Your REALTOR® Marketing Plan

The steps to creating an effective marketing plan begin with identifying who you are going to be targeting, what you are going to spend, and how many sales you are going to receive as a result of your efforts. By identifying this information in the initial stages of your market plan development, you will significantly increase your return on investment and substantially increase your sales. Below is a step by step process to help you lay the framework for your own marketing plan:

Step 1) Identify your budget.

Identify how much you are planning to spend on your marketing endeavors in order to maximize your investment. How much are you planning to spend on your marketing? How many prospects are you planning to reach, and how many sales do you expect to close? Include your time investment in this analysis as well. Many inexpensive marketing tools take an enormous amount of time and subsequently have a significant cost.

Step 2) Identify your ideal customer.

In order to target your customer effectively, you must know what they look like. This process is generally known as "stick figuring" and identifies the key traits of your ideal customer. Who are they? What do they do for a living? What do they read? Where do they shop? What do they value? How do they entertain themselves? Where do they spend their time? What does their family look like? What is their income level? Answer these questions as specifically as possible to determine the best way to target them.

Step 3) Identify the medium.

List all of the possible mediums to touch your customer. Arrange the list from the most specific way to target the customer to the broadest way to touch your prospect. On the same list, list the prices per piece and the specific price per prospect. This will give you an idea of where to best spend your money and where you will receive the greatest return on investment.

Step 4) Allocate your budget.

Identify the top five mediums that touch your prospects in a cost effective manner and allocate 80% of your budget across those pieces. Reserve the remaining 20% to use for unique or targeted follow-up marketing pieces.

Step 5) Schedule your campaigns

Schedule each campaign to touch customers multiple times through different mediums. Plan some overlap on when each piece hits each prospect to maximize awareness of your services, but draw out the periodicity of the total campaign as long as possible to maximize the duration of awareness. A good rule of thumb is to touch a prospect at least once per week. Multiplicity of your message is also beneficial. However, do not touch a prospect with the same piece more than three times as resistance to your medium and message may develop.

Step 6) Track your results

Continually track your campaigns and where each prospect hears and acts on your message. With this information, you can know which portions of your campaign are effective and which parts need to be modified.

When developing your marketing plan, some general rules of thumb are useful to help manage your expectations. As you develop your budget, mediums and plan, keep in mind the following widely accepted marketing statistics:

* Typical response rates from print advertising and direct mail are between 0.5% and 1.5%

* Generally, you will need to touch a prospect six times before they recognize your brand and eight times before they take action

* Always include a call to action in all of your pieces and a way to track the response from each piece.

* In every piece, always include multiple methods of contact, i.e. internet, telephone, fax, mail, etc.

* A prospect will typically spend three seconds on your piece before moving to something else. Make your communication simple and attention grabbing.

* Be consistent in your message across all marketing pieces to create awareness of your brand and services.

Barrett Niehus is a senior marketing manager for 4MySales.com REALTOR Marketing tools (http://www.4mysales.com) an organization designed to help real estate agents and brokers increase their presence in their market. Barrett has been active in the field of small business marketing throughout his career and continually participates in the development of tools to enhance the personal growth and reach of real estate professionals.

____________________

Advertisement: Honest Riches - Click Here!

Advertisement: Lost AdWords - Click Here!

Advertisement: Get $1 Million A Month In Google Pay-Per-Click Ads Free! - Click Here!

Advertisement: Who Loves Money? - Click Here!

Advertisement: SEO Elite, the GrandDaddy of SEO Software - Click Here!

---

Direct Mail Still Works!

Direct Mail CampaignsDespite the proliferation of communication facilitators--mobile phones, faxes, emails, PDAs--the mail still plays a vital role in successful marketing. Direct mail marketing continues to be... Read More

19 Ways To Attract Higher Paying Clients

Some people have little difficulty attracting and maintaining clients who have higher discretionary funds to spend for solutions. Others can't get to first base. If you are... Read More

Produce More Sales from your Email Promotions Five Ways - Part 1

Do sales come from your ezine regularly? How many well-written articles do you submit per week to opt-in online ezines? How often do you send thank you's... Read More

Free Sample Sales Letter: Example of How to Write a Persuasive Business Marketing Letter

Here is an example of a business-to-business sales letter mailed to auto dealers by a firm that markets gift cards that replace paper gift certificates. Anything in... Read More

10 Start Up Marketing Tips

This list has been compiled as a result of years of working with business owners who didn't quite lay the right groundwork when they started up, and... Read More

The Easiest Small Business Direct Marketing Tip You?ll Ever Get

This really and truly is the easiest (and most profitable) small business direct marketing tip you'll ever get. And when I say easy? I really mean EASY.It's... Read More

Clever Headlines Usually Flop! Are You Being Too Clever For Your Own Good?

Copywriters that try to be clever, humorous, abstract, or use double entendre with their headlines and ads will normally find that they flop and are thus a... Read More

The Future of Marketing Part 1

It used to be if you were a small business, you were at a distinct disadvantage with your marketing compared to the bigger companies.No more. Small business... Read More

How to Write Irresistible Promotional Pieces that Attract More and Better Clients

Whether you're creating a sales letter, a brochure, a newsletter, or any other business promotional piece, you need to write in a way that not only explains... Read More

CRM Star Wars: When Marketing is from Venus and IT is from Mars

Inherent tensions exist between marketing and IT. This is often compounded by lots of cross-talk, with each function on different channels. When tension becomes unresolved conflict, CRM... Read More

Sales Resistance on the Rise

Have you noticed it? More and more marketing campaigns are going over the top. They're trying bolder, more in-your-face tactics. And consumers DON'T like it.There's a growing... Read More

The Process of Change in Marketing Approaches

In a world economy that is in constant flux and undergoing turbulence, more companies are realizing that their most precious asset is their customer base. An even... Read More

Marketing to Hispanics/Latinos

A powerful consumer market with annual spending power exceeding $350 billion, Hispanics-or should that be Latinos?-have become the largest minority group in the United States, and a... Read More

Boost Profits: Market to the Gay Community

Research shows that the gay and lesbian market is worth cultivating, no matter what your product or service. Despite the cultural changes during the past fifty years... Read More

The Newest Marketing Course

Certainly the newest earth quaking event in Internet Marketing insider circles is the release of John Reese's New, Traffic Secrets marketing course. I say certainly because I... Read More

Top 5 Tips For Media Selection

Marketers have a wide variety of media at their disposal. Most of us think first of the advertising troika of newspapers, magazines and TV. But there are... Read More

The Key to Success

Good business is about communication... not just what you say but...Early Monday morning the phone rang in my office; it was very early for a business call.... Read More

Effective Tips For Telemarketers

I had a telemarketer call me recently. Here's a rough transcript of the conversation.Think about it?(Telemarketer) Hello, Mr. Yuille? (Me) Yes?Mr. Yuille, it's Tracy from XYZ marketing... Read More

Lack Of Business Isnt Always The Problem

When you're just starting out in business, it's a safe bet that you need more clients. But what if you have been up and running for a... Read More

The Sweet Aroma of Highly Effective Marketing

Highly effective marketing is accomplished when your marketing materials and marketing strategy work together to reliably move your prospects through your sales process.Have you ever caught a... Read More

Starting Small Business Promotional Campaigns

So you're starting a small business. You figured out what you wanted to sell or do and went out and got it all set up, had your... Read More

Networking Basics Turn Yourself Into A Profit Making Giant

I would like to introduce you to one of my brick and mortar business I run. It is called AFM Computer Repair. This business takes me about... Read More

Using a Contact List Profitably Part One

In previous articles, we discussed the generation of a contact list. This time, we look at one idea on what to do with that list once you... Read More

Are We There Yet?

Small business marketing is not like taking a family vacation.Did anybody take a family vacation this summer? Do you have children of your own, or do you... Read More

Thinking About More Business

What does an old Russian joke have to do with getting new business? Did you increase your business in the past 12 months?... Read More

Self Promotion Brings Business Success

Your business success depends on your ability to promote your services, your products, and yourself. Fortunately, promotion is simple. I know...you hate selling. "But, I'm not a... Read More