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5 Keys to Standing Out from the Crowd with Your Marketing

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Table of Contents The Marketing Challenge for REALTORS®.................................. 3 Your Marketing Options ................................................................ 4 Magazines & Newspapers .......................................................................4 Postcard Campaigns ...............................................................................4 Websites..................................................................................................4 Promotional Items....................................................................................5 Newsletters..............................................................................................5

The 5 Keys .................................................................................... 6 Desert Lifestyle Publishing Can Help............................................ 8 What Our Clients Are Saying ...................................................... 10 Our Expertise .............................................................................. 11 Your Next Step............................................................................ 12

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The Marketing Challenge for REALTORS® You can’t escape the fact that times are tough in the housing market. Despite the exodus of real estate agents, there are still plenty of REALTORS plying their trade, but there are fewer transactions to go around. As a real estate professional, you face stiff competition from other agents, as well as a tougher market in which to sell homes.

Adding insult to injury, your marketing dollars have to work double time – not only gaining you new clients, but helping you retain past and current clients for repeat business. Not only that, but your marketing dollars need to stretch farther, accomplishing more with less. It has never been more important for you to wisely allocate your marketing funds to give you the best strategic value.

But it doesn’t end there. If you fail to invest your marketing funds shrewdly, you may not only be wasting your money, but driving away clients, as well. You need to be careful that the marketing you invest in is effective and efficient. You also need to be sure that your marketing is consistent with your business vision and values, and communicates your expertise in an appropriate manner. Just like when you show a home, your marketing needs to showcase you and your skills in the best light possible.

So, how do you judiciously invest your marketing money so that it helps you stand out from the crowd, grows your business, maintains relationships with clients and helps you sell more houses? Read on to find out.

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Your Marketing Options You have plenty of options to choose from when marketing your business. Here are a few of the most popular.

Magazines & Newspapers Many REALTORS advertise their services in magazines and newspapers. Choosing the right publication to place advertising in is very important because you need to make sure that the audience you wish to reach actually reads that publication. One of the benefits of magazine and newspaper advertising is that it can be pretty simple to do. Many publications will do much of the work for you and all you need to do is pay them.

However, magazine and newspaper advertising can be costly and your advertisement often competes with not only ads from other real estate agents, but other goods and services as well. Therefore, your message can get lost among the crowd.

Postcard Campaigns In the world of direct marketing, postcard mailings are very popular.

They are often a less expensive option than magazine and newspaper advertising and much more targeted. With a post card campaign, your message doesn’t compete with other messages in the same piece.

Your message is focused and stands on its own.

However, busy people often sort their mail standing next to the trashcan. If your post card doesn’t catch their eye, they automatically throw it out without reading it. Also, because post cards don’t have much of a shelf life, they don’t help your cause if the person receiving the post card isn’t in the buying or selling frame-of-mind at the time they receive it. They may not keep it for when they will be in the market and your message will be forgotten.

Websites You can’t run a business today without a website. More and more people select professionals to do business with by researching them online. If you don’t have a web presence, you won’t have a chance of getting these clients.

However, it is so easy to do a website incorrectly. If your website isn’t optimized for the search engines, especially Google, clients won’t find it. When they do find it, if the website doesn’t engage them within the first few seconds, they’ll leave without ever contacting you.

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Promotional Items Many REALTORS send out calendars, magnets, pens and other promotional items to clients and potential clients. If the item is useful, it will be kept and because it is seen as a gift, it can help you build a lasting relationship with your client base.

However, many promotional items are viewed as kitsch and just thrown out. If you market to an upscale audience, many promotional items will not communicate the right message about your services, and may actually drive away the clients you want and need.

Newsletters Newsletters are an effective way to build and maintain longlasting relationships with your clients and prospects. Mailed on a monthly basis, they keep you top-of-mind.

However, like much of the other marketing techniques discussed here, newsletters can easily be implemented incorrectly. The look and feel of the newsletter is a reflection of the quality of your service in the eyes of the readers. Creating a high-quality newsletter that reflects well on you and your services can be a time-consuming and costly task if you are doing it on your own.

Creating content each month and making sure that content is relevant and free of mistakes, will take you away from what you do best – selling real estate.

Now that you know the basic techniques used to market your real estate services, you need to know what the marketing pieces you produce must do. That’s where the five keys come in.

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The 5 Keys The purpose of marketing is to encourage potential clients to become clients. To accomplish this, the marketing must set you apart from the competition in a positive and compelling manner. Take a look at your marketing materials. Regardless of which methods you use, do they accomplish one or more of the following five keys to standing out in a crowd with your marketing?

TARGET YOUR MARKET MORE PRECISELY. Don’t be a generalist. You can’t be all things to all prospects. When you try to market in this manner you dilute your message and end up losing more business than you bring in. Remember, the focus of your marketing must be the people you wish to do business with. You need to speak their language and demonstrate that you understand their needs.

Your true prospects want to work with a REALTOR who knows the area in which they want to buy or sell a house. Your marketing must position you as the real estate agent who has the solution to their specific real estate needs. It must communicate that you are the real estate professional who they should do business with, the one that knows how to solve their issues better than any other.

When this is done properly, you will attract more clients, receive more referrals and build the kinds of client relationships that lead to repeat business.

POSITION YOURSELF AS AN EXPERT. A real estate agent is a real estate agent is a real estate agent, right? Not at all – and your marketing must demonstrate the unique strengths and benefits you bring to the table. Your marketing must show clients and potential clients that you have expertise, and it must do so in a way that gives them a reason to contact you. Your marketing should show your prospects and clients that you understand their needs and can be their trusted advisor.

According to Robert W. Bly, author of Become A Recognized Authority In Your Field – In 60 Days Or Less, you don’t necessarily need to have better real estate skills than your competition -- you just need to be better at selling and marketing those skills. When your marketing, by its implementation and messaging, shows prospects that you know what you are doing and do it well, you will be seen as an expert and attract more business.

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BUILD STRONG RELATIONSHIPS. Jeffery Gitomer, in his book Customer Satisfaction Is Worthless, Customer Loyalty Is Priceless, wrote, “All things being equal, people do business with people they like. All things NOT being equal, people still do business with people they like.” Your clients and prospects don’t have a chance of liking you if they don’t know you. Therefore your marketing needs to foster strong, long-term relationships with them. It needs to help your prospects and clients feel like they know you.

Research has found that communicating with your prospects and clients on at least a monthly basis helps keep you and your services top-of-mind. However, you need to be careful of how you do this. Your communications must be engaging. They must position you in the proper manner. And, they must demonstrate your expertise.

PROVIDE A MEMORABLE EXPERIENCE. People remember things that they experience better than anything else. Does your marketing provide your prospects and clients with a memorable experience?

Does it make them feel something? Does it engage them on an emotional level in some way?

If you are marketing to an upscale audience, creating an experience around your services is particularly important. According to Susan Hader of 400twin, a consulting firm that provides evaluation and strategic direction for luxury brands, “Today’s luxury consumers expect an emotionally rewarding and affirmative experience with every luxury brand interaction.” They are very sensitive to how they are treated – both actively and passively. Your marketing must convey the same quality experience you provide when you work with them in person.

PROVIDE VALUE OUTSIDE OF THE SALE. Does your marketing provide value to your prospects or clients? Most marketing is all about getting the prospect to buy. But this can push clients away and it certainly doesn’t make them want to come back for more. Repeat business and referrals are especially important to REALTORS. Therefore it is important to treat your prospects and clients with integrity and respect. If you can demonstrate that you care about your client’s well being, beyond his or her ability to pay you, you will forge a strong relationship that can benefit you for years to come.

© Desert Lifestyle Publishingwww.desertlifestyle.net

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Desert Lifestyle Publishing Can Help We hope that you found the 5 Keys to Standing Out from the Crowd with Your Marketing helpful and that it provided you with some good ideas for improving your marketing efforts. If you are looking for marketing tools that can accomplish all five keys, look no further. Desert Lifestyle Publishing produces a suite of marketing tools that can help you: 1. Target your market more precisely.

We designed our Lifestyle publication to be mailed to a specific subdivision or neighborhood, giving you the opportunity to become an instantly recognizable real estate expert in the community or communities of your choice. This publication comes with an exclusivity agreement, so you know that no other REALTOR will be mailing the same piece to the same area.

2. Position yourself as an expert.

Our Lifestyle and Homeowner publications, as well as our annual Metro Phoenix Economic Snapshot, provide readers with a wealth of good-quality information.

Since the fully customizable back page makes it clear that you are the one sending this information, these tools help position you as the go-to resource and trusted advisor for local real estate information.

3. Build strong relationships.

Both our publications, Lifestyle and Homeowner, are published and mailed out on a monthly basis. Therefore, they provide you with an easy way to keep in touch with your prospects and clients each and every month. This helps you establish and build a “virtual” relationship with your clients and prospects. Because they regularly receive this newsletter from you, which includes your photo and/or logo on the back page, over time they begin to feel like they know you. This makes them much more likely to call you the next time they need a REALTOR.

© Desert Lifestyle Publishingwww.desertlifestyle.net

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4. Provide a memorable experience.

All of our publications are printed on high-quality card stock with an upscale magazine-style design. In addition, they include content that is useful and targeted toward your client’s lifestyle and interests. This increases the chance that they will be kept as a resource for later, thus they have a long shelf life.

These beautifully designed marketing materials are well received by readers, who often look forward to finding their next issue in the mailbox.

5. Provide value outside of the sale.

Every issue of Lifestyle and Homeowner includes a delicious recipe from a local restaurant, a seasonal feature story and an informational piece that helps homeowners get the most out of their homes. Metro Phoenix Economic Snapshot presents a smart, concise and optimistic synopsis of the state of the Valley’s economic sectors. The content of each publication is developed to demonstrate that you care about your clients and prospects, as well as position you as an expert.

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High-End Design

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Relevant Editorial

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Quick and Easy Read

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Arrives in Homes Virtually Unmarred

© Desert Lifestyle Publishingwww.desertlifestyle.net

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What Our Clients Are Saying "Since working with Desert Lifestyle Publishing, I've received numerous new clients, several listings and a number of closed transactions directly from these pieces. This high-end marketing tool has enhanced my professional image and I have expanded my mailings as a result of the compliments I receive and the new contacts I've made." Gayle Henderson, RE/MAX Excalibur

“Desert Lifestyle Publishing produces an innovative and creative monthly publication full of smart ideas, interesting articles, fabulous photography and exquisite art work. My clients save this piece for all these reasons. In my particular case, Desert Mountain Lifestyle allows me the opportunity to get in front of my audience on a monthly basis. This puts me front row and center with them and way ahead of the competition. It's magical! My clients love it and so do I. Desert Mountain Lifestyle publication is largely responsible for my success in 2008 – one of the best sales years in my 35 year career.”

Scott Naumann, Mountain & Desert Properties

“Not only do I love my Terravita Lifestyle publication, but the comments and responses I hear from the homeowners in the Terravita community assures me that they love receiving it! I can attribute numerous listings directly to this publication and it has been effective in securing buyer clients as well. I love that this gorgeous, customized piece is exclusive to me and my targeted neighborhood – no other Realtor can send this out to my area! It’s a great way for agents to establish or reiterate their reputation as the top agent in their farm area.” Sherry Gaertner-Tibbets, SGT Fine Properties

“Desert Lifestyle Publishing is the single most effective piece of print marketing I do! It is extremely well done and will give you the edge on competitors in any market. This monthly publication can be directly credited for numerous sales each year. Try it, you won’t be disappointed.”

Tom Locati, Russ Lyon Sotheby’s International Realty

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Our Expertise Desert Lifestyle Publishing has combined an extensive knowledge base in advertising, marketing and publishing with a background in the real estate industry. With practical experience in each sector, there is no better marketing company to understand the unique needs of REALTORS. Shelle Holland, founder of Desert Lifestyle Publishing, has more than 15 years marketing and advertising experience. She has worked in a variety of media, including television, direct marketing and print. Much of this experience was targeting an upscale market.

In addition, she has experience in the financial and mortgage industries and earned a real estate license, as well. Although she is not actively selling real estate, gaining her license helped her identify a marketing niche that was not being served. Thus Desert Lifestyle Publishing was born.

Holland saw that although there were a wide variety of marketing and advertising options for REALTORS, none of them helped real estate agents market to an upscale market – an audience that is key to much of the real estate market in the Metro Phoenix area. To stand out from the crowd of real estate agents in the local affluent market, upscale image advertising can be the key to an agent’s success.

Holland’s real estate background helps her understand the unique needs of REALTORS, something most advertising agencies can’t offer. In addition, the team at Desert Lifestyle Publishing brings more than 30 years of marketing and editorial experience combined to develop the best marketing materials to support and grow your business.

Each marketing product we offer is designed with your specific needs in mind. They combine the power of direct marketing with the personal touch of newsletters, creating an experience for your prospects and clients that reflects well on the quality of service you provide. Aesthetically stunning and rich with informative content, our upscale publications elevate your status and complement your professional reputation.

© Desert Lifestyle Publishingwww.desertlifestyle.net

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Your Next Step Contact us today and set up an appointment where one of our highly qualified marketing and sales experts will discuss your marketing and business development goals. We will help you create an effective marketing strategy to make 2009 a great year for your real estate business.

480.460.0996 11445 E. Via Linda Suite #2-109 Scottsdale, Arizona 85259 www.desertlifestyle.net

Š Desert Lifestyle Publishingwww.desertlifestyle.net

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