If you’re sick of cold calling, door knocking, sticking your face on bus benches and other traditional lead generation methods, it’s time to rethink your approach to sales and marketing. This transactional approach is impersonal by its very nature. Instead of targeting your marketing to people that you know and like, you’re marketing to everyone, which leads to unreliable results.
When you work by referral, your clients are the focus of your marketing. Not only do you want them to keep coming back to you for their real estate needs; you want them to refer you to their family and friends. That way, you’ll continue to build a database of people that you enjoy working with!
Here are a few things a real estate referral marketing system will do for you:
Reinforce Your Skills and Expertise While Increasing Your Database
Good marketing materials should not only build your brand, but provide your clients with value. Consumers today are sales-savvy—they can spot a pitch from a mile away. Many of them, especially younger ones, never want to feel like you’re selling to them.
By providing value and consistently sending marketing materials each month, you’re reinforcing your knowledge and expertise in the field, as well as your trustworthiness as a businessperson. Your clients know that they can rely on you to help them navigate the buying and selling processes, and that you see them as more than a commission check.Â
Know Who to Connect With
As your database grows, it becomes more and more difficult to spend time with everyone in it. While you want to be sure you “touch” each person periodically to stay top-of-mind, you also want to focus most of your attention on the right clients; that is, the clients who’ve sent you the most referrals.
A marketing system allows you to provide value to everyone in your database, while focusing your attention on your top referring clients. According to National Association of REALTORS®, the majority of buyers and sellers would use their real estate agent again or recommend them to others. Sending a monthly marketing flier in the mail, emailing a complementary piece of content and sending a follow-up personal note all serve to help you stay on the minds of your clients so that they remember to refer you.Â
Keep in Touch With Clients
One of the biggest complaints of buyers and sellers is that they never hear from their agents again after the transaction has closed. A relationally-based marketing system makes keeping in touch with them almost automatic, so you can consistently provide your clients with value, no matter how busy you are.
Approach your real estate marketing with these guidelines in mind, and you’re bound to consistently generate quality leads. If you need some help getting started, the Buffini & Company Referral Maker® PRO monthly marketing system has all the materials you need to work by referral and boost your business. Wherever you are in your real estate career, make sure you invest in a system that gets you reliable results!
