Thread: Real Estate Marketing Tip Of The Month

In an earlier part of my life, I was a very successful General Manager with Marriott hotels. My specialty was going to under performing hotels and increasing both revenues and profits. Today, besides SEO, web marketing, and real estate, I still consult for a portfolio of hotels.

One of the mistakes that I saw other GM's make - and I see a lot of real estate agents make - is taking a shotgun approach to marketing. You know - you pull the trigger and you hope that the buckshot hits something.

I'll save target marketing for another time, but I use this analogy to bring up another point. When you take a shotgun approach and you do receive a few leads, you're not always sure where these leads are coming from.

Take print media, for example. Most agents that have a web site will put www.myrealestatewebsite.com somewhere in their print advertisement. But how do you know how many people visited your web site based upon your print media ad?

There is an easy way to better track your results. Create a new web page for every print media ad that you run and use that web address in your advertisement. For example, if you run a newspaper ad, list the web address as www.myrealestatewebsite.com/newspaper.htm. If you run an ad in Southern Living magazine, list the web address as www.myrealestatewebsite.com/southern-living.htm.

This way, when you review your monthly web stats you can get a better idea of the productivity of your ad. With any results, you can also get a better handle on ROI.

You should never, ever run any type of ad without doing your best to find a way to track your ROI.

This is an excellent tip about measuring the effectiveness of your marketing efforts. Without being able to measure, you can't continually evolve your marketing approach to make it more effective.

Along this same line, any ad that you run should have a "call to action", meaning that there is something specific you want people to do in response to the ad. If you are promoting a particular home, make sure a link to that listing is very prominent on your home page. Then, if the ad is working, you'll see an increase in the visits to that listing page.

If you are doing a general advertisement, come up with a great reason for visiting your site. Develop a specific report that will be e-mailed to the visitor (you get lead info that way!). Develop something unique, not just the standard buying and selling info. You could use a report on recent home sale prices, or something that would be of local interest to your target market. For example, a list of school calendars showing days schools are closed for breaks, teacher/parent conference days, etc.

You could always put a prominent link on your homepage to that report, and in your ad, encourage people to "Visit www. mysite.com, and click on Special Report".

Naturally, there may be regular visitors to your site who click on the Special Report, but if your ad is working, you should see increased traffic to the report after the ad is placed.

In any event, its always a good idea to ask people who contact you, from your website or by phone, how they found you!

a quick point on the getting lead info with a report, try this as it has worked very well in the past for us after heaps of testing in real estate and other markets.
leave out the name field and just ask for an email address, you will at least get double the number of people giving their details so you build your email list faster.
I know what your saying, but you dont have their first name. a quick fact, 90% of people that are in the market for real estate use their work email or have an email address with their first name in it! so it takes a little more work but you will get a lot more opt ins for your list.

I know you are talking about newspaper advertising but if you have a website you should have a good stat program to see where people are coming from when they come from the Internet.

That might give you a great idea of what people are looking for and help you to decide where to place your attention.

Nothing beats old fashioned cold calling and relationship building to market your brand as one on one conversion rates are so much higher.

Very informative tip, can't wait till the next tip on the thread is posted.
will help a lot of us in the forum

thanks very much

It's good to know that there is something like this. Good thing I joined. Hope to learn more from you guys. Thanks!

Welcome Eaton,

Really this is a very nice place lots of information and lessons to learn and suggest.
Cool sites to visit, designing and developing.

best regards

Marketing is an essential ingredient for the success of any business. The material in this Field Guide will give you a wealth of information helping you market your expertise to potential customers. It includes special sections on how to build your personal promotion campaign, increase your presence in a niche market, and strengthen your marketing plan.

Marketing is the lifeline of a business and in a real estate business it used as a tool to attract your business clients to gain more profits, I was just a bit go though the marketing tips running for a real estate business and I must admire the tips for newspaper advertising strategies.