Owner: RealtyBizCoach - Real Estate Marketing Tips URL:http://www.realtybizcoach.com Join Date: Wed, 08 Aug 2007 17:51:09 -0500 Rating:0 Site Description: RealtyBizCoach provides marketing tips, strategies and advice for marketing your real estate firm. Learn how to market your real estate practice and generate more leads. Site statistics:Click here
How to Get Prospects to Tell You They’re Interested In Buying or Selling 2007-08-07 21:10:44 In previous articles, I’ve discussed your prospect’s buying process. In this article, I want to discuss how your marketing strategy must match how your prospect buys. This is where most real estate agents get it wrong. They advertise, mail postcards, or put up websites hoping that someone will take notice and call them for business.
Ask For The Next Step - But Don’t Make It Too Big
During the first two stages of the buying process (awareness and information gathering), your prospects are slowly becoming aware that they may want to buy or sell a home and start the information gathering process. During this time, you should be actively prospecting to them.
(more…)
Read more:Buying
How Clients Buy - Evaluating Solutions, Buying, And Re-Evaluating 2007-06-30 06:38:29 In my last post, I discussed the importance of the information gathering stage during the client buying process and why you should focus your marketing materials on educating prospects at this stage.
In this post, I’ll discuss how prospects evaluate solutions, buy, and then re-evaluate their decision.
(more…)
Read more:Buying
, Clients
Prospecting - How Clients Gather Information 2007-06-29 06:31:42 In my last post, I discussed the major events that motivate prospects to start thinking realistically about buying or selling - the “awareness” stage.
In this post, I’ll address the “information gathering” stage because it is at this stage when prospects start considering whether to buy or sell their home. Something has happened that has made them aware that buying or selling their home is worth investigating.
(more…)
Read more:Clients
How Clients Buy - The Marketing Funnel 2007-06-26 06:13:30 In my last post, I talked about about how clients decide to buy or sell a home. In this post, I will talk about the marketing funnel.
Marketing
is a funnel. You start with all sorts of prospects who have yet to be qualified or evaluated for their motivations to buy. Over the course of the process, you lose a few - some decide not to buy, some can’t get financing, and some go with your competitors. Those that stick with you through the funnel learn more about who you are, why working with you will benefit them, and eventually become your clients.
Each of the stages in the marketing funnel coincides with stages in the buying process. In the diagram below, you’ll see a funnel broken into 5 stages of the buying process as we described above. The picture shows how different types of marketing relate to each state of the buying process. (more…)
Read more:Clients
, Funnel
How and Why Clients Buy 2007-06-23 23:01:25 I talked about understanding your clients’ buying process in a previous article. I thought I’d go into more detail in the next few posts.
Many real estate agents make the mistake of believing that all it takes is one marketing piece delivered with the right message at the right time to produce a client. So they focus on advertising or mailing postcards or sending newsletters. With each piece they send, they take a “hope and pray” strategy - they “hope” that this time they’ll get lucky and “pray” that prospects will flood them with calls.
(more…)
Read more:Clients
Trulia Redesigned - More Focus on Local Real Estate 2007-05-13 18:47:37 Real estate search engine, Trulia, is now sporting a new look and new features. They’ve recently added a Q&A for communities called Trulia Voices (though there aren’t many questions about Philadelphia real estate yet).
The feature is similar to the Home Q&A that Zillow.com launched last month.
Trulia has also added real estate guides for US geographical areas. Here’s the one for Philadelphia, which gives you a breakdown of home prices, crime stats, home age, household income, travel time to work, and community links.
Both websites show the recent trends from showcasing listings to building an engaged community around real estate transactions. Sites like these offer a great way for real estate agents to become the “local real estate expert” for their particular area.
Read more:Focus
, Local
, Estate
Top 10 States With the Most Agents, Sales 2007-05-07 07:18:30 According to RisMedia’s 2007 Power Broker Report (pdf), there were about 356,000 less real estate transactions in 2006 than in 2005.
Here are some interesting charts. The first shows the top 10 states with the most agents (New Jersey, California, Minnesota, Virginia, Florida, Texas, Pennsylvania, Illinois, New York, Georgia) (more…)
Read more:States
, Sales
Tag: You’re It - Free Link From My Site To Yours 2007-04-22 17:50:15 I received a comment today tagging me for one of the “cyber tag” games going around. The rules appear to be link back to the blog who tagged you and pick three more blogs to tag.
The comment claims that by linking to others’ websites, it improve everyone’s “PR rankings.” Honestly, that’s probably not the case (and PR doesn’t mean all that much in search engine optimization) unless:
you pick high traffic websites
that are relevant to your topic of interest
and get them to link back to you
using keywords you’d like to be found under for search engines
(more…)
Read more:Yours
Real Estate Email Marketing Tips 2007-04-12 13:17:09 Aweber.com has recently posted two great articles about how real estate agents can use email more effectively.
In Real EstateEmail
Tips, Pt. 1 - Don't Do This!, Justin Premick writes about the importance of setting goals when planning your email marketing campaign. He also stresses that in order to differentiate yourself from other agents, you have to do more than just show subscribers pictures of homes. That’s what everyone else does. To differentiate yourself, you must go above and beyond. (more…)
Read more:Marketing
, Real Estate
, Email Marketing
Build Rapport With Prospects By Nurturing Your Leads 2007-08-09 06:10:45 In my last post, I talked about the importance of getting permission to keep marketing to prospects. Once your prospects have given you their contact information and permission to keep in touch, the ball is in your court. Now, it’s up to you to build rapport with them by offering valuable information that educates them and guides them through the fundamentals of the home buying and selling process. This stage is about demonstrating your expertise in real estate while starting to build a relationship with them. The goal for this stage is to position yourself as a good fit for their needs when they decide the time is right to contact a real estate agent. (more…)
Read more:Build
, Rapport
, Leads
What Is the Difference Between Features and Benefits? 2007-09-25 06:45:54 You’ll often hear marketers tell you to focus on benefits not features when describing your services. This is because people don’t buy or value features. They value how those features can enhance their lives - or the benefits.
Features are the characteristics or attributes that physically describe your service. In real estate, the features of your services include the process for how you solve your prospects’ problems. For instance, you may provide a lock box or for sale sign to home sellers that choose to list with you.
Benefits
, on the other hand, emphasize the magnitude of the problem and how your solution makes your prospects’ life easier. They answer the question “so what?” Benefits can be classified into three types:
Economic: Economic benefits stress cost savings or emphasize value.
Psychological or Emotional: Psychological benefits stress security, reliability, expertise, friendliness or other feelings or beliefs associated with your
How Do You Qualify Leads? 2007-09-23 16:35:13 When a prospect contacts you, how to do determine whether this person is ready to do business with you - or is just looking for information? Not all people who contact you are ready to buy. You need a system in place to help you decide whether your prospect is ready to buy or sell, if they’re still in the information gathering stage, or if they’re just a bad fit for you.
Not all people who contact you are ready to buy. For each phone call or email you receive, you must determine:
Who is contacting you?
How did they find you? (so you can keep track of your marketing ROI)
What stage of the decision making process are they in?
Are they qualified to do business with you?
The next step is to classify each contact based on how good of a prospect he/she is at this current time. Generally, most people that contact you will fall into one of the following categories:
Inquiry: When people contact you in any way - via phone, email, website, etc - they are making an inquiry. They wan Read more:Leads
Book Review: Sold! Direct Marketing for the Real Estate Pro 2007-09-04 20:44:57 Author: Lois K. Geller
Publisher: Capital Books
Year Published: 2006
Rating:
Buy From Amazon.com
One of the most common questions I receive from real estate agents is how can they make their mailings more effective? They’ve tried sending out all sorts of postcards and get little to no response. If mailing to prospects is so effective, why aren’t these campaigns working?
The problem is that many real estate agents send out very similar types of mailings, like:
Recipe of the month - how is this relevant to selling real estate?
Just sold - Whoopee! One picture of the home next to a huge picture of the proud agent who wants to do the same for me. (Imagine how much more compelling these would be if they showed a picture of the agent’s happy client rather than the agent and offered a glowing testimonial.)
Generic - A photo and logo along with some vague tagline about being “honest” and “professional” or that this agent can “find my dream ho Read more:Direct
, Marketing
, Estate
, Direct Marketing
, Real Estate
What is a brand? 2007-10-01 07:06:35 Brands are everywhere. It’s virtually impossible to scan your environment and not pick out the brand name printed on your clothing, car, food, beverages, computer, books, billboards, magazines and the like. Turn on the tv and you’ll see advertisement for companies who want you to buy their brand name products.
But brands aren’t limited to products. People can be brands too. Actors like George Clooney and Tom Cruise are brands. News journalists like Katie Couric and Dan Rather are brands. Tiger Woods, Peyton Manning, and Barry Bonds are brands. Rachel Ray, Oprah, Madonna, and virtually anyone famous you can think of are brands. Politicians like George W. Bush, Hillary Clinton, and John McCain are brands.
In fact, you are a brand. And everyone you interact with is a brand. You just might not know it yet. So let me start by defining what a brand is.
What is a brand?
Your brand is the collective sum of how each person you come into contact views you, your products and
Do You Have A Unique Selling Proposition (USP)? 2007-09-27 08:05:31 “Why should I choose you?” It’s the question in the minds of each prospect that talks with you. How do you differ from other real estate agents and why will that difference help your prospect buy or sell a home? This is what marketers call a Unique Selling Proposition
(USP).
Your USP should include:
who your target audience is
what you’ll do for them
why that’s different from what others are offering
why that solution matters to your target audience
Your USP should be based on your strengths, passions, talents and skills. How does what you bring to the interaction help your target audience? If you decide to target investors and you have a 10 year background in financial services, mention that. If you’re a single mom and have been help single moms buy homes, mention that. If you offer a solid guarantee - such as if the home doesn’t sell in 90 days, you’ll buy it - mention that.
For a USP to be successful, it must also address the key con
Why Design Matters 2007-10-12 07:38:22 The primary purpose of design is to capture your reader’s attention. You can have fantastic copy, a great product or service, and a compelling offer, but unless someone actually looks at the document, your marketing message is nonexistent to them.
The next time you get your mail, pay close attention to what jumps out at you. As you flip past envelopes, mailers and magazines, what grabs your attention? Chances are, it’s a color, a picture, or a prominent headline. That’s design!
Credit card companies try to get us to open their envelopes by sending materials in all sorts of sizes, shapes and colors - from sending formal yellow envelopes marked “urgent” to listing their offer in bold colors and type face on the front - “0% APR on balance transfers”. Magazines take a similar approach to get us to renew our subscriptions from bold “Expiration Notice!” messages on envelopes to renewal forms pasted over the cover of our magazines that s
How To Package Your Services 2007-10-10 07:23:34 Virtually everything you buy has some type of packaging. The packaging your product comes in protects the product from being damaged when shipped, from getting dirty, or from deterring someone from tampering with it.
From a marketing standpoint, the packaging is a primary means of differentiating one product from another. When you buy a book from a bookstore, the packaging is the stand up display the book may be sitting on, whether the book is hardbound or soft cover, what the cover looks like, what the blurbs on the inside cover and back say, what type of paper the book is printed on, whether it’s full color or black and white, and so on.
Packaging creates an emotional connection to the product. Sometimes, it can enhance the product - anyone that purchases electronics from Apple loves the sleek product design and way it makes them feel hip and creative.
Other times, packaging can position a product as “for men” or “for women”. Back in mid 2005, a start Read more:Services
How To Craft An Answer To “What Do You Do For A Living?” 2007-10-08 08:20:59 Now it’s time to put all of those components together into a clear, concise statement that you can use as a reply to the question whenever someone asks “what do you do for a living?”
Do you have a clear, concise statement for the question “What do you do for a living?” that sparks conversation? Unfortunately, most agents miss their opportunity by answering with a standard “I’m a real estate agent.”
What’s the problem with that answer? It doesn’t clearly identify what it is that you do and why that’s beneficial to them. To you, being a “real estate agent” means certain things. Your prospects, however, probably don’t think of your profession in the same light. After all, they’re influenced by the media, their own perceptions, and those of family and friends. It’s entirely possible you’re talking with someone who doesn’t see any value in what you do - or is thinking how much thei Read more:Craft
, Living
5 Myths about Brands 2007-10-05 07:13:54 The terms “brand” and “branding” are some of the most overhyped and misused words in all of marketing. Here are some common myths about brands and branding.
Myth 1: Your brand is your name, logo, tagline, or USP.
Actually, your brand only exists in the mind of your prospects and customers. It’s that initial image or description that pops into their head when they hear your name, think about you, or see your marketing materials. It’s how they were treated the last time they spoke with you on the phone, or how pleased they were with your product or service, or how relevant to them that postcard they got in the mail yesterday was.
Myth 2: You need a logo to have a brand.
Logos aren’t mandatory for successful brands. They’re nice to have, but no one is going to choose your product or service because you have a nice logo. In fact, unless you have several millions of dollars to spend promoting you logo, changes are, people won’t remem Read more:Myths
, Brands
What is branding? 2007-10-03 07:09:28 In my last article, I explained that your brand is how your customers, prospects, friends and family view you. So where does branding fit into the picture?
Branding is about trying to shape the impressions people have about you and your company. It’s not about manipulating people. People are much too smart for that to work and no advertising or branding campaign can help you if you are a nasty person or unethical company.
Instead, it’s about understanding who you are at your core and explaining clearly why people should do business with you (or have a romantic relationship or be friends with you on a personal level.) It’s about making sure that every interaction people have with you is consistent with that core message.
Branding Is More Than “Getting Your Name Out”
When most people think about branding, they think of “getting their name out.” They then try a little of everything like sending postcards, newsletters and sales letters, advertis
How to Design a Memorable Logo 2007-10-17 07:07:37 The first step to creating a visual identity is designing a logo. Over time, your logo will become the visual identifier of you and your services. When prospects and clients see your logo, they’ll recognize it and remember you. While names can be difficult to remember, graphical images are much more memorable.
The other day, for instance, I handed my business card to another professional at a networking event. Though we had never met, she had seen marketing materials from my company before, recognized the company logo and visual elements, and asked me if we had met previously. That’s the power of creating a visual identity. Even when your prospects have never met you, they can still identify you by your marketing materials.
Your logo is not your brand, a description of your business, or your USP. It’s a representation of what the sum total of each of those represents. In other words, your logo is a symbol of you and your service - and thus derives its meaning by t
Why Create A Visual Identity 2007-10-15 19:00:58 Professional marketing materials start with your visual identity, which includes all the colors, images and fonts that represent your company graphically. Just as you should create a way to verbally identify and differentiate yourself from others, you also need to create a visual way to do the same.
Since the beginning of time, humans have used symbols and designs to communicate with one another. In corporate America, we’ve come to know these symbols as “logos,” which comes from the Greek word logos, meaning “the word” and the stylistic elements and designs that remain consistent throughout all marketing materials as the company’s “corporate identity system.”
Most big companies put together a formalized corporate identity system that describes
what the core message of the company is
what the company’s identifying colors and fonts are
appropriate uses of the corporate logo
examples of photography and illustrations that accurately re Read more:Visual
How to Choose Images, Colors and Fonts for Your Visual Identity 2007-10-19 19:12:37 Once you’ve created your logo, the next step to create a visual identity system is to establish images, colors and fonts that you’d like prospects to associate with you and your services. When thinking about your visual identity, think about:
Images
Images convey large amounts information quickly. I’m sure you’ve heard the phrase that “a picture is worth a thousand words.” In the context of design, images complement and enhance the piece’s core message.
Colors
Color creates an emotional connection and can set the tone for the company’s message. Warm colors, which include reds, oranges and yellows, can mean anything from warm and inviting to evoking strong emotions like passion, anger or excitement. The color red, for instance, can symbolize love and passion, fierce anger, or a stern warning to stop. Cool colors, which include greens, blues and purples, can range from relaxing and calm to sterile and antiseptic. The color green can stan Read more:Fonts
, Visual
Negotiating Price With Sellers 2007-10-24 07:27:55 One of the most common questions real estate agents ask is how they can compete with other agents and discount brokers who offer a lower price. This problem, of course, isn’t limited to real estate. In virtually any industry you can think of, clients and customers want the job done better, faster and cheaper. If they feel they can get the same level of service cheaper, they’d be stupid not to go save a few dollars and go with the lower cost option.
Because there are so many agents out there, the problem seems magnified in the real estate industry. Home buyers and sellers see numerous agents competing for their business. They receive countless mailings, newsletters, magazines, emails and such clamoring for their business. Yet no one clearly explains how they are different than other agents. In such an environment where no one seems to have the competitive advantage, your prospects view your services as a commodity. The burden is on you to prove otherwise.
Imagine the scenari Read more:Sellers
Tips for Working With A Designer 2007-10-22 19:22:55 If you choose to work with a graphic designer, here are some tips for making sure the business relationship starts off on the right foot.
Have a vision for your project - The more you can communicate the message the design should convey, the easier it will be for your designer to come up with concepts. Have examples of other similar designs that you like and dislike and be able to tell your designer what specifically about the design that you feel works or doesn’t work.
View your designer’s portfolio - Make sure you like at least some of the pieces in your designer’s portfolio - or the designs they’ve done for themselves. If you don’t like any of them, chances are that you won’t be happy with this designer’s work.
Vocalize your budget and other constraints - Be honest with your designer about how much you can spend - at least give them a price range. Each element of graphic design - including design concepts, design development, typography, Read more:Designer
What Prospecting Is - And Isn’t 2007-10-29 11:42:25 Prospecting is everything you do to generate awareness and educate prospects about your services. Yet to most agents, it’s a lot of work for seeming little reward. Most agents who don’t have a prospecting system in place wonder if it’s really worth it. Here are 3 key points about prospecting which debunk some common myths.
Prospecting Is About Getting Interested Candidates to Contact You
I once heard a real estate agent refer to prospecting as a game of hunting. “Just get the bird in the cage,” is what he used to say. The cage, of course, was the signed contract. This agent thought that once he coerced the prospect to sign his contract, he won the listing.
When I discuss prospecting, I am not referring to forcing your prospects to do anything they don’t want to do. In fact, I’d say that if you’re manipulating your prospects from the start, you’re setting yourself up for a troubled working relationship with them down the road. You
Negotiating Commissions with Buyers 2007-10-26 07:35:15 Before the 1980s, it was widely understood that both the buyer’s agent and the seller’s agent worked for and were paid by the seller. The listing agent would negotiate the fee for both the buyer’s agent and him/her self and then place the home in the MLS. The agent who brought the buyer would receive the co-op fee.
This changed in 1983, when the Federal Trade Commission published a report called The Residential Real Estate Brokerage Industry. The report found that 72% of potential home buyers working with an agent thought their agent was working for them - not the seller. When the general public found out this was not the case, they began to see the real estate industry as deceiving and dishonest and were outraged. To change the public’s perception of the industry, NAR encouraged local Realtor groups to petition their state legislatures to create disclosure laws and mandates. During this time, the concept of buyer’s agency was introduced.
Today, when a bu Read more:Commissions
, Buyers
Networking Is About Connecting With Others - And Not About Keeping Score 2007-11-02 02:29:11 What is our network? It’s the group of people we feel comfortable sharing ideas, information, recommendations, and referrals with. Every time we communicate with someone, we form a connection with that person. Sometimes the connection is strong. Sometimes, it’s not.
Networking is something we learn at a very early stage. It’s what our parents teach us when they provide guidelines about sharing our toys, including our younger siblings, and treating others as we’d like to be treated.
It’s also about who we interact with for specific advice. Parents often have a network of friends, play group parents, and others whom they turn to whenever they need advice on when to introduce solid foods, when to potty train, how to survive the terrible twos, what to do when their child becomes ill, how to choose the right preschool, and so forth.
In business, you probably have specific coworkers you turn to when your computer crashes, you need a specific type of informati Read more:Connecting
, Others
, Score
No One Likes To Be Sold - Especially at Networking Events 2007-10-31 07:26:24 Unless you are a shameless, self promoting extrovert (and there’s nothing wrong with that!), there’s a good chance you dread going to networking socials or luncheons in hopes of drumming up business.
As an introvert, when I first started my business and heard I should get involved with my local Chamber of Commerce, I wasn’t too keen on the idea - I envisioned lots of slick, power sales people in expensive suits with fake smiles pushing business cards into my hands - but I went. I figured I might as well try it.
The event turned out much like I expected. The environment was nice enough and there was a nice selection of food and drink but the people were a big turn off. Everywhere I went, someone was trying to pull me into a conversation where they could give me a short sales spiel about how they could help my company and then pushed their business card into my hand. Or, they’d take a look at my company, not recognize the name and snub their noses.
Perhaps you&r
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