Direct Response

A reader asks

I have a couple of questions about Permission Marketing: How can I get the first attention? How can I ask for permission to contact without interrupting them?

Before I answer your question, let me start with an example of the traditional approach to marketing (aka “interruption marketing”) and permission marketing. You walk into a store and a salesman immediately asks if he can help you. What’s your reaction? In many cases, it’s “No, thanks. I’m just looking.”

But, as you are browsing the store’s merchandise, perhaps something captures your attention. Maybe you find an item of clothing but can’t find your size. Maybe you spot an electronic device but aren’t sure of the technical specs. Suddenly, you are much more receptive to talking with someone who might help you make a more informed purchasing decision. read full entry

This is step 4 of a five-part series on how new agents can successfully break into the real estate market.

Most small-business owners (myself included) are guilty of not following up with all leads they generate. When leads pour in, it’s tempting to cherry pick the low hanging fruit while ignoring all the others who aren’t quite ready to hire you yet.

In yesterday’s post, I discussed how to create education-based marketing materials that your prospects will want to read. The purpose of creating those types of marketing materials is to get prospects to self-identify themselves as interested in what you have to offer by giving you their contact information and permission to follow up. read full entry

This is step 3 of a five-part series on how new agents can successfully break into the real estate market.

Yesterday, I discussed why agents should focus on creating education-based marketing materials that address prospects’ key problems and concerns rather than focusing on “getting their name out there.” In today’s article, I’ll talk about the best ways to generate leads using those education-based marketing materials – but first, let me again stress why education-based marketing is so important.

Marketing in the Attention Economy

Irrelevant advertising no longer works. Sure, back in the ’50s when there were only a handful of magazines, TV and radio channels, it was fairly easy to reach a broad audience and tell them virtually anything you wanted them to know. If you repeated your message enough or had a cute jingle accompanying your commercial, prospects would remember it and, hopefully, they’d buy because of it. read full entry

In my last post, I made a case for building relationships with prospects by creating a series of contacts with prospects rather than asking them to hire you right off the bat. This system has a number of benefits over the standard approach of mass marketing or bombarding prospects with mailings they don’t want and don’t find useful. read full entry

Most advertising and promotion is a waste of money. Instead of applying tried and true direct response advertising methods and asking prospects to take a series of baby steps, most advertisements ask prospects to take a giant leap of faith and call for a free consultation.

To your prospect, this is a risky ordeal. They think that if they do call, they’ll end up sitting through a long, high pressure sales pitch to buy or sell their home now – and they might not be ready for that. read full entry

I’ve talked previously about why you should use direct response marketing – specifically, because with direct response marketing, there is no guesswork. You can test everything, measure your results, and choose the methods that get the best response. Internet marketing is no different – it’s just direct marketing on the web. read full entry

In a previous post, I talked about How To Create Your 2008 Business and Marketing Plan. In this post, I want to break that down a bit further and discuss marketing campaigns.

What is a Marketing Campaign?

A marketing campaign is a series of steps designed to achieve a specific result. Think of it as the big picture that includes detailed, step-by-step guidelines for one particular goal you want to achieve. Marketing campaigns are broken into two parts: read full entry

In my last post, I talked about how easy it is to assume you know what your prospects and clients need. In this post, I’d like to talk more about assumptions in advertising.

For most people, advertising is a waste of money. I’ve gone over some of the reasons why your advertising might not be working and how to use direct response advertising to generate more leads in previous posts. At its core, advertising is salesmanship in print. read full entry

In my last post, I discussed why you should test your marketing materials and how you shouldn’t presume to know what your market wants – you should let them tell you. In this post, I’ll talk about the many parts of your ad you can test to improve response rates. read full entry

Many real estate agents are marketing dabblers. They try something (put up a website, send out postcards, advertise in the local paper, run a tv or radio spot, send a newsletter, etc), see it doesn’t work as well as they’d like, then move onto something else. They never stick with it, nor do they ever take the time to figure out why their marketing wasn’t successful. They simply conclude that marketing doesn’t work and throw their hands up in frustration.

Marketing doesn’t have to be that way. In fact, the beauty of using direct response advertising is that with some effort and patience, you can figure out why something isn’t working and work to improve it. You don’t have to play guessing games and hope that your new advertising campaign will be the magic bullet that has your phones ringing off the hook. read full entry