Common Marketing Mistakes
In order to survive in real estate you must do marketing.  Unfortunately, a lot of real estate professionals make the same mistakes in their marketing.  And when you make mistakes in marketing, it can cost you a lot of money.
We'll go through some of the common mistakes...so you can avoid making them and the nightmares you might have if you make them!

1.  Thinking About “Activities” Instead of “Marketing”

Real estate professionals tend to think the real job is showing houses, listing houses, writing contracts, etc.  Marketing tends to get relegated to an “activity” they do when they have time or when they have to do it.  An example would be sending out “Just Listed” Post Cards after taking a listing.  We’ve been told for years that is something we should do after we take a listing.

If you think of “Just Listed” post cards as a marketing activity you would think about who you are sending them to.  Of course, you still want to send them to some neighbors as they might know someone who wants to buy in the area.  They might also be thinking of selling in the near future and be impressed with your marketing.  But how about mailing into an area that has homes a little lower in price.  You might find some “build up” buyers.  Or if it’s a “starter” home, you might mail to a nearby apartment complex.  How about mailing to your Sphere of Influence to impress upon them how hard you work to sell your listings.  And for a double impact, have “Just Sold” post cards made up that are nearly identical to the “Just Listed” post cards and mail them once the home sells to the same group of people.

2.  Not Having a Marketing Plan

The process of building a marketing plan helps you find out what marketing works and what just wastes your money!  Without a plan you end up doing what ever you can or whatever sounds good.

3.  Making Marketing Decisions on an Impulse

Have you noticed how many people buy into the latest and greatest marketing idea just because everyone else is doing it?  How about when a good salesman talks about a new product at your office meetings?  And what about all the sales at those “free” seminars?

The process of making a marketing plan will help you determine what your needs are.  That, and having a marketing budget, will keep you from making those costly impulse mistakes.  

4.  Not Having a Consistency in Your Marketing

Instead of taking the time to make the “impressions” needed, people often stop a marketing method after a few tries when it doesn’t work.  You’ve heard someone who mails out some post cards to a “farming area” say “Well, that didn’t work, I’ll try something else.”  It takes time for someone to even notice your mailings.  Then it takes a little more time to make a positive impression.  That’s why you see the same TV commercials over and over again!

5.  Not Doing Any Marketing….or Almost Any Marketing

If you only depend of leads from floor duty, you run the risk of not getting any leads when the market softens only a little bit.  Doing your own marketing helps you maintain a consistent number of new leads coming to you.

6.  Not Developing an Image in Your Marketing

All of your marketing material should have a similar theme or look.  If not, the recipient may not even realize that it is the same person each time!  A new image or theme cause you to start all over again making an impression on the public.

7.  Spending Too Much

Right now you are wondering why spending lots of money on marketing is bad.  After all, isn’t that what the “mega” producers do?  But what is their “net” income?  Why are you in real estate?  You are ultimately in real estate to make money.  Sure you like helping people.  But would you spend the hours you do “helping people” for NO money.  I doubt it.

When you are doing your marketing plan, you need to be creative and think of ways to do the needed marketing for less money.  That way you’ll have money left after your expenses.

8.  Not Know What Works…..and What Wastes Your Money

If you track where your buyer and seller leads are coming from, then you can know what marketing to do more of, what marketing to improve…….and what marketing to dump.

9.  Doing Things Just to Make Sellers Happy

If you haven’t done the tracking in #8, you’ll end up letting sellers dictate what you do, instead of being the expert that tells sellers what it will take to sell their home.

Hopefully this list of common mistakes will help you take a long hard look at the marketing you are doing (or not doing) and start doing the tracking and planning needed to build your business with your own marketing.

 

The author of this article is Linda Grissette.  Some of you may remember her as Linda Grayson.  Linda is a Broker-Associate with River City Real Estate.  She is also the company trainer.  Learn more about how River City Real Estate can help you make more money...even in today's market...browse through this site.

If these articles makes you interested in learning more about the real estate company who would hire the Linda as their company trainer, simply fill in the information below and click on "submit".  Linda will call you back as quickly as possible, but within the times that you requested.  And don't worry, everything response from this website is kept confidential.

Your Name:              

Current Company: 

E-Mail Address:       

The best private phone number(s) for Linda to use to talk to you:  

Please give Linda the best times to contact you in the next few days, so she will not contact you at your current office:

Reasons you are thinking about changing companies:

How long have you been in real estate:

 

All content of this web site is copyright protected.  Our copyright will be legally defended.  Linking to our content is always acceptable.  Besides the copyright issues, if you copy this content to your website, it will hurt BOTH of our websites!  Don't do it! 

© 2004-2008, LSG Enterprises, Inc