A business coach asked me the other day, what three products do I buy consistently online? Why? What do I like about these products? My top three were a skin care product, books and yoga cds.
Skincare because they give free samples, have great sales and they give me a loyal customer discount and yes their product works!
Half.com – Face it I am a bookaholic. You mention a title that you like and I am already online ordering it. I like the “used books, barely read books” that I can get cheap, plus at Half.com (an ebay company) I am a preferred customer and can easily order a book with one click and get a very low shipping cost.
But the one product that I purchase that gave me the most insight into how we might market real estate more effectively is from a yoga site called Yogamazing.
I travel a lot and like to do yoga in my hotel room. I was searching on Itunes and found a FREE video podcast from this yoga teacher, Chaz Rough from Kentucky. He puts out a FREE video podcast, a 25 minute yoga session each week, so I subscribed right away. He has over 8 million downloads of his podcasts already. He keeps them there for awhile, but if you really like the session you can purchase it for $1.99 to keep. He asks people to email or twitter ideas for classes and he reads real emails, and sometimes even has webcam requests incorporated into his video. Then he does the session per request, like yoga for bicyclists, stiff necks, all sorts of neat ideas.
Why am I bringing this up? At the beginning of each class he takes three minutes and pitches his newest product, a CD, a yoga retreat, but I don’t mind and many times I buy! Why? because his podcast is so valuable. He is using video as a social media tool to attract clients by giving them something of value.
Think of the Home Depot mentality. They give free classes, tell you what equipment, tools and products to buy. We go home thinking we are going to tile that floor, faux paint that hall way, but most people end up hiring a professional anyway.
What type of information do you have as a real estate professional that you can share with your clientele that is of real value? If you give some value can you remind people why they should work with you? We are woking on a home inspection video showing consumers what to expect on the home inspection. We will let you know how that goes.
