5 Actions That Will Doom Your Marketing Campaign To Failure | The Zebra Blog

5 Actions That Will Doom Your Marketing Campaign To Failure

Most agents look at marketing as a single topic—just one task to perform.  Nothing could be further from the truth.

Marketing is a multi-faceted endeavor that is so much more than putting your face on a business card and handing it out.  Marketing is a cohesive plan of action that gets you noticed and remembered long after your service to the client is completed.

Most real estate agents fail to comprehend this simple fact.  They take actions that doom their marketing campaign.  I thought it would be good to make a list of these actions so that you know to avoid them.  Here they are:

1.  An inconsistent message.

This is so important, and yet so many agents fail to implement it.  Instead, they throw around headlines, failing to generate an overall campaign theme.

A good campaign theme has a clear and consistent message.  It tells a story.  Much like a book, each chapter builds on the previous chapters.

By constructing a marketing campaign this way, the client starts to get to know and understand you.  Instead of a mish-mash of messages, they get a sense of exactly what you can do for them.

Take a look at your own materials.  Do you deliver a consistent message?  Do you have a distinct personality that shines through?  Do you stay on track or do you meander?

2.  Inconsistent delivery.

A marketing campaign is made up of many elements, each of which need to be spaced across time.  It takes time to build a reputation.  It takes consistent timing to get your message through to the people who need it.

You can’t just send a great piece once and hope that people will respond.  You need to be sending regular updates to that piece or new pieces that tackle similar topics.

More than anything, these messages need to arrive on a regular basis.  If your clients are not hearing from you at a minimum of once per month, then you will be forgotten.

Without consistent contact, you allow the door to open for another agent to step in and steal your client.  Remember, it’s not hard to woo a client when they’ve been neglected for long enough.  That’s why it’s so important to keep your name and face in front of your clients on a regular basis.

3.  Not using a broad enough reach.

For example, don’t just do print marketing.  Do print marketing with online marketing.  Oh, and don’t stop there.  Add face-to-face marketing.  Add voice-to-voice marketing.  Add more media.

The more things you do, the more your message will get across.  This is the “multi-faceted” part of marketing I mentioned above.  Make sure your message is going out through multiple channels.

4.  Ineffective branding.

Let’s say you have a fantastic marketing message.  You’re even sending it out consistently.  But it looks like you had a grammar school student put it together for you.  This will doom your campaign.

Having a strong message presented with weak branding is like writing a check and leaving off the signature.  It’s worthless.  Your brand is your signature.

Every piece you send out—whether it be an article, a thank you note, a flyer, or a CMA—needs to show the world that you are serious about being a real estate agent.  Second-rate materials just don’t cut it.

For examples of top-notch branding, check out the samples here:

http://www.thelonesgroup.com/marketingmakeovers03.asp

5.  Lacking “The Expert Factor”.

The surest way to doom any marketing campaign to failure is for it to be all “sell sell sell”.   Agents who implement such campaigns don’t understand that people aren’t out looking for you and your sunny smile.

What they truly want is an expert—a pillar of knowledge who can guide them through the complicated real estate process.  It is up to you to be that expert, not just a sales machine.

How do you portray expert status?  With articles, graphs, charts, numbers, and commentary.  You replace cable TV and newspapers as their number one source for real estate news.

Avoid these five actions in your marketing materials and you
will thrive.

Not sure about your materials?  Want an expert to take a look at them and tell you exactly what you need to fix?  Then, consider a business analysis from The Lones Group:

http://www.thelonesgroup.com/businessanalysis.asp

By Denise Lones CSP, M.I.R.M., CDEI

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