One of the biggest challenges facing today's Realtor: Marketing themselves appropriately to prospective clients. How do you reach these clients? You have the Internet, newspapers, billboards, the classifieds and direct mail, and these are just a few of your options.

And while it's nice to have all of these options, it can sometimes be a little overwhelming. In other words, after sending out postcards to your 'spheres of influence' and farming a physical neighborhood, what other actions can you, as a time-strapped busy agent take, in order to get the biggest bang for your buck?

I'm glad you asked.

For the sake of ease I've divided the marketing spectrum into three main categories.

1. Image Marketing

2. Online Marketing

3. Database Marketing

I will cover Image and Online marketing today. I'll define each component and provide some examples, of specific actions, you can take to help move your business forward. Let's begin.

Image Marketing

This is the "marketing" that most agents are already doing, since its main objective is to provide a fresh, professional image to anyone who comes into contact with their business. Examples include professional 'looking' websites, business cards using high quality graphics printed on higher quality stock, and any other collateral you might bring to a listing presentation.

If you're farming your neighborhood with direct mail pieces or postcards, they will also fall in this category, since the "look and feel" directly impacts the image of your business.

I'd say a majority of the agents I work with are doing an above-average job of marketing in this area. However, the one place where I see the most room for improvement is with the agents' individual email addresses.

In other words, it's not helping your image to have a stylish website along with great-looking business cards, only to have jane010373@hotmail.com as your email address. Call me old-fashioned, but that doesn't exactly foster the "high-end" image you want your prospects to have of you.

My recommendation: Visit GoDaddy.com and register a domain name for your website. While you're there, you'll want to purchase an email address that's based off of the new domain name. Total cost: Less than $50.

For example, our domain name is www.agitoconsulting.com, which means my email address is bhilliard@agitoconsulting.com. Now I come across as the professional, "buttoned up" sales coach that everyone wants. Try that out with your own business, you'll be surprised at how a slight "image enhancement" can enhance your credibility with future clients.

Online Marketing

The online component of marketing is really very simple. It's any marketing that's generated through an online or web-based environment.

We're talking about electronic newsletters, updating your website, or maybe even setting up some cross-links to other related, but non-competing organizations (e.g., your mortgage broker or title insurance company).

This is an area where I see a lot of my coaching clients fall down, since there are so many choices out there, not everyone knows where to start much less which action to take. So as a first step, I'm recommending that everyone reading this article make a commitment to start an electronic newsletter.

I know, I know. You don't feel like you have the time to publish anything, and even if you did, you're not sure what you'd say.

In terms of not having the time to publish; an e-newsletter can go out on 'your' time as frequently as once a week or just once every quarter. If you're just starting out, try once a quarter. Able to handle it? Try once a month.

In terms of what you'd say, that's easy.

How about the "Top Three Things Every Home Owner Should Know When Listing Their Home?" or even, the "Top Three Mistakes People Make When Buying a House?"

See how easy that was? And that was just off the top of my head. I know for an absolute fact that 99.9 percent of the agents reading this article could very easily fill in the blanks on those two headlines.

"All right, that sounds easy enough," you're probably thinking. "But why bother? How exactly is a newsletter going to help grow my business?"

Let us count the ways.

1. It will help you keep in touch with people who aren't ready to buy or sell their house right now. After all, 95 percent of the people you meet won't be ready to use your services at the time you meet them. But since we know that the average person moves every five to six years, doesn't it make sense to keep your name in front of these perspective clients?

2. It demonstrates your creditability to the prospect. Our society is so skeptical of anyone they perceive to be "sales" related, people often don't believe a word you say until they actually see it for themselves. However, when you give them a high quality, high content newsletter, they have no choice but to view you as an expert in the buying and selling of homes. And if you were they, who would you want handling the sale of your biggest personal asset? A person who says that they're the "#1 Agent in town," or someone who's clearly demonstrated their expertise through a series of informative articles?

3. It's free!

So now when you're talking to someone who might not be ready to list their home immediately, you're not walking away thinking, "Boy, I hope I run into them again." Instead you can make them a part of your sphere of influence by asking them if they'd like to be included in the next newsletter.

Not sure how to work this into a conversation? No problem. Just send me an email and I'll send you a free script detailing how to make your newsletter sound irresistible to every prospect you meet.

Bottom Line: The average agent commission is $3,000. The average time spent putting together an electronic newsletter is 45 minutes. Even if you publish just four times a year, and get only one new listing as a result, you've got a $3,000 payday coming.

Editor's note: Realty Times has an electronic, customizable, Realtor-friendly newsletter product for those who'd prefer to send a prewritten agent-branded newsletter. See The Real Estate Update, or call 877-353-6980.

Published: April 11, 2005

Use of this article without permission is a violation of federal copyright laws.

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As a popular speaker and author of the resource How to Get More Business in Today's Tough Market, Brian specializes in helping busy agents get more leads and close more deals - even in a market as "challenging" as this. For a free report on 2 Easy Ways to Get More Business in Today's Tough Market, just email my office and we'll send it right over.

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