CDPE Advertising Method (and ethics)

**kschweick** · 02-05-2010, 10:10 PM

The agents I'm consulting for recently got that new Certified Distressed Property Expert designation. I browsed through some information on it and watched a presentation by the guy who runs it (Alex Charfen). They brought up examples of the advertising some agents are having success with in this "area" of helping people with foreclosure. One example that Mr. Charfen seemed to like a lot involved a picture of a crying little girl with text about helping you or a loved one avoid foreclosure. And then I noticed that almost all the pictures in all the advertising samples they brought up were black-and-white photos of people crying. They only brought these examples up because they were allegedly among the most successful advertising campaigns though.

So this brings up an important question to consider: This kind of advertising seems almost cruel in the way it appeals to the emotions. Yes, I suppose it is likely that your children would cry if they found out the bank was going to take your house, but it seems a cheap shot to bring that up when you are supposed to be helping people in these situations. When I look at the ads they are showing, it makes me feel awful. What about an ad showing people enjoying not being in a financial crisis as the desired end-result? But since they were showing these sample ads as examples of what's been working well for agents, then assuming people have actually tried a more positive approach, that leads me to believe that the negative approach is performing better, and consequently, if all goes well, it should follow that more people are ultimately helped out of foreclosure by these seemingly bad advertisements... and that is a way to justifying them depending on your personal philosophy.

I guess what I'm asking people is what's of more importance: Having positive advertising that doesn't take cheap shots with too heavy reliance on emotions during times like these when so many people are in tough situations or the fact that ultimately more people may be avoiding foreclosures thanks to that?
(It's kind of a deontologism versus consequentialism question in a way.)

Another thing to consider on the business end is if clients who aren't in financial trouble are put off by these highly emotional ads.

If anyone is advertising themselves as being a CDPE, I would be interested to hear about your methods of doing that and what your thought process was like in deciding how to go about it.

**JackStoneSEO** · 02-09-2010, 10:09 AM

I can't speak as a CDPE but I can speak as an advertising professional who's helped CDPEs market themselves.

Like I said, I'm in advertising and my views are obviously either a cause of that choice of profession or a result of it...or perhaps a little of both, so keep that in mind.

I tend to lean more toward the opinion of anything's fair in advertising unless it's a downright lie.

With regard to the CDPE marketing images, I look at it like this...

If I'm a CDPE, I probably think I'm the best, or one of the best people out there to help homeowners in distress...otherwise why am I in business?

So, with that in mind, anything that gets a client to work with me over the other guy is a good thing, not only for me, but for the client, because I believe I'm going to take care of that client better than anyone else.

Additionally, you also have to consider that in our economy, money talks. And when a client pays you to help them (or their bank does in the case of a short sale), they are voting for you; essentially saying he has what I want. They make that decision based on a number of factors about you, but one of them is your advertising. Whether they are conscious of it or not, if those types of "sad family" ads bring in clients, then you're giving the clients what they want.

Do they know how those ads affect them? Do they know you specifically chose "sad family" ads because they bring in more business? Maybe, but likely not. Still, as an advertising professional, it's not my job to make a moral judgment about what the client should want, it's my job to figure out what they want and give it to them. If they want ads of sad families, that's what I'll give them.

Just my 2 cents as a web marketer.

**kschweick** · 02-10-2010, 02:27 PM

Jack, thank you for the reply. I see your point.

I am concerned that I don't have the real data. Like I said, the ads I described were used as examples of successful ads, but it was not explicitly stated that they were the most successful in comparison to other ad types.

If we're going to justify this kind of advertising by the people who are helped by it, then I would like to be more confident that it is indeed helping more people.

I'm trying to think of how to test this... it seems that it would be extremely difficult to measure conversion rates on specific ads in real estate, since most clients probably do a decent bit of research before contacting an agent. I guess the best option I have is probably to find other CDPEs who have stuck to a consistent mood in their ads and see what they have to say.

**JackStoneSEO** · 02-10-2010, 03:49 PM

How about running an adwords campaign and split testing two ad types. One is sad families, the other is whatever other ad you think might work. Whichever pulls more conversions is the better ad.

**matthew** · 02-11-2010, 06:08 PM

this was said:
How about running an adwords campaign and split testing two ad types. One is sad families, the other is whatever other ad you think might work. Whichever pulls more conversions is the better ad.

I agree!

**kschweick** · 02-12-2010, 03:30 PM

Well, like I said, I don't foresee many people contacting a real estate agent without doing a good bit of research first, even if they got to the "squeeze page" through an online ad. Maybe I'm wrong on that, and I'm especially willing to admit that possibility for the distressed property service because that's not something people would necessarily know Realtors can help with.

I'm also concerned with the sample size. Since this service can only be provided locally, we might not be able to get a whole lot of data.

Does Google have an option that will really randomly display one of the two ads? Google typically adjusts for the click-thru rates and whatever other factors go into its AdWords algorithm, which would compromise this experiment since the showing of the ads would not really be random.

I guess AdWords is cheap enough it wouldn't matter too much if we didn't get good data out of the test, so we might try this.

**joshthomas80** · 02-13-2010, 12:16 AM

That's interesting fellas. I've actually met Alex in person. He's a pretty intense guy. As for emotional response, I tend to agree with Jack that marketing is marketing. As long as you are not breaking the law, it's pretty much anything goes.

When it comes down to it, being successful means you can't always be nice.