One of the biggest mistakes real estate agents make with their marketing materials is not standing out and differentiating themselves from other real estate agents. Their marketing materials look unoriginal – as if any agent could put their name and picture on the piece and send it out. Often, that’s precisely the case.

Why is this so? Often it’s because agents start out imitating others. I hear statements like “Why reinvent the wheel?” How many of these titles have you heard recently?

• “Thinking of buying or selling your home? Work with a team you can trust.”
• “Serving all your real estate needs”
• “What is your home worth? Call today for a free market analysis”
• “Realtor with results” or “#1 in Real Estate” or “superior service”
• “Not all real estate agents are alike.”
• “Call me for a free, no obligations consultation”

Unfortunately, when every agent is sending out the exact same message, it loses its effectiveness. If your marketing materials look and sound like every other agents’, your prospects have no way to differentiate you from everyone else. Yes, it’s far easier to imitate others, but it’s also far less effective – and that means you’re wasting money on marketing.

6 Mistakes Agents Make With their Marketing Materials

What makes a marketing piece ineffective?

1. Believing that adding your name and photo to a template makes you stand out from other agents. Your prospects get a number of direct mail pieces every week from your competitors, most of whom reuse the same tired marketing pieces by adding their name and photo to each. When every piece looks and says the same thing, where do you think they end up? The trash like all the other “junk mail” they receive.
2. Focusing on the agent rather than the prospect’s problems and concerns. When you say things like “There is nothing more gratifying to me than helping people find homes” or “We have over 10 years of combined experience and pride ourselves on offering superior service” you are focusing on you, the agent, rather than your prospect. Instead, focus on a specific type of problem, offer a compelling message, stress the benefits and provide a solution.
3. Not having a clear message to a target audience. Most real estate marketing is extremely generic. Agents try to get the biggest bang for their buck by casting as wide a net as possible. Unfortunately, this rarely works. Every day we’re exposed to over 3000 marketing messages so we’re extremely good at filtering out those things that aren’t relevant to us. But the minute we become aware of a problem or opportunity, we see glimpses of solutions everywhere. For instance, once you buy a car, you start to notice every other car owner who has bought that model. To break through the marketing clutter, you must be as specific as possible about one particular problem your prospect may be having.
4. Not having a compelling call to action. Whenever you say “call now for your free consultation,” your prospect hears “call me to listen to my sales pitch.” The truth is that most people who receive your advertising will not be ready to call you just yet. They’ve been thinking of buying or selling, but they’re not yet ready to commit. Therefore, you must offer them a baby step in their eventual quest to buy or sell like an information booklet that addresses a concern they’re having or an invitation to a seminar to learn more about their specific problem. You need to make it as easy as possible for them to contact you on their terms and learn more about your services before they raise their hand and say “I’m interested.”
5. Not following up with leads. Many real estate agents are only concerned with the people that are ready to buy or sell now. They don’t want to be bothered with all the people that may buy or sell in the future, so anyone that isn’t qualified gets tossed aside for those that are. Yet sales research shows that up to 80% of leads are lost somewhere along the process. A good portion of those leads you’ve been tossing aside or never getting around to calling back will eventually go on to buy or sell – and by that time, they probably will have forgotten about you.
6. Creating unprofessional marketing materials. How your marketing materials look and what they say are a reflection of you. If you send marketing materials that are crooked or look like you printed them on your home computer or that use cutesy clipart, you’re sending a message that you’re not as professional as those with high quality materials.

Take a look over your own marketing materials. Are you making these mistakes? How can you meaningfully differentiate yourself from other agents?

Need more help differentiating your services from other real estate agents? Check out our Differentiate Your Services Workshop, where you will learn how to explain your services so prospects view you as the obvious choice to help them buy or sell their home.

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