Real Estate Door Hangers: Do They Still Work?

Are real estate door hangers still effective for marketing yourself as a real estate agent or real estate investor?

Absolutely — and with relatively low cost and competition as well. 

In an era when most marketers instinctively think of digital strategies like PPC, SEO, and social media marketing first, you can stand out with old-school paper marketing tactics. If you do it right, that is. 

What Are Door Hangers?

Door hangers are small paper flyers that hook over door handles. They’re typically printed on glossy, colorful cardstock, and sometimes include a slot for your business card. 

For decades, real estate agents have hung door hangers on neighborhood houses where they’re listing homes for sale. Real estate agent door hangers often read something like “I’m not just a real estate agent, I’m also your neighbor,” or “I just sold your neighbor’s house.” 

But real estate wholesalers and investors can also use door hangers as a back-to-basics marketing strategy. They use real estate door hangers to attract new seller leads, from prospects looking to sell their home as-is and fast. 

Some real estate investors even use them while driving for dollars, placing door hangers on vacant or dilapidated homes. 

How Effective Are Door Hangers?

It turns out that real estate door hangers can be an incredibly cost-effective way to reach prospects. 

Sales platform SPOTIO points out that typical door hanger response rates range from 1-3%. That might seem low, but consider the low cost of a door hanger marketing campaign. If you spend $0.45 per hanger on a campaign with a thousand hangers, that comes to $430. Round that up to $500, after you pay neighborhood kids to hang them up. 

At a 2% response rate, that comes to 20 leads for $500. In other words, you paid $25 per lead. 

Now imagine that as a Realtor or real estate investor or wholesaler, you earn $15,000 per closed lead. If you close even one of those 20 leads, you earned 30 times your marketing cost. That’s a 2,900% return on your marketing investment. 

Best of all, you can beat that 1-3% average response rate by getting more personal with your marketing. Justin Dossey of Ballpoint Marketing says he’s seen callback rates up to 20% when marketers use handwritten door hangers. Sure, they cost a little more — but not outrageously so. Ballpoint Marketing charges $0.60-$0.65 per pen-inked door hanger. 

Advantages of Real Estate Door Hangers

As touched on above, real estate door hangers are cheap, at $0.35-$0.65 per hanger. And you can literally pay (trustworthy) kids to do the labor of hanging them. That can make for an incredibly high marketing ROI. 

You can customize door hangers however you want. From glossy color images to a more personalized handwritten style, you can create the look and feel that you want (more on this momentarily). 

Door hangers offer an unintrusive form of marketing. They don’t require you to knock on doors or cold-call prospects. 

Yet they offer extremely high visibility — nearly every one you hang will be seen by the prospective homeowner as they walk in the front door. Compare that to the average marketing email open rate of 21.33%. 

And in today’s world of digital-first marketing, you have little competition for the space. They almost feel like a nostalgic throwback at this point. 

Finally, they allow for extremely specific targeting. You can target at the neighborhood level, the street level, or even the individual home level while you’re out driving for dollars. 

Custom Door Hangers for Real Estate

Whatever look or feel you want from a door hanger, you can probably create it. 

Consider these clean, polished real estate agent door hangers from Etsy:

Alternatively, here’s a colorful real estate agent door hanger with a built-in slot for your business card, from MarketDwellings.com: 

Want a more personalized, less glossy marketing look? Try a pen-inked door hanger like this real estate wholesaler door hanger from Ballpoint Marketing:

Like you do with all marketing campaigns, compare the ROI on different variations. Once you hone in on the door hanger design that works best for your marketing, you can double down on it. 

Conclusion

Real estate door hangers offer precise targeting and high-visibility marketing at a lost cost. 

They also lend themselves to the real estate industry, seeing as you literally contact the homeowner via their home. That makes them ideal for both real estate agents and investors or wholesalers. 

Experiment with relatively small batches of real estate door hangers with different designs, and track which leads come from which door hangers. Use different tracking phone numbers for each type of door hanger, and different website landing pages. Once you isolate the most effective door hanger, you can scale it up and hit more neighborhoods with it. 

Modern marketing doesn’t have to happen in ones and zeroes. Sometimes offline marketing can work even better, with less crowding from your competition. 

Door Hangers Real Estate FAQs

Do door hangers work for real estate?

Absolutely. Check out this video explanation from Jeremy Bowers, who does real estate agent training for Keller Williams. 

What is the success rate for door hangers?

The typical response rate for door hangers is around 1-3%, but some marketers see callback rates as high as 20% (see above). 

What does a door hanger do?

Door hangers are marketing flyers to hook over a doorknob or door handle, so that the occupant picks it up on their way into their home. It forces them to at least glance at your marketing material, if only to remove it from their door. 

What kind of marketing is door hangers?

Door hangers are a form of offline marketing that allows for specific targeting. It works as a form of lead-generating outbound marketing, where you contact prospective clients directly.