I was reading a great blog by Richard Wiseman on Knowing Your Competition. It is crucial to understand what your competition is offering so you can create several higher levels of offerings that will make you stand out as a marketing guru. Of course you need to provide a good track record to cement the ideas you implement.
Just this morning we emailed 3 of our sellers to let them know their homes were showcased in a local paper. Since we list many homes in the community our homes are often selected. We just came to terms on one of the homes but our seller emailed back with this response:
Hi, Dorie,
Thanks for the excellent advertising. We know you guys do a great job on advertising and presenting the properties (by "you" I specifically meant you and Gene) so that is something we have come to expect of you (and one of the reasons we chose you).
Regards, Srinivas
20 years ago we worked with our "bible" a weekly book published of active, pending and sold properties. In 1995 we leaped into the future with the next generation of communication - "The Computer."
While attending a Coldwell Banker International Business Conference we were introduced to "Top Producer" a new dimension of contact management. Here we said is the vehicle that will set us apart as "Your Perfect Partner" in Real Estate. Wow, letters to just whip out to FSBO's, a follow up program that all we had to do was print it out, stick on a stamp and away we went. Then it dawned on us - we just joined the crowd.
We stepped back, looked outside the box and decided to ask those who are most
important to us: our sellers and buyers. We asked them "what would you like to see in terms of marketing your home and what are you looking for as a buyer when looking for a home?" We checked out the competition and kicked our marketing up several notches. We created our "Home Book" for each of our listings providing information about the home and community. We created individual websites, virtual tours, sponsored community events, provided an interactive website for the community but one thing we never stopped doing was communicating with our sphere and clients on a regular basis.
Communicating with our clients is the singular most important step in creating a response like you just read from one of our clients. We advertise in many venues on the internet, blog, answer our mail within 2 hours, call and/or email our sellers and buyers at least once a week plus provide them with weekly marketing reports and activity reports. This isn't rocket science. People entrust their largest asset to us and expect to hear from us with updates and valuable information on activity and what the market is doing on a consistent basis. Your clients need to know you care before they can care what you know!
If you need to make a move in 2010, please contact us at 512-346-1799 or email us at dillard@reloaustin.com. Also, be sure to visit our websites: www.reloaustin.com and http://www.canyoncreeknews.com.
"Your Perfect Partner"
Comments(68)