Thread: Marketing vs. Advertising - NOT the same thing

The last two months the lights went off for me. I was the 95% you were speaking about. I've decided I want to be in the 5%. I've amped up everything a notch. On a scale of 1 to 10. 1 being where I was, I'm at a 3-4 now. But the thing is I'm seeing results. Just imagine when everything gets up to a 7-8. Look out. I'm going to stay tuned in and see what you have to say. But your post is spot on. I really didn't realize before how few agents really do anything. Even some of the top producers here aren't what I'd call "focused" agents. If I focus, the sky is the limit.

Marketing Plan/System - - What is it?

A marketing system is a pre-programmed sequence of events that turn a "surfer" into a lead and then turns a lead into a customer.

Here's how it works:

Step 1) Put up a webpage or blog optimized for one particular keyword string that has low competition but a decent search volume - my most recent post at real estate rocket fuel dot com covers how to pick keywords for your market and shows you a cool tool to use to do it.

Step 2) The page that you put up has exactly one purpose - to capture a lead - to offer the surfer something of value in exchange for their email and name. It's critical that you understand that everything on that page has to point to the one reason that page is there - to offer something and get the email and name of the surfer. Once they have signed up, now they are a lead.

Step 3) A series of automatic emails are sent to the "lead" giving them more information about what they originally signed up for and encouraging themto call you and make an appointment. WARNING: at least the first 3 emails should be extremely helpful and give them tons of important info they are seeking. The 4th email is the first time you should have a strong call to action and motivate them to pick up the phone and make an appointment.

This is the basics - and - as always - the basics make it seem simple and easy. The fact is that anyone, after a little instruction, can set this type of system up. There is a little bit of a learning curve but so far, everyone whose learned the steps has had it set up within a couple of days.

Then all you have to do is pick a different keyword and wash, rinse, repeat.

I'm reading through your free SEO E book. Seems interesting. I already have an email in to get the html for my website so I can work on onpage optimization. I know it doesn't add a lot but I figure I can start there. I can't check PR or I should say I don't know how to properly check PR. Thus far I have found I have zero PR. Not good.

I'm going to try and work through all of your stuff in do time.

Yes, they are two different thing but they are related to each other, one cannot exist without the other. This is a nice read.

What they thought in college was that advertising is only a component in marketing. The others being pricing, promotion, distribution and product development. Its a bigger picture.

If I may...

Advertising is used to drive traffic to your marketing system - whatever it happens to be. Advertising is an "initiator" only - but it will never do the work of transforming leads into customers.

Marketing has more to do with systems. Marketing has more to do with cost per lead acquired and cost per conversion.

Marketing systems allow you to measure and to a certain extent, control and test each component of the marketing system you have in place.

It is indeed part of a marketing system. Advertising is really a form of product communication whether it be online or offline. The general objective of the advertising message is to create desire. Sometimes the message is effective enough to convert potential leads into buying a certain product, sometimes not.

SEO is part from marketing but not from direct advertising.So,yes marketing and advertising are not the same thing.

Thank you for helping me articulate a few thoughts.

Very helpful topic string