Have you ever spent hundreds of dollars and countless hours on an ad or mailing program, only to stare at your silent phone?

If so, you’re not alone. Most agents spend an enormous amount of time learning about “real estate”, but very little learning about the “elements” that turn your advertising (or any marketing or prospecting efforts) from a “sunk cost” to a true “money-maker”.

The truth about real estate success is this: Even the most competent and knowledgeable agent will go broke without a steady, consistent stream of qualified, motivated buyers and sellers.

So while knowledge about real estate is essential to being a competent agent, it’s not going to write your ticket to success. You also need to develop prospecting and marketing skills designed to create an on-going flow of leads and clients.

Money-making marketing isn’t difficult if you know a few basics. In fact, all successful marketing has three essential components. I call them…

The Three “M’s” of Marketing Success

The next time you set-out to create a successful ad, post card, or even if you decide to cold prospect (or the next time you’re perplexed as to why your wonderful promotion didn’t work), think about these three ingredients…

#1: Select the Right MARKET

It sounds rather obvious, but most agents fail with their marketing right here – they fail to target the “hungry crowd“… people who are “right now” facing a problem about real estate, and are motivated and interested in what you may be offering.

What do I mean by “market”?

A “market” is a group of people who share a common demographic (statistical description, such as location, occupation, income, etc.) or psychographic (belief wiring). Your goal is to select a market that has an immediate, pressing desire for your services.

Want an example?

About 6 months ago an agent called me because she had been farming a “high-end” subdivision for over 9 months, and her efforts produced zero calls or listings. When I asked her to hop on her trusty MLS system and take a look at the market, she noticed that only 2 homes had sold in the entire area over the past year!

She had been fishing in an empty pond.

I then told her to select 5 decent markets in her area based on casual knowledge, and using here MLS system analyze each market for # of homes sold, average sales time, # of dominant agents in the market and a few other statistics.

By comparing 5 markets based on these criteria, all of a sudden one of the areas stuck out as a higher-potential market than the others – an area with lots of activity, high turnover, short sales times, fewer dominant agents, etc. Within 30 days working these markets she had her first listing, and is now making a small fortune from her farming efforts.

So how do you find hot markets? How do you find the well-stocked ponds that will produce consistent business for you, year-in and year-out?

The secret is to pay attention to where the dominant activity exists for the type of homes you specialize in selling.

If you’re a luxury market specialist, do your homework and locate luxury areas with better activity than others. If resort properties or horse properties are your specialty, then analyze the best resort or horse property subdivisions to target.

If you’re looking for buyers, examine your market for segments where the highest volume of buyers exist (get cozy with your local board and you can find lots of market data). Between your MLS and a trusty Excel spreadsheet, the answers are right at your fingertips.

But you want to know the one “market” that will out-perform anything else as much as 16 to 1? It’s your “Power List”…your list of past clients, friends, family and acquaintances.

If you’re interested in building a booming “Power List” business click here to learn more.

To sum up this first “M”… go where the pond is stocked from the beginning, and your odds of success will be much greater when you cast your line.

Let’s move on to the second “M”…

#2: Select the Right MEDIUM

Once you’ve found your market(s), the next question you should ask yourself is: “Where does my target market get information that’s important to them?”

The secret is to tap into the lines of communication and information that your market already finds credible and helpful.

Most agents are seduced into finding mediums (magazines, newspapers, etc.) based on the highest circulation, but that’s a BIG mistake because you’re going to pay for exposure to people who have no interest in your services – it’s called “waste circulation” and it’s very costly.

Find a medium that reaches your targeted prospect and only your targeted prospect.

You might choose to use direct mail after performing an analysis like the example above. You might locate a homeowner newsletter to contribute a helpful article about buying or selling in the area. Or you might find a bedroom newspaper that specifically targets the area you farm.

Either way, the “secret” to success is in finding well-targeted, small ways to reach your prospect and only your prospect. That’s because every dollar (and minute) counts when you’re prospecting for leads and clients.

The more you target by selecting the right medium for your promotions, the more money you make.

And the final “M” is this…

#3: Create the Right MESSAGE

All of your advertising, mailings or any other marketing should have one and only one objective: Motivate qualified buyer and seller prospects to CALL YOU or hire your services!

If they don’t call or hire you, you’ve wasted your money.

But most agents believe that, if they put up their photo with a “call me for more information” they’ve done the job. Wrong!

You will find volumes of books and courses about direct response marketing and ways to motivate prospects to call you, but here’s a quick 4-point checklist that will almost instantly improve the success of all your marketing.

• Capture Attention with a Benefit-Rich Headline and Lead. Your headline is your “ad” for your ad or letter or even your listing presentation – no it’s not your name or your big company logo. It’s the specific call-out message that causes your reader or listener to stop and take notice, just like a headline in a newspaper article works. Your “lead” is what you say in the first 5 seconds that captures the attention of your reader and motivates them to read on.
• Stimulate Interest by Harmonizing with Your Prospect. How do you get people interested in you? By talking about the problems they face and the desires they seek. It’s not about you; it’s about them! When you connect with your prospect and empathize with their situation (their immediate fears and desires), you instantly capture their interest and open their minds to be willing to listen to your solutions.
• Create Desire by Matching Your Services Perfectly to Their Fears and Desires. When you demonstrate how your services solve problems or deliver benefits for your prospects and clients better than any other option – in a way that’s risk-free for them – you automatically make yourself a stand-out choice for their business. The art of persuasion is simply matching your solution perfectly to the problems and desires your prospect faces.
• Stimulate Action with an Irresistible Offer and Call to Action. Remember this: No one will call you without a self-serving, almost irresistible reason for calling. So you need to give prospects reasons to call. For lead generation, offer special reports, preferred lists of homes and other “magnets” that will motivate people to seek you out. When closing a listing presentation, list out all the “things” you will DO for them, and make an offer that will have them saying, “we’d have to be fools to pass this up!” If you don’t include an offer, combined with an urgent call to action, chances are your prospects are going to procrastinate. And procrastination in this business means an empty checkbook!

One final note… these three “M’s” of marketing success are not magic bullet solutions.

It’s up to you to take action and consistently apply them in your marketing. Once you really understand each of these ingredients and USE them, you’ll have a reliable way of creating promotions that work instead of just a fizzle of response.

If you want your promotions to bring you a steady stream of commissions and clients, go and review every promotion you have right now against each of these ingredients of successful marketing.

You’ll be glad you did!

Today you’re going to learn three things:

1. A great way to generate quick commissions (and sell your listings faster) with a great buyer marketing strategy,
2. How to create a “Power List” that brings you consistent clients year after year, and…
3. How to understand your Return on Investment with your marketing.

So let’s get started…

PROFIT MULTIPLIER #1: New Agent? Just Relocated? Need to Generate Commissions FAST?

First, find an agent with several active listings. Tell them you have a number of “buyer” marketing strategies that will sell their listings in a fraction of the average market time. Offer to implement the 4 “buyer magnet” systems I taught you from this real estate marketing article for EACH of their listings. You manage everything for the agent so they’re out $0 and no time.

Second, implement the strategies, agree to take the buyer calls and qualify the leads, and sell them a home. Work out a commission split, and you’ve now got a marketing system working to bring you buyers, and even a few great listings.

Plus, you’ll look like a marketing wizard in your office and agent community (not to mention you’ll automatically be building your own “Power List” for increased referrals, word of mouth and repeat business).

If the listing agent refuses your offer (some people will step over dollars to pick up dimes!), move on to another agent who’s got some business sense.

Remember, the strategies from this real estate marketing article will also help sell your own listings faster by acting as active “buyer magnets”.

PROFIT MULTIPLIER #2: Create a “Power List” and Make Them Your Primary Market

You already know that the NAR research says 74% of all real estate transactions occur from a relationship – they know the agent or are referred from a trusted source.

Here’s something you don’t know: If you built a “Power List” (database of personal contacts) with 300 people (homeowners), and the average home ownership period is, for example 7 years (nationally it’s 5.5 years), then 42 of those people will buy or sell every year – good market or lousy market.

Holy cow!  Is this getting your attention?

600 people on your database and it’s 84 transactions every year from that list. 900 people and it’s 128 deals a year – and so on. And don’t forget, that doesn’t include referrals they could send you – it’s just the number of direct transactions that come from that group.

Now hold on. Before you start thinking you just hit “easy street”, there’s something you need to understand. These are not just “random” people. I’m talking about people who know you or know OF you.

The higher the “quality” of contact on your list (i.e. the better they know you), the more responsive they’ll be to your regular contact. This means the more inclined they’ll be to think of YOU FIRST when they think real estate.

I call this your Personal Market Share™…

So the “operative” question is: WHO will get all those deals?

ANSWER: The agent with the highest Personal Market Share™.

The one who’s stayed in contact (at least once a month, every month), deepened the relationship, provided on-going value to their list, and demonstrated they’re a true professional committed to the relationship for the long haul and worthy of the client’s business over any other agent.

Are you willing to become that agent…the one who captures 74% of all transactions, holds such a high personal market share they generate huge income regardless of market conditions?

You are?  OK, good because next I’ll show you…

How To Build Your “Power List”

Building a Power List is easy if you put your mind to it.  Here’s the best way to go about it…

STEP 1: Start with all the people you know and create what I call the “Big List”.

STEP 2: Put every new and old client on the list.

STEP 3: Put leads you generate on your list.  Many successful agents make it a point to add 2 people a day, and soon have 500 contacts their first year (and got 10 to 20 deals just by putting people on the list).

STEP 4: Also, the other parties to any transactions you complete go on the list (hint: their agent will forget about them, so they’ll easily be yours when they buy or sell again).

STEP 5: Create “strategic alliances” with professionals who have clients that could be yours and get a “host endorsement” of your services: accountants, insurance brokers, etc. Consider reciprocating by introducing them to your clients as well. The credibility of the existing relationship is transferred to the endorsed person.

Final note: purge your list every 6 months to remove lower quality people. Within 12 to 24 months you’ll have a small, highly motivated group of people sending you consistent business month-in and month-out – something I call building “Critical Mass™” in your business (see Step 3 of the 3-Steps system). That’s what I mean by “Personal Market Share”.

How Often Do You Contact Your “Power List” ?

Now that you’ve create a “Power List” you must plan on monthly contact to make any inroads. Commit to monthly or don’t even start.

The Direct Marketing Association reports that the optimum contact time is every 21 days. There have also been studies out there that say for every month you forget about your Power List, you lose 10% of them – another reason for monthly contact.

Finally, the NAR reports that the “average” contact program takes between 8 and 12 months to “start” working.  (Side note:  We’ve cut that time in half with Service For Life!^®, but even if it takes 10 months to start the “market share engine” producing, that’s still a great deal, considering most agents never get it going).

PROFIT MULTIPLIER #3: Know Your Return on Investment

If you understand where you get the most return for your marketing dollar… you’ll know exactly what to invest in to increase your income.  Sounds pretty simple, but most agents don’t know how to track their numbers.

Here’s how to understand how well your monthly marketing system is working for you… and I’ll use a simple example.

Let’s say you want to send 300 Service For Life!^® issues out each month to your Power List. That’s going to cost you about $0.91 to $1.29 per issue (let’s call it $1.20 because that’s on the higher end and will make the math easier). So you’ll spend about $360 a month for the mailing, including having the newsletter written for you.

That means you’re investing about $4,320 every year to contact 300 people 12 times each, or 3,600 contacts. Now, I know that might sound like a lot of money, but let’s get some perspective here.

Let’s run some quick numbers…

Of those 300 people, you know statistically that about 42 transactions will come from them (300 divided by 7 years average home ownership period = 42 transactions EVERY year).

If the average home price is $200,000, that gives you a co-broker commission of $6,000.  Subtract out home marketing expenses and a broker split, and you’ll probably net about $4,500 from that commission.

Does it make sense to mail to your Power List every month?

Well, look at it this way: If you get only ONE of those 42 transactions, you’ve broken-even ($4,500 commission against $4,320 to send for a year).

But after all that marketing, do you really think all you’ll get is a ONE measly commission out of 42 transactions?

Here’s what’s more likely to happen…

First, ask yourself: Who will generally get the lion’s share of those 42 transactions? The agent who’s cold prospecting over dinner time or pestering people in the grocery store line, OR the agent who’s demonstrated their competency, brought great value, created a family-like relationship, and “been there” when it was time to buy or sell?

Are you getting a hint?

I have agents with small databases of 300 “quality” people who “net” more than $300,000 per year using that very system (and it’s their only marketing).

That’s a whole lot more than just one transaction out of 42.

Problem is, most agents quit before they get any traction – “instant gratification” takes priority over sound strategy. It’s a shame, but that’s good news for agents who “get it”.

When you consider the ROI in your marketing, you now have a benchmark to know when it’s profitable and/or unprofitable for you.

To learn more about developing and harvesting endless commissions from your Power List, go here.

Would you like to be seen as “the” authority for real estate in your local market?

Kathy Toth, a Top Agent from Michigan, figured out a brilliant way to get instant credibility and demonstrate her value to potential clients.

She uses a simple Flip video camera to interview local leaders and experts (including herself) in her market of Ann Arbor.

Then, she promotes these videos that cleverly position her as a credible expert in real estate and “in the know” about current market conditions.

Here’s her video explaining what she does, and below I’ll outline some ways to use these videos to get more business…

Couldn’t you use the same strategy to a get massive amount of positive community exposure in your local market? OK, here are…

4 ways to use video interviews to make yourself a
“Household Name” in your community…

STRATEGY #1: Interview a few city government officials on the current state of your local real estate market.

Publish the video on your blog or website for visitors to see you’re informed about local market conditions.

TIP: Kathy told me she gets visitors to her website from monthly postcard mailings and regular email updates she sends to her contact list.  People also forward along these videos to friends, which is a great viral marketing strategy to reach new prospects.

STRATEGY #2: Have someone interview YOU on how to handle a specific area of the real estate transaction process.

You’re the expert. Share some of your knowledge about what buyers or sellers will experience (specifically, how you’ll help them and make their lives easier by communicating what you’ll do for them).

Plus, you can make videos about specific subdivisions or areas of your market that you serve. This positions you as the expert in that area and differentiates your services from agents trying to sell to the whole market.

TIP: Kathy says she puts “area-specific” videos on her website. She gets visitors to these videos on her site using paid ads on Google’s pay-per-click (PPC) network, and free traffic from a high search ranking (because she targets specific keyword phrases related to this area of her market).

STRATEGY #3: Interview a handful of great service providers. Put the videos online…or better yet, put multiple videos on a DVD. Mail the DVD to your “Power List” as a special gift. Then tell them that you’ve found some really great people who can help them if they’re in need of specific services.

BIG TIP: Ask each of the service providers to reciprocate the endorsement and mail a DVD of you talking about real estate to their contacts (along with an endorsement letter from the service provider). This is called a “strategic alliance” and you can read more about it in this past article.

STRATEGY #4: Anytime there’s a local event, make a quick video, put it online, and email your contact list about an event happening around town.

The people on your list will appreciate the heads up about local event, and you can ask the event organizer to put a link to your website or put a video of you on their site.

TIP: Kathy shares videos with the Chamber of Commerce web site in her area. This is a great way to get qualified, relocation buyers going from a chamber site directly to your real estate site.

Are you starting to see how many ways you can leverage these videos in to huge exposure for yourself?

There are dozens of ways to create and promote these videos to make yourself a stand-out professional in the eyes of your community.

Plus, I didn’t even mention an obvious strategy of making video testimonials that give prospects proof of your value.

Why is this video strategy so effective?

Because this strategy does TWO things:

1. It demonstrates your knowledge and expertise.

Think about the perspective of a potential client, and ask yourself:
Would you work with an agent that says they know how to help?

Or, would you rather work with someone who demonstrates they can help you (and shows that they know specific people who can assist you with specific needs for your home)?

And here’s the second reason…

2. The trust and credibility from that local leaders and experts is transferred to you because you have a connection with these local superstars. This is very, very powerful.

Start making these videos and I know you’ll become a stand out agent, and improve your income.

Click the link below to see more EXAMPLE VIDEOS
on Kathy’s website…

[Ed Note: If you want a chance to win a Flip Video Camera for FREE, submit your best marketing idea to our community by clicking here.]

In a previous article, I talked about how “multi-sequence” mailings have a higher ROI than one-shot mailings.

If you want an easy way to triple the effectiveness of your marketing efforts, it’s your lucky day, because today I’m going to share why multi-sequence mailings are the real “secret” to finally make your marketing work.

Now before you dismiss this as hype… I’ve proven this system myself with 4, multi-million dollar companies including a successful real estate development and brokerage company.

So take two minutes to read this profit-multiplying article on how to create a “Multi-Sequence Farming System”…

When you decide to farm, you may send out one of the following farming pieces to a defined area:

• a post card
• a letter
• a flyer
• an email

And in most cases, you send it only once, get little to no response and think it’s money flushed down the drain.

What if you could increase the response by sending follow-up mailing to the same area?

Here are some eye-opening numbers…

If you can improve your conversion rate by just 4% – instead of converting 1 out of 50 prospects you now convert 3 out of 50 – your income could TRIPLE.

With actual numbers… let’s say your average commission is $4,000, and if you mail to 500 prospects, and only convert 2% (a common response for a direct mail piece).  You would get 10 clients from this mailing, and at $4,000 each, you’ll make $40,000.

But what if you could raise your conversion rate from 2% to 6%?  You would now have 30 clients, and at $4,000 each, you’ll make…

$120,000 From The SAME List!

How do you do that?

STEP 1:  get a great mailing list.  When farming, narrow your efforts to a focused area in your community where there is 1) enough turnover in home sales and 2) fewer “dominant” agents.  You can use your computer and MLS data to research this in under an hour.

STEP 2: use “Multi-Sequence” Marketing that I teach in Step 1 of our 3-Steps System and that I explain below.

This type of marketing uses a SERIES of letters, post cards, or emails  sent over a short time period which dramatically increases response.

How To Create A Multi-Sequence Farming System…

Contact/Mailing #1: Should be a promotion sent to a specific prospect with a specific offer (or offers) about something important to them.

Remember to test your farming pieces on a smaller list before ramping up your efforts to a large group.  You want to know if the offer on the marketing pieces works before spending money to farm hundreds or thousands of prospects.

Here’s an example #1 letter for farming a specific area (click image to download):

Contact/Mailing #2: Should be a follow-up (a “SECOND NOTICE”) that is sent about 7 to 10 days after the first contact, referencing that first contact in the introduction, and continuing the offer.

Here’s an example #2 letter for farming a specific area (click image to download):

Contact/Mailing #3: Should be a follow-up (a “FINAL NOTICE”) that is sent about 5 to 7 days after sending the second notice, and making a stronger appeal for your offer.  At this point you should emphasize an expiration date, or motivate action through some type of urgency (such as a limited quantity of free reports if that is your offer).

Here’s an example #3 letter for farming a specific area (click image to download):

You can continue this process as long as it is profitable for you, but years and years of marketing have proven the “Multi-Sequence” marketing strategy to be very, very profitable.

The letters I provided here should give you an idea on how to create your own farming campaign – only this time, you’ll start making money!

[Ed note:  These letters include specific OFFERS for a reader to take action and call you.  You can create your own "Home Audit" template and "Special Report", or get the ones included with the “The Million Dollar Agent Marketing Toolkit”™.  These resources come as bonuses along with a powerful collection of pre-written letters you can use in your practice.  Click here to learn more...]