Marketing – it’s a key requirement of the real estate business and it’s expensive. But are you sure your money is being well spent? If you’re like most realtors, you’re probably not. It’s a common, yet critical mistake. In order to gain exposure, agents often advertise blindly without monitoring which advertising is working and which is not.
If the idea of wasting thousands of dollars on useless advertising bothers you, it’s time to start tracking the effectiveness of your marketing materials. Fortunately, it’s simple to do.
The easiest way, is of course, to ask every prospect that calls to tell you where they heard about you and when. You might be surprised, but the majority will be able to tell you right away. Only a small number won’t remember.
If you place several ads, you need to identify exactly which ad a prospect is calling about. The simplest method is to include an ad number or some other distinguishing feature in each ad, and ask prospects for that information when they call.
You can even try enticing callers to respond to your ads by offering a free gift. Include the phrase, “Mention this ad for a free gift” and you can be sure callers will be anxious to tell you which ad they’ve seen. The gift can be anything you’d like, from a free magnet to a free report on housing conditions.
All in all, analyzing the effectiveness of your advertising is no different than monitoring the responses you receive from yard signs. If you really want to get the most bang for your marketing buck, it’s imperative you track the source for all your calls. Only then can you tell which ads to continue and which to abandon. Remember - dumping unresponsive ads frees up money to try other forms of marketing.
Don’t be left in the dark about your marketing dollar. Start tracking your ads today.
Showing posts with label realtor marketing. Show all posts
Showing posts with label realtor marketing. Show all posts
Sunday, July 5, 2009
The Successful Realtor - How Much is Your Time Worth?
To be truly successful, realtors need to work hard, long hours. Let’s face it – you’re not working a 9 to 5 Monday to Friday job … but have you ever stopped to consider if you’re spending those hours wisely? To know for sure, you need to first figure out how much you earn per hour.
Start by determining how many hours you work each week, on average. Multiply that figure by the number of weeks you work in a year. Then divide last year’s income by that amount.
For example: Last year you earned $60,000. You work 65 hours per week and 50 weeks a year. Therefore: $60,000 ¸ (65 x 50) = $18.18 per hour.
Now ask yourself this: How many hours do you spend each week on tasks you could pay someone less than $18 per hour to do for you? Do you prepare your own mailings? Send out follow-up postcards and emails? Post yard signs? Act as a courier to deliver contracts and paperwork? If you do these things yourself, you’re losing money. Consider outsourcing them for less money and spending your time on productive tasks that will build your business.
Craig Proctor, one of the top Remax agents in the world, concentrates his efforts on “rainmaker activities”. This man sold over $100 million in real estate last year, but you can be sure he didn’t do it all himself. He put systems in place. He automated tasks where possible. He focused his attention on things that would make his business better. And he let his assistants take care of the rest.
Craig credits Michael Gerber’s book The E-Myth for providing the inspiration. In his book, Gerber explains that most small business owners fail because they spend too much time in the business instead of on the business. They spend each day putting out small fires instead of charting their future plans.
So what should you, as a small business owner, be focusing on? That’s easy … lead generation. Your number one priority as a realtor is to be constantly generating leads. And that means that you need to dedicate a large portion of your time to marketing your business.
Other rainmaker activities include:
- Listing appointments
- Buyer appointments
- Accounting
Everything else can be delegated. As Craig became more successful, he even began to delegate listing and buyer appointments. Now, all he does is marketing.
Even if you don’t have the money to hire an army of assistants right away, you can still apply these principles to make your business more successful. Start today - list all the things you do that can be delegated or automated and work on letting them go. Then commit to doing one task each day to build your business. Do one lead generation activity everyday, such as calling previous customers, placing ads in the newspaper, etc. These simple steps will not only make you more productive, they’ll automatically increase your business.
Start by determining how many hours you work each week, on average. Multiply that figure by the number of weeks you work in a year. Then divide last year’s income by that amount.
For example: Last year you earned $60,000. You work 65 hours per week and 50 weeks a year. Therefore: $60,000 ¸ (65 x 50) = $18.18 per hour.
Now ask yourself this: How many hours do you spend each week on tasks you could pay someone less than $18 per hour to do for you? Do you prepare your own mailings? Send out follow-up postcards and emails? Post yard signs? Act as a courier to deliver contracts and paperwork? If you do these things yourself, you’re losing money. Consider outsourcing them for less money and spending your time on productive tasks that will build your business.
Craig Proctor, one of the top Remax agents in the world, concentrates his efforts on “rainmaker activities”. This man sold over $100 million in real estate last year, but you can be sure he didn’t do it all himself. He put systems in place. He automated tasks where possible. He focused his attention on things that would make his business better. And he let his assistants take care of the rest.
Craig credits Michael Gerber’s book The E-Myth for providing the inspiration. In his book, Gerber explains that most small business owners fail because they spend too much time in the business instead of on the business. They spend each day putting out small fires instead of charting their future plans.
So what should you, as a small business owner, be focusing on? That’s easy … lead generation. Your number one priority as a realtor is to be constantly generating leads. And that means that you need to dedicate a large portion of your time to marketing your business.
Other rainmaker activities include:
- Listing appointments
- Buyer appointments
- Accounting
Everything else can be delegated. As Craig became more successful, he even began to delegate listing and buyer appointments. Now, all he does is marketing.
Even if you don’t have the money to hire an army of assistants right away, you can still apply these principles to make your business more successful. Start today - list all the things you do that can be delegated or automated and work on letting them go. Then commit to doing one task each day to build your business. Do one lead generation activity everyday, such as calling previous customers, placing ads in the newspaper, etc. These simple steps will not only make you more productive, they’ll automatically increase your business.
The Successful Realtor - Surfing the Wave of The Future
The Internet has changed many things - not least of all, the home buying process. It wasn’t so long ago that realtors shouldered the majority of responsibility in identifying properties for clients to view. Today’s homebuyers, however, tend to favour a more active role in the process.
In fact, a whopping 71% of homebuyers used the Internet to search for a new home in the first quarter of 2008, according to CAAMP. Of these, 90% also employed the services of a real estate agent.
From a marketing standpoint, this means only one thing - the Internet cannot be ignored as THE medium to talk to prospects. If you do not have a kick butt website, you are losing money.
If you are not web savvy, you need to become so quickly. But don’t worry - it’s not as intimidating as it sounds. Besides, the efforts you put in will more than pay for themselves.
So … where to begin? First, it’s imperative you understand how your website is performing for you. At the very least, you need to determine how many unique visitors you get to your site (not the number of “hits” since one person may visit several times), which pages they enter from, and from which page they leave your site. Software is available to help you track these stats. You also need to decide how you’re going to collect visitors’ contact information while they’re in your site.
As for the content itself, your website cannot be just about your listings. To really capture readers’ attention and create a favourable impression, it needs to provide information that appeals to your visitors. Even more importantly, it must allow you to gather your visitors’ contact information.
Take a look at the most successful direct marketing sites, and you’ll find they share one thing in common – the main focus of each site is getting the visitor’s email address. Once the marketer has this information, visitors can be sent many follow-up emails to convert them to clients(continued) You can easily design your website to serve the same function by adding an autoresponder to your site. (A good one to check out is www.getresponse.com.) Once you’ve added the autoresponder, offer visitors a free report on a topic of great interest to homebuyers in your area. All visitors have to do is provide their email address and the autoresponder will do the rest, recording their email address and sending the promised report, in addition to any future messages you select.
Try adding this one simple automated system to your site and you’re sure to see immediate results.
Tip: Sending a series of messages with very helpful content will set you up as an expert in the minds of buyers and sellers in your area. They more these people read your messages, the more inclined they will be to work with you. Remember - the sale is almost never made in the first meeting so keep your name in the minds of potential clients!
In fact, a whopping 71% of homebuyers used the Internet to search for a new home in the first quarter of 2008, according to CAAMP. Of these, 90% also employed the services of a real estate agent.
From a marketing standpoint, this means only one thing - the Internet cannot be ignored as THE medium to talk to prospects. If you do not have a kick butt website, you are losing money.
If you are not web savvy, you need to become so quickly. But don’t worry - it’s not as intimidating as it sounds. Besides, the efforts you put in will more than pay for themselves.
So … where to begin? First, it’s imperative you understand how your website is performing for you. At the very least, you need to determine how many unique visitors you get to your site (not the number of “hits” since one person may visit several times), which pages they enter from, and from which page they leave your site. Software is available to help you track these stats. You also need to decide how you’re going to collect visitors’ contact information while they’re in your site.
As for the content itself, your website cannot be just about your listings. To really capture readers’ attention and create a favourable impression, it needs to provide information that appeals to your visitors. Even more importantly, it must allow you to gather your visitors’ contact information.
Take a look at the most successful direct marketing sites, and you’ll find they share one thing in common – the main focus of each site is getting the visitor’s email address. Once the marketer has this information, visitors can be sent many follow-up emails to convert them to clients(continued) You can easily design your website to serve the same function by adding an autoresponder to your site. (A good one to check out is www.getresponse.com.) Once you’ve added the autoresponder, offer visitors a free report on a topic of great interest to homebuyers in your area. All visitors have to do is provide their email address and the autoresponder will do the rest, recording their email address and sending the promised report, in addition to any future messages you select.
Try adding this one simple automated system to your site and you’re sure to see immediate results.
Tip: Sending a series of messages with very helpful content will set you up as an expert in the minds of buyers and sellers in your area. They more these people read your messages, the more inclined they will be to work with you. Remember - the sale is almost never made in the first meeting so keep your name in the minds of potential clients!
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