A key word that should be on the mind of every real estate professional and part of their "every day" and "every interaction"...
No, I'm not talking about new listings, commissions, recognition - all great things - that will certainly come with focusing on this one key word - FREQUENCY.
The definition of Frequency is:
1. the fact of occurring often or repeatedly; frequent occurrence
2. the number of times any action, occurrence, event is repeated
How does this relate to real estate or any business for that matter? Here are my suggestions for areas of your business that you should be frequently engaged in and touching every day to ensure you're meeting your client's needs and growing your business. (Feel free to add to the list if you feel I missed something.)
Frequent blog posts
Yes, we've all heard that posting frequently will keep refreshing your site for those search engines but often we find ourselves trying to carve out time to post and interact on our blogs and on the blogs we've subscribed to, which can be quite the juggling act when business is busy. Certainly the most important aspect of this point is to find out what "regular" schedule you can keep to. Some things you can do to become more regular/frequent with your blogging:
- Start jotting down ideas for future blogs
- Interact and read other blogs and posts on social media sites (your next idea could simply be right there in front of you.
- Develop a team approach to your blog with inviting others to write as a guest blogger or invite members from your office/team to contribute so that the frequency of your blog posts show the search engines that you have fresh content (and yes, there are rewards for that) and it shows your client and prospects that you are engaged in your online and offline communities.
Frequent visits, comments and interactions with your fellow real estate professionals
Again, this is another area we can all fall short in when times are hectic but there are so many wonderful benefits to participating on colleague's blogs. Here are a few that come to mind:
- Building a relationship with that blogger
- Perhaps a future referral of business
- Knowledge obtained by reading someone else's post and comments left on that blog
- Just like above, the search engines also love our comments and often they will be picked up.
Frequent participation on Social Media Networks
If you're actively participating on the many social networks available, you are bound to pick up on something new each day - whether it's a news story you missed, knowledge and experience gained from another colleague or interactions that involve humor (a great mood elevator) and simply relating to others within your online communities. There's also so many great tools available on these sites to keep track of posts that are of interest to us, marketing tools that are available and working for our colleagues that we could utilize, and ways to promote our listings and services. Do a search here on ActiveRain and discover for yourself how frequent participation on social media networks have benefitted some of your colleagues - perhaps it's something that could work for you?
Frequent Contact with clients & prospects - phone calls, in person, emails, newsletters, listing updates
Your clients hired you and they do expect to hear from you - ask them from the very beginning how often they want to hear from you and how they want to hear from you. What's important to them is one of the most important things you can find out from the get go since no two clients are the same.
Frequent refreshing of listings
Don't just simply post your listings and forget about them. Often there are price reductions, new pictures taken if the home was listed in the winter and now it's spring or you may feel that you're not getting the traffic you hoped and the posting may need some tweaking.
Frequent Updates to your website & Frequent checks of your statistics
Many people will say they have a website but when's the last time you visited your website. I often encourage clients to visit their website from the outside looking in and not simply on the backend. Often you will notice something doesn't look right and needs some adjusting. Be sure to update your listings - again with price reductions and new photos - it could make all the difference with getting that listing sold.
Frequent tweaking of your Marketing Plan
We all eager in the beginning of the year and even the middle part of the year to establish marketing plan - when's the last time you looked at yours? Are you accomplishing everything you set out to? Did you start using a new tool, gave it some time and discovered that perhaps it's not the most effective? Now's the time to figure those things out so that you are using your time and efforts wisely.
Frequency of your contact information on your marketing materials, blog, website, social media sites - you want to be found and contacted right?
Make sure your clients, colleagues and prospects can easily find out how to contact you. Your blog, website, social media sites and marketing materials should contain this information - people don't want to have to research how to find you - give it to them freely. Make sure your business cards and materials you're leaving at your listings also have all the information necessary for people to reach you and this includes your email and a phone number in which they can actually talk to a live person.
Frequency of Keywords - in your blog on your website - key in boosting your SEO.
There are so many great tools available to us to zero in on those keywords for our website and blogs.
Find out what they are and use them not only on the title page of your website but throughout the content of the page (search engines love this) and your prospects will too because you'll be providing exactly what they're looking for when they typed in those keywords in their search.
This also goes for your blog - create a title and content that speaks and delivers on what you're discussing, create relevant links and keywords that describe what you're blog post is about.
Just like a radio station operates on a certain frequency, you must also be tuned in to the list above to get the maximum benefits for your business growth and for your clients who are entrusting you with a what many consider very important aspects of their lives - their money and their home.
Do you have another area of "frequency" to share that is a great example of maximizing your efforts and getting great results?
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If it's not evident to you by now, consumers are very knowledgeable and computer savvy and are using the Internet to not only search for homes but for real estate agents and real estate professionals who they feel are like minded and can lead them to the results they are looking for.
As we all know, there are only 24 hours in a day to get it all done...are you focusing on the right stuff to grow your business and meet your client's needs? Contact us today to get started!
Ready to take your Marketing to new levels? Anne Marie Malfi ~ Malfi Marketing Solutions.com ~ Copyright 2009
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