marketing communications: How To Develop Your Market Segment Strategy - 12/06/09 09:51 PM
When developing your market segment strategy, there are four key issues to consider:
market segment specific needs that you can satisfy strategy for satisfying needs communicate your ability to satisfy these needs What Is Your Market Segment?
A market segment: is distinct from other segments is composed of clients who have common needs can be reached by a effective marketing communications.
To all intents and purpose, a market segment is the same as a market niche.
What Specific Needs Can You Satisfy In This Segment?
The very foundation of your market segment strategy is identifying specific needs in the … (5 comments)

marketing communications: Make Your Newsletter A Winner - 08/17/09 10:50 PM
Without a doubt, newsletters can be very effective marketing tools.
But as Toby Boyce commented, they must be good:
“I like to get GOOD newsletters.
“Just sending a newsletter to send one without a lot of new information is a waste of money.
“But if you can localize and make it all relevant ... then you've got a winner.”
There is no need to look further to key to using newsletters effectively...Toby has summed it up in 36 words.
Take a minute and read his words again.
David Pylyp  explains what helps make good newsletters:
“Writing the Newsletter … (1 comments)

marketing communications: 2 Things You Can Do Yourself...If You Have The Time & Know-How - 08/05/09 11:51 PM
Throughout the day yesterday I imagined myself hearing “Good idea...I can do that.”
No, I wasn't at a do it yourself seminar, nor was I hearing voices.
I was only imagining what readers were saying when they first saw the images that I referred to in yesterday's blog.
I'm pretty sure that many people had that initial response to Doug Dickin's photographs...I know I did.
It Takes Time
But the more I looked at the photographs, the more I remembered the many hours I had spent learning how to compose images...work with existing light...add artificial light...and the myriad of other … (5 comments)

marketing communications: How To Prepare A Brochure That Is As Good As Your Client Service - 07/23/09 11:47 PM
Your brochure is the first of many marketing communications elements based on your personal brand and brand promise.

 
The main purpose of a brochure is to introduce you...and explain how you help clients.
Ideally, the brochure will present you as sufficiently competent and trustworthy that prospects will be contact you...or be willing to talk to you if you contact them.
Choosing The Right Words
The best brochures are short and to the point.
This means carefully choosing the fewest words possible to accurately tell prospects who you are and how you can help them.
Purely and simply, these … (5 comments)

marketing communications: Presenting A Compelling Reason For Prospects for Hiring You - 07/23/09 12:27 AM
Your brand promise reassures clients that you can...and will...help them.
What Is A Brand Promise?
Your brand promise tells prospects what they can expect you to for them as clients.
In effect, it offers them a compelling reason for choosing you as their real estate agent.
It reassures them that you can...and will...help them with their real estate transactions.
Like your personal brand, it is an important promotional element of your marketing communications.
However, unlike your personal brand, your brand promise is not created from a self-assessment or based on a high level of self-awareness.
It is not a pronouncement you … (2 comments)

marketing communications: How To Distinguish Yourself From The Competition - 07/21/09 11:44 PM
Your personal brand is your unique combination of attributes that distinguishes you from the competition.
It also helps attract prospects.
You Really Are Distinctive
As a real estate agent you are distinctive...no other agent has the same combination of skills and resources that you offer to clients.
Many factors contribute to your uniqueness.
These factors include:
your combination of personal traits and characteristics your interests and values how you serve clients differently than anyone else the value that you deliver to clients the benefits that you deliver to clients what you do better than anyone else. 'Me-Too' Marketing & … (54 comments)

marketing communications: Cover Letters Help Promote You To Prospects & Enhance Relationships With Clients - 07/21/09 11:12 PM
In our rush to keep up with the latest technological advance, we often miss the marketing potential of existing practices.
Missed Marketing Opportunities
Take for example the practice of sending cover letters.
In traditional business practices, the sender's file copy (remember those?) of the cover letter served as a record of what was sent and when it was sent.
The cover letter itself often explained what was enclosed and provided instructions as to what to do with the contents.
Now, documents and paperwork are frequently just inserted into envelopes and mailed.
Sometimes the sender attaches a business card...sometimes an … (4 comments)

marketing communications: Describing Yourself Effectively & Accurately - 07/21/09 12:02 AM
This is the first of a series of postings about Marketing Communications.
All postings share the same purpose: to help you prepare marketing communications that will help you communicate effectively with prospects, clients and referral sources.
If you are a new agent, these postings will ease you into Marketing Communications.
As your career in real estate develops, you can continue to use these postings to improve your messages.
If you are a more experienced agent, these postings will help you revise and refresh your messages so that they more accurately reflect your growing experience.
Your Personal Profile
This is the … (3 comments)

marketing communications: Marketing Communications Are Not About Selling - 07/19/09 11:59 PM
Marketing Communications are too important to be ignored or prepared poorly.
Marketing and advertising people often say that advertising...or sales copy... is salesmanship in print.
As a writer with some sales training and experience, I do not agree.
In fact, having spent a fair bit of time writing and re-writing sales copy, I heartily disagree with this statement.
One Way Communications
Essentially the act of writing involves selecting and organizing words to convey messages.
Reasons for sending these messages include to inform, entertain and of course...persuade other people.
Regardless of of how well or poorly individual messages have been prepared, writing … (2 comments)

marketing communications: Branded Text Messages Offer Mobile Branding - 06/24/09 11:51 PM
Branded text messages allow you to apply mobile technology to attract more prospects and generate more new business.
Your Personal Brand As A Competitive Advantage
In a competitive market, it's a major challenge for one business to distinguish itself from its competitors.
This is particularly true of real estate sales.
In any given market, there are many agents competing to attract clients to whom they can provide similar services.
Regardless of what market you serve, the best way to distinguish yourself from the competition is to develop and consistently apply your own personal brand.
deally your brand communicates what what … (6 comments)

marketing communications: The Key To Converting Prospects To Clients Is Effective Pre-Selling - 04/05/09 11:52 PM
Knowing how to warm up your prospects and think positively about you is an essential element of converting prospects to clients.
Pre-selling Qualifies You
I first used the term Pre-Selling in reference to developing content for your marketing communications.
In a nutshell, the purpose of Pre-Selling is to start the relationship-building process that will lead to converting prospects to clients.
This means that Pre-Selling is one of the most critical elements in the entire marketing process.
Unfortunately, many sales people ignore...or are unaware of...Pre-Selling and jump directly from promotional activities to selling.
To appreciate the importance of Pre-Selling, it is … (2 comments)

marketing communications: Make Your Content PREsell - 03/29/09 11:27 PM
Make Your Content PREsell! is an e-book that will help you create content that distinguishes you from the competition and opens your readers' minds to hiring you.
Building Relationships
Whether brochure, newsletter, web content or any other element of marketing communications, the goal remains the same: to build a relationship with your reader.
Although certainly there will be social elements of this relationship its ultimate purpose is generating new business as a result of the reader either hiring you...or referring other prospective clients to you.
Even the best marketing communications are unlikely to result in individual readers making the actual … (0 comments)

marketing communications: Marketing Communications VI: Newsletters Plant Seeds That Can Turn Into Referrals - 03/20/09 10:48 PM
About 10 days ago, I asked if newsletters are still important. 
Based on the comments received, the consensus is: yes they are. In his comment,
Dean Jackson  explained why they are important:
“Client newsletters are a fantastic way to be in contact with clients every month...but the BIG purpose of those newsletters is to plant seeds that can turn into referrals.”
And even better, Dean went onto explain how newsletters can help generate referrals
How Newsletters Generate Referrals
“ALL referrals are a result of conversation. In order for a referral to happen - three things have to take place.
… (3 comments)

marketing communications: Marketing Communications V: Do You Remember What Advertising Is About? - 03/06/09 10:33 PM
By following the basic principles of advertising, you can refine and refocus your advertising..and enjoy better results.
With today's constant barrage of information...through an increasing array of new media...it is difficult to avoid being swamped by a tsunami of advertising.
Instead of becoming swept away in this surge of words and images, let's step back...take a breath...and remind ourselves what advertising is all about.
There...doesn't that feel better already?
Advertising Attracts Attention
Purely and simply, your advertising is intended to attract public attention to you as a real estate agent.
Certainly there is an element of stroking one's ego through … (0 comments)

marketing communications: Marketing Communications IV: Prepare A Brochure That Works For You - 02/22/09 11:08 PM
Your brochure is the first of many Marketing Communications elements based on your personal brand and brand promise.
It should be as good at what is does as you are at what you do.
The main purpose of a brochure is to introduce you and how you help clients.
Ideally, the brochure will present you as sufficiently competent and trustworthy that they will be contact you...or be willing to talk to you if you contact them.
Choosing The Right Words
The best brochures are short and to the point.
This means carefully choosing the fewest words possible to accurately tell … (2 comments)

marketing communications: Marketing Communications II: How To Distinguish Yourself From The Competition - 02/08/09 10:34 PM
Your personal brand is your unique combination of attributes that distinguishes you from the competition. It also helps attract prospects.
You Are Distinctive
As a real estate agent you are distinctive...no other agent has the same combination of skills and resources that you offer to clients.
Many factors contribute to your uniqueness.
These factors include:
your combination of personal traits and characteristics your interests and values how you serve clients differently than anyone else the value that you deliver to clients the benefits that you deliver to clients what you do better than anyone else 'Me-Too' Marketing & Client Service … (5 comments)

marketing communications: Marketing Communications I: Describing Yourself Effectively & Accurately - 02/05/09 10:44 PM
This is the first of a series of postings about Marketing Communications.
All postings share the same purpose: to help you prepare marketing communications that will help you communicate effectively with prospects, clients and referral sources.
If you are a new agent, these postings will ease you into Marketing Communications.As your career in real estate develops, you can continue to use these postings to improve your messages.
If you are a more experienced agent, these postings will help you revise and refresh your messages so that they more accurately reflect your growing experience.
Your Personal Profile
This is the most … (4 comments)

marketing communications: Marketing Communications Are Not About Selling - 01/26/09 10:34 PM
Marketing Communications are too important to be ignored or prepared poorly.
Marketing and advertising people often say that advertising...or sales copy... is salesmanship in print.
As a writer with some sales training and experience, I do not agree.
In fact, having spent a fair bit of yesterday re-writing one page of sales copy, I heartily disagree with this statement.
One Way Communications
Essentially the act of writing involves selecting and organizing words to convey messages.
Reasons for sending these messages include to inform, entertain and of course...persuade other people.
Regardless of of how well or poorly individual messages have been … (2 comments)