Don’t be Scared to Kick Your Marketing Up a Notch

By Lawrence Schoeffler

RISMEDIA, Feb. 27, 2008-”I think agents right now are scared of the market and are really curtailing their marketing,” says Rosemary West, a Naperville Illinois Realtor who did over $50 million 2006 and within 10% of that in 2007.

“I don’t think you can really curtail marketing. You need to really kick it up a notch. That will take you to the next level. Because then you’re going to have even a bigger presence.”

Don’t hold back, in fact, notch it up and take advantage of the hesitation of other agents, suggests West.

“I’m not getting rid of any advertising. And I did increase a couple of spots because some of the vendors had a special. I capitalized on that. And I’m sure those spots came available because some agents were nervous and didn’t want to renew.”

West also does a very lucrative calendar campaign, which her team started 12 years ago.

“They’re really nice calendars. They’re the ones that go on the refrigerator. If you’re working a neighborhood with a lot of children, parents like those calendars because they have a magnet. They put it on their refrigerator and they keep doctor and dentist appointments, school functions.”

The calendar campaign really grew, starting with 1,000 their first year.

“People really liked the calendars so we went to 2,000, then we went to 5,000. Then we went to 10,000 and now we’re at 15,000.”

But how many transactions can she attribute to those calendars? A lot.

“Last year I think we sold about 22 houses off of that calendar campaign.”

Did the calendar achieve any other results?

“The calendar was part of my branding, before the word ‘branding’ was really fashionable. I was just making sure my name was on everything. I think that’s important. You’re kind of like a household name.”

What about the Internet? That’s a far cry from calendars.

“We were always on the Internet. Our listings would be automatically downloaded into realtor.com from the MLS. But they had come out with this program with featured homes. You can buy one of 8 spots or 2 of 8 spots, whatever you want. I think I started out with three zip codes.”

What about a website, a personal website?

“At first I had kind of a real ho-hum website. Down the road I got Number1Expert because several of my friend’s had it and said, ‘you really should sign up, you really should sign up.’ It really enhanced my Internet results. We get just tons of compliments.”

While most Realtors have websites, what they really want is leads.

“We get a lot of leads from Number1Expert. We really jump on the leads,” explained West of her site www.rosemarywestteam.com/. “We figured all the leads that we get from Number1Expert, Realtor.com and Re/Max, I think we are working right around 1,100 leads a month, something like that.”

West also has some dynamite tips on: Getting listings to come down to reality; 4 or 5 things to be proactive on in this down market; why you need to knowledgeable about statistics; reports to generate every week for your website visitors; and more.

Rosemary West is featured in a free, online webinar, part of the Secrets of Top Selling Agents series, Wednesday, February 27th, 9AM Pacific, 12 Noon Eastern. Get more information and register here: Number1expert.com/Profiles.

Lawrence Schoeffler is the vice president and general manager of the Advanced Access and Best Image group, a division of Dominion Enterprises, and founder of NUMBER1EXPERT.

For more information, e-mail Schoeffler@DominionEnterprises.com or visit www.Number1Expert.com/profiles.

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