Real Estate Marketing -- Integrating Your Efforts for Maximum
Response
Integrated marketing sounds pretty scientific. Maybe that's why
up-and-coming marketers get a glazed look in their eyes when the
subject is mentioned.
Truth is, integrated marketing is easy to understand. It can
also do wonders for your real estate marketing program as a
whole. My goal with this article is to take you beyond
understanding integrated marketing and well on your way to
practicing it.
What is Integrated Marketing?
Here's a definition I found on the Internet: "Integrated
Marketing: The practice of blending different elements of the
communication mix in mutually reinforcing ways."
Fair enough. But let's simplify it even more. Integrated
marketing is when different marketing channels (print, web,
email, etc.) work together to achieve a common goal. The "work
together" part of that sentence is critical, and it prompts me
to come up with a definition of my own.
"Integrated" is past tense. It suggests something that has
happened once and will not happen again. It's not
forward-thinking.
So let's call it "cooperative marketing."
Here's the key principle of cooperative marketing: The
individual parts cooperate to achieve more than they're capable
of achieving on their own. In other words, the whole is greater
than the sum of its parts.
Cooperative Marketing in Action
Let's say you're an agent targeting buyers. The goal of your
direct marketing campaign is to generate phone calls and emails
from prospective clients. (An excellent goal, by the way, since
surveys have shown that most people go with the first real
estate professional they call).
To persuade your recipients to contact you, you've decided to
offer a free home-buyer's kit. Here's how cooperative marketing
might help you achieve your objective:
You send a direct mail postcard to your farm area. The postcard
highlights the free (and valuable) home-buyer's kit you've
created. It provides clear instructions on how to obtain the
guide.
The postcard also has a thumbnail image of the information kit's
cover (a further enticement) and directs the reader to a page of
your website where they can view an excerpt of the info kit.
They read the excerpt and like what they see (because, of
course, you've chosen the two best pages for the excerpt). To
get the free kit, all they have to do is call or email you ...
which, hopefully, they do.
Better still, the information kit functions as a high-value
business card, because you were wise enough to include your
contact information in it. And if the recipient passes the kit
along to friends, you've just extended your marketing reach and
your potential ROI, without any extra effort.
Now that's cooperative marketing.
On its own, a marketing postcard cannot convey much
information. But when it entices the reader with a promise of
value, and then points the reader to a website where that value
can be gained in full, the postcard enjoys a whole new level of
effectiveness. Cooperative marketing has been achieved.
On its own, a website can contain a lot of valuable
information. But your prospects will never know it's there,
aside from stumbling across it. The marketing postcard puts the
website in front of them and gives them a specific reason to go
there. Cooperative marketing has been achieved.
Lastly, don't mistake the word "cooperative" with "dependent."
The postcard doesn't necessarily depend on the website for
success -- nor the opposite. Each channel is capable of
generating responses on its own. They're just capable of a lot
more when they cooperate.
Direct marketing (and marketing in general) is rarely a one-shot
deal. The whole is more powerful than the individual parts. The
parts cooperate to achieve the common goal.
Integrated marketing is cooperative marketing.