When You Feel Like Chicken Little: 5 Smart Marketing Moves to Boost Your Business Without Breaking the Bank

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Have you caught yourself lately thinking, “The sky is falling!”?  I sure have.  Against my own better judgment, I find myself compelled to make decisions that are based on fear, which is no way to make decisions (no matter how rational that fear may be).

Yet as scary as the real estate market and economy are right now, they won’t be scary for ever, and now is the time to make smart decisions based on sound judgment and good business sense.  Not on fear that the sky is falling.  You can counter your Chicken Little tendencies with these 5 easy, smart marketing moves.  Moves you can make today to build your real estate business without breaking the bank.

Smart Marketing Move #1: Put yourself in your clients’ shoes

Imagine your clients asking you, “What’s in it for me?”  The fact is that your prospects don’t care what you can do; they care what you can do for them.  When you pitch your prospects, always answer ­– before they even ask – how you will help them achieve their dreams or solve their problems.

Smart Marketing Move #2: Keep on keepin’ on, even when it hurts

Research has proven that real estate agents and investors who continue to market themselves and their properties even during market downturns accomplish two things: 1) they do better during the downturn than their peers who stop marketing; and 2) they grow faster, and farther, after the downturn than those peers.  That said, your budget is your budget, but you don’t have to take a hammer to the piggy to market yourself in this recession, which brings me to. . .

Smart Marketing Move #3: Focus on inexpensive (or free!) marketing activities

Advertising on one of the major real estate websites may be a great strategy for you when money’s rolling in, but it could be a bank-busting strategy when times are tight.  So instead of looking at high-cost marketing activities, think about other ways you can market yourself for less money.  Writing a blog, uploading new articles to your website, or becoming active on free social networks like BiggerPockets are all great ways to build a loyal cadre of prospects and clients.  And all they cost is your time and sweat equity (worth a mint, I’m sure – but at least they won’t drain the bank account).

Smart Marketing Move #4: Keep “AIDA” on your mind

Revisit all of your marketing and communications materials – your website, your blog, your social media strategy, your newsletters, your direct mail . . . and make sure it conforms to the AIDA formula.

A – It grabs your prospects’ attention

I – It piques their interest

D – It generates desire for whatever your selling/pitching

A – It compels your prospects to action

Smart Marketing Move #5: Take a few simple steps to drastically improve your website

You could see big increases in website conversions (the number of visitors who take the action you’re asking them to take, such as signing up for your e-newsletter or buying your e-book) with just a few simple tweaks to your site.  Changing your site’s layout or tweaking your content can be relatively simple tasks that could pay off in a huge way.  (Use Google Analytics to measure the results of your efforts.)

As they say, that’s all folks.  I hope you enjoyed my inaugural BiggerPockets post.  I look forward to getting to know all of you.

Molly Castelazo

Have a marketing topic you’d like me to cover?  Write a comment, send me an e-mail or a Tweet and let me know!

I started a “The Good, The Bad and The Ugly” Friday feature on my own blog, but I’d like to move it over here to BiggerPockets, if you’re game.  The deal: You send me your marketing pieces and I’ll critique them.  The benefit: You get easy tips on improving your marketing for free, and other real estate agents and investors get to learn what works, and what doesn’t.  Send your submissions to [email protected].  I look forward to it!

Note By BiggerPockets: These are opinions written by the author and do not necessarily represent the opinions of BiggerPockets.