Category Archives: Direct Response

Following Up: The Secret To More Sales

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 […]

Advertising, Direct Response, Lead Generation, Marketing, Prospecting, Reader Q&A

How to Cost Effectively Generate Leads

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 […]

Advertising, Direct Response, Lead Generation, Marketing, Prospecting, Reader Q&A

The Benefits of Building Relationships with Prospects

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 […]

Advertising, Direct Response, Marketing, Prospecting

Does Your Advertising Ask Prospects To Do Too Much?

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 […]

Advertising, Direct Response, Prospecting

Internet Marketing - The Big Picture

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.

Direct Response, Internet Marketing, Websites

5 Steps for Planning any Marketing Campaign

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 […]

Advertising, Direct Response, Marketing Plan

Do Your Advertisements Make Sense to Readers?

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 […]

Advertising, Direct Response

Your Direct Marketing Testing Checklist

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.

Advertising, Direct Response

A Real Estate Agent’s #1 Marketing Mistake: Not Testing

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 […]

Advertising, Direct Response

The 4 Types of Direct Marketing Offers

In my last post, I outlined what an offer is and some common mistakes real estate agents make when crafting their offer. In this post, I’ll talk more about the four types of offers: soft, hard, negative and deferred.

Advertising, Direct Response