Jan
27
Here’s the deal: Over the last 50 years, buying and selling a home has gotten complicated. There are so many bylaws and regulations–things you can say and you can’t…
It’s overwhelming just thinking about it. No wonder most people opt to have a real estate agent help them buy or sell.
But let me ask you a question: How often have you promoted the fact that you can make the buying and selling process easy? If you answer “Not much,” I think it’s about time to change your tune. Let me show you what I mean.
Here’s Bruce Horovitz from USA Today:
“If 2009’s hottest sales pitch was all about buying stuff on the cheap, 2010 marketing will increasingly stress less as more, as in fewer parts, additives, or ingredients.
“While the trend is taking hold in many product categories, including health and beauty items, nowhere is it more apparent than with things we eat and drink.”
Now, a simple food is hard to do. You can’t really make a mass-produced product like vegetable beef soup or macaroni and cheese taste as good as something that comes fresh from your kitchen.
So you work a little advertising magic. One way to do that is put forth in a book called Simplicity Marketing. Here’s Publisher’s Weekly comment:
In an age when Crest toothpaste comes in 45 varieties, consumers long for companies that make life easier by reducing choices, claim Cristol, a marketing consultant, and Sealey, a former global marketing director at Coca-Cola.
Playing off the four “P”s (product, price, promotion and placement) that many marketers use to hone their strategic thinking, Cristol and Sealey have come up with four “R”s.
The four Rs are Replace, Repackage, Reposition and Replenish. Let’s look how you could use this formula to craft your marketing message in 2010 to attract the prospect that’s interested in simplicity.
Replace is simply a short way of compressing two products into one. Think 2-and-1 shampoo and conditioner. In a real estate context this could mean offering to help people buy their next house while you sell their current one. I’ve seen agents drop their commission with the promise that their clients commit to letting the agent help find their next house.
Repackage could mean simply handling just one part of the transaction–like a discount shop.
Reposition just means promoting you yourself as standing for simplicity itself. Remember Honda’s slogan: “We make it simple”? You could do the same.
Replenish basically means you perform and provide the same high-level of service before, during and after a transaction. In addition, if you have a team, this means that they will provide the same level of service before, during and after a transaction as you would.
The bottom line is this: Promote the fact that the process of buying or selling a home with you will be simple, easy and carefree.
Leave a comment if this post was helpful or if you have anything you’d like to add. And if you like what you read, subscribe to the Real Estate Marketing Blog.
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Jan
6
A Sure-Fire Way to Keep People from Using the Competition
Filed Under Real Estate Marketing | Leave a Comment
Most people don’t give much thought to customer retention. They usually spend all their time worrying about the next deal. The next lead.
What they don’t realize is how much business they could KEEP if they simply followed up with past customers.
Let me ask you a question: How would you react if you got a call from the guy who sold you your car to make sure everything was going okay?
How would you react if your dentist called you the day after a root canal to make sure you were out of pain?
How would you react if a manager at a nice restaurant phoned you up to let you know they can reserve a spot for you on Valentine’s Day?..
How would you react if the gal who cuts your hair sent you an email with a survey, looking for comments and suggestions?
Some business people tell me that’s looking for trouble. I’m sorry, but I couldn’t disagree more. In fact, I think it’s looking for just the opposite: rapport, loyalty, satisfaction and repeat business.
See, if follow-up turns up a lot of dissatisfaction, then obviously you need to make some serious changes because the dissatisfaction was there whether you discovered it or not.
But more than likely that won’t happen. If it does, simply apologize and thank them profusely for being honest and promise them that you will make that change. Then…and here’s the kicker…ask them if they would give you feedback in the future as you make these changes.
People love to give their opinions, so you’re usually going to get a yes.
Danny Kennedy said it best:
Recognition and appreciation can be very powerful and very inexpensive as a marketing strategy. It is true that comprehensive follow-up and follow-through may reveal some inadequacies in your business operation and that’s good if you use those discoveries as impetus for improvement.
Of course every business, no matter how well managed, will have to deal with dissatisfied even angry customers from time to time.
Sometimes the customer is justified in his complaints other times he is not. But the mere handling of the dissatisfied is just another way to get people to love you and avoid using the competition.
Leave a comment if this post was helpful or if you have anything you’d like to add. And if you like what you read, subscribe to the Real Estate Marketing Blog.
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Oct
8
Go ahead. Admit. You’ve got great dreams of being a fanatical success in real estate.
You want to make seven figures a year. You want the eight car garage. A second house on the sea. The boat.
You want enough money in the bank to run a small country. Send your children to the best schools. Buy a 747 so you can fly all of your friends to your private island off the coast of South Africa.
Okay. Maybe that last one was a stretch.
But you catch my drift. We’ve all got wild dreams. Big ones, to boot. And this includes your clients.
So often we forget that the people we want to attract have dreams. We forget that they are are dreaming and scheming.
Scheming in a good way. But scheming nonetheless. They want to be successful. Prestigious. Healthy. Liked.
Or perhaps they just want a roof over their family’s head. A roof they can call their own.
We call that the “American Dream.”
So, with this in mind, let’s look at three ways you can help beef up just about anything you do–whether it’s writing an ad or pitching during a listing presentation–and help your prospects and clients understand that you can help them reach their wildest dream.
1. Paint the Vision for the Prospect.
Within the headline or the opening copy or at the start of your presentation, tell them about the benefit they’ll get from doing what you want them to do: living well, saving money, entertaining grandly. This is the big promise.
2. Offer the “Prize” Inside.
Either within the same headline or within the first few lines of copy or just minutes into a presentation, introduce your offer as the means for obtaining the desired end: the infinity pool that makes you to live well, the low property taxes that allow you to save money, or the finished basement with wet bar and 50 inch plasma screen that allows you to entertain grandly.
3. Go On the Quest.
This is the fun part. Here you get to tell the story of how and why your offer, in Step 2, fulfills the desire in Step 1. You’re pulling all the pieces together here.
For example:
Living well means owning an infinity pool. Posh hotels in Singapore with infinity pools attract actors and presidents and singers. And actors like to live well, don’t they? They like to relax in a landscape that’s unique and something only a few people can afford to enjoy. Infinity pools are all about living well.
By the way, if you need help creating pictures like that, we have great resources here to help you. But also consider picking up a travel magazine like Conde Nast Traveller.
Jan
6
Cheat Sheet on How to Make Your Ideas Stick in People’s Mind
Filed Under Real Estate Marketing | Leave a Comment
“Don’t panic, but one of your kidneys has been harvested.”
That’s the punch line for one of the most successful urban legends in the last fifteen years. What makes it so successful? It’s sticky: understandable, memorable and effective in changing thought and behavior.
How do you create ideas that are sticky? You use these six principles found in the book Made to Stick:
Simple: Think staggeringly simple.
Find the core of your idea. Like a proverb. Hollywood script writers create the high concept pitch. Journalists ask, “What’s the lead?”
Unexpected: Attract attention.
Surprise your readers. Create mystery and intrigue in your opening lines. Ask provocative questions.
Concrete: Help people understand and remember.
Make abstractions concrete. Insert hooks—images and experiences—into your idea. Put people into the story. Talk about people and not statistics.
Credible: Help people believe.
Use authority and testimonies. Use convincing details. Make statistics come alive.
Emotional: Make people care.
People donate more to one little girl than to a huge swath of Africa. Appeal to self-interest—and not just base self interest. Why does it matter to them? Appeal to identity: Texans don’t litter and Americans fight evil.
Stories: Get people to act.
Use stories to show people how to act. And use stories for inspiration. Look for three key plots: Challenge, Connection and Creativity.
Believe it or not, the acronym for these six principles is SUCCES.
Leave a comment if this post was helpful or if you have anything you’d like to add. And if you like what you read, subscribe to the Real Estate Marketing Blog.
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Nov
5
What Barack Obama’s Acceptance Speech Can Teach You About Marketing
Filed Under Real Estate Marketing | Leave a Comment
Do you know who David Axelrod is? He’s Barack Obama’s chief strategist. And he’s the man who Barack owes for winning the election.
Barack made this clear during his acceptance speech last night. He said, “To my chief strategist, David Axelrod–who has been a partner with me every step of the way, to the best campaign team ever assembled in the history of politics–you made this happen.”
It’s amazing what you learn about real estate marketing from a political campaign. And it’s even more amazing what you can learn from Barack’s acceptance speech. And what it can do for your marketing success. So let’s see what we can learn about real estate marketing from Barack’s acceptance speech.
Consumers Are in Control
I don’t think there was ever any question in Axelrod’s or Obama’s mind about who they needed to win over. Even during his acceptance speech, Barack Obama said “you” more times than we. And during his campaign, that was clear. He surrendered the message, the conversation, to his voters.
In the same way, you need to surrender your message and your conversation to your prospects and clients. How do you do this? Listen and respond by giving your prospects and clients what they asked for. It’s as easy as that.
Brilliant Storyteller
Outside of his excellent skills as an orator, his smooth, seamless delivery, Obama can tell a story. He can weave the hard issues of life into a personal drama that just about everyone can relate to.
Take 106 year old Ann Nixon Cooper. Her story arced over a century with a generous amount of pain, hardship, misery and progress to finally see the day when she could not only vote–but vote for a black man. Over 60 years ago, this was impossible for two reasons–she was a woman and black.
Like a legend, that story will attach it’s self to the Obama presidency. And spread. Because it’s a story we believe. And it’s a story we respond to. Create a believable story and people will follow you.
Created the Common Enemy
Obama knew the problems that plagued America. And not only the country, but the government. Whether he’s right or not, that’s another story. But he defined the problem in such a way that people responded. And responded in droves.
In his speech, Obama cataloged petty, immature, partisan politics, selfish, greed-driven markets and utter ignorance of the widespread suffering on Main street as the poisons that ruined our country.
In other words, he created an enemy. A common opponent apathetic, fatigued people could rally around. People rally quickly when threatened. Think Pearl Harbor. 9/11.
Find the enemy in your own market demonizing people…and communicate a plan how you plan to exorcise it to the people who are demonized and you’ll win big fans, rock star like status.
Used Social Media Wisely and Liberally
On Obama’s website, you could easily sign up for every single social media site Barack was on: Facebook, Twitter. You name it.
While he didn’t use social media directly in his acceptance speech, he did, I believe, use what he, Axelrod and their team learned from what voters were telling them via the social media sites.
How do I know? The sole purpose of social media is relationship. Connection. Listening. And responding.
It’s impossible not to learn anything about how people are feeling about your market, city or state when you listen to them. And social media allows you to talk to an impressive swath of people at all times of the day.
Think about it: This is cheap market research.
Free tools you can use to find potent stories, discover the problems that plague them and give the consumers the control that will ultimately make you a person they can trust. And a person they want to work with.
Your Turn
How do you plan to give consumers control? How do you plan to use social media? Do you have any brilliant stories you share in your marketing? Do you have a common enemy in your market?
Leave a comment if this post was helpful or if you have anything you’d like to add. And if you like what you read, subscribe to the Real Estate Marketing Blog.
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Oct
14
Why Your Advertising Never Works (And What to Do About It)
Filed Under Real Estate Marketing | Leave a Comment
Has this ever happened to you?
You spend the weekend hunched over your computer writing and designing a postcard to announce a new listing. On Monday, you spend one hundred dollars to print the postcards. On Tuesday, you spend an additional fifty to mail them.
But nothing happens. What gives?
The Reason Your Advertising Doesn’t Work
The reason your advertising doesn’t work–whether it’s a billboard or email newsletter or postcard mailing–is simple: you never test.
Testing, especially for you DIY real estate marketers, is critical if you want to find out what works. And make it even better.
But all good tests start at the same place: a good test strategy. You must know where you are going before you begin the trip. And to do that, you must ask the right questions. Otherwise, at the end of the test, you are lost in an ocean of data.
To avoid that conundrum and to stop wasting your time and money, follow these four critical ways to test.
Creative
Creative tests involve experiments with the copy, cover treatments, envelope size and envelope copy. These tests tend to be the easiest to conduct. And offer a popular way to increase response.
A common test is to write two entirely different pieces of copy. One uses fear and the other uses pride. And the whole reason you went after these two emotions is because you’ve studied your prospect and profiled him. (Remember, writing is one of the best skills you can practice and hone.)
Another common, easy creative test is envelope copy. Try one envelope with a teaser like, “You will never sell your home, unless…” and the other envelope with no copy at all. If you find out the teaser copy pulled in more response, then roll it out to the rest of your list.
Or test and refine the teaser copy. Your call.
Offer
Most real estate marketers go after offer tests after they’ve tinkered with the creative. These tests involve promotions–or a combination of promotions–to increase response.
An example of differing offers can be as simple as “Sign with me and I’ll let you use my moving van” or “Sign with me and I’ll pay your moving costs.” You’re looking for what motivates people–service or money.
Offer tests help you understand what drives response and are an efficient way to work your list of prospects.
One thing to watch out for when conducting an offer test: make sure you account for the full cost of the test. Examine how the test impacts your profit and loss in the long run. That means don’t forget to include all costs for owning a moving van, if that’s your offer.
Timing and Frequency
Another big question real estate marketers like you need to ask is “When and how often should I mail/email/advertise/etc.?”
The answer to that question will help you to determine if an aggressive pay-per-click campaign or ad placement does better in getting more customers for a small investment. Or it will give you the value of an incremental mailing.
Do you get more response when you send out an email on Monday morning or Monday evening? Do you get more response when you email them twice a week for three months or once a week for six months?
Those are the kinds of questions you need to ask.
Keep in mind, you need to wait to the end tests before making a judgment on your test. Especially when it comes to long-term tests. If your incremental mailing is six months, wait six months.
Lists
Testing lists is a basic must-have in your marketing plan if you want to acquire new prospects and clients. But the questions you need to ask aren’t as cut-and-dry as the previous tests. You’ll need to think deep on this.
For example, which zip code responds better to an appeal on prestige, success or fear? What neighborhood will accept a flat-out advertisement versus a more editorial style advertisement?
However, investing time in figuring out the right questions to ask will reward you well. In addition, you must experiment with just a portion of a list until you find the right combo of other factors. Once you do, then roll it out to the rest of the list.
Conclusion
Asking the right questions is the key to effective testing. And once you find out which list responds to the right copy, creative and offer you’ll become a rock-star real estate marketer.
Did you find this article useful? If so, leave a comment. And if you like what you read, subscribe to the Real Estate Marketing Blog.
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29
The Two Most Productive Lead Generation Activities in Real Estate
Filed Under Real Estate Marketing, Real Estate Prospecting Ideas | 4 Comments
In June 2008, four Baylor University researchers discovered that referrals and IVR (Interactive Voice Response) technology rank as the top two most productive lead generation activities in real estate.
Researchers Pullig, Indergard, Blake and Simpson focused on lead generation as a three-step process:
- Lead generation. This step identified potentinal clients through efforts like direct contact, print advertising, list acquisition or referrals.
- Conversion of the lead to an appointment. This step established an appointment.
- Closure of the appointment to a transaction. The final step involved a listing with a seller or the buying of a property with the buyer.
What Real Estate Lead Generation Activities Really Worked
In addition to referrals and IVR technology, real estate agents in the survey rated seven other lead generation activites as significantly productive–that is, they had a higher return on investment than other activities.
- Repeat Business
- Open Houses
- FSBO Expired Leads
- Networking
- Signage
- Telemarketing
- Internet/Website
Where Do Agents Spend Their Money When Creating Leads?
The Baylor researchers identified 18 different sources that real estate agents invested their lead generation dollars into. The top nine sources for lead generation spending were:
- Direct Mail (23%)
- Internet/Website (17%)
- Print Advertising (14%)
- Referrals (10%)
- Signage (9%)
- Repeat Business (6%)
- Open Houses (5%)
- Interactive Voice Response (IVR) Technology (4.5%)
- Promotional Items (4.2%)
What Kinds of Leads and How Do Real Estate Agents Handle Them?
Five Characteristics of Successful Lead Generating Real Estate Agents
The Baylor researchers also discovered two things about those real estate agents who reported doing better or much better in their market. These real estate agents also reported:
- Significantly higher lead conversion rates to appointments
- Higher conversion rates from appointments to a transaction when compared to those who say they are not doing as well
Real estate agents who reported doing much better in their market tended to:
- Have higher lead and appointment conversion rates
- Spend less on open houses as a percentage of their total spending
- Spend less on promotional items as a percentage of their total spending
- Are more productive when using open houses
- Are more seeker oriented in their lead generation activities
The Not-So-Surprising Results of Faster Lead Conversion Follow Up
Characteristics of Successful Agents in Tough Markets
- Higher lead and appointment conversion rates
- Greater spending on Internet/Website as a percentage of total spending
- Greater spending on IVR Technology as a percentage of total spending
- Less spending on signage as a perentage of total spending
- Less spedning on open houses as a percentage of total spending
- More seek-oriented in their lead generation activities
In contrast, real estate agents in a healthy market tended to lean on attract-oriented lead generation strategies while agents in stable markets use a balance of both seek and attract-oriented activities.
What to Do Next
One way to approach this information is to use it as a baseline for your own lead generation investment.
Are you spending your lead generation dollars in the right places? More importantly, are you tracking, measuring and testing your lead generation activities?
Without question, IVR technology is the perfect tool for tracking and measuring the effectiveness of your lead generation activities. In fact, IVR technology can slach your advertising costs by 30% while raising the amount of leads you generate.
Second, determine which type of market you are in. Then, adopt one of the strategies pointed out above: seeker-oriented, attract-oriented or seeker/attract-oriented.
Third, develop an effective referral-generating system. Service-For-Life is a great, inexpensive tool.
Finally, if you are stumped on how to close more appointments into listings and more listings into transactions, seek help. Training by coaches like Bob Corcoran is priceless.
Did you find this article useful? If so, leave a comment. And if you like what you read, subscribe to the Real Estate Marketing Blog.
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Sep
18
Take Advantage of This Psychological Buyer Quirk to Sell Any Home Now
Filed Under Real Estate Listing Tips, Real Estate Marketing | 3 Comments
Once upon a time a seller could price her home with the promise that she would get the full price.
She would review each offer as it came in. She would work with her agent to make a careful and calculated decision about which offer she should take. Then, she would select her buyer–normally above or at full price.
Unfortunately, in most markets today, this doesn’t–or can’t–happen.
The Death of the Typical Bidding War
Hot markets meant buyers made absurd, exuberent offers for just about every home that was priced. That doesn’t happen anymore.
In a slow market, a typical bidding war begins–if it begins at all–with the marketing of a slightly undervalued home. That means selecting a price that is at the low end of the expected selling price range.
This may not please your seller one bit–but it may result in multiple offers. And naturally, multiple offers tend–no promise, though–to drive the selling price up.
However, if you choose a low-pricing strategy, make sure that the property is adequately exposed to the market before you entertain offers. (And make sure you use the seven natural laws of prospecting I wrote about in August.) That’s the key to taking advantage of the psychological buyer quirk I’m going to share with you in a minute.
The New, Slow-Market Approach to Pricing a Home
Typically, sellers using this approach wait 10 days to two weeks before they entertain offers. During this time there is a broker open house and one or two public open houses.
Without this exposure, your home could sell at the low end of the range because only a limited number of buyers will have seen the property.
But if all the pieces come together, you’ll have an environment for a multiple offer situation–which can be very lucrative.
How to Correct Pricing Misconceptions of a Home Seller
In addition to stressing the benefits of setting a lower price to your sellers during the pre-listing stage, this time also affords you the opportunity to correct sellers’ misconceptions on pricing.
Some sellers might be tempted to choose another salesperson who quotes them a higher asking price.
This shoud make you ask: “Does the salesperson want your success or a listing?” A salesperson who gives an unrealistically high price is making an empty promise.
Why Overpricing Doesn’t Work
Other sellers believe that overpricing will work to their advantage because it will give them ‘bargaining room.’
If you run into sellers who want to overprice their home, tell them that althouhg overpricing in a rising market may be appropriate, no one has ever had a successful client overprice in a falling market.
Leaving bargaining room isn’t as valuable a negotiating tool as bringing in a greater number of highly motivated buyers.
The Secret to Creating Irresistable Demand for a Home
How do you lure in the greatest number of motivated buyers? By setting a competitive price. Seems obvious, but you’d be surprised how many people don’t know this.
Explain to your client that an attractively priced home pulls in buyers. This sometimes means a home below market value.
Tough sell. But remind them, more buyers equals more competition. And more competition means that the home will actually sell–which, in reality, is the most important thing to keep in mind.
Tap Into This Psychological Quirk of Buyers
Did you know that a home usually gets the most attention from buyers just after it’s put on the market? That’s right. Immediately after a home is listed, its flooded by buyers.
These are the buyer’s who are highly motivated. They have agents. They have instant notification via email and text when homes go on sale. They scour neighborhoods weekly. They’re primed.
And they flock to new homes on the market–ready to make a bid on the drop of a hat if necessary.
If you could view the number of times a home is seen during the first four weeks, what you’d see is a spike in activity in the first two weeks–then a sudden drop.
That’s why it’s necessary to encourage sellers to take full advantage of this phenomenon by showing their home in the best condition and…setting it at the best price during the first four weeks of the marketing efforts.
You want this home to be something buyer’s won’t forget–even if they’re not ready to buy just yet.
Here’s why.
Let’s say you did this for two weeks…but no takers. After your careful research, you and the sellers decided it’s still priced too high because you got plenty of activity…but zero offers.
If you use a tool like Showing Feedback, all you have to do is log into your Email Center on your account and send an email blast to all of the agents who have viewed the home. This includes every single person who was in the first wave of buyers.
If the home is priced accordingly, then there’s a good chance that you have laid the foundation for multiple offers.
What to Do Next
Now, if you find that you still don’t get the activity that you expected–lower the price even further.
You’ll eventually get to a point where the house is priced at an acceptable rate for the market. Send out another email blast…and kick back…and wait for the calls to come in.
Because they will. It never fails
Remember: There are enough people in this world who are interested in your client’s home. As long as you have chosen your clients carefully.
You just have to make sure the price gets to a point that they crave. Then they’ll come out of the woodwork.
Did you find this article useful? If so, leave a comment. And if you like what you read, subscribe to the Real Estate Marketing Blog.
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Sep
9
Marketing. What is it?
It’s not about tactics. Promotions. Or advertising.These things are useless without a sound foundation of research and analysis.
Marketing is about consumers.
It’s about understanding how they think, behave and talk. It’s about proper communication, segmenting and powerful distinctions.
Most importantly, its about understanding what works–and why. Without this last piece, everything else you do is simply blowing in the wind.
To help you understand this concept of marketing in real estate, lets look at four of the most popular and proven ways marketing shows up in real estate.
Social Media
It’s hard to argue with what is hot. Right now, social media is hot. But is there a payoff?
Becky Boomsma thinks so. She says “If you are interested in defining your expertise in specific geographic areas or on specific real estate topics, social media participation is extremely effective in developing and differentiating your expertise and brand.”
On the other hand, Redfin’s Glenn Kelman wonders if this is the best way to talk to his clients.
Glenn quotes a New York Times article by Clive Thomson called Brave New World of Digital Intimacy that suggests social media like Twitter or Facebook is at best creating an awareness of your actions–that’s best suited for people under 30.
For a business, it seems rather absurd.
That’s why I like to go back to stalwart advice from online experts Brian Clark and Jakob Nielson.
Jakob Nielson said in his article Web 2.0 Can Be Dangerous, “AJAX, rich Internet UIs, mashups, communities, and user-generated content often add more complexity than they’re worth. They also divert design resources and prove (once again) that what’s hyped is rarely what’s most profitable.”
And in his article Blogging Is Dead, Brian Clark said, “Blogs that provide true value by teaching, informing and offering unique perspective are thriving….Value will always be key.”
Mass Marketing
Is mass marketing dead? Good question.
Mass-marketing used to mean making one pair of black Nike shoes and getting the whole world to wear them–even if someone wanted a pink pair and another wanted a red pair.
Today, we’ve moved into the world of target marketing. Nike makes shoes in every color for every sport. Anyone is bound to find a shoe that’s perfect for them.
But target markets are very large. So, target marketing is nothing but camouflaged mass marketing.
How does this work in real estate marketing?
Segmenting your audience into specific needs. Seniors who want to buy an upscale second home. Young urbans who want to buy their first home condo downtown.
For you, this means finding a niche–and owning that niche.
While you may market mass amounts of email, postcards or phone calls to this niche, I think it still means that mass marketing is dead. You cannot make money throwing large amounts of mud at the wall. The same holds true for the next real estate marketing medium.
Branding
Will anyone recognize your brand? This is the question Steven Van Yoder asked in his article on real estate branding.
That’s an important question.
Why? Establishing a brand is equal to defining who you are. Establishing your brand requires determining who you are, what makes you different than everyone else and why anyone should trust you.
Establishing your brand helps you focus on your business. It helps you identify what you can offer consumers that no one else can offer. And it will help you grow.
But you can’t focus on branding alone. Branding is very difficult to monitor and measure. That’s why you need a predictable and proven marketing strategy like direct response.
Direct Response Marketing
What can direct-response marketing do that social, mass and brand marketing can’t do?
It can tell you what works and what doesn’t. Quickly.
Direct-response marketing is the bread and butter for marketers who want to not only survive, but thrive–in any economy.
Think Bill Jayme. QVC. Billy Mays.
Obnoxious, you say? Think twice, as the Direct Creative Blog argues:
I think few would say they “like” to watch a Billy Mays commercial. He’s considered obnoxious by many. But that’s irrelevant. Just as people say they dislike catalogs while continuing to place orders, they say they don’t like Mays’ in-your-face style while emptying the store shelves of the products he pitches.
The one thing you should learn about direct-response marketing is this: learn from what works–not from what you like.
Here’s What You Must Learn
Your best bet? Train yourself to think like a direct marketer–then test new marketing mediums like social media. Or experiment with target marketing.
That way you can avoid the over-hyped. You can avoid flushing money down the toilet. You can avoid trying to keep up with an overwhelming amount of stuff.
When you test everything, you are making decision based on facts. And, I think you’ll agree, that’s the best way to do business.
Did you find this article useful? If so, leave a comment. And if you like what you read, subscribe to the Real Estate Marketing Blog.
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Sick of Failure? The Seven Natural Laws of Real Estate Prospecting
Filed Under Real Estate Marketing, Real Estate Prospecting Ideas | Leave a Comment
Tired of dealing with snobbish buyers? Getting walked all over? Losing? If so, what you need to do is create some competition using the same principles farmers use to grow crops. Let me explain.
Prospecting is essential to success in real estate. It’s a key ingredient that will help you earn and get paid the amounts of money you want to make each year.
Yet, so many agents disregard, forget, ignore or flat out neglect prospecting. That’s bad. Especially in this market.
What you need to do–instead of settling for whatever rolls in from the front desk–is create an arena of competition. That is, you must get buyers competing with each other for a home. That means, you must get a lot of buyers bidding for the same home.
How do you do that? Prospect, prospect, prospect. Even though that sounds easy, it won’t happen over night. You have to sow today, to reap tomorrow. Any farmer will tell you that. It’s the natural law of the harvest.
And part of the law of the harvest is to focus your efforts on prospecting. Just like a farmer plants, then waters, then fertilizes, then harvests…you also focus on the other three pillars of real estate–and prospect.
Follow these seven natural laws of prospecting to create competition and in no time you’ll harvest a bumper crop this year of leads, clients and commissions.
1. Prospect Enough
Prospecting is THE PATH to finding the leads that will become your successfully closed transactions in the weeks and months ahead. If you don’t search for and cultivate the best people to work with in your territory, your competitors WILL find these people…and successfully close transactions with them instead.
2. Prospect With a Good Attitude
People respond to you based upon what you are putting out to them. When you have a great, positive, fun-loving attitude people will like talking to you more.
3. Follow-Up With Prospects
Following-up on the leads you’ve uncovered and enrolling your prospects in follow-up systems is really what being a successful real estate agent is all about. Follow-up systems are essential.
4. Prospect the Right People
Are you prospecting the people you ideally want to be working with? Are you prospecting in the geographical area that has the properties you really want to list or sell? Make sure you’re prospecting the people who will be closing the exact kind of transactions you want to be working on.
5. Ask Your Prospects for Referrals
When you are prospecting you will maximize your results when you ask your prospects who they know that might be interested in buying or selling in the near future. When you ask the right questions you can also begin prospecting everyone else they know. Don’t be afraid. Just do it!
6. Mail to Your Circle of Influence Constantly
Mailing to your circle of influence keeps you “top of the mind.” You get their attention and remind them of who you are every single month. And the more you consistently mail the higher the probability that one of your circle of influence (or someone they know) will buy or sell right around the time that one of your mailers arrives on their doorstep.
7. Prospect Even After You’ve Generated Activity:
To be the best you can be in your real estate career you need to prospect constantly. If you get busy and stop, or substantially reduce your prospecting you will most definitely experience a gap in your incoming commissions in the weeks and months ahead. Don’t delude yourself about this. Know with certainty that whenever you slow down your prospecting you will substantially decrease your income for the year.
Final Thoughts
Carve each day you work into four quadrants and focus on one pillar in each quadrant. Especially prospecting. Don’t deviate. Always prospect and you’ll create competition and render those snobbish buyers humbled. Count on it.
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