| |
| |
|
Marketing Information |
|
|
|
Your REALTOR® Marketing Plan
The steps to creating an effective marketing plan begin with identifying who you are going to be targeting, what you are going to spend, and how many sales you are going to receive as a result of your efforts. By identifying this information in the initial stages of your market plan development, you will significantly increase your return on investment and substantially increase your sales. Below is a step by step process to help you lay the framework for your own marketing plan: Step 1) Identify your budget. Identify how much you are planning to spend on your marketing endeavors in order to maximize your investment. How much are you planning to spend on your marketing? How many prospects are you planning to reach, and how many sales do you expect to close? Include your time investment in this analysis as well. Many inexpensive marketing tools take an enormous amount of time and subsequently have a significant cost. Step 2) Identify your ideal customer. In order to target your customer effectively, you must know what they look like. This process is generally known as "stick figuring" and identifies the key traits of your ideal customer. Who are they? What do they do for a living? What do they read? Where do they shop? What do they value? How do they entertain themselves? Where do they spend their time? What does their family look like? What is their income level? Answer these questions as specifically as possible to determine the best way to target them. Step 3) Identify the medium. List all of the possible mediums to touch your customer. Arrange the list from the most specific way to target the customer to the broadest way to touch your prospect. On the same list, list the prices per piece and the specific price per prospect. This will give you an idea of where to best spend your money and where you will receive the greatest return on investment. Step 4) Allocate your budget. Identify the top five mediums that touch your prospects in a cost effective manner and allocate 80% of your budget across those pieces. Reserve the remaining 20% to use for unique or targeted follow-up marketing pieces. Step 5) Schedule your campaigns Schedule each campaign to touch customers multiple times through different mediums. Plan some overlap on when each piece hits each prospect to maximize awareness of your services, but draw out the periodicity of the total campaign as long as possible to maximize the duration of awareness. A good rule of thumb is to touch a prospect at least once per week. Multiplicity of your message is also beneficial. However, do not touch a prospect with the same piece more than three times as resistance to your medium and message may develop. Step 6) Track your results Continually track your campaigns and where each prospect hears and acts on your message. With this information, you can know which portions of your campaign are effective and which parts need to be modified. When developing your marketing plan, some general rules of thumb are useful to help manage your expectations. As you develop your budget, mediums and plan, keep in mind the following widely accepted marketing statistics: * Typical response rates from print advertising and direct mail are between 0.5% and 1.5% * Generally, you will need to touch a prospect six times before they recognize your brand and eight times before they take action * Always include a call to action in all of your pieces and a way to track the response from each piece. * In every piece, always include multiple methods of contact, i.e. internet, telephone, fax, mail, etc. * A prospect will typically spend three seconds on your piece before moving to something else. Make your communication simple and attention grabbing. * Be consistent in your message across all marketing pieces to create awareness of your brand and services. Barrett Niehus is a senior marketing manager for 4MySales.com REALTOR Marketing tools (http://www.4mysales.com) an organization designed to help real estate agents and brokers increase their presence in their market. Barrett has been active in the field of small business marketing throughout his career and continually participates in the development of tools to enhance the personal growth and reach of real estate professionals.
MORE RESOURCES:
Google News |
|
|
|
RELATED ARTICLES
The Exiler THE EXILER (your search for true brand attributes ends here!)With the advent of new marketing strategies and techniques, many theories have sprouted up telling you many ways to impress your target customers and make them buy your product. But when it comes to practical implementation of the theories, most of them fail, or give partial results because they are based either on buying behavior of customers or extensive surveysWhen the customers choose to buy a product they look only into very few features of product / service which are vital for their selection. How To Make More Money The biggest crime in small businesses today goes unnoticed by most outsiders. It is not reported in the media. Do You Get Attention With Your 30-Second Introduction? I went to a networking event the other day where the meeting leader said, "We're going to skip doing the 30-second introductions today because mine's so bad and it doesn't work that it nauseates me." I thought to myself, WOW! I'd skip the next networking meeting until I'd worked out a new introduction. Marketing Strategy 101: 10 Marketing Strategies I Learnt From My Oral Surgeon This is how the conversation went on my follow-up visit to the oral surgeon, 10 days after he removed 2 lower wisdom teeth."Go down the hallway, enter the second door on the right and take a seat in the dentist's chair," said the receptionist after calling my name out to the 5 people in the waiting room. Promotions for Mobile Detailers Mobile businesses are quite unique in the way they must promote to stay in the customers mind; it takes creativity, savvy planning and a lot of listening to your customers. After years running a franchise system in 23 states with mobile detailing units everywhere. Send Postcards To Save Money and Cut Through E-mail Clutter Use your computer to send personalized color postcards in quantities of 1 to 1,000.Print on demand postcards are here. Top 5 Kick Butt Marketing Requirements Cinch your success with 8-second leaders! Step into the saddle and ride to the buzzer - but first, get outfitted for success. Some things are necessary to have on hand in order to be prepared for coming out of the chute. Hold Onto What Youve Got You probably spend a great deal of your time looking for new customers or clients. However, are you sure your doing enough to hold onto the ones you've got. After The Mailing Is Done, What Happens Next? If you're doing any sort of marketing effort, whether it's getting news coverage or sending a postcard, you must be prepared for what happens next. If you're sending postcards promoting your business, and you have people working for you, tell them that you sent the card. How Important is Your Marketing? Bob called last week from Phoenix, Arizona with some stunning news about his web site. He first contacted me in the fall of 2003. The Name Game Pop quiz! If you have to say goodbye to your hard earned money to purchase something you've always wanted, who would you rather trust: an unknown provider or one who has an established name in the industry?The answer to that question shows how important branding has become in recent years. And consequently, brand building has taken an equal significance. How to Add Warmth, Color & Texture to Your Advertisements "?A powerful agent is the right word?" --Mark TwainAnd what true words those are! Your marketing efforts have the ability to succeed?or to fail?based on the words you choose to represent your products, services, and yourself in your ads.You have the ability to choose any words you desire. Increase Your Sales By Following-Up The difference between a successful business and one that just gets by is that the business that is just getting by thinks that the marketing is over when the sale has been made.One of the main reasons customers leave, change suppliers, or stop buying is because of apathy on the part of the company. Target Your Share of the 50-Plus Market It's quite apparent that Americans are living longer--- and as people age, they request and require many more products and services than ever before. Now, as aging Boomers (born between 1946 and 1964) are coming of age, the fifty-plus population is over 77 million people and growing enormously all the time. How Much Is Your Popcorn Worth? Powerful Lessons In Marketing & The Psychology Of Selling - Part 3 To read the beginning of this special report, you can read part two here: http://ezinearticles.com/?id=58712Let's continue to discuss the various marketing principles that are involved in "popcorn marketing":2. Do You Have This Important Tool in Your Marketing Arsenal? Many business owners do not understand the authenticity and validation that a simple toll-free number adds to their business presence.It is particularly important that any business owner whose market is not exclusively local consider beefing up the image of the business with a toll-free number. Know Thy Competition BREAK FROM HO-HUM MARKETING ? IT'S TOO BORING! Once you break from ho-hum marketing, and learn to put your deeper beliefs and values into your promotion, a remarkable thing will happen: You will beat your competitors at every turn, attract precisely those clients who really need and appreciate the products or services your company provides, and have a really good time in your business. In other words ? once you know what your clients really value, and how you are different from your competitors then it's an incredibly simple process to promote your company's products or services. Your Ultimate Competitive Advantage The biggest secret to success in business is to always maintain a competitive advantage in everything you do. One of the best ways to get and maintain a competitive advantage is to always make it as easier for your prospect or customer to say yes than to say no. B2B Marketing Tips - Create an Interactive Online Experience for Clients Business to business communications on the web are as stale as a piece of week old toast.As a marketing director you want to give your company the biggest bang for it's marketing buck. Top Five Tips for Marketing that Gets Results When marketing your practice, as well as designing your brochure, website, business card, flier, advertisement, or other marketing effort, I recommend investing the time and effort needed to effectively address the following:Tip #1: MARKET FOR YOUR DESIRED PROSPECTS, NOT YOURSELFWhat looks good to you is not necessarily effective for your desired audience. Do your market research and test your strategies on your target market.
|
| home | site map |
| © 2006 |
