Archive for October, 2006
Your marketing needs to focus on your prospect, their concerns, and how you will help them address those concerns. This focus needs to carry through how you talk to prospects, your marketing materials, and especially your real estate website. But, in the real estate industry, it’s easy to fall into a couple of marketing traps.
The first trap is promoting yourself based on the benchmarks set by the industry. For example: Member of the Millionnaire Club for 12 straight years, or Top Producer in the XYZ office for 3 years.
While those types of achievements are something to be proud of, your prospects or Internet visitors will not view them as a clear benefit. For one thing, many people assume that if you’re a member of a broker’s Millionaire Club, you’re receiving a million dollars a year in commission. That can make you very intimidating!
Make sure that your marketing message focuses on the benefits that you offer to your clients. For example, the message you want your Internet visitors to take away from your website is something like “Wow, that agent really understands me and my concerns, and I think h/she’d be great to work with”.
The second trap is creating a brand that puts too much emphasis on the “personal” in personal branding. Keep in mind that you are running a business – a real estate consulting practice. And a brand is important – every company has one.
But, if you’re focused on “personal branding”, it’s easy to end up with a marketing message that focuses on who you are rather than what you can do for your clients. Certainly in real estate, like in any consulting business, clients will work with professionals they like and trust.
So, depending on your market, it may be OK if your logo plays off your love of fishing or unique hats. But, the underlying definition of your brand had better focus on your prospects.
No one ever bought a house from a fish.
So, what’s the right tone for a real estate website? To answer that question, you need to think about a typical visitor to your website. First, ask yourself this question: Do prospects visit real estate websites to buy or sell a house? If you answered No, you’re on the right track.
Think about that question in terms of your own shopping habits. If you drive to a quick-lube shop because you need your oil changed, what type of response do you want from the staff? Well, you probably want quick response from the staff so you can make your purchase and go.
If you enter a clothing store, are you there to buy clothes…. or are you there to look around and determine if there is a piece of clothing in the store that you like and that fits well? Most likely, you’re there to look for clothing. If the salesperson in the store follows you around telling you how wonderful each piece of clothing you pass would look on you, will you stay in that store? I wouldn’t.
You can think of your real estate website in terms of the clothing store.
- You need to give your visitors plenty of room to explore without feeling pressured.
- You need to provide them with a lot of interesting things to see and do that will keep them in your “establishment”, and
- You need to convince them that when they are ready to make a purchase, you’re the person who can help them.
So, what’s the right tone for a real estate website?
- Set up your website to highlight the tools and information that are most important to a visitor who is looking for a new home, or who is doing research prior to a sale,
- Make sure your contact information is easy to find, and let your visitors know that they can call on you for assistance at any time, and
- Make it easy to find a compelling marketing message that clearly defines the benefits you provide to your clients.
Slow Real Estate Market Got You Down?
· CommentsJust about everyone I talk to lately is seeing a slow down in the activity in their market area. If you need a quick pick-me-up, try these ideas from your peers.
NAR gathered prospecting ideas from readers of REALTOR® Magazine Online, and published the 21 best prospecting ideas. There are quite a few very unique approaches, and I like this list because it comes from people on the front line.
It’s a great time to take a new approach to prospecting. Take a look at the article, and make a commitment to incorporate at least one approach you’ve never tried before into your normal activities.
Doing something different will help you stay fresh at a time when you may be spending more time than usual prospecting.
Enjoy!
If you’re tired of working with lead generators, or if managing your own pay per click program isn’t producing the results you want, here’s another alternative to try.
You can learn more about a new way to generate real estate leads. Most agents I come in contact with aren’t happy with traditional lead generation companies that serve the real estate industry. And, if you’ve ever tried to manage a pay per click program, you know that it takes quite a bit of time and expertise to do properly.
That’s why I was excited to establish a relationship with Fidelity Assets, a firm that may just solve those problems for you. I’ve been able to provide a discount on services for visitors to our main site. And, I’ve received a lot of good feedback about the services Fidelity provides.
Check them out for yourself. I think you’ll find their services to be a great addition to your real estate marketing plans!
I’ve discovered a new real estate relationship marketing tool that I think is well worth your time to explore.
One thing has always bothered me about staying in touch with past clients, your SOI and prospects. The content of some of the most cost-effective ways of staying in touch focus on real estate transactions. For example, producing a completely custom newsletter would be extremely expensive and time consuming. But, the reasonably priced real estate newsletters offer lots of information about buying and selling real estate.
So, what’s the problem? How many of the people you want to stay in touch with are actively researching a real estate transaction? Certainly not the client who just closed on a new home!
A company called My Home Management Club has designed an innovative way to manage your relationships. Once you set up your club, you can add subscribers yourself, or let visitors to your website subscribe themselves.
The club sends out e/Alerts twice a month that link to the Club’s home management portal. The portal contains over 2000 pages of content that are of interest to all of your contacts, regardless of how close they are to a real estate transaction.
The other great thing is that the club lets you extend your expertise from focusing on real estate transactions to focusing on home management. This is another great way to differentiate yourself in your marketplace, and position yourself as an expert in a broad field.
In addition, we have arranged for special pricing for referrals from Getting It Write. So, review this new relationship management tool to see if it can help you expand your real estate marketing strategy!
