Dr. Strangeblog or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Social Media Marketing

When it comes to success in real estate, the key has always been and will always be: leads.  The melody may change but the song remains the same.  If you want to make money in Real Estate you must generate leads.  If you want to become wealthy in Real Estate you must generate leads at a faster rate.  Everything after that is polish.  I know it is popular right now to frown on this type of characterization.  “Our clients are people, not leads” some will correct.  “I am in the relationship business and I do not view my relationships as simply numbers or leads” others will sneer.  Listen, you can put as much perfume on marketing as you like, we are still talking about a pig.  When you are in the business of selling (and trust me, if you are a real estate agent or a mortgage originator you are in the SALES business) your primary focus is generating leads.

Most all leads can be divided into a few basic categories: prospect, past client and referral.  Here is the good news.  All three types of leads are easy to generate.  You must simply be in front of people more often than your competitors.  There are a lot of ways to increase your conversion besides being in front of them: you can add value to their daily lives, you can keep them informed with trenchant analysis, you can offer discounts and free stuff; probably the most important way to increase your conversions (and the primary cause of referrals) is to convey and heighten your perceived level of expertise.  Having said all of that, go back now and look at how I started the sentence: “…besides being in front of them…”  The bottom line remains the same: you must first get in front of people before you can inform, entertain, show off or otherwise become memorable.

So why am I borrowing from Dr. Strangelove?  Because it is a movie of insane brilliance (or brilliant insanity) that stands out and makes a point in spite of itself.  Sounds a lot like blogging doesn’t it?  Social Media Marketing has made generating leads exponentially easier.  Not since the creation of the business card have we had a tool so easy to use and yet so effective in creating “top of mind status” (is everyone reading old enough to remember that concept in marketing?)  You can sit down in the morning before the day starts, or in the evening when the day is coming to a peaceful end, and type out a few thoughts or share something you learned that day.  You can report on a trend or idea that is important to your sphere.  You can generate some thoughtful discussion on what the events of the day mean to you and how they may affect your clients.  Hey, sometimes you can just put up a picture of your cat.  The beauty of it all is that, at virtually NO COST, you can get in front of people on a regular basis and remind them why they have, should or will do business with you.  Want even more reasons to embrace the land of Mayoral Marketing?  By the very act of expressing yourself you eliminate the prospects that will not like doing business with you and, more to the point, with whom you will not like doing business.  Not only can you get in front of more people for less money, but you can increase your conversion rate as well!

Willie Sutton was famously (if not apocryphally) asked: “Why do you rob banks?”  He replied: “That’s where all the money is.”  Look at the Internet and realize: that’s where all the leads are.

Filed under: LENDERS, REALTORS, WORLD OF 2.0 , blogging, MARKETING, Mayoral Marketing, Success