Marketing your brand is often highly overrated. Specifically, many advertising agencies will try to sell you on “top of mind awareness” or “brand plays.” However, this is a very expensive and slow way to run a business. If you want to scale, you must prioritize real estate direct response marketing over vague awareness campaigns for the next five years.
What is Direct Response Marketing?
Unlike traditional advertising, direct response marketing requires a clear offer and an immediate call to action. Therefore, your marketing should not just be a picture of your face on a bench. Instead, it must include:
- A Clear Offer: An upgrade consultation, a home valuation, or a specific “Love it or Leave it” program.
- Instruction: Clear, simple steps on what the consumer should do next.
- Urgency: A reason for them to act right now.
Because this type of marketing is trackable, you can hold your budget accountable. If you spend $1,000 and generate $10,000 in commissions, you should repeat that process as many times as possible.
The Secret: Results Build the Brand
Many leaders fear that if they don’t do “brand plays,” no one will know who they are. In reality, the opposite is true. When I started my independent brokerage in Washington, I had zero brand awareness. Consequently, I spent every dollar on direct response.
As I sold more homes and gathered more testimonials, my brand naturally became the most recognizable in the market. By focusing on results first, we went from ranking 16th out of 16 offices to being number one in just five years. In conclusion, you don’t build a brand by talking about yourself; you build it by proving you can deliver.
Your Ad Copy is Your Sales Presentation
To master real estate direct response marketing, you should study the greats like Dan Kennedy, Jay Abraham, and David Ogilvy. Instead of using platitudes like “we are trusted” or “we walk with you every step,” use your actual listing presentation as your ad copy.
Specifically, write down your value proposition and turn it into a headline, sub-headline, and body text. If they are sold on your message halfway through, give them a clear link or number to text immediately.
Build an Asset Someone Wants to Buy
The goal of your business is to make money and build an asset. When your team is profitable and your systems are independent of your personal production, your company becomes valuable to buyers. Therefore, focus on the systems, the marketing, and the direct response data. When you own the results, you own a business that someone will eventually want to purchase for seven figures.