Marketing is the bane and boost of every business… but how do you make an impact today on the rest of your year? Here are some fast and easy ideas to make you a hero in your customers’ eyes:
1. Double (or triple!) your database and cut your cost in half – Joint market! Team up with a mortgage professional and send out joint mailings. Use a newsletter (more room for customization) to mail to your combined database. You get twice the marketing impact for half the money! Another idea – print your listing flyers on the back of their side-by-side financing options.
2. Care for clients’ kids. Ever try writing up a sales contract with cranky kids around? No need to fret – preparation can convert crybabies to calm and happy children. First make sure you have some snacks – crackers and juice work great. Then, provide a fun activity with a reward for quiet creativity. Find a great coloring book, make copies and invest in some crayons. Offer a prize for completed works of art. Visit www.OrientalTrading.com for inexpensive prizes, or call 1-800-875-8480 for a catalog.
3. Ask for referrals every time you email. What a simple idea – yet very few Realtors do it. A simple tagline added to your email signature is all it takes. Say something like this: “Please call or email me with your referrals – my philosophy is to focus my time and resources on clients who know my adherence to excellence rather than market to strangers.”
4. Write “Thank You” notes. No – not to people who give you business, but to people whom you give business to. Write your florist, your grocer, your insurance representative, etc. Let them know you appreciate them and make sure to include your business card in the envelope.
5. Set up an email home financing course. Imagine a marketing idea that costs you nothing once you set it up. Imagine a little box on your website, or an address in your signature file, that allows your clients and prospective clients to sign up for free information on “Smart Home Buying Tips”. All you do is write the series of emails you’d like sent, and when they sign up they receive one or a series of emails at a timing that you designate. Easy, effective and FREE! For a free auto responder service check out www.sendfree.com.
6. Create a discount package . Contact local business owners and ask them to offer discounts on their services or products. For example, partner up with a dry cleaner and offer a ‘clean 3 shirts get 2 free’. You can offer a free consultation or free list of comps in their area. The local coffee shop can offer a ‘buy one drink get one half price’. You can then send this ‘discount package’ to your database as well as the client lists of the business with which you partnered up with for more exposure.
7. They may forget you, but they remember food. How about taking a bread machine to the next open house you are hosting? Or advertise “Hot New Properties” at a BBQ you host in the parking lot of your office building… invite all the neighboring businesses, past clients, etc. And be sure to let the papers know!
8. Map it out. Include a mini-map on the back of your business card for homebuyers to find your office with ease.
9. Thanks a million (maybe) for that referral. Send your referral sources a lottery ticket and a thank you note and wish them the best. (Imagine the great publicity if they win!)
10. Ask for testimonials. Third party testimonials often carry more weight than you telling people how great you are. Make an after-closing survey a regular part of your sales process. Then publicize those words of praise! Have a testimonial page on your website and include testimonials in your personal brochure. And don’t forget to pass on the praise to the referring mortgage professional. You may even want to ask questions on behalf of the mortgage professional as well… giving them testimonials to use in their own marketing.
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In Touch Today is a marketing company based in Denver Colorado that assists professionals in increasing their repeat and referral business as well as building professional referral sources and prospecting new clients. www.intouchtoday.com |
