A simple, overlooked question
What is my easiest tip to help with your marketing? Ask every single client, every prospect, “where did you hear about me?” This is so simple it’s scary, yet so often overlooked.
Realtors, like most people, are creatures of habit. We spend money just like the others in our office spend money: on monthly real estate journals, on open house ads, buying pens with our names on it. Yet how good are we at tracking what works and what doesn’t work?
I ask every single person who calls the office, or who makes an appointment and ends up across the table from me, “Where did you hear about me?” Then, I track every answer. It’s not that hard. Start today, asking callers that question and you might be surprised what you hear.
Tracking leads
Categorize the answers: referral from a friend, repeat client, friend/relative/sphere, real estate website (Trulia? Zillow? Realtor.com), the print journal, open houses, etc.
Rather than keep on doing the same old/same old, mix up your marketing depending on what your survey finds. Whatever WORKS, do more of. What is not working, reduce or drop that advertising or marketing avenue. Spend more money and more time in the channels that produce results.
For example, if you cannot trace a single lead in the past year to the print journal, can you cut that ad size or eliminate it? Try it for a month or two and see what happens. Does anyone notice?
If you picked up 3 buyers over the past 6 months working open houses, maybe you need to work them more. If you got 7 solid buyer leads from Trulia that closed last year and 2 from Zillow, perhaps you need to spend more time and money on Trulia and less on Zillow. Or you need to tweak that Zillow account to see what you’re missing there.
Tracking can seem like a pain, but unless you ask the question and chart it you’ll never know how good or bad each marketing avenue is for you in particular. And just because one works for me doesn’t mean it will work for you. So ask the question.
