Effective marketing is the life blood of a successful business. Poor marketing results in you spending time going out to look for prospective clients, instead of spending time serving existing clients – and hitting your sales targets. Effective marketing enables and encourages prospective clients to come to you. Your marketing campaign, therefore, must get you the return you want. A lot of people think getting any return is OK – it’s not. Getting the best return is OK, and it is much easier than most people (who are not professional marketers) think. Follow these proven steps and you will get the best return on your Real Estate marketing campaign.
1. It is a Campaign, Not a Hole-in-One Attempt
To get the best return you must plan your campaign properly. Others will spend time putting together a weak campaign with a poor return, you will spend the same amount of time putting together a powerful campaign with the best return.
- Know what results you want
- Know who your campaign target audience is
- Know what turns your campaign target audience on
- Angle your campaign to attract, interest and involve them
To get the best long-term results you want to build a relationship with your target audience. You want them to keep wanting to hear from you, so they are more likely to respond either now or in the future. That means:
2. Your Campaign Must Be Valuable to Them
If all you do is to mail a community, email every address on your list, or put videos up on YouTube every other month, you are gambling that you will get a ‘hole in one’. You might, of course, but that isn’t the best return for your marketing time and marketing dollars. Value is what your audience perceives as value. That is why you must know your target audience and speak to them in their language, about things that are important to them, in ways they will relate to. In short, ‘keep hitting them where they live’.
People live in certain areas for specific reasons – the advantages and benefits of where they live matter to them. As part of your campaign show them that you are either like them, or you understand them, so you can be their go-to person.
If they are affluent or well educated, there is little point, for example, in sending out a list of recently sold homes, and how much they sold for. That is not all that valuable. Offer a report with detailed information about market trends, price changes, factors to look for, etc, that they can use in some way, or at least learn from, and link that valuable report to you.
You want your campaign to achieve at least three obvious goals:
- They contact you and give you their contact details, so you can really build the relationship
- They get something of value from you, so they want to keep hearing from you
- They contact you to help them buy or sell, because they are ready, willing and able – and you have proven yourself to them
3. Build a ‘Ladder of Value’ for Them to Climb
You know your audience and what is important to them, so use that to take them up the steps, closer to the goal you have set, and away from your competition. These are a few examples – that you can keep repeating. Choose things which matter to you; these are only examples to get you thinking.
- Introduce yourself, and offer them something of value
- Encourage them to give you their contact details in exchange for the valuable offer
- Invite them to visit your website, so they can stay up to date on things in their neighbourhood
- Remind them every so often, so they get used to hearing from you
- Offer something else of value – another report or a personal invitation to an event you are involved in. This reinforces the relationship, even if they do not respond. You are setting yourself apart from those who just mail out basic, general stuff
- Announce your successes, latest testimonials you’ve received, newsworthy items involving you or their community
- Announce recent listings, introduce new neighbours, etc.
- Explain recent changes in the law that might affect them
- Invite them to your open houses
- Send them the marketing material you are using to get properties sold, so they either want to learn more, or they stay impressed with how you sell other people’s properties. They will contact you when they want to buy or sell
4. Use Professionally Produced Marketing Materials
The more professional you and the homes you have listed look, the better the response. The more successful you, your office and your sales team look, the higher is the perceived value you transmit.
Remember – people will spend time and money on a weak campaign, a series of one-off, disjointed attempts to get a hole-in-one. Successful marketers spend the same time and a sensible amount of money to get impressive returns. You know your market and your target audience. You know the results you want to achieve. We know how to make your campaigns look totally professional. If you would like to learn more about how we can help you to get the best returns on your marketing campaign, if your Real estate marketing is lacking a unique creative edge, then give us a call.
