{"id":12829,"date":"2010-08-01T07:00:39","date_gmt":"2010-08-01T14:00:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/?p=12829"},"modified":"2010-07-31T21:31:45","modified_gmt":"2010-08-01T04:31:45","slug":"the-holy-grail-of-real-estate-marketing-what-actually-works","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/12829\/the-holy-grail-of-real-estate-marketing-what-actually-works\/","title":{"rendered":"The Holy Grail of Real Estate Marketing: What Actually Works?"},"content":{"rendered":"

The only thing this marketing ignoramus can say with unshakeable confidence, is that marketing ain’t sales. The rest I’m not all that sure about. Though to be fair, the more I read, the more I’m confused. So many of those who put bread on the table giving marketing advice, disagree vehemently with each other on so many aspects of their trade. But that’s true in most disciplines, right? <\/p>\n

Anywho, the more I read, observe, and try to understand about real estate marketing, the more I wanna ask the one question I think is almost never asked. <\/p>\n

Is your marketing, whether in-house or from outside, producing bottom line<\/strong>, as in ‘your banker is happy to see you’<\/em> kinda results?<\/p>\n

Since I generally couldn’t market my way out of a wet paper bag, I tend to use what works, discarding the rest. I suspect some of what I have discarded, failed due to my poor execution rather than bad marketing advice. Though Lord knows, I’ve paid for some pretty worthless counsel. Here’s what’s on my new menu.<\/p>\n

  • Direct mail<\/li>\n
  • Warm calls following direct mail<\/li>\n
  • Blogging<\/li>\n
  • IDX on company website<\/li>\n
  • Seminars directed at ‘house’ agents — i.e. Rainmaker concept<\/li>\n

    What’s the Holy Grail of real estate marketing?<\/strong><\/p>\n

    For my sake, let’s not make it too complicated. It’s marketing that predictably<\/em> delivers wicked good bottom line<\/em> results.<\/strong> <\/p>\n

    Did I say results? I meant results measurable in terms of increased bank deposits<\/strong>, not mountains of ‘leads’. Man, if there’s a marketing term that’s pretty much lost any real meaning these days, it’s ‘lead’. I’m surprised there isn’t a statue somewhere in homage to the lead<\/em>. If there was any justice, it’d be the statue sportin’ the most pigeons. <\/p>\n

    Let’s really trash what seems to be the prevailing concept of leads while we’re at it.<\/strong> <\/p>\n

    Have you noticed how most marketing people want you to base the success of any real estate marketing system they tout, upon the quantity of leads<\/em>, instead of increasing sales? Don’t get me wrong, they tell us<\/em> sales will go up, but for the most part they’re sellin’ ways to generate leads. To be fair, their logical retort is that Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    The only thing this marketing ignoramus can say with unshakeable confidence, is that marketing ain’t sales. The rest I’m not all that sure about. Though to be fair, the more I read, the more I’m confused. So many of those who put bread on the table giving marketing advice, disagree vehemently with each other on […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_crdt_document":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[533],"class_list":{"0":"post-12829","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"hentry","6":"category-marketing","7":"tag-marketing","9":"no-featured-image"},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":97,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/97\/kicking-and-screaming-the-revision-cycle-that-will-lead-to-realtor-20\/","url_meta":{"origin":12829,"position":0},"title":"Kicking and screaming?: The revision cycle that will lead to Realtor 2.0…","author":"Greg Swann","date":"July 17, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"The Council of Residential Specialists is running a Promotional Materials Contest for CRS designees:Great promotional materials and a solid marketing plan lead to better name recognition, more clients and a better bottom line for your business. They can also lead to great cash prizes and peer recognition when you sign\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Marketing"","block_context":{"text":"Marketing","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/marketing\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":13002,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/13002\/me-and-claudia-and-php-using-internet-real-estate-marketing-to-you-know-sell-real-estate\/","url_meta":{"origin":12829,"position":1},"title":"Me and Claudia and PHP: Using internet real estate marketing to — you know — sell real estate…","author":"Greg Swann","date":"August 15, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"So, the Arizona Republic ran an article yesterday on on-line real estate marketing and you will never in a million years guess who they did not call. I never get called for any of those kinds of things -- the RaiseTheBarTab kinds of events -- even though we're doing cooler\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Flourishing"","block_context":{"text":"Flourishing","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/flourishing\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1193,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/1193\/peering-into-the-future-of-the-future-of-real-estate-marketing\/","url_meta":{"origin":12829,"position":2},"title":"Peering into the future of The Future of Real Estate Marketing","author":"Greg Swann","date":"March 22, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"What's the future of The Future of Real Estate Marketing? Last Friday, Joel Burslem announced that he is taking a job as a marketing wizard for Inman News:I\u2019m happy to announce I will be joining the nice folks over at Inman News, as of March 26. I will be joining\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Blogging"","block_context":{"text":"Blogging","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/blogging\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":147,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/147\/truzillow-and-the-dis-form-ation-of-real-estate-web-sites\/","url_meta":{"origin":12829,"position":3},"title":"TruZillow and the dis-form-ation of real estate web sites . . .","author":"Greg Swann","date":"July 28, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"Color me grateful, but one benefit of the Trulia\/Zillow free APIs for Realtor web sites is that we should see the end of the sleazy practice of making dewy-eyed anonymous-by-preference Google-borne immigrants fill out a form to search the MLS listings. This crap is straight out of Dan Gooder, but,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Blogging"","block_context":{"text":"Blogging","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/blogging\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":389,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/389\/blogoff-post-12-weblog-review-sellsius\/","url_meta":{"origin":12829,"position":4},"title":"Blogoff Post #12: Weblog Review: Sellsius° . . .","author":"Greg Swann","date":"September 26, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"If I ever said anything nice about the Sellsius\u00b0 real estate weblog weblog, I take it all back! My hands are tired, my back is sore and I'm barely 11% done with their insane challenge! No, I take that taking-that-back back. Someday, I will find a way to love these\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Blogging"","block_context":{"text":"Blogging","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/blogging\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2857,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/2857\/black-pearl-marketing-minute-hour-your-first-six-months-as-a-real-estate-licensee-use-your-time-now-to-make-money-then\/","url_meta":{"origin":12829,"position":5},"title":"Black Pearl Marketing Minute Hour: Your first six months as a real estate licensee — use your time now to make money then","author":"Greg Swann","date":"March 30, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"For years I lectured at the pre-licensing classes of the the college professor who taught my own real estate pre-licensing classes. I hadn't done this for the last couple of years, but I did a class on January 24th, 2008. We made a video tape of my talk, but I\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Blogging"","block_context":{"text":"Blogging","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/blogging\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12829","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12829"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12829\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12838,"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12829\/revisions\/12838"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12829"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12829"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12829"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}