Most agents have a limited marketing budget and must maximize every marketing dollar to ensure that every dollar you spent will bring back more money in return.
The "What is Your Brand" article over at Realty Times seems to think differently. The author states that "we must spend our time and money developing and maintaining" your brand just like the masters Nike and McDonald's.
This is just plain wrong.
Nike and McDonald's have millions of dollars set aside for marketing and most real estate agents don't. While making people aware of your name is nice, you have to expect more from your marketing efforts. You want your phone to ring. You want to get e-mails from prospects. You want get listings.
Branding alone is not enough.
If you are skeptical about this point, just ask yourself how many real estate ads you can remember. What about the agent's name, do you remember that? I can't remember a single one. Sure I can remember the company names such as Century 21 and Coldwell Banker, but what good does that do you as an agent?
It is possible to build "awareness", but at a much smaller and much profitable scale. You simply have to focus your marketing on people that can actually help you grow your business. Your goal is not get every man, woman, and child in your farm area to know your name. Frankly you can't afford it. Instead focus on niches as I've stated before here, here, and here.
How do you do this? Ok here is a quick and dirty marketing plan.
- Identify your prospects-These prospects must have a problem that you can solve. There must be enough of these people who can afford your service in order for you to be successful
- Have an Offer-Must be specifically targeted at your prospects so they know it's for them and must be an offer "they can't refuse".
- Call to action- Tell them what they need to do to contact you. Make it easy and give them more than one way to get a hold of you.
- Have A Consistent Message-Whether you decide to hold a presentation, or direct mail or build a website. Each method of delivery or "vehicle" must clearly focus on your offer.
