It seems that every time I conduct a real estate marketing seminar, agents come up and show me some advertising specialty that they have been using. The story I hear is almost always the same. They tell me: There was an agent I heard speak at our state convention, and they said that they were passing out these widgets, and it was making them a fortune. So I bought 3,000 of them and passed them out, and it hasn’t generated anything for me. Why aren’t I getting better results? Do you think widgets are a good marketing tool?

After 20 years of creating marketing campaigns for Realtors, I have learned that any advertising specialty can be a great success, and it can be a total failure. It depends on a few simple guidelines. If you follow them, you will succeed; if you don’t, you are basically playing the lottery hoping to get lucky. And, just like the lottery, even now and then somebody hits it big, but the odds are not in your favor.

So how can you take the risk out of advertising specialties? First, you need to understand their history. Ad specialties started out as and are still primarily used as a thank you for existing clients. Lots of insurance agents send their clients a calendar each year as a thank you for their business. Companies give away personalized pens, clothes, cups and other stuff as a reward to good employees and important clients. The goal is to make a client feel valued and important, and, by and large, it works. It builds client relationships and loyalty.

Some creative sales people said, “Hey, let me take this to another level. I’ll send out a calendar, note pad, pen, magnet or other widget to prospects that I want to work with. They said that if they have my widget at the house, they would see my name over and over again.” The problem is that when you send it to people who don’t know you, it does not build the same feelings of good will; in fact, it is often seen as a corny sales gimmick that can actually work against you. Yet, each year countless agents buy some ad specialty and send it out to prospects hoping to generate a ton of business. Some swear by the results and some swear at the company who sold them the widget as a total waste of money.

What makes the difference?

The answer is twofold. First, how well do the prospects know you? If you have been farming in an area for years, have a well-recognized name, and you send out almost any ad specialty with a nice letter telling people that you wanted to thank them for supporting you over the years, you will get some positive results. If you send the exact same ad specialty out to an area that has never heard of you, you will probably get no response at all.

Second, does the ad specialty naturally enhance your position in the marketplace? Let’s say you have built a reputation as The Family Realtor. You decide that you want to send out an ad specialty. You could send out magnets, chip clips, jar openers, notepads, calendars, pens; the list is almost endless. But as you think about your options, you evaluate what would enhance your position as The Family Realtor that would truly be appreciated by your clients. You realize that school is going to start up in about a month; so you order note pads and on the front you write: “Hi, I thought you might enjoy having an outline of this year’s school schedule. Start with when school starts and listed all the holidays and days that your kids will have off until school gets out next year. You can use this to plan vacations and other events. List important school phone numbers at the bottom. Also post this list on your web site at MaryAgent.com in case you misplace this list. The Family Realtor.”

Now you have a winning ad specialty. You have given your clients something that they value and that enhances your position in the marketplace. The key is to think about what is appropriate for you. Agents that specialize in golf properties can give away tees and ball markers with their names on them with great success. For the average agent, it would be a waste of money. The key question to ask is what ad specialty will work best at enhancing the image that I want to build as an agent.

Published: March 4, 2003

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Co-founder of Hobbs/Herder Advertising and Hobbs/Herder Training, Greg Herder is recognized as the real estate industry's foremost authority on residential real estate marketing and agent productivity training. Herder is also a licensed Certified Residential Broker (CRB) and owner of MegaAgent Realty, and co-owner of JDG investments, a real estate investment company. Herder is a featured columnist on real estate marketing and training issues for Realty Times, Real Estate Executive Magazine, Savvy Executive Profiles, and, as well as a contributor to a variety of other industry publications, including Realtor® Magazine and Real Estate Business Magazine. He also authored the innovative how-to book “Satisfaction Guaranteed - 100% Satisfaction Guaranteed or Your Money Back," which ushered this unique concept into the world of real estate service. Greg has conducted over 1500 one, two or three day seminars over the past 17 years for the real estate industry and is a professional member of the National Speakers Association (NSA). He graduated cum laude from California State University with a BA in psychology and is currently working on getting his PhD in Organization Behavior.