 for 2,500 or more, and gets cheaper from the more you do. Compare this to $0.92 per unit for 2,500 Standard papers (2020 rates). And, unlike the Standard Edition, the Fast Track can be done in quantities as low as 2,000, for $0.87 a unit.

Just like pricing for the Standard Edition, the Fast Track rates include everything (design, articles, printing, mail service, postage, and more). The Fast Track rates that are posted today will apply for all of 2020.

Savings on top of savings

Any promotions Discover runs can be applied to Fast Track editions (they aren’t just for Standard runs). For example, new clients who want to do a Fast Track can also take advantage a $600 credit for 2020 (restrictions apply, call for more details on that).

But the best way to reduce cost even further – on top of the lower Fast Track prices – is to secure a few good advertisements. Discover can help with every aspect of advertising, saving clients an average of 15-20%.

Reserved Print Date

Finally, the Fast Track differs from a Standard edition when it comes to scheduling a print date.

Standard Publications are printing “on demand,” and the because Discover’s estimates do not always pan out, the cost of idle labor and machinery is built in to the pricing of a Standard paper. A Standard edition can be scheduled with as little as 2 days’ notice, and can be re-scheduled without any changes to the price.

30-Day Rule

A Fast Track print date must be reserved 30 days ahead of time. This is one of the primary ways the cost of a Fast Track is lower. Discover pre-schedules labor and machinery in advance, avoiding the uncertaintly when there’s a lot of guesswork involved.

Once a print date is set for a Fast Track, it cannot be adjusted within the 30-day window leading up to it.

Don’t worry, there is no fee for a delayed or missed Fast Track date. If a Fast Track print date is adjusted less than 30 days in advance, the publication can still go to print according to whatever schedule the agent wishes, but it will be considered a Standard edition and priced accordingly. If an agent can’t keep her schedule print date would rather not pay the Standard rates, she can schedule a new Fast Track 30 days out instead.

How does the Fast Track work?

It’s easy!

Set it Up

To publish a Fast Track, an agent simply needs to submit the Get Started form, then attend a short call to set up the publication with Discover.

On this call, Discover will help the agents identify the mail routes he or she will be farming, discuss how the publication will be customized to best resonate with the market, and create a farming schedule for the next 12 months.

There are no contracts, and the agent can choose to mail according to whatever frequency makes sense for them (monthly, bi-monthly, or quarterly). And the print schedule can be adjusted as often as desired outside of the 30-day window.

Send Materials

Two weeks prior to each scheduled publication, the agent’s designer will reach out with a short list of materials needed (article topic selections and listings, usually). The agent simply emails those items to their assigned designer.

Approve and Pay

In less than three business days after receiving the agent’s materials, the designer sends the agent a completed Proof. The agent simply approves the design, remits payment (which can be easily done online, from an invoice sent via email), and the paper will print according to schedule.

It’s here! We know through our own marketing efforts how important it is to stay up on your digital channels. It’s likely you need lots of fresh digital content for your blog, Facebook, Twitter, marketing/content emails, and LinkedIn – perhaps you need content to post to even more places.

Successful agents consistently post content across multiple digital channels. We have many clients with staff dedicated to this very task. A strong, active web presence helps agents stay fresh in their networks and drive up their SEO. The information tends to be: new listings, recently sold homes, events they are attending or hosting, positive client feedback, and helpful info for homeowners (which is usually purchased through a service or shared from another website).

We’d like to assist with this effort. One of the reasons you might be mailing a 12-page Discover publication is because it breaks through the clutter, setting you apart. The content inside your paper can work for you in the same way on your digital and social channels. We are already producing custom, stand-out content for you – two stories about your neighborhood, a featured listing, and call-to-action imagery – so we are now breaking out and packaging these items together in multiple formats for you. You will receive several pieces per issue plus additional pieces with your first mailing, and we will show you exactly how to use them optimally.

This service, included with every publication at no additional charge, includes everything on the list below. Images will be provided in one format: low resolution, which is the ideal resolution for online channels.

• Modified title bar (“header”) in a social-media-friendly shape
• Home Value Report call-out box (if you have one)
• One each of all your additional call-out boxes
• Flip-book URL of entire paper for web use (with working links)
• Thumbnail of the top of your paper where the headline is visible, or of the full front page if you prefer
• Word doc of each article
• Image of Featured Listing
• Image of Sold Stats or “Market Update” box

We’ll help you use these items effectively. Our friendly Discover staff will spend as much time as it takes  to ensure you are getting the most out of your digital content package. These are our suggestions:

• Use on your blog or website (5 posts per month):
  • Articles – post full articles
  • E-Edition – post the modified header image and underlay the flip-book link, which will take them to your whole 12-page publication. Include a paragraph about how you publish a community paper and what to check out this month
  • Featured Listing – post the featured listing spread, discuss the listing, and include a link to the listing itself
  • Sold Stats image – post this diagram and talk briefly about what that data means for the community
• Use on marketing emails (4 emails per month):
  • Articles – use these as stand-alone content emails (2 per month). TIP: include the community name in the subject line so recipients don’t think it’s generic content, and be sure to include a link to the corresponding blog post to help SEO
  • E-Edition – use this in your e-newsletter (with the title bar image as what to click to get to it) or as part of an existing email. We advise not sending this as stand-alone email due to the redundancy with other content
  • Featured Listing – use this as stand-alone email. Include the Featured Listing picture and link it to the blog post about the listing
  • Sold Stats – use this as a stand-alone email with the image, brief market update, and a link to the blog post you created
  • We advise a maximum of 6 emails per month, so keep this in mind when considering other emails you plan to send out
• Use on social media (5+ posts per month):
  • Each item – post all of the above on all platforms by using the image, writing a short description, and linking to corresponding blog posts, other webpage, online form
  • Call-out boxes – use these images, especially the Home Value Report, as images for Facebook advertising or posting. Because it’s pretty promotional, we recommend restrained use of these as organic posts; they are better suited as paid ads. Use your home value report URL, online form, or other URL as the link for the image
  • We recommend at least one Facebook and at least three Tweets post per day. In general, more is better, as long as your content doesn’t suffer too much. Don’t be afraid to post the same article and market update a few times in a month, and be sure to continue to your regular posting

We hope you’re as excited about your digital package as we are! As the season slows, now is the time learn how to take full advantage of all these wonderful digital resources. Yes, there is a learning curve, but we promise it is worth the investment, and that it will soon take little time and become second nature. Please let us know your feedback, and… Happy Marketing!