Your Web 2.0 Marketing Plan
So here is a quick and dirty plan for your marketing that is Web 2.0 certified.
Objective
Get as many “good†leads as possible.
1. Website - Get a website with your own domain name. You know like www.cindysellscincinnati.com. Make sure you can display your listings on there and that it can get an IDX feed from your local MLS. Clean simple designs work best. Be sure there are plenty of calls to action and a form where you can allow people to sign up. Good additional tools are home valuation tools and mortgage calculators.
2. Online Social Networking – Get a Facebook, Myspace, and Agent Scoreboad profile.
3. Blog – Get a blog, you can get one free from wordpress.com. They are much better than blogger.com or typepad IMHO. Put your contact info, a picture and a little about you and your market on there. Blog topics should include, the best schools and restaurants and businesses in your market, what home prices are in the “
4. Direct Mail – One oversized postcard to your entire market once a month, can do wonders for your business. Make sure it’s professionally designed and has all your contact info on it, including your website and blog address.
5. Yard Signs – Should have your website address on them. Put your email address on there if you can too.
6. Property Flyers – Make sure you have your contact info complete w/ website, blog and email addresses
7. Business Cards and Email Signatures – Make sure you have your website and blog address and Agent Scoreboard ID on all of your business cards and emails.
8. Make Friends – Join some local clubs, volunteer around your market, go to where the power brokers have lunch and strike up a conversation. Give them your card and send them email follow ups.
9. Be Patient – There is no secret sauce to building a brand. Flash Brands are lucky happenstances, you won’t be one. Building a brand takes time; with persistence people will begin to recognize you.
Mike:
That’s a nice, succinct marketing plan. Well done. I would add a couple of things to the list.
First - Establish a budget. In my experience, many agents who do create a marketing plan abandon it quickly b/c they never established a budget. Get an overall marketing budget and then decide how much you’ll spend on direct mail, your website, etc.
Second - I still believe that PPC works. Again, you have to allocate part of your budget to this piece of your marketing plan. Stick to the budget and don’t get frustrated if you don’t get immediate results (i.e. transactions).
Third - If you’re going to do any marketing, you need to have a follow up plan and the tools to execute. All leads should go into your CRM (don’t forget to include it in your budget). Call every lead regularly and follow up with them. When you cal and follow up, have something relevant to say. Speak to what’s important to them like neighborhoods or houses that interest them.
Selling real estate is a complex business. We need to treat it as such and take a strategic, business approach to our careers. Thanks for putting your plan together.
Comment by Dave - SphereBuilder — July 11, 2007 @ 12:41 pm
Dave,
Your comments are noted, and I added some spice to it.
10. Budget / Report- Something I agree is important not just “spending” perspective, but from a ROI, budget and track, find out what works and do more of that.
11. PPC - If you don’t have an Ad Words account, get one, spend $25 a month just to understand how it works and what you can do to make your account performance better. Its the future of marketing so you better understand it.
12. CRM - I have to apologize, I took this as a given. After 17 years of using ACT, GOLDMINE, SALESFORCE, SIEBLE, and now ZOHO, I couldn’t imagine that someone was not using some kind of CRM.
Good comment Dave
Thanks
Comment by mike — July 11, 2007 @ 4:07 pm
In my experience, many agents do not know how to spell CRM. You’d be surprised. No knock on agents. But, many still don’t know the importance of database management.
Comment by Dave - SphereBuilder — July 11, 2007 @ 6:10 pm
You hit all the major points I think MIke but I’d like to add # 13 to the list which would be to follow up regularly with past customers and clients. After you have sold a property for somebody or maybe represented somebody in the purchase of a property it’s important to keep regular contact with this person. I don’t mean hounding them for referrals or anything like that but just a monthly call or email to see what’s going on. maybe make note of their birthday and send them a card. When you are working with a new client find out about their family and check in to see how little Tommy’s hockey game was.
That type of follow up goes a long way to building new business. These past clients are going to be your sales people and that’s free!!!
Comment by Rob Beland — July 13, 2007 @ 7:22 am
Great Point Rob…
Genuine interest in you client for more than just the money you can make off them, is the best lead generation tool there is.
Comment by mike — July 13, 2007 @ 9:10 am