Four Marketing Secrets Turn Connections into Gold
By Ken Lizotte
Beyond the usual blah-blah marketing advice of putting up a website,
printing out a stack of business cards and designing a lavish four-color
brochure, exists four powerful marketing techniques that are so
little-used they can for all practical purposes be labeled "secret." Yet
those who regularly practice them consistently reap such benefits that
they soon wonder how marketing could be conducted any other way.
Here are the four "secrets" which when practiced over a period of time
will catapult your real estate investment business to new levels of
visibility and profit:
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Stay connected. If your objective when meeting new people is to
merely pass out as many business cards as possible, but you follow this
up with virtually no additional contact, such time spent will be wasted.
Instead, seek out qualitative new connections at an event or meeting,
enjoy the interactions that develop, and then...implement effective ways
to stay connected.
Send a "nice-to-have-met-you" e-mail to your new contacts the very next
day, telling them you're putting them on your e-list. Ask them to do the
same. Invite like minded individuals out to "grab a cup of coffee," to
chat about your respective investment approaches. Successful investors
know that real estate is a "team sport," and finding ways to keep new
connections alive over time allows them to fall into such productive
categories as ally, partner, opportunity-finder or referral source.
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Use e-mails strategically. As you plug your new connections onto your
e-list, develop ideas that remind them who you are, what you're all
about, what kind of investments or opportunities you're seeking... and
that you're still around! The idea is to use e-mail to "give away
value," an inexpensive strategy which will keep you connected as an
investor.
Try sending an e-newsletter quarterly or monthly, or send them a brief
"alert" of a new law or regulation. Send an announcement of an award you
just won or an article you've written and published. Maybe even let your
e-list know about a great deal you've just made! If you don't take such
initiatives, your connections will soon (and easily) forget about you.
Keep thinking up newsy tidbits to report to them and this will not
happen.
* Next 37 17 investors only!
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Publish articles! One powerful marketing excuse for staying connected
is to write and publish articles, making them available for free to
those on your e-list. Published articles afford three large benefits: a)
they help you flesh out and organize your own ideas; b) they promote to
the reader some core expertise or knowledge or message that illustrates
why you are worth doing business with; c) they elevate your professional
credibility because a third-party entity (publication) has deemed your
ideas worthy of publication. Announcing a published article to your
e-list thus reaps multiple rewards.
Remember that just as you have many choices regarding which
professionals to work with, so too do your colleagues. New deals and
opportunities arise quickly, and you want to be on everyone's short list
as somebody worth doing business with. Particularly if you're a new
investor, it's in your best interest to quickly develop a reputation as
a capable professional. Getting published is an efficient way to help
this happen.
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Speak to or get active in targeted groups. The impact of public
speaking or volunteer involvement brings us full circle in insuring that
our four secrets transform your e-list into connections that endure.
Communicating your ideas to an audience of targeted individuals (banking
groups? homeowners?) inevitably causes at least a few in your audience
to want to know more about you or to do business with you. Make sure you
collect business cards from your audience of course, so that you can
plunk them too on your e-list! Something often appreciated by an
audience is an offer to e-mail them notes of your talk so that they can
later review more fully what you have had to say.
And by getting actively involved in an organization, you accomplish the
same thing: your industry colleagues get to know you, they begin to
trust you and to appreciate your experience and know-how, and many soon
see you and you alone as the go-to guy/gal to help them get a deal in
place. Of course, don't forget in these more intimate settings to also
send "nice-to-meet-you" e-mails the next day (see secret #1), then get
these individuals too on your e-list. In this way, you keep the whole
loop humming along nicely.
Heed these four secrets and you will turn the contacts you meet into
marketing gold. New opportunities will slide along more smoothly with
your colleagues, partners, buyers and sellers, all of whom will remember
you and be excited to do business. They have now gotten to know you, to
trust you and to value your expertise and professionalism, so they are
ready to begin.
Try this method for the next few months and watch your business
development efforts and attitudes shift radically, and yield
surprisingly positive results. From that point on, you'll never go back
to your old ways again.
Ken Lizotte CMC is Chief Imaginative Officer (CIO) of emerson consulting
group inc., a Concord, Massachusetts firm that transforms entrepreneurs
and other business leaders into "thoughtleaders." Contact him at
ken@thoughtleading.com
or 978-371-442.
P.S. See Ken Lizotte live, as he helps us kick off our first "Turning
the Key" session, Thursday, April 6th, with his presentation,
"Communicating Effectively With The Homeowner."
Read more or register online.
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