RealtorMarketingInfo Blog

Direct response marketers use what’s called the USP or unique selling proposition to focus their advertising around.  Realtors should also be using the USP strategy in their marketing. 

Here’s a little exercise that you can do which will illustrate what I’m talking about.  Pick up your phone book and go to the real estate section of the yellow pages.  Take a look at the first realtor ad in the section.  On a piece of paper, list the promises, features, benefits, and sayings you see in the ad. 

Then go to the next realtor ad.  How many of the same features, benefits, etc are in that ad which were in the first one.  If there’s something new in the second ad, write in on your list.  Continue doing this through all your competitor’s ads.

Notice something?  They’re probably all are the same basic ad.  Nothing to distinguish one realtor or agency from the next.  None have a USP.  I’ve done this with many real estate yellow page ads from different cities and parts of the country and it’s all the same. 

The unique selling proposition (USP) is the benefit that you and your realty business have to offer that sets you apart from your competition and makes people want to choose you as their realtor. 

I was trying to explain this to a realtor client of mine.  I asked him, “What makes you different from other realtors?”  He said he didn’t really know.  So, I asked him to dwell on that for a minute and see if he couldn’t find the words for why someone would pick him over his competitors to be their real estate agent.

Finally, he got a smile on his face and said, “I’m the realtor that gives them the attention and support they deserve.”  We incorporated this into his yellow page ad and he began to see an increase in phone calls from new prospects.  Now he incorporates that USP in all of his advertising.

You have to think deep to find your USP, but once you’ve found it, your unique realtor USP will set you apart from the others and give prospects a reason to choose you over your competition.

P.S.  For more realtor marketing ideas, be sure to check out my website at:  http://www.realtormarketinginfo.com/ .

The question to ask yourself when considering who to send your real estate ads to is:  Do you know the demographics of your clients?  Clientel demographics can be very informative on how you should proceed with your advertising campaigns.

 Knowing the right audience to target your advertisements to can result in a considerable return on your advertising investment (ROI).  I see too many realtors sending advertisments out to almost everyone.  Like a blind archer trying to hit the target with his arrows.  This is costly and inefficient.

You should do some private research on who you’ve sold property to in the past and where these buyers bought their housing, etc.  This can give you some eye-opening clues as to who and where to target your real estate advertising.

Generally, advertising campaigns are targeted to geographic areas, demographics of the buyers, or by affinity or association.  Geographic areas are easy to target, but most realtors fail to utilize this important advertising technique.

Take a look at where you’ve been selling housing and property.  Does it cluster around certain neighborhoods  If so, you can use this information to not only sell listings but to gain prospective sellers and their listings by targeting those neighborhoods or suburbs with your advertising dollars.  You already have a proven track record there, so use it.

The demographics of your previous clients can tell you much.  Are you mainly selling low cost housing to families with incomes less than $40,000?  Or are the majority of your clients making much more?  This is valuable information.  You can use it to word your ads and target a certain income group.

Are most of your clients doctors?  Teachers?   Whatever profession your clients cluster in, there are local organizations that cater to them.  Some of these have newsletters that can be used to target your real estate advertising in.  Others have local clubs or other fraternal organizations.  You can obtain a list of members, phone numbers, and email addresses.  Target your advertisements to these.

This goes along with affinity or association marketing.  Getting involved with local organizations that not only help you professionally, but become the basis of targeted advertising and word of mouth.

There are so many means that the realtor can use to target their advertising campaigns to.  You just have to think about it and you will find the various means that fit into your real estate business objectives.  Targeting your market will result in a higher return on investment for your advertising dollar. 

I find it sad that so many realtors copy the big corporations with their advertising.  I can see why corporations use such institutionalized marketing techniques, but fail to see why so many real estate agents copy this at the local level. 

Essentially, this type of brand name advertising says to the prospect, here we are, here’s who we are, here’s the type of real estate we have for sale, we’ve been selling houses since 19XX and we’re such nice guys that you should use us to sell your house or find your dream house to buy.

Advertisers, like the yellow pages or the newspaper, love to sell this type of advertising.  Why?  Because there is no way to accurately measure its effectiveness.  The agent doesn’t know if its working or not.  There’s no way to know if it’s paying for itself and making the realtor a good ROI. 

TV advertisements fall into this category of brand name advertising too.  Can they be shown to produce a good return on your real estate advertising dollar?  It’s hard to say.  They’re supposed to get the prospect interested enough in your agency to come in to the office and check you out.  But who’s to say that the prospect came in because of the TV ad or your yellow pages advertisement. 

These types of advertising have their place, but anyone who has been my aquaintance or has worked with me, knows that I am enthusiastic about direct marketing.  This is true whether selling products or real estate.  Why?  Because direct marketing consistently shows the best results for the dollar spent.

I would much rather see realtors spend their money on advertising where the results can be definitively and accurately measured.  So they know whether their getting a good ROI on each dollar spent. 

And so that  changes can be made if the response to the advertising isn’t what was expected, quickly and in a timely manner.  Direct marketing fills the bill for this because it asks for a call to action on the part of the prospect that can be measured by a simple yes or no response. 

More on this at another time …

Would you like to save time and money when answering your real estate email questions from your prospects and clients?

I don’t usually write a blog like this but I found a software program that has been making the task of answering questions that I get through my emails hassle-free and I now have more time on my hands to run my business.

If you’ve been in the real estate business for some time, you know that many of the questions you receive over the phone or through emails are the same, just from different people.  This software makes it so easy to write standard responses to your most commonly asked real estate questions, save them to a database, then, with a simple “mouse” click, they are automatically typed into your email response.

Think of the time this can save you.  And if you’re saving time, you have more of it to spend on the tasks that your real estate business depends upon. 

I’ve found that I spend a few minutes each day responding to commonly asked questions.  I used to spend a good portion of my morning on this task.  It’s now so easy.

I’ve been in touch with the software developer, Jeremy Burns, and he has given me the rights to this software to offer readers of my real estate blog at a $30 discount.  If you’re interested in saving time for your real estate business, you can find more information on this exciting software at: http://www.realtormarketinginfo.com/REA/

I guarantee that this software will save your realty business time and money, thus freeing you for better tasks towards your listings and sales.