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I don't have a heavy marketing budget, but I think farming has been the most effective for me in terms of number of leads and the cost associated with it.

I remember being trained that postcards were the way to go when in fact times had already changed over to the internate. It is all on the internate. Now it is a matter of finding the right combination of which site will take your name to the top of the google search or any other search any one is using.

I am a heavy marketer, I hit over a thousand homes every 3 weeks, I have have 12 different websites and blogs, I door knock, I through parties, I sponsor events .....

Jim,  I can agree with Susan. My office is still pushing postcards an geographic farming. This may work for some, but the majority of my customers come from the Internet.

• Greatest ROI Internet
• Percentage 85-90 percent
• yes, very little cost during summer, some in winter
• No, still have wide swings which is acceptable for market
• Still working to target intended viewers.

Jim- Our most effective marketing tools for promoting ourselves and our services is our postcards. We do the traditional "farming" once a month. We send out approx. 1,400 postcards a month. They are the traditional "recipe cards" with a clever saying that incorporates real estate with the recipe. For example....the Coffee Brownie Cheesecake..the catchy saying is..Perk up your dessert with this unique and tasty recipe. Consider moving? We have ideas that can perk up your home sale. It took about 12 months to start seeing results but now we would never give it up. As far as marketing our homes....Our RE/MAX site is probably our best source. Our RE/MAX site is provided to each agent in our region (RE/MAX Northern Illinois). We actually have 3 sites....I have an individual one, Rick has an individual one and than we have a "team site". That is the one we promote. Any leads that get directed to our individual sites get forwarded to our team site. We pay $30/month for each agent site (our team site has no cost). We capture leads. Consumers can do custom searches. They can save searches and have the system email them with new homes that come on the market. With registration, the consumer has access to our MLS (at current time 148,000 active listings). Those have been our best marketing tools with the best returns on our investments. Not sure if all RE/MAX regions provide the same kind of website services. We are starting to see our slide show/virtual tours starting to make a difference too. They cost a lot less than the traditional virtual tour and you can put them on all your listings instead of selecting particular ones. The slide shows are simple to do and you have complete control over them. We have only been doing them since the beginning of the year so we don't have enough info to comment accurately on that.

Our logo also gets us great recognition. We get comments from people all the time that we are the "Hands On" people. 

 

As always....good post! You always make us want to comment!

I'm still trying to figure this out......I'm very interested in the comments you receive!

 

Definitly my website.  My current site is set up mainly for buyers and I am in the process of adding an additonal site which I am emphasizing for listings. 

I decided to try a postcard farm area but the jury is still out on that one.  We are only 3 months in to it and nothing yet but I will give it a year. 

I also do an e-newletter once a month and send out refrigerator calendars.  I have always liked to do a lot of different types of advertising; that way I don't have all my eggs in one basket.  That said the internet is still the biggest basket for me.

I think my marketing money is best spent sending thank you cards and hand written notes to former and prospective clients! 

The internet website is my number one advetising dollars. I have good organic placement with two sites. One of the site I use ad words from google and hit smaller targets. Its like farming to groups of people that are looking on-line. Its fun to experiment to see where they come from.

Jim it's split between the internet and my SOI - extensive mailings and connections with top 150.

I'm getting a really big bang for my advertising buck out of the internet right now.  Print advertising doesn't seem to be very cost effective.

Fran

My 2 most effective pieces or marketing are:

1. I have large signs at two of the best locations on the two biggest shopping centers in our town.
2. I have a small black and white ad in the community newspaper.

I do many other things, but those two have made if not the most recognized agent in our community, definitely in the top 2 or 3.

Jim, I only do Print ad's when the house is OPEN.

I do all internet, 4 of my own sites. Plus a Pay Per Click campaign that keeps the leads coming in. I try to be in Directories etc, every portal that a consumer would find on the net.

I send out new listings, via the VFlyer.com program, it is excellent. And I use homecaster from my web site to announce new listings. All leads are put in a drip campaign so they hear from me on a regular basis.

Client parties work great too, for you past clients and sphere of influence.

I don't do any postal mailings.

 

Wow, I am surprised at the response here.  I used to do nothing but postcards, but in the mid to late 90's shifted to the Internet.  Until the Internet, postcards were my mainstay.  I designed all my own and they were extremely effective.  When I made the switch tot he Internet I was able to cut my budget dramatically and double and tripled my earnings at the same time.  That made a major believer out of me.  I guess in different markets traditional marketing works.  What I found was as the markets became more saturated with other agents, the print media became less effective and a lot more costly.  The Internet allowed us to be found again.  We currently live in Atlanta, so it remains a destination town for many.  Unlike print media which would be limited to our local markets...they can easily find us on the Internet.  We've closed many buyers from Europe, Asia, and out of state that found our services on our website.

BTW...I beleive we cut our marketing budget from about 35K a year to about $9K / Year.

Most advertising now is the website from RE/MAX, Craigslist, Googlebase and our other websites.  By far,ey pay off more than any newspaper advertising we can do now.  I write lots of notes, I'm cutting our marketing dollars down this year to around $10,000.  The majority of my business is repeat clients and out of state.  The internet site allows us to sell at least 2 more homes a month.

Jim:  I have already posted but your comment gave me food for thought.  For me the internet has allowed me to open up my own brokerage.  I have a source of leads without a lot of overhead.

I have a reasonable internet presence. However, it delivers 17% of my business. It was 12% then I set up four pointer URLs and it went up a little. My biggest market share comes from direct referral 34% and repeat business 26%. To put that in context, I am by myself except for a part timer (my wife) that works about 10 hrs per week. So far I have 35 sides closed. Four pendings for July, one for August and two for Sept.

Kay the Internet has been a blessing in our life.  OVer 85% of our business comes from the Internet each year.

Marchel  in many ways it has allowed us the same.  A lot of our business is now referring our Internet referrals tot he tune of 20K some months.

Perrin that is excellent! You are on fire!

We are so inept when it comes to linking our website up.  We have done recipe post cards.  It took about 6 months for anyone to call.  We have some listings from them.  We don't do print anymore - to expensive and no response.  We do one of the real estate magazines but we are thinking of switching to the northeast.  We are getting ready to do a billboard. 

Marketing dollars are best spent on "back end marketing" -clients and Database people who you know or have already sold to. I print my own monthly newsletter as well that goes to a farm area as well. 

I also market my properties to other agents fairly heavily.

 

 

 

Hello Jim,

I am a Farmer girl. I have been Consistently geographic framing for over 27 years. I have one farm of 200 condos that is my major money maker. Lately my Internet marketing is also taking off thanks to AR.

Happy Summer,

A thread I seem to be picking up on... if this doesn't work try that...not so. With advertising you need to know what and who you are going after. Otherwise you are probably pouring good money after bad. Also from reading the above you can see some approaches work in one area but not in another. It all has to do with the population and demographic you are dealing with. Also where your buyers come from. Advertising has to be consistant and related. Good example... a few years back when Xerox was having troubles they had a very heavy presence on TV. Only problem was they were running three ads but they were all different. The message was they don't know who they are...

I probably spend 1-2 hours a day on some type of promotion effort. That is every day. Notes. phone calls, visits, shmoozing, print layouts etc. My budget isn't huge but it is focused and directed. I also feel that I don't know it all so I am willing to go outside my office and local media for advice.

 

I think this is a fantastic thread. We use several methods including print, direct mail, and Internet. I think the Internet is the way of the future but I'm not ready to depend solely on it. I wonder if this thread is representative of the average user out there since you have to be on the Internet to get here! However, I see some realy progressive thinkers...

I think the Internet still has a more immediate return on my marketing dollar.  I can receive 50 leads a day.