A response is marketing or Marketing 101 for real estate agents
If I had a quarter for every “Real Estate Marketing 101” or “Internet Marketing for Real Estate Agents” article that I have seen, I could take you out for a steak dinner.
I just read an awesome piece that Chris Brogan wrote at http://www.chrisbrogan.com/a-response-is-marketing/.
What does Chris mean?
A simple response is marketing?
Here are a couple of real life examples for you.
Example #1
My dad and step-mom have a rental home that they want to sell in Rogers Arkansas.
I contacted about 10 real estate agents in that area and filled our forms on their websites telling them the address of the home, the fact that it is paid for, and my folks live out of town and want it sold.
I got 2 responses out of 10. Both were from auto responders : ) I am cool with that, so I waited. It literally took 2 weeks for the only agent out of 10 to contact me. I wasn’t really that impressed.
Example #2
I got a phone call from an agent looking to create a new real estate website. They left a voicemail, since I was on the phone or doing something else when they called.
I told them about our offerings, and they ordered something from us. I asked them how they found us. This client told me that they had gone to a list of real estate website vendors and called all of them. I was the first one to get back, and I got the order.
It took me about 1 hour to respond to the phone call. That really isn’t “lightening fast”. But, it was better than everyone else.
When I lived in Mexico, I learned a saying “El que pega primero pega dos veces” (He who hits first, hits twice).
How should I respond?
I think about most of the work that I get. We are on a huge learning curve and constantly working to better our products and services to our clients. I see a lot of my competitors as much better in many areas than we are. But, we work hard at responding.
I suggest the following:
Setup a response plan that works for you. How long does it take you to respond to a phone call, a TXT message, or an email?
Decide what those times should be and respond.
I think a phone call should be returned in an hour or two and an email within the same business day. I don’t really get many TXT messages, but I would think that those have a 15-30 minute life.
Use responses as your main real estate marketing tool
Don’t worry about drumming up a bunch of business. Just take really good care of the leads that you have, and the folks who are contacting you. Make a point of telling them that you respond quickly. They will remember that and get in touch with you.
I remember reading some of the business/retailing books about how great McDonalds is. What was the thing that everyone ranked them the best for? Food? No. Clean bathrooms.
Do the folks at Burger King know how to clean bathrooms? I assume so. I know how. Why don’t they do it then? Who knows? But McDonalds has made that a key part of their business strategy.
Answering the phone and emails is not that hard. But so many people don’t do it.
Do it for a month and see how it impacts your business.
(While I was writing this, Vladimir from Toronto called me. He had filled out a contact form on my site a few days ago. I sent him a response within an hour. He told me that he contacted a handful of companies that were recommended to him, and we responded first. We are going to be building him a website. Better than Google ads. Responding to emails.)