Advertising Delivers
Your Message Your Way
Your advertising offers prospective clients a compelling reason for selecting you as their agent.The reason for doing business with you should be so compelling that selecting you as their agent is their best and most logical decision.
Provide Information to Prospects
This can attract prospective clients...whether they are planning to buy or sell...or both.
Potential purchasers who are interested in properties that you are promoting...will probably contact you, if they don't already have an agent.
Other vehicles by which you can provide information to prospects include 'For Sale' signs and door-to-door flyers announcing neighboring properties that have just been listed...or even better 'just sold'.
As well as promoting individual properties, when you provide useful information to prospects, you also promote yourself as an expert in your field.
Top
Promote Your Services
The best promotions introduce you to people who don't know you... and also keep your name before people who do know you.They also help you maintain your presence in a crowded marketplace.
Your promotions can direct prospective clients to your website, which can reinforce the compelling reason for prospects to choose you as their real estate agent.
Promotional techniques include a variety of marketing communications tools.
These tools include:
- flyers & brochures
- Internet and print promotions
- your web site,
- blogging
- social media
- banner & bus ads
- advertising specialties
Unfortunately they not always believable in the eyes of the target audience.
In preparing the copy or words for your promotional material, it's critical that you select words that sell.
Although intended primarily for web-based promotional copy, Make Your Words Sell also contains a wealth of useful information or preparing copy for hard-copy promotions as well.
Even if you only prepare promotional copy once a year...this book will help you.
Check it out.
Top
Why Real Estate Advertising Is Different
In promoting a specific property, you are promoting something which you have not produced and which you do not own.
Acting as an agent, you lack the authority to modify the property to
satisfy prospective purchasers. Nor can you guarantee the property, offer warranties or unilaterally change the selling price.
And to make your task even more challenging, you are promoting something that thousands of other competing agents can also sell.
On the positive side, promoting specific properties can also attract potential purchasers and sellers of comparable properties.
These prospects may think ‘If this agent sells this kind of property perhaps she can help me find (or sell) a comparable property.’
In planning your promotions, keep in mind that prospects will be more interested in what you can do for them than how great you think you are.
Face this question head on: instead of self-promotional statements, tell prospects what benefits they can expect to receive from you as their real estate agent.
Top
More Bang For Your Promotions Budget
Simply put, the best promotions achieve three things:
1. distinguish you from the
competition
2. tell your story…honestly and accurately
3. tell prospects how to become your clients
2. tell your story…honestly and accurately
3. tell prospects how to become your clients
And equally simply, the best promotions are carefully planned, prepared and presented.
Top
Benefits of Advertising
- Control
- you control content of message
- depending on media chosen, can also control the target audience
- Target specific categories
- customized messages can address specific concerns of different categories of prospects
- Quick Response
- direct response promotions can bring about instant responses from interested prospects
Top
Drawbacks of Advertising
- Expensive
- Preparation, production and distribution can be very costly
- Clutter
- prospects are exposed to thousands, if not tens of thousands, of commercial messages every day
- distinguishing your message from this clutter is a daunting challenge
- One-way communication
- a one-way message to your target audience
- virtually impossible to interact with or engage your audience
- Not believable
- Consumers are cynical: they tend to not believe promotions
- Difficult to evaluate its effectiveness
- Evaluation requires careful tracking of why prospects call
Top
Enjoy The Benefits & Minimize The Weaknesses
Your advertisements should generate as many leads as possible... at the lowest possible cost.The best and only way to achieve this is to carefully plan your ads.
Love it or hate it, advertising is too important to the overall success of your marketing plan to be ignored...or done poorly.
Take the time required to prepare messages that accurately reflect you and how you help clients.
Your investment of time will pay for itself many times over....in new business.
|
|
