Most real estate agents don’t have a strategic marketing plan in place. They get most of their business through referrals, but many have a website or send direct mail like postcards and wish those tactics were more effective at generating new business.
When most people think of marketing, they think of advertising or sales or the many promotional ways they could be using to tell people about their services. What they don’t consider is that marketing is more than that.
The Marketing Mindset
“Marketing” is an umbrella term that involves everything you do to attract clients and help them buy or sell their home. It includes:
- the types of services you offer
- how you position and package your services
- what you charge
- your marketing materials such as ads, websites, brochures, and newsletters
- how you present yourself in meetings
- how you interact with clients through phone and email
- networking such as lunch, golf, or organizational events
- how you get referrals
Marketing is everything you do to get and keep clients. It’s more than just a set of tools to communicate with prospects and clients. It’s about every interaction you have with them – and how that shapes their impression of you.
Marketing is an ongoing process, rather than a one time event. Rarely will one marketing piece like a letter, postcard or newsletter, close the deal. Your prospects go through a painstaking process of gathering information before they buy or sell their home because they want to make sure they are well informed and are making the right decision. A home is one of the biggest financial investments an individual will make. It makes sense that this will be a very emotional and difficult decision for them.
Think of marketing in the same way you approach your company’s finances – you do the books and pay your bills on a routine basis. Marketing should be no different. What do you need to do every month, every week, every day to get your message out there? It can take upwards of 8 contacts with a person before they even remember who you are!
As management guru Peter Drucker has written, “Business has only two basic functions: marketing and innovation. Marketing and innovation produce results. All the rest are costs.” Innovation is about tailoring your services creatively to fit your clients’ needs while marketing is about promoting your services to the people who need them most for a reasonable fee.
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