Good marketing
A good marketing campaign begins by understanding what you’re trying to achieve. It helps define who you are, what you stand for and how your brand should be perceived.
Marketing helps you shape your image; or that of your product or service.
Marketing analyzes need. Uncovers issues, problems and reveals desire. A successful campaign will define these for the consumer. And position the features, benefits and advantages of their product or service accordingly.
Successful marketing results when all the components are attended too and aligned. The copy. Placement of copy. The font. Colors. The offer. The medium. Everything. And portrays you in a positive light.
A smart marketer tests for results before releasing anything to the public.
Stupendously bad marketing
Based on these things that I hold true, this campaign below, which ended up in my mailbox on Saturday, is a total failure. I searched the alphabet for a grade. I settled on a Z-.
The thrust of this campaign attempts to:
- Promote the joining of an unknown individual to a local brokerage
- Create interest by leveraging a canine with an odd name and a weird spot
- Build personal brand through a list of generalities
- Incur leads through a passive call to action.
Here’s why it fails.
The campaign is confusing. At first glance you might think its an ad for a lost dog. From the neighborhood does little to position it and begs the question what neighborhood? It suggests it’s a boilerplate promotion. Random rather than targeted. Sent to any or every neighborhood.
I have joined Patterson Realty evokes a “who gives a shit” response. It does not address any real issue, need or desire. Unless I’m mistaken no one around my hood is sitting on the edge of their seats monitoring Patterson Realty’s recruits.
The elephant in the room is of course the schnauzer. He’s been infused deeply into Irene’s brand. Her value proposition, her ideals, everything she wants us to understand about her is wrapped up in an animal named Chester. Target did it with Target. RCA Victor did it with Nipper. Irene is neither.
The Patterson Realty brokerage brand has been applied indicating some level of participation and/or association with Irene and Chester. Whatever impression people have of these two will be assigned to Patterson. If that impression is positive, great for Patterson. If it’s negative…
Contacting Irene and Chester is offered through cell or email referencing two of the least favorable ways to communicate with agents today and the ones most often cited as resulting in longest response times.
Her claims are unsubstantiated. In today’s world, when you position yourself as trustworthy, knowledgeable and ethical you better be prepared to sling proof. Stat.
If a proper marketing strategy were in place, the following results might indicate that:
- The agent is brand new
- She is self-absorbed
- She possess minimal qualifications
- She is technologically inept
- She is socially inept
- Too cheap to buy a website
- Does not possess the skill to market a home
- Is not from the neighborhood
- Has a broker who shares in everything listed above
Have I missed anything here?
What I would have her do instead
Here’s a short list.
- Build a nice website on WP and tie a blog to it
- Set up a Twitter account. Search local users. Follow them. Start conversations
- Take photos of the neighborhoods and create profiles for them on Flickr
- Set up a Facebook page for the personal brand
- Set up a Facebook Fan page for the business brand
- Get market data Put context to it. Publish it every week
- Follow Chester’s natural instincts and mark territory digitally. Write on peoples wall. Infuse yourself into conversations. Leave comments.
I’m not blind. This postcard campaign could result in a lead. And reward Irene and Chester with a listing. But that’s a considerably unbalanced trade off for the negative impression this stands to inflict on their emerging brand. It’s a foolhardy marketing choice, born out of laziness, misinformation and misdirection.
I don’t blame Irene. Or Chester. They are obviously new to real estate. Someone advised them to do this. Her broker. The marketing director. Perhaps an area coach. Who are those people?
In consideration of the benefits now being realized by progressive agents who understand good marketing and employ them properly, I stand firm in my conviction. This stuff has got to go.
- Davison
Twitter: 1000wattmarc
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GAH! I *loathe* that kind of stuff. I’m not a Realtor anymore (though I did sleep at a Holiday Inn Express last night), but when I was, the whole postcard thing was shoved down my throat as “THE WAY” to get business. Though the voices who evangelized the practice were those of seasoned veterans, I just couldn’t see it, knowing my own response to mass mail marketing.
General postcards are forgettable enough, but I’ve never understood the urge to use one’s love of furry creatures to promote one’s business. It is as nonsensical as anything there is and never fails to elicit a “WTF???” response from me.
As always, so well articulated.
Although I agree with your points, I’m confused by this statement:
“Contacting Irene and Chester is offered through cell or email referencing two of the least favorable ways to communicate with agents today and the ones most often cited as resulting in longest response times”
What communication channels do you suggest other than email and cell?
I assume you suggest Twitter based on your recommendations…which I believe is an outstanding item for Realtors to add to their marketing as a communication channel (and helps set a brand impression of “techie-ness”). However, I don’t think think the bulk of clients are on twitter yet. I am also assuming you suggest she drives people to her website…but in order to contact her through her website, they would email or call her cell.
What is the implied communication channel you are advocating for clients to reach agents today?
@Stacey Harmon,
I can’t speak for Marc and whether he was alluding to it, but why not offer text messaging? It’s less invasive both incoming and outgoing. IE: people are more likely to say/ask what’s on their mind instead of dancing around the “well, we might be in the market but really not sure” fluff that is often derived from a fear of admitting how serious one is about buying, due to apprehension the agent/salesperson will hound them. Also, it’s quicker and more direct, as an agent may not necessarily take a call while in a meeting/closing, but can quickly fire back a text response.
@Stacy. With regard to Irene and Chesters call to action to get a market analysis, or call with any questions, recipients prefer a web destination to acquire content or random decision support especially given the obvious lead gen mechanism of this campaign.
Marc,
Do you have the analytics on this? This is not what I have found in my tests… My conclusions are that off-line action takers, (people who respond to call to action) GENERALLY (by about a 34% margin) connect off line even when offered an online option, while ON-line action takers, (by a WIDE MARGIN) prefer to stay on-line…
Is your experience different than this?
Marc,
I don’t know why you allow yourself to get so grossly overinvolved when this solicitation was clearly meant for “current resident”. Please pass the card along so “current resident” can form his own opinion.
@Mark. Current Resident. Yeah, I overlooked that one for sure.
@Sean. “Text me” in replace of cell is a nice touch.
@Jim Analytics? CAR and NAR have been testing call back times for years. 48-55 hours is average.
Not sure what tests you’ve done or where I can acquire the published results or how wide and varied your focus group was but considering this particular campaign offered a weak call to action to begin with referencing a free market analysis with no context on what that actually means. If an agent is going to be that opaque, a link to the data on a site or blog recommended.
This is a moot digression anyway. Snail mail spam through poorly designed, poorly executed, non targeted, vacuous postcards is so 3rd quarter 2003.
The point of here is good marketing vs stupid marketing. Given the time and cost it takes to set up a Facebook page, build a Fan page, invite locals, distribute market reports, connect with friends, build a sphere, most real estate advisors would agree this is a far better campaign than what I received this weekend.
Great article, I’ve been *thisclose* to writing a similar article but I could never get past embarrassing some poor clod who simply listened to a “marketing expert” and bought some postcards.
Further, this Realtor will send this postcard campaign to a completely cold list one time, get zero calls (although she did get featured on a pretty cool marketing blog!), and will begin bashing the vendor she selected – likely to write off marketing/advertising until the day she hangs up her license.
I’m actually okay with that!
Love the effort, love the article, slightly embarrassed for the poor girl who, like 99% of real estate pro’s doesn’t know any better.
Thanks for taking the risk. If folks pay attention to the message and look inward, there’s a great lesson to be learned here.
Very interesting one, I agree. I have seen lots of agents that think they are great with marketing because they read some 10 point step by step on the internet. I have also seen agents that SPAM any email address they can get ahold of, and others still who do telemarketing-like cold calling. If you really want an awesome campaign, hire someone who is good at it. If you try to do everything yourself, you are going to get what you pay for.
-Tyler
@Mark,
No need to feel embarrassed. This card is in the public domain having been sent all over the neighborhood so I feel okay about using it for education purposes.
As for the risk, there really is none. We are not beholding to anyone here other than our clients and readers who enjoy and/or find use from our perspective and instruction on things.
There is more coming just like this.
@Mark Jeffers,
You beat me to the punch on that one. All I could think about while reading this email the ‘or current resident’ line. I don’t think I know a single person that reads mail with that line on the envelope/cover.
Marc,
Your proposal on actions to be taken by Irene include only online ventures. Should we understand that you don’t propose any print?
I seem to be observing that online advertising and presence is good for attracting buyers but print, good print, that is, seems to be better at attracting sellers, especially well done campaigns, either by newsletter or post cards or medium to large sized ads in local neighborhood style newspapers. Or maybe I’m just seeing what I want to see.
@Artur – I am not advocating a 100% pull out of print across the board. In some markets a well-executed print ad could work. Possibly.
But this not about print vs online. This is about good marketing vs stupendously bad marketing.
It’s about caring about your brand vs not giving a hoot and slapping together an ad from idea scraps that stuck to the bottom of real estate’s grungy garbage bin.
Look, Sotheby’s puts out stunning print material. If you ever get a chance to view @Properties print material, they are works of art.
They elicit response. This stuff works because they hire real marketing people who study the brand, study the service, study demographics and craft a campaign and copy that has been tested and fires on all triggers.
I know agents can’t spend this kind of money to develop a marketing campaign. So my point is, if the post card vendors you use haven’t either, forget print. Forget canned stuff.
Get smart.
Get social.
Get it?
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Oh, thank you for posting this. It was a vicarious delight to watch you lob grenade after grenade of sound marketing advice at this woman, though I’m sure she’s very nice and doesn’t realize that this use of her adorable little puppy-wuppy isn’t going to generate leads.
Before going the agency route I worked in several internal marketing departments, and I had so many conversations with higher-ups with a maddeningly narrow view of what constituted good marketing. As a result I generated some of the worst, least impactful work the world has ever seen, with terrible fonts, awful design, worse language and little call to action. In fact, if you had gotten Irene and Chester’s postcard around 2002, I might have had to claim responsibility for it.
Let’s be patient with these folks, though. They need to be educated. Start with something small, like, “Hey, why don’t we think about making Chester a little smaller on the page?” and work your way up to Flickr and Facebook. If you’re persistent and persuasive, they’ll come around. (Unless they are a type-A jackass for whom their way is the only way – and there are plenty of those, too.)
Thanks for posting, and keep up the good fight.
Cheers,
Nathan
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I agree with the idea that there’s very little benefit that comes from a postcard such as this one. However, my question to you comes in regards to Direct Mail. Based on my experience, I have found most of the top producers at my company still use direct mail rather frequently. Do you think there’s still a good place for “good marketing” with direct mail? Or is it time to save the stamps?
Josh,
It’s more than “is it time to start saving stamps”. It’s time to stop doing things half baked.
I am sure direct mail still has merit today just as television newspapers, radio and other forms of traditional ads do.
The most successful campaign at any level ones that have been thought through.
Often in real estate campaigns are not thought through. They are stabs in the dark. Success or failure is often poorly evaluated. A top producer may view their dog postcard and the 2 leads they get as a success but never measure the negative branding that campaign creates that prevented 100 other leads from happening or 100 more that would ensue down the road.
Other times, agents might view a great blog post that received no comments as a waste of time missing the longtail benefits and positive effects through viral distribution, good will and WOM.
Good marketing is thinking through the entire campaign. Had Irene did a study and discovered a neighborhood where 60% of the residents were teachers, 80% had Schnauzers and 10% owned computers and all of them had been living in their homes for 30 years, that postcard she sent might have been considered better targeted
That’s good marketing would have determined that.
Bad marketing is just the opposite.
I still think direct mail is as effective a medium as ever – perhaps more so today. The big challenge with marketing is breaking through clutter. Seeing that fewer marketers are leveraging direct mail, one can easily assume that readership rates naturally increase with reduced clutter.
Now, with online/email marketing, the opposite is naturally true.
What’s the answer? Of course, the ideal marketing plan integrates both online and offline components.
The beautiful thing about direct marketing is the ability to measure results, optimize and maximize ROI.
Great discussion.
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A very interesting blog post. What would you say was the most common problem?
@ Yolanda,
The most common breaks down into 3 parts:
a – Agents have no formal marketing and advertising background so they are prone to falling for whatever marketing folly that enters their mind
b – As a result of having no formal background, they end up copying tactics that have been employed by their peers
c- When you trace these tactics all the way back to their origin, you will find as I have, they were invented by the Acme Advertising Agency and Looney Tunes Productions.
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