Marketing Magic!

I received an honor the other day! I was voted one of the top Realtors ® in Washington State in regards to customer satisfaction. I will be featured in the December issue of Seattle Magazine.

Wow! What an honor, Right? A little research of the phone number on the voice mail indicated, the phone number was a company out San Diego, which had done this promotion several times with different industries. (Mortgage brokers, Contractors, Stagers)

A call to Seattle Magazine revealed that this company had bought (a down payment) a paid advertising section of undisclosed size, in the December issue and that the magazine had no information on the content of said section.

I got interested in the criteria used to be named one of the top Realtors ® in Washington State. I called some of my all time best customers (both of them:) to see if they had been contacted by this San Diego company and couldn’t find anyone who had been contacted in regards to my customer service.

What a mystery or is it!

I got my answer in the mail a couple of days later to how I was voted to this honor. I was congratulated again for the honor being bestowed upon me by my past clients. I was then offered a chance to advertize in the magazine.

The rates were anywhere from $267 to well over $5000. The catch is your name is free, anything else is $267. The more I pay, the more I get featured! Only in America, my friends

I’ll be interested to see if the company gets enough naïve Realtors ® to print this advertising section…

Do you pay to honored? I don’t!

                   ©2009 Paul S. Henderson, Marketing Magic!  All Rights Reserved