Friday, March 29, 2024

There are some powerful NEW ways to market yourself and your  business in this industry, but you have to hand it to the savvy agents who also don’t discount the tried and true tools.  Like Just Listed postcards, Just Sold postcards — and of course – the annual Magnetic Calendar Postcard.

Why use Calendar cards? First, People still love them.  It’s the perfect quick-reference for their refrigerator or office cubicle.  So you’re providing a resource people need – and that’s ALWAYS a good thing. And secondly? Your brand stays top-of-mind all year around.  There’s something to be said for having that kind of stick-with-it branding. Every time your customers reach for something in the refrigerator — your face and brand are right there reminding them who to call if they need anything real estate related.

 Here are seven great ways you can use them:

  1. Ask permission to leave a stack of magnetic calendars by registers of your favorite businesses such as area doctors, dentists, restaurants etc.,  for people to take
  2. Send them with a kind holiday note to current customers and the VIPs in your sphere as a simple thank you gift.
  3. Walk your neighborhood farm and offer one to every homeowner you meet and let them know you are available to answer any real estate questions they might have.
  4. Use a jpg of your calendar on your social media platforms and let folks know that you are sending them out and that if they’d like one of their own, to in-box you and you’re happy to send.
  5. These are perfect when you are attending local festivals, job fairs, and business expos.
  6. Lots of agents are hosting impromptu “Ask Me About Real Estate” events at their local coffee shops, simply by visiting the shop, and putting up a sign.  These are great give-aways that people can take with them.
  7. Use them as Open House gifts.

This month, save 10% off any magnetic calendar card with the promo code: ELF10M.

See all thirteen designs here.   

As always, we’re here to help.  Our marketing team is experienced and well versed in what today’s real estate professionals NEED, WANT and will make their lives and jobs EASIER.  If you’re creating your marketing budget for next year and would like some guidance on which tools might work best for you and what that cost would be, call our team today at 866.405.3638 or email us at pmc@prospectsplus.com!

Steadily Getting Ready for a New Year Ahead

by Julie Escobar

I love the Seneca quote, “Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity.” Or Floyd Wickman’s quote, “There’s nothing special about special people it’s what they DO that makes them special.”  What a great time of year for agents.  So many of our friends and clients are deep in preparation for the year ahead. Building marketing strategies, laying out budgets, meeting with mentors, and sharing ideas.  These are the folks that will not only finish out this year strong, but hit the ground running with a passion as we enter a new year and keep right on going to make 2017 their best year ever — long before it even starts.  How cool is that?

For our part, at ProspectsPLUS!, we are doing the same.  From our Master Marketing Schedule, (which you can download directly to your Google, Apple or Outlook calendars), to a line up of great new series, products and services for the year ahead.  We know that agents today need every tool they can get to compete in challenging markets, and we’re passionate about delivering those tools.

Now when you’re making your marketing list and business plan for 2017 (and checking it twice), please let us know how we can help you maximize your goals for the new year.  Here are just some of the things we can deliver:5 ways to build equity

  1. Fresh ideas  – Our Master Marketing Schedule is a strategic marketing plan specifically for real estate professionals which delivers powerful strategies and solutions every month to connect with your sphere, find cash buyers, work with investors, saturate your geographic farm, automate your just listed or just sold postcards, and even gives you some fun ways to stand out and be noticed in your market area.
  2. Brochures, Flyers and Free Reports — We know how important having the right collateral at the right
    time is when you’re prospecting, presenting and closing.  These tools lend authority, put stats at your fingertips, spotlight you as the resource, and give additional credibility.
  3. Postcards — We literally have hundreds and hundreds of postcard templates on our site that cover the gamut with over 22 niche marketing categories to choose from.holiday-cards-16
  4. Newsletters — Done for you newsletters which make a perfect ‘touch’ point for your sphere of influence.  You can
    customize however you want, or just run with as is.  All the copy is ready, timely and perfect for delivering relevant content to your customers.
  5. Market Dominator — Our powerful new system for capturing a 20% market share in a geographic area within a two-year time frame.  There’s nothing like it on the market!
  6. Business Cards — From cool new QR Code cards to branded cards — we have a wide selection at a great price to make sure you have what you need.
  7. Door Hangers — These are perfect for your geographic farm or for area FSBOs and Expireds. Easy to
    order and use and priced for any budget!fsbodoor hangers
  8. Data — Our MapMyMail system is amazing for finding the right list of prospects for what you need.  Investors, first time home buyers, move up market candidates — you name it.

That’s just the tip of the iceberg!  Visit our SPECIALS page today (and bookmark it!) — so you can always keep tabs on the latest promo codes, new marketing tools and fresh insights!  We add anywhere from 5-8 new pieces to our site each and every month!

We offer gift cards as well! Thinking about giving the gift of marketing this year or putting it your wish list? See the holiday specials now!

As always, we’re here to help.  Our marketing team is experienced and well versed in what today’s real estate professionals NEED, WANT and will make their lives and jobs EASIER.  If you’re creating your marketing budget for next year and would like some guidance on which tools might work best for you and what that cost would be, call our team today at 866.405.3638 or email us at pmc@prospectsplus.com!

 

Back to School Real Estate Marketing

Six Lessons for Success 

By Julie Escobar

Back to School Real Estate Marketing

You can almost feel it — that anxiousness, excitement and uncertainty that envelopes us around this time year after year. Tens of millions of children headed back to classes, and even those without little ones can get caught up in the thirst for knowledge, need for more certain schedules and the never-too-old-for allure of new notebooks and supplies. All right, maybe that last one is just me, but you’ll have to admit there is something exciting about creating a clean slate, learning to the best of our abilities and growing as a sales professional as well as a person.

Ready to get started? You’ve had a healthy breakfast, donned your uniform (name badges everyone!) put on your thinking caps and you’re ready to learn – right? Here are the “classes” you must master in this market:

1.   Direct response.  Is your postcard  asking your prospects a question?  Are you raising their awareness?  Are you giving them a reason and means to contact you?  Are you just staying in touch or do you need them back 2to take action?  When you use your marketing to ask the questions that are already in the minds of your prospects, you create a connection that makes people want to reach back out to you.

Even holiday postcards can effectively raise awareness and include a message to not only have a great holiday but to call you should they need you or have questions.   A Just Listed card too – is not just a just listed card.  It’s an invitation to see a new listing, to get a list of other homes like it, answer questions or evaluate another potential seller’s ability to sell their home.  Content cards offer valuable information consumers are looking for and offer an invitation for buyers and sellers to learn more or get free reports. The Neighborhood Update/Free Offer Series, a popular one for agents, offers free reports, valuable consultation, and other items of value to the consumer — as well as neighborhood stats that appeal to buyers and sellers on a hyper-local level.

2.  Consistency.  Again and again and again.  That’s how often you need to “show up” in their mailbox, on autumn cardtheir radar and in the lives of your prospects and customer base.  Our market is too competitive and life is too short for one-shot wonders.  Plus – it’s just too expensive to waste time, effort and of course, marketing dollars on a one-hit mailing.  They don’t work.  Never have, never will.  And in today’s world – people want to see that you’ve got what it takes to stick with it and get results before they want to work with you.  If you give up easily on your marketing – what message does that send to your customer base?  Success comes to those who show up not once but over and over again. With the right message, the right attitude and the right promise of service.  Show them you’ve got what it takes.

3.  List care. Your mailing list is not just “a list.”  It’s not just a spreadsheet of names and addresses.  It represents the lifeblood of your business.  It hosts the people that, if cared for, if catered to, if serviced right, if stayed in touch with, if impacted – will take care of you for the entirety of your career.  In fact, studies show that one in twelve will result in a transaction per year of you consistently and effectively stay in touch.  That said- how many do you want on your list and how committed are you to taking care of them like the  VIPs that they are?

Find a database you’re comfortable with and don’t stop with names, addresses and phone numbers.  Fill in the gaps.  Who is their spouse? What are their kids’ names?  What do they do?  What do they like?  When did they purchase/sell with you last?  What referrals have they sent?  What common interests do you have?  It’s not easy at first – but once you’ve formed the good habit of contacting your list at least three times a year (not all at once, of course!) you’ll start to be able to feed the details into your database.

Don’t lose those lists you get when you purchase a just listed postcard either!  Every time you send a postcard out with us and choose to do a radial or neighborhood search, that list is yours to keep so that you can continue to build your book of business.  Add them to your list and start building a relationship with them as well.  For more ideas of who should be in your sphere of influence – download our free BusinessBASE – and check out the 150 Questions to Help You Build Your Business Relationships.  It’s a great ‘refresher’ course for remembering all the people you SHOULD be building relationships with!

4.  Niche Marketing:  Niche players fare better, earn more, usually are better at time management and can lifestyle selects cardsmore quickly define themselves as an expert in their market area. Why? First, it gives you clarity of purpose, so you’re more efficient in the way you conduct your business, in the manner you build your skill sets and your knowledge base and in how you grow your customer base. You don’t need to be all things to all people. You just need to be the best at reaching out to, teaching and building relationships with that core group or niche. That not only builds your business faster, but it gives you a sense of certainty and confidence that you wouldn’t have if you were trying to work with any and all customer types.

So who do YOU want to work with most?  Seniors?  First time home buyers?  FSBOs? Luxury Markets? Boaters? Golfers? Or maybe outside the box ideas like horse enthusiasts, Harley riders, yacht club members, golfers? Find the fit that’s right for you – then be the BEST for that niche! Now with new mailing list options that include specialty lifestyle interest data, or Nielsen Prizm codes you can easily find more the customers you most want to work with.

That’s not to say you ignore your sphere – just keep enhancing it by building niche markets that help it (and your business) to grow!

10 ways to prospect to schools

By the way – one really time-appropriate niche to start is working with your local school communities. The rewards are great – not just in your bottom line, but the experience you get and connections you create and the very real difference you can make in the lives of students and educators.  Download our Free Report:  10 Ways to Prospects To and Support Your Local PTAs. (You’ll find it close to the bottom of the free reports page.) While you’re there – download a few more great reports to use in your fall marketing!

5.    Leveraging Technology Tools: Leveraging technology and available networking to maximize your potential for lead generation, prospecting and keeping your pipeline of customers filled is crucial to your success.  That means learning how to use Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube and the social networking tools that are available today. It can also mean hosting weekly or monthly conference calls, webinars and workshops for those in your niche, community or sphere of influence. These are great ways to inexpensively and effectively establish and reinforce your niche. Technology allows you to be in many places and in front of many people at one time, which helps you build relationships by using these tools to share information on a regular, consistent basis.

Technology also allows you to put systems in place such as automating the marketing of your listings using systems such as MLSmailings.comwww.GettingListingsSold.com  which can take some of the daily, weekly and monthly marketing chores off your to-do list, freeing you up to spend more time at what you do best – getting face-to-face with customers and prospects.

6.    Work High Priority Activities First. Real estate agents get paid to build relationships and provide exceptional service. There are plenty of ways to be BUSY in this business- but the activities that matter most are the ones that are directly tied to your bottom line.  You need to have absolute focus on scheduling the time to prospect, present, close and build relationships before anything else. That means making and KEEPING that appointment with yourself every day.

The last thing we wanted to cover in our time together is how, as sales professionals, we can create good study habits that will also contribute to our success. Got down time?  In the car, on the treadmill, during your commute?  Make the most of it by ‘plugging in’ to top speakers, trainers and coaches that you can listen to on the go.

Need help? To learn more about how we can help you fuel your business, streamline your systems and take your career to the next level, call our marketing team today at 866.405.3638 or visit our website www.prospectsplus.com.
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Was YOUR Name Drawn?

Wow! A big thanks to all our amazing contestants this past month! We had some terrific entries – and we thank you all so much for sharing your ProspectPLUS.com experiences! We were so excited to extend last month’s contest and throw in an additional $500 prize winners! If your name wasn’t drawn – no worries!  We’ll choose three MORE winners July 5th!  Congratulations everyone!

Our $500 Bonus Winner is: Sandy Schafer Hayford who shared, “Wow! I ordered postcards to mail to a 55+ complex that included recent sales and existing sales. Within two weeks, I had two listings from my mailing and I couldn’t be happier! Because of ProspectsPLUS!, I had the opportunity to work with a client from another state to help him sell his mother’s condo. It was listed and sold within two weeks. I can recommend ProspectPLUS!, their postcards are professionally done and they work. I will use them on a regular basis!”

Our $250 Winner is: Rene Thompson Leaver who shared, “Love ProspectsPLUS!  Plenty of companies provide the same service, but ProspectsPLUS! is the only one that allows me to completely customize my mailings for my market. Others are just template driven with generic copy. I can edit the copy of anything I send to add that personal touch that’s so important to me. Prices are great and I have always received great customer support.”

Our $100 Winner is: Cheryl Moore Woodward‎, who shared, “ProspectsPLUS! has been so helpful to me as a very busy Real Estate Agent and Broker-in-Charge by helping stay on top of my marketing opportunities. I don’t even have to think about what I should do next as every time I have a new listing or sell a listing, they prompt me to let the neighbors know. I am a small operation and do not have the luxury of a corporate franchise operation with huge marketing dollars but with ProspectsPLUS!, I can run with the big dogs! Thanks!”

‎Our $50 Winner is: Amanda Callahan‎, who shared, “I LOVE ProspectsPLUS! As a busy Realtor, they always come through for me. When I take a listing, they get that “Just Listed” card in the mail poste haste. It’s in the hands of the surrounding homes in time for the first open house. I’ve had people walk into my open house and actually tell me that is what got them there.”

Thank you to everyone who entered! Ready to throw your hat in the ring? It’s easy!  Leave your review of your ProspectsPLUS.com product or service on our Google+ Page or our Facebook Page today!  We’ll give away a total of $400 more in ProspectsPLUS! gift cards!  Next drawing is July 5th!

We’d also like to invite you to join us in our goal to raise $50,000 for St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital®! We are matching every donation this year, dollar-for-dollar! Learn more at: blog.prospectsplus.com/st-jude

And if you’re in the mood to see what’s NEW – head over to our Specials Page and see all the new marketing tools for June and get your 10% savings promo codes!