Marketing will make or break your business. Bad marketing or the wrong marketing at the wrong time can cost you tens of thousands of dollars. While a well thought out marketing can propel your business into a new stratusphere of success.
Connect with Your Purpose
Creating a successful marketing plan is an essential part of running any business but where to begin? Having a connection with your purpose will insure that you are still engaged many years from now. Don’t build a Marketing Plan around a Golf Course community of you don’t LOVE golf! Think about what you love, or love to do, so much that you can talk about for hours on end. Build your Marketing Plan around this passion.
How Much do I Spend on Marketing?
One of the most common mistakes real estate agents make is to spend too much on marketing before income is actually coming in. Think of your Marketing Budget as 10-15% of your revenue, or income from selling real estate. If your business is brand new you may have little to no revenue coming in. Therefore, your revenue would be zero! If this is the case for you begin by focusing on free marketing opportunities. Yes Free! Social Media, Craigslist, Door Knocking, and Open Houses cost little to no money.
As your business grows you will have more money to go towards marketing. Focus first on marketing that will produce measurable results before spending money on marketing that focuses on your brand. Measurable results meaning when you spend the money you are likely to generate a lead or client. This includes, direct response marketing, google and social ads, and Zillow (I prefer Zillow areas will low cost per lead). Remember your budget is still 10-15% of your previous 12 months revenue. It is easy to get caught up in the “If I spend it they will come” mindset.
When your real estate business begins to produce consistent income year over year you can open your pocket book to opportunities to your Brand Awareness Campaign.
You can download a Marketing Budget template BELOW.
Measure Your Results and Adjust
You have heard it a thousand times… “You can’t manage, what you don’t measure”. This is also true with marketing. ALL marketing dollars must be held accountable to returning to the business what the original intention was. If you are spending twenty five dollars a week on Facebook Ads and your expectation is that it would provide 4-5 leads a week and at least six closings the first year. Then you must track the actual results and compare them with your expectations. If the results are better, then increase your budget for Facebook Ads. If the results are less, adjust the plan. If the results are poor, cancel the ads.