Consistency is absolutely key.  Consistency will trump all other factors.  Rule of thumb is 1 x week for the first 10 weeks then every 10 days until you have 35% market share or more.  Only then can you go to 2 x a month.  With that said, I will tell you that in our media planning with clients we stack the mail to reflect the coming trends in production.  For example, we do less mailing in November and December (1 piece each) and save the extra pieces for February and March which is 6-8 weeks before the busy listing season. It’s a game of impressions a year and keeping top of mind. Anything less is a waste of money. 

Branding will save you money.  If you are going to take on a direct mail campaign to a geographic farm or target market it will save you thousands of dollars to pay someone to help brand yourself well.  Every piece should fit together and be easily recognizable as yours.  Every message should have a consistent thread that ties back into your brand and tagline.  Good marketing campaigns don’t start from scratch every time you send something out, they build on the previous messages and tie into the future ones.

  Budget before you get started.  Budget for a year at a time.  We encourage clients to take 15-20% of their gross commissions and put them into their marketing budgets if they are wanting to grow (10% if they want to maintain).  Out of the money that comes in, we allocate and take on mail campaigns is 12 month intervals. Only take on the amount of houses that you can dedicate and be consistent for a 12 month period.  It is better to have a smaller number of homes and do it right than run out of marketing funds or cut corners.

Purpose is essential.  Ask yourself what it is you are trying to accomplish with each piece.  Every piece should have a reason and clear and distinguishable benefit to the recipient.  Every card needs to be written from the “what’s in it for them” perspective.  If you are sending out cards to try and get the phone to ring, every card should have a reason and call to action to do so.  Plan your campaigns a year at a time, not only will they make more sense and tie together with your branding better, but you will see a much better return on investment with a focused campaign.

Automate everything.  Once you have your year planned out, send the camera ready files to the printer with your schedule and credit card.  Let them handle the printing, addressing and mailing and charge your card as they go.  The less interaction you have with the process the less opportunity for unnecessary delays and to mess it up. 

With thousands of real estate licensees leaving the industry, there is a fantastic window of opportunity for those who are the real estate professionals.

Why not offer to “buy” the business from those who are leaving. A few of our coaching clients are employing this and are having fantastic results by asking those folks who are leaving the industry the question – “Do you want to sell your business?”

It works like this, you ask the FL (Fleeing Licensee) to send a hand-off letter to their sphere of influence who they have been working for the last couple of years.

The letter explains how they are going back to their previous career and appreciate all the support they have received, and how they have found a real estate professional who is unbelievably talented and will give them amazing service and that you are the recommended choice for their future real estate needs.

You then absorb them into your “VIP” SOI program and continue the warm relationship.

As the transactions come in, you will offer to pay a referral fee for the first year to the referring licensee, the second year it is ½ of the first year’s fee and the third it is ½ of the prior year’s fee. You have created a win-win for both your business as well as given some value to those jumping out of the business (and may even push some of them over the edge who are just thinking about it).

Most of our marketing efforts as an industry have been a series of trial and error decisions, made on a reactionary basis at the hands of a professional salesperson trying to extol the benefits of their wares.  It has had very little root in systematic evaluation or factual data.  We have been sold that “we have to get our name out there” and taken to the cleaners by affiliate industries that have made a fortune by taking advantage of our naivety.

As a master at your craft, you recognize that you need to run your business on fact, not emotion.  It is not only helpful, but absolutely essential to take an honest look at what you are doing, why you are doing it and what you expect at the end of the day.  The days of slinging mud on the wall and seeing what sticks are over, and guessing what will be effective will be reserved for those who represent the 90% of the industry that scrounges for 10% of the business.

What do you do that sets you apart? 

What makes you different? 

What ROI (return on investment) do you demand or expect from your marketing and advertising programs? 

Does every piece of marketing material reinforce your brand? 

Does every piece answer a need or offer a solution to a problem that the prospect has? 

Do you have a marketing plan or is it piece meal? 

What are you expecting as we enter the end of summer?  Expect the best and if you don’t know how to get it by all means have someone, whether it be another agent, your broker or a coach help take some of the guesswork out of this crazy business.

There are two main reasons why some of our greatest agents aren’t achieving the completely realistic benchmark of 50% for referrals from their active clients. 

First, Most of us assume that our clients know what to do and understand our love for referrals.  What we forget is that our clients are not in the Real Estate business and need to be educated on how to recognize the “referral moment’ and what to do when it arises.  If we incorporated a simple dialog at our first meeting together saying – “Now that you have made a decision to buy or sell, you will notice a strange phenomenon, much like when you bought your last car (got married, had a baby, etc).  When you were looking at that car and first got it, weren’t you amazed at how many others you saw around?  The same thing happens in real estate.  As you begin looking and throughout this process you will start seeing other people that are looking to buy or sell.  All I ask is that when those situations come up that you remember me.” 

The second is that we do a great job minimizing the great job we do.  Our standard of excellence is a part of our service package and has become old hat to us.  The challenge is that our clients have no idea that our service is exceptional because they don’t have a standard to measure it against.  Overcoming this is easy, especially since the service is there.  We need to start weaving opportunities to tell our clients the truth.  Drama happens in every transaction, and while I am not advocating dragging your clients through the drama, I am simply suggesting you communicate it to your clients with how you saved the day.  If we can also enlist our strategic partners (escrow, title, mortgage, inspectors, TC’s, etc.) to simply drop a note, phone call or comment to our clients to the effect of “I work with a lot of different agents, and I have to tell you how fortunate you are to be working with one the very best.”  Your clients feel like a million bucks and it creates an atmosphere for them to say “wow” and tell a friend, or two or twenty.