Sales & Marketing
These Simple Marketing Plans Help Take Pressure Off
It’s easier than it looks.
Real estate is a competitive industry. Open any major citys’ newspaper and you’ll see a real estate section with hundreds of agents advertising properties for sale or services they offer. The realty game pays 100% commission, so an agent’s marketing plan better be top-notch.
I was a Realtor with Keller Williams Realty (KW), one of the nation’s most innovative real estate organizations. They ranked eighth in RealTrends 2020 industry survey of the top 500 companies. Of all KW’s high-tech systems, to me, I found their off-line, low-tech touch marketing strategy was the one to beat.
I learned about Keller’s series of touch plans in a book KW’s owner, Gary Keller, co-authored with his partners, Dave Jenks and Jay Papasan: The Millionaire Real Estate Agent. I found their strategies gave my marketing operation a foundation. They forced me to plan in advance on an annual basis to make marketing easy and effortless. I felt confident and relaxed knowing that, while weekly mailers were dropped in mail and email boxes, I could focus on sales calls and closing deals.
There’s not a whole heck of a lot of science here. And none of the plans have special attributes that peg them to real estate. Marketing is all about pulsing your message and your brand into the marketplace until it breaks through; remember, 90% of customers expect to interact across channels. With a tweak here and there, these campaigns can help you do just that.
What Is Touch Marketing?
KW’s touch marketing taught agents three high-contact ways to maintain connections with new and existing customers. The basic formats are these:
- The 33 Touch contacts existing customers 33 times throughout the year.
- The 8x8 Touch helps convert new relationships into business by reaching out to them eight times over eight weeks.
- The 12 Touch is used for dormant customers. You contact these folks once a month because they won’t have any immediate or mid-term business needs, but you don’t want to lose them either.
These plans did more than build my business
While parties and other similar events can be fun, they are work. Networking requires a relentlessness your marketing relies on.
Bottom line: Marketing in all forms takes what it takes because it’s what the sales goal demands.
These marketing strategies saved me. I’m an introvert. Make that introvert-extrovert. That means I can go to a party and be that super sales-y, gregarious guy that everyone loves.
However, after a half-hour, I’m done. I can’t “fake it until I make it” like a salesman should. My extrovert energy is on a timer, and, once it’s depleted, my introvert kicks in and needs hours to re-energize. I usually spend the rest of the evening scowling into my phone to avoid conversation.
The thing is, in real estate, where your bank balance relies on your social capacities, that’s a problem.
New people who met me walked away confused. Say I meet Joe at some event. One moment, Joe sees me own the room. The next, he questions why I’m disengaged. Joe walks away thinking I’m socially awkward, almost a fraud in a way.
One underlying rule humanity shares is social flair or, for the lack of better words, social dominance, which implies you can manage relationships. It implies competence. Instead, Joe walks away questioning my integrity and competence. It’s not the first impression I meant to leave with Joe.
Why does this matter? It matters when I needed to call Joe a few days later, as you’ll see in the 8x8 plan. I was hypersensitive about it. Cold calls are already a struggle for most. For me, dialing for dollars while feeling inadequate made these conversations that much more uncomfortable and challenging.
But in real estate, a 100% commission business, you find a way. I realized Joe (and all my Joes and Joelles, for that matter) needed a warming act, just like Jimmy Kimmel or any host has. And, as you’ll see, Keller’s Touch programs were that act.
How to Set Up Your Campaigns
A touch is how often you contact a client in a way that leaves them better off. Touches aren’t only phone calls, Facebook posts, and facetime over drinks or, these days, FaceTime over drinks.
Touches are multifaceted and use the efficiencies of online activities with the effectiveness of direct mail, rounding out an honest image that you care about your prospects and current customers. They show your influence and expertise. Examples include:
- a handwritten note with (or without) a key chain
- holiday and birthday cards
- monthly printed or e-newsletters
- postcards about how to solve tough problems
- recipes
- inspirational quotes
- “how-to” emails and snail mail
- anything that makes your client’s life better than before
Let’s assume you’re not new to marketing. You have your client and prospecting list in a software program or spreadsheet. You have names, addresses, email addresses, phone numbers, social media accounts, and any other information required to help you deepen relationships. I had birthdays, partner’s and kids’ names, etc.
The first step is to list potential touches that are appropriate for your industry. I say list 20. The latter ideas were the goodies. The first ones were conventional industry practices. For instance, I sent out “Just Listed” postcards for homes I represented. After I sold it, I sent another. These are standard real estate industry practices. Yours may be different, so take stock.
What I did differently was I made a habit of stopping by offices to say hello. I made a point to bring donuts (I’d wait until after the pandemic, but you catch my drift). This was sales; a drop-by was appropriate.
Dropping by isn’t easy. My inner introvert relaxed, though. I knew whoever it was I was visiting was familiar with who I was. All of the touches helped keep the relationship warm even though we didn’t speak often. It was extremely helpful. But I digress.
Again, be creative and go for 20.
Next, I planned out my touches and the number of days between them. In other words, space them out so your clients aren’t overwhelmed. The key is — and this is absolute — plan everything you can over the course of the year. Don’t wait. Time is precious, and you’ll drain your energy, grow frustrated, and give up. I say plan, plan, plan; that way you don’t have to think about it.
Also, keep your touches as generic and simple as possible to reduce the workload. Remember, the goal is to stay in your customer’s mind, generate leads, and make money.
The Touch Plans
33 Touch
The 33 Touch plan is for all your contacts. I touched them on a weekly and occasionally bi-weekly basis. You may be thinking, “What can I do to touch clients 33 times during the year?” You said list 20. Does this person really need another key chain?
I used one touch many times throughout the year. For instance, every six weeks, I called and asked for business; I sent quarterly or monthly e-newsletters, holiday, and birthday cards. The question is what touch options are easy to execute and affordable.
I’m from Boston, so I sent refrigerator magnets with the New England Patriots and Red Sox schedules. During the seasons, my clients would see them when they passed the fridge. Those magnets alone equate to 100 touches over the sports seasons. My name was right in front of them all day, every day.
I also knew the sports fans on my list would find them genuinely helpful.
Did they appeal to everyone? No. The key is I delivered something that made lives better. And knowing that, my confidence and my spirits improved that much more.
8x8 Touch
The 8x8 Touch is for new contacts. This campaign allowed me to quickly leverage and energize these relationship seeds.
Over eight weeks, I touched them once a week while occasionally asking for business with finesse.
It worked like this: Let’s say I swapped cards with Bill at a networking event. Over the next eight weeks, I’d touch Bill each week. My first week was always a phone call, during which I set up week two’s touch-meet for coffee or a drink. Week three, I mailed a pen or a mini-USB port with my name on it, with a note saying:
“Hey Bill, good to see you the other day. I was thinking of you and thought you might find this useful. Have a great day. Best, Anthony
P.S. I am always available to help you and anyone you know to answer real estate questions. I want to help you.”
Two things to remember about this program are:
- In weeks one, four, and eight, the touches should always be phone calls to ask for business.
- When your 8x8 program is over, congrats! Now add your client to the 33 Touch and go find a new contact. Rinse and repeat.
8x8 Touch is a process. I knew what was going to happen long before I shook hands (or tapped elbows) with anyone. I knew week four would be another phone call, week five was for newsletters, and week six was a newsworthy story about the contact’s industry (Google Alerts comes in handy). I never had to recreate the wheel with every new contact. Just go, go, go.
What the 8x8 also built
8x8 helped me feel better about who I was as a person. Knowing I had a structure in place to build new relationships took the pressure off phone calls. I knew the 8x8 would offer more to clients, and, over eight weeks, these contacts would see me as someone who was maybe a bit shyer, but cared and wanted to help them. It showed competence.
12 Touch
Use the 12 Touch for clients that have no real business need over the long term, so you touch them once a month. You don’t want your prospects going to your competition; you want them coming back to you. I made it simple by including these folks in one of my touches from my 33 Touch plan on a monthly basis.
Also, call them every now and then. They want to hear from you. Plus, they may know someone who is looking for your services, so you definitely don’t want to abandon them. Ever have something you know you need to do, but you just haven’t done it yet? Your phone call is the solution to this problem.
Epilogue
When I started at Keller, they said it took about six months to start seeing results. I started realizing the value in about three months after the first touch. That year, I sold six million worth of property, with commissions well over $100,000. I never earned that much money before.
The bottom line is these plans work. If an introvert like me can do this, I know that you can too.
A Note About Social Media
Social media is a marketer’s necessary evil, certainly for anyone in a commission-only business. Platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and Pinterest have billions of prospects. Instagram alone has over five hundred million daily active users. Any marketer knows you have to be there.
Yet digital marketing has drawbacks. Without a sizable financial investment, online promotion is beyond competitive. Millions scrum to top out on Google’s search results and to go viral through retweets, shares, and so on.
And mobile marketing is especially difficult when conversion rates are a little less than two percent. Something to consider when direct mail is nine times higher than email and 57% of people abandon their email address because of too much spam.
As a real estate agent responsible for my own marketing costs, I had to think carefully about my return on Facebook and Twitter ads and whether a real estate agent’s business model warrants this form of advertising with my own page and such.
I actually thought about how often I visited my dry cleaner’s Facebook page. That’s a community-oriented business. Does their page help increase the workload? I bet not more than the storefront sign.
Let’s be clear. I had to connect with people, period, and socials are a must. But it cannot be the marketing plan. If you don’t have the money, and the conversion rates don’t translate, the question becomes how are you different from your competition.
