6 No-Fail Ways to Increase Your Annual Income
Filed Under real estate, Real Estate Marketing, Real Estate Training, Strategy, Time Management | 4 Comments
Would you like to make more money this year than you did last year…and continue that trend for the next ten years? Want to be the top sales professional in your field or find your way on to the Wall Street Journals list of top 400 agents in the nation someday?
You can—but it’s not easy. And it takes a lot more than sitting open houses on Saturday in spring with visions of sales awards dancing in your head.
How do I know? Some of our clients are truly accomplished real estate agents. I’ve seen what they’ve done to set themselves apart. In a few cases I’ve helped, but mostly I’ve marveled at their approach, energy, and most importantly persistence.
If you want to increase your annual income this year, then here are six principles you must embrace.
Understand Your Value Per Hour
Most of us will take any work that comes our way. That’s problematic. Working with just about anybody will drain you of time and energy and, most importantly, of money. So your first step towards earning more income this year is to figure out how much you are worth.
This is easy to figure out: just take your last commission and divide that by the amount of hours you worked. That figure is what you are worth per hour. More than likely it’s on the low side. Now, determine how much you want to make.
If you’re not tracking your time, you need to start doing that today. What separates the superstars from the average agent is a metric mindset. They measure everything. They keep track of the number of hours they work a day. Number of inbound leads they respond to. People they convert.
Tracking your time is just one part of understanding your value and will help you reach that preferred value per hour.
Understand Your Average Commission Check
Your next step toward increasing your annual income is to understand what your average commission check is. This is a simple task, too: Just add up all the commissions you’ve earned over the last fiscal year and then divide that by the number of commissions.
That average commission check will give you an idea of what each transaction is worth to you. But the value of this simple exercise is to see how working with just about anyone is hurting you. You’re not going to make more money each year if you don’t start controlling what you make by selecting who you want to work with and when.
Disqualify Rapidly
This will hurt because you’ll be turning down leads. But hopefully by now you realize that unloanable, unmotivated and high-maintenance people don’t make you money. (Here are four questions you can use to disqualify potentially problematic seller leads.)
In fact, the whole point behind this exercise is so that you can cherry pick your clients, choosing to work with those who agree with your business philosophy and can actually pay you for your time. Do not be afraid to stand by your VPH.
Prospect Daily
Disqualifying rapidly will not be so troublesome when you are prospecting daily. In fact, you can not really expect to gain real momentum unless you are. This means you need to be picking up the phone, responding to buyer ads and hanging out places where you have an opportunity to network.
Here’s a bit of a warning: Do not quit prospecting when you are busy. That is the last thing you want to do.
If you do, you’ll quickly find yourself out of leads and out of work and back to square one. That’s an emotional roller coaster ride you don’t want to get on.
Instead, spend time prospecting by phone, in person, on social media, at apartments or with investors. You can not create a steady stream of income that grows each year without a consistent stream of leads you can cherry pick.
Understand Your Most Profitable Activities–Eliminate the Rest
Delegation is the key to making more money. See, if you’re spending your time copying flyers or hanging signs, then you are not making your VPH. You are making much, much less. You are making minimum wage…and there are easier ways to do that.
What are your most profitable activities? More than likely it’s prospecting, marketing, negotiations, listing presentations and selling. It’s those activities that you actually make money, so you should focus on those and delegate everything else.
Create a Schedule
Finally, you need to prioritize your activities. Perhaps you are a morning person. Then reserve all your high profit activities during that time when you are sharpest. That means don’t schedule a negotiation call for 8 in the evening.
This also means you need to avoid overworking. Be fierce about controlling your time and protecting your life outside of your business. And if your life IS your business, then you need to step back and re-evaluate what you are tyring to accomplish, especially if you have a family.
Sacrificing time with family and friends to make a ten or twenty thousand more dollars a year is a worthless pursuit.
Leave a comment if this post was helpful or if you have anything you’d like to add. And if you like what you read, subscribe to the Real Estate Marketing Blog.
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Why You Need to Know How Permission Marketing Has Changed
Filed Under Real Estate Marketing | 4 Comments
Back in 2000, Seth Godin defined the new advertising arena with his book Permission Marketing. In that book he taught us how to “turn strangers into friends into customers.”
It was a monument in the advertising landscape. It declared the death of traditional media methods and the emergence of the most effective and profitable way to advertise with people: ask for their permission to advertise to them.
Since then, that concept has evolved.
How Permission Marketing Has Changed
It’s evolved into an environment where more and more control is given to the consumer. The amount of choices for a consumer has flourished. He now chooses not only what messages he will watch, read or listen to…
He chooses how.
This is the idea behind the principle of “the path of consumption” and it represents the changes in Godin’s original idea. It’s an economic model adopted and modified my marketers. In a nutshell, this is what it means: we’ve all heard the refrain that people learn differently…
Some learn by doing. Some learn by watching. Others learn by hearing. Still others, a combination of all three.
Why is this important? Easy. If you want to reach the widest (and still profitable) audience, then you need to figure out how that audience is consuming messages. And then craft and present your message around those mediums.
Three Examples of Message Consumption
Yeah, that usually means that you need to provide the same message in more than one medium.
For example, if you are the top listing agent in your market because you’ve developed an irresistible listing presentation, then that message needs to go in at least three places.
1. Your mind.
Once you’ve figured out what your unique value proposition (for example, top listing agent in your market because you developed an irresistable presentation), you then need to craft that message into an elevator speech.
2. The public.
Once you’ve streamlined this message into a tight, potent elevator pitch, head out of the office and start talking to people. Talk to people at networking events. Go to social media events. Travel to conferences. Host neighbourhood clean-up. Get out and start telling people why you are the agent they should work with.
3. Your website.
Tell your readers in the copy. Tell them in a video. And tell them in audio. Tell them the same message in these three very different channels. That way you don’t have to choose who you’ll promote to. You simply choose the channels to promote the message in. Let your prospect choose the path of consumption.
Of course, this means you have to know who your prospect is. If you’re a fan of personae, then you already know who they are. If you don’t know who they are, you need to get on the ball and figure it out.
Let me show you why this is important.
The Numbers Don’t Lie
In a late 2010 report by Neilson Mobile, people under 24 years of age represent over 71 percent of those who text in America. That’s a huge audience.
However, that demographic only accounts for 5% of home buyers. The largest group of home buyers is from the age 25 to 34 years of age, at 33%. The next group, 35 to 44, represent 23 percent.
After all the numbers are in, do you know what the average home buyer age is? It’s thirty-nine, a group who sends about a tenth of the texts the younger demographic does.
How You Can Capture the Largest Profitable Audience
Here’s my point. If all you do is provide options for texting, you are going to limit those who respond to your messages.
Now, I don’t believe anyone would actually do this (almost every agent I know provides at least a phone number to call, in addition to texting options). But it should force you to think about other channels to communicate in.
Can you create a weekly email newsletter to promote to those who like the comfort and traditional feel of their inbox versus a feed reader? Can you create a video sales letter where all you are doing is moving the reader through your sales message–but in a video, like Stansberry Research is doing?
Can you create a monthly podcast that interviews real estate experts (experts could range from loans to interior decorating) in your market?
The more channels you provide the larger–and more profitable–your audience becomes.
Leave a comment if this post was helpful or if you have anything you’d like to add. And if you like what you read, subscribe to the Real Estate Marketing Blog.
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How to Use Your MLS System for Growing Profits Every Week, Month and Year…
Filed Under Past Client Strategies, Real Estate Marketing, Strategy | 5 Comments
I just got a call from a client who shared a positively brilliant strategy for using your MLS system’s auto updating capabilities.
See most MLS systems have the ability for you to put prospects into a “drip system” to receive auto-email updates of the kind and type of property their looking for. It’s a great tool for staying in touch with your buyer prospects. They can look at properties, get updates branded with your info, and all while keeping you and your real estate services “top of mind” with them.
Well…don’t stop there.
This auto-updating feature has far more potential. Yes. It’s great on the buyer side. It incubates leads, matures prospects and helps you serve clients at a much higher level. But the implications are much farther reaching.
Consider the idea of putting your sellers into the system too. When you take a listing prepare your seller with the idea that every time a new listing in the area comes on the market you’re going to send them an email with that info.
This way they can be completely aware of “their competition.” Your sellers will continually be seeing all the properties that represent competition.
What will this do?
It will position you for easier price reductions. In fact, if you position the updates correctly and present it well, you’ll have some clients calling you saying things like, “Well, based on the ‘competition’ we’ve thought about it and we want to consider a price adjustment.”
But even if they don’t call, and it gets to where you want to break into the subject of price…this lays the groundwork for a much easier price reduction.
Isn’t that great? So it’s not only a buyer incubating tool…it’s an easy price reduction tool.
Now…for the final strategy!
How about this? You want to be known as your local “real estate expert” right? How about taking your updating service and using it to stay in touch with your sphere of influence?
Here’s how that works.
Anyone you call, mail, or place advertisements in front of, offer to update them concerning their neighborhood whenever a house goes on the market. Plug them into your MLS updating service, select the neighborhoods they’d like to stay informed about, and let your MLS system stay in touch with them…using the email updating service.
It serves two fantastic benefits. First, it keeps you first and foremost in their minds because the email is branded with your info. Second it positions you as the “neighborhood expert.”
Isn’t that awesome? It’s a simple tool that takes about 3 minutes per client, past client or prospect to enter and now you’re in front of them until they buy, sell or die. Better yet, it’s all automatic…with information they want…and with information that brands YOU as the expert.
So to recap…update buyers quick and easy…position your listings for easy price reductions…and third stay in touch with past clients and your sphere of influence with relevant, valuable information that brands you as the neighborhood expert.
Isn’t that awesome?
So there you have it…take it and run with it.
Leave a comment if this post was helpful or if you have anything you’d like to add. And if you like what you read, subscribe to the Real Estate Marketing Blog.
7 Correct Ways Real Estate Agents Use Social Media
Filed Under Real Estate Blogs, Real Estate Marketing, Social Media | 2 Comments
Do you know what a good real estate blog looks like? Could you spot an influential social media marketer? And what makes a real estate agent like Trey Pennington a successful online networker?
If you answered “no,” “no” and “I don’t know” to the previous question, then this blog post for you.
While social media is not a barn-burning profit maker…it is a great tool to emphasize who you are [personal brand] and what you are trying to do [business strategy].
The bad news is if you don’t know how to use social media properly you could foul up your personal brand and hose your business strategy down the drain.
But the good news is you can learn how to use social media correctly. Just mirror these seven traits of successful blogs.
1. Personality
The person behind a great blog or Twitter stream is exciting, risky, interesting and perhaps even flamboyant. In other words, he or she stands out. And the cool thing about social media, even introverts can stand out.
2. Engagement
You need to interact with the people who read your blog or follow your Twitter stream. This means responding to comments. Replying to tweets. Sharing links.
3. Unfiltered
While not a must, the more fluid communication flows [comment moderation on your blog isn't on] the more real and personal and authentic the social media tool seems.
4. Intellegence
Another trait behind successful social media mavens is smarts. Book smarts. Street smarts. Business smarts. Marketing. Writing. Real estate. It doesn’t matter in what field their wisdom lies…as long as they share. [So if you aren't wise, start reading. That's a simple solution.]
5. Data
Original research and analysis is a great draw. Can you share first-hand discoveries you found after a simple, informal survey you took in the shopping mall parking lot? Got a bead on a statistic you churned out after burning housing data through software programs all night? Share it.
6. Links
You add value to your followers when you share links in your blog posts and Twitter and Facebook streams. You also support other people in the social media community, which builds your whuffie [reputation].
7. Builds Community
The endgame for successful real estate social media is community building. Drop the cut-throat, scarcity mindset and get comfortable with working and supporting everyone. [Naturally, the scum of the earth you can avoid.]
Did I miss anything? Please share your thoughts!
And if you like what you read, subscribe to the real estate marketing Blog by email or news feed.
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Here’s the deal: Over the last 50 years, buying and selling a home has gotten complicated. There are so many bylaws and regulations–things you can say and you can’t…
It’s overwhelming just thinking about it. No wonder most people opt to have a real estate agent help them buy or sell.
But let me ask you a question: How often have you promoted the fact that you can make the buying and selling process easy? If you answer “Not much,” I think it’s about time to change your tune. Let me show you what I mean.
Here’s Bruce Horovitz from USA Today:
“If 2009′s hottest sales pitch was all about buying stuff on the cheap, 2010 marketing will increasingly stress less as more, as in fewer parts, additives, or ingredients.
“While the trend is taking hold in many product categories, including health and beauty items, nowhere is it more apparent than with things we eat and drink.”
Now, a simple food is hard to do. You can’t really make a mass-produced product like vegetable beef soup or macaroni and cheese taste as good as something that comes fresh from your kitchen.
So you work a little advertising magic. One way to do that is put forth in a book called Simplicity Marketing. Here’s Publisher’s Weekly comment:
In an age when Crest toothpaste comes in 45 varieties, consumers long for companies that make life easier by reducing choices, claim Cristol, a marketing consultant, and Sealey, a former global marketing director at Coca-Cola.
Playing off the four “P”s (product, price, promotion and placement) that many marketers use to hone their strategic thinking, Cristol and Sealey have come up with four “R”s.
The four Rs are Replace, Repackage, Reposition and Replenish. Let’s look how you could use this formula to craft your marketing message in 2010 to attract the prospect that’s interested in simplicity.
Replace is simply a short way of compressing two products into one. Think 2-and-1 shampoo and conditioner. In a real estate context this could mean offering to help people buy their next house while you sell their current one. I’ve seen agents drop their commission with the promise that their clients commit to letting the agent help find their next house.
Repackage could mean simply handling just one part of the transaction–like a discount shop.
Reposition just means promoting you yourself as standing for simplicity itself. Remember Honda’s slogan: “We make it simple”? You could do the same.
Replenish basically means you perform and provide the same high-level of service before, during and after a transaction. In addition, if you have a team, this means that they will provide the same level of service before, during and after a transaction as you would.
The bottom line is this: Promote the fact that the process of buying or selling a home with you will be simple, easy and carefree.
Leave a comment if this post was helpful or if you have anything you’d like to add. And if you like what you read, subscribe to the Real Estate Marketing Blog.
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Filed Under Real Estate Marketing | Leave a Comment
Most people don’t give much thought to customer retention. They usually spend all their time worrying about the next deal. The next lead.
What they don’t realize is how much business they could KEEP if they simply followed up with past customers.
Let me ask you a question: How would you react if you got a call from the guy who sold you your car to make sure everything was going okay?
How would you react if your dentist called you the day after a root canal to make sure you were out of pain?
How would you react if a manager at a nice restaurant phoned you up to let you know they can reserve a spot for you on Valentine’s Day?..
How would you react if the gal who cuts your hair sent you an email with a survey, looking for comments and suggestions?
Some business people tell me that’s looking for trouble. I’m sorry, but I couldn’t disagree more. In fact, I think it’s looking for just the opposite: rapport, loyalty, satisfaction and repeat business.
See, if follow-up turns up a lot of dissatisfaction, then obviously you need to make some serious changes because the dissatisfaction was there whether you discovered it or not.
But more than likely that won’t happen. If it does, simply apologize and thank them profusely for being honest and promise them that you will make that change. Then…and here’s the kicker…ask them if they would give you feedback in the future as you make these changes.
People love to give their opinions, so you’re usually going to get a yes.
Danny Kennedy said it best:
Recognition and appreciation can be very powerful and very inexpensive as a marketing strategy. It is true that comprehensive follow-up and follow-through may reveal some inadequacies in your business operation and that’s good if you use those discoveries as impetus for improvement.
Of course every business, no matter how well managed, will have to deal with dissatisfied even angry customers from time to time.
Sometimes the customer is justified in his complaints other times he is not. But the mere handling of the dissatisfied is just another way to get people to love you and avoid using the competition.
Leave a comment if this post was helpful or if you have anything you’d like to add. And if you like what you read, subscribe to the Real Estate Marketing Blog.
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Go ahead. Admit. You’ve got great dreams of being a fanatical success in real estate.
You want to make seven figures a year. You want the eight car garage. A second house on the sea. The boat.
You want enough money in the bank to run a small country. Send your children to the best schools. Buy a 747 so you can fly all of your friends to your private island off the coast of South Africa.
Okay. Maybe that last one was a stretch.
But you catch my drift. We’ve all got wild dreams. Big ones, to boot. And this includes your clients.
So often we forget that the people we want to attract have dreams. We forget that they are are dreaming and scheming.
Scheming in a good way. But scheming nonetheless. They want to be successful. Prestigious. Healthy. Liked.
Or perhaps they just want a roof over their family’s head. A roof they can call their own.
We call that the “American Dream.”
So, with this in mind, let’s look at three ways you can help beef up just about anything you do–whether it’s writing an ad or pitching during a listing presentation–and help your prospects and clients understand that you can help them reach their wildest dream.
1. Paint the Vision for the Prospect.
Within the headline or the opening copy or at the start of your presentation, tell them about the benefit they’ll get from doing what you want them to do: living well, saving money, entertaining grandly. This is the big promise.
2. Offer the “Prize” Inside.
Either within the same headline or within the first few lines of copy or just minutes into a presentation, introduce your offer as the means for obtaining the desired end: the infinity pool that makes you to live well, the low property taxes that allow you to save money, or the finished basement with wet bar and 50 inch plasma screen that allows you to entertain grandly.
3. Go On the Quest.
This is the fun part. Here you get to tell the story of how and why your offer, in Step 2, fulfills the desire in Step 1. You’re pulling all the pieces together here.
For example:
Living well means owning an infinity pool. Posh hotels in Singapore with infinity pools attract actors and presidents and singers. And actors like to live well, don’t they? They like to relax in a landscape that’s unique and something only a few people can afford to enjoy. Infinity pools are all about living well.
By the way, if you need help creating pictures like that, we have great resources here to help you. But also consider picking up a travel magazine like Conde Nast Traveller.
Cheat Sheet on How to Make Your Ideas Stick in People’s Mind
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“Don’t panic, but one of your kidneys has been harvested.”
That’s the punch line for one of the most successful urban legends in the last fifteen years. What makes it so successful? It’s sticky: understandable, memorable and effective in changing thought and behavior.
How do you create ideas that are sticky? You use these six principles found in the book Made to Stick:
Simple: Think staggeringly simple.
Find the core of your idea. Like a proverb. Hollywood script writers create the high concept pitch. Journalists ask, “What’s the lead?”
Unexpected: Attract attention.
Surprise your readers. Create mystery and intrigue in your opening lines. Ask provocative questions.
Concrete: Help people understand and remember.
Make abstractions concrete. Insert hooks—images and experiences—into your idea. Put people into the story. Talk about people and not statistics.
Credible: Help people believe.
Use authority and testimonies. Use convincing details. Make statistics come alive.
Emotional: Make people care.
People donate more to one little girl than to a huge swath of Africa. Appeal to self-interest—and not just base self interest. Why does it matter to them? Appeal to identity: Texans don’t litter and Americans fight evil.
Stories: Get people to act.
Use stories to show people how to act. And use stories for inspiration. Look for three key plots: Challenge, Connection and Creativity.
Believe it or not, the acronym for these six principles is SUCCES.
Leave a comment if this post was helpful or if you have anything you’d like to add. And if you like what you read, subscribe to the Real Estate Marketing Blog.
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What Barack Obama’s Acceptance Speech Can Teach You About Marketing
Filed Under Real Estate Marketing | Leave a Comment
Do you know who David Axelrod is? He’s Barack Obama’s chief strategist. And he’s the man who Barack owes for winning the election.
Barack made this clear during his acceptance speech last night. He said, “To my chief strategist, David Axelrod–who has been a partner with me every step of the way, to the best campaign team ever assembled in the history of politics–you made this happen.”
It’s amazing what you learn about real estate marketing from a political campaign. And it’s even more amazing what you can learn from Barack’s acceptance speech. And what it can do for your marketing success. So let’s see what we can learn about real estate marketing from Barack’s acceptance speech.
Consumers Are in Control
I don’t think there was ever any question in Axelrod’s or Obama’s mind about who they needed to win over. Even during his acceptance speech, Barack Obama said “you” more times than we. And during his campaign, that was clear. He surrendered the message, the conversation, to his voters.
In the same way, you need to surrender your message and your conversation to your prospects and clients. How do you do this? Listen and respond by giving your prospects and clients what they asked for. It’s as easy as that.
Brilliant Storyteller
Outside of his excellent skills as an orator, his smooth, seamless delivery, Obama can tell a story. He can weave the hard issues of life into a personal drama that just about everyone can relate to.
Take 106 year old Ann Nixon Cooper. Her story arced over a century with a generous amount of pain, hardship, misery and progress to finally see the day when she could not only vote–but vote for a black man. Over 60 years ago, this was impossible for two reasons–she was a woman and black.
Like a legend, that story will attach it’s self to the Obama presidency. And spread. Because it’s a story we believe. And it’s a story we respond to. Create a believable story and people will follow you.
Created the Common Enemy
Obama knew the problems that plagued America. And not only the country, but the government. Whether he’s right or not, that’s another story. But he defined the problem in such a way that people responded. And responded in droves.
In his speech, Obama cataloged petty, immature, partisan politics, selfish, greed-driven markets and utter ignorance of the widespread suffering on Main street as the poisons that ruined our country.
In other words, he created an enemy. A common opponent apathetic, fatigued people could rally around. People rally quickly when threatened. Think Pearl Harbor. 9/11.
Find the enemy in your own market demonizing people…and communicate a plan how you plan to exorcise it to the people who are demonized and you’ll win big fans, rock star like status.
Used Social Media Wisely and Liberally
On Obama’s website, you could easily sign up for every single social media site Barack was on: Facebook, Twitter. You name it.
While he didn’t use social media directly in his acceptance speech, he did, I believe, use what he, Axelrod and their team learned from what voters were telling them via the social media sites.
How do I know? The sole purpose of social media is relationship. Connection. Listening. And responding.
It’s impossible not to learn anything about how people are feeling about your market, city or state when you listen to them. And social media allows you to talk to an impressive swath of people at all times of the day.
Think about it: This is cheap market research.
Free tools you can use to find potent stories, discover the problems that plague them and give the consumers the control that will ultimately make you a person they can trust. And a person they want to work with.
Your Turn
How do you plan to give consumers control? How do you plan to use social media? Do you have any brilliant stories you share in your marketing? Do you have a common enemy in your market?
Leave a comment if this post was helpful or if you have anything you’d like to add. And if you like what you read, subscribe to the Real Estate Marketing Blog.
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Filed Under Real Estate Marketing | Leave a Comment
Has this ever happened to you?
You spend the weekend hunched over your computer writing and designing a postcard to announce a new listing. On Monday, you spend one hundred dollars to print the postcards. On Tuesday, you spend an additional fifty to mail them.
But nothing happens. What gives?
The Reason Your Advertising Doesn’t Work
The reason your advertising doesn’t work–whether it’s a billboard or email newsletter or postcard mailing–is simple: you never test.
Testing, especially for you DIY real estate marketers, is critical if you want to find out what works. And make it even better.
But all good tests start at the same place: a good test strategy. You must know where you are going before you begin the trip. And to do that, you must ask the right questions. Otherwise, at the end of the test, you are lost in an ocean of data.
To avoid that conundrum and to stop wasting your time and money, follow these four critical ways to test.
Creative
Creative tests involve experiments with the copy, cover treatments, envelope size and envelope copy. These tests tend to be the easiest to conduct. And offer a popular way to increase response.
A common test is to write two entirely different pieces of copy. One uses fear and the other uses pride. And the whole reason you went after these two emotions is because you’ve studied your prospect and profiled him. (Remember, writing is one of the best skills you can practice and hone.)
Another common, easy creative test is envelope copy. Try one envelope with a teaser like, “You will never sell your home, unless…” and the other envelope with no copy at all. If you find out the teaser copy pulled in more response, then roll it out to the rest of your list.
Or test and refine the teaser copy. Your call.
Offer
Most real estate marketers go after offer tests after they’ve tinkered with the creative. These tests involve promotions–or a combination of promotions–to increase response.
An example of differing offers can be as simple as “Sign with me and I’ll let you use my moving van” or “Sign with me and I’ll pay your moving costs.” You’re looking for what motivates people–service or money.
Offer tests help you understand what drives response and are an efficient way to work your list of prospects.
One thing to watch out for when conducting an offer test: make sure you account for the full cost of the test. Examine how the test impacts your profit and loss in the long run. That means don’t forget to include all costs for owning a moving van, if that’s your offer.
Timing and Frequency
Another big question real estate marketers like you need to ask is “When and how often should I mail/email/advertise/etc.?”
The answer to that question will help you to determine if an aggressive pay-per-click campaign or ad placement does better in getting more customers for a small investment. Or it will give you the value of an incremental mailing.
Do you get more response when you send out an email on Monday morning or Monday evening? Do you get more response when you email them twice a week for three months or once a week for six months?
Those are the kinds of questions you need to ask.
Keep in mind, you need to wait to the end tests before making a judgment on your test. Especially when it comes to long-term tests. If your incremental mailing is six months, wait six months.
Lists
Testing lists is a basic must-have in your marketing plan if you want to acquire new prospects and clients. But the questions you need to ask aren’t as cut-and-dry as the previous tests. You’ll need to think deep on this.
For example, which zip code responds better to an appeal on prestige, success or fear? What neighborhood will accept a flat-out advertisement versus a more editorial style advertisement?
However, investing time in figuring out the right questions to ask will reward you well. In addition, you must experiment with just a portion of a list until you find the right combo of other factors. Once you do, then roll it out to the rest of the list.
Conclusion
Asking the right questions is the key to effective testing. And once you find out which list responds to the right copy, creative and offer you’ll become a rock-star real estate marketer.
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