How to Compete Now That Marketing Has Gone One-To-One

By Andrew Eberting

Fact: The average person is exposed to as many as 5,000 ads per day (Source: Media Dynamics, Inc.). The ability to cut through the noise and compete for people’s attention is growing more precious with each passing minute.

Blanket, unimaginative marketing efforts like sending out a yearly calendar isn’t enough nowadays and likely isn’t moving the needle or making your brand standout as a real estate agent. Alternatively, to put it another way: marketing like this today is the equivalent of the old Publishers Clearing House mailers or getting yet another invite to Play Candy Crush – people tune it out.

If you are still marketing like this today, then you are losing potential clients and money with each calendar you send out. Utilize these three techniques to revamp your marketing and start branding yourself as someone potential prospects will want to work with vs. wanting to avoid.

One-to-One Marketing

Personalizing your marketing is the new Marketing 101, or, as it is more commonly referred to, one-to-one marketing. Simply speaking, each marketing touch you put out to the market should have a personal or targeted element to it.

Facebook Ads

With more than 2 billion monthly active users, Facebook is the standard for where many of us go to catch up with news, friends, and share moments of our lives. Placing online advertisements on Facebook then only makes sense, as this is where all the eyeballs are.

Let’s say you won a new listing (yay!) and you want to promote this to people in your area. By creating a new listing advertisement for your client via Facebook, you can promote your new listing to people using criteria like:

• Geographic radius
• Income
• Age range

Why this is important: 93% of buying decisions are now influenced by Social Media.

(Source: Erik Qualman, Socialnomics)

These things can help to optimize your Facebook ad and get it in front of the types of individuals who are most likely to be interested in your new listing. This helps you spend your marketing dollars more effectively while making your client happy. Moxi Works now offers a native Facebook tool to help you jumpstart your marketing efforts; you can check it out here. 

Direct Mail That Actually Works

Remember that calendar of yours I mentioned earlier? Well, it isn’t personable. However, as we head towards the holiday season, this is the perfect opportunity to share something personable from you to your past clients. Run down to Kinkos and put your favorite cookie, pie or other holiday dessert recipe onto a set of postcards along with a small description of why it is your favorite. It is okay to pull the curtain back a little bit, sincerity and authenticity go a long way. Mailing something like this out to clients is more memorable and thoughtful than a calendar ever will be.

Bonus tip: If you really want to make a lasting impression, measure out some of the dry ingredients in the recipe, put them in mailable bags or packaging, and also include that with the recipe card.

Join Nextdoor

Confession: I am grossly addicted to Nextdoor, a social media network specific to the neighborhood you live. I have been able to network with people in my immediate and surrounding neighborhoods to find folks that are great gardeners, woodworkers, mechanics, and the list goes on. I cannot begin to quantify the number of posts from my neighbors asking for recommendations on a landscaper, painter, real estate agent, or someone else that can help them with something monetarily associated with the upkeep or value of their home. Whether it is the office or the neighborhood, every group needs a go-to person that specializes in something – why can’t the real estate pro in your neighborhood be you?

When it comes to one-to-one marketing, these tips, and techniques only scratch the surface, there is so much more out there that you can do.

Want to know how you can take your one-to-one marketing efforts even further? Check out this article from our August edition of Mile 62 magazine for more personalized marketing strategies that you can implement in your own market.