Most realtors that I have talked with have no idea if they are getting a good return on investment for their real estate marketing dollar. They blindly put their ads in the newpaper, the yellow pages, local homes magazines, and even on their realtor web site but have no idea of which ads are working and making them money.
One of the basic concepts of direct response marketing is to test and track your advertising campaigns to determine which ones are making money. Yet real estate agents haven't been taught about this. Wouldn't it be nice if you knew that one form of advertising your real estate business or gaining leads works hands down compared to another type of advertising?
You could then put more effort into this type of advertising and see your real estate business expand and make more money for you. If you could see that one ad was giving you 300% more leads and these leads were turning into clients. But you wouldn't know this if you didn't test and track your real estate marketing campaigns. Lets say you did track them.
What would you do with this information? Or maybe you found that changing two words in the headline of an ad brought in 200% more prospects over the old version of the ad. And these prospects also became loyal clients for you and your agency.
What would this mean to you and your real estate agency? I would think that this information would be critical to you as a real estate agent. There are so many things that you can test in your realtor marketing plan to find out what actually is making you money. And much of your testing and tracking can be done easily and cheaply.
The first step is not to view all of your real estate marketing as one big marketing scheme. Each thing you do to market your real estate business, to advertise for leads, or advertising of listings has to be seen as separate marketing campaigns. By dividing up the whole of your realtor marketing efforts into separate marketing campaigns, you will be able to more easily get a handle on which ones are working and which are not.
The second step is to view each part of a realtor marketing campaign as separate and in need of testing. For example, a listing advertisement. The ad will consist of a headline, a short body, and a call to action on the part of the reader. Each of these elements can be tested to see what's working more efficiently and making profits for you.
The headline draws the lead in. Some headlines do this better than others. You might find that you have a good headline but by changing a word or two, you get more responses. It might be found that a totally different headline works better. Test all the variables and find out what works best.
The same is true of the body of your ad. You might find that presenting features of your real estate business doesn't work as well as when you present the benefits to the client that you as a realtor has over the competition. You might find that offering free information creates more of a response. But you have to test this to find out if it's true.
And the call to action. You have to get your lead to respond and give you their contact information. Just as with the headline and the body of the ad, some phrases make the lead more willing to do this. You'll have to test which work better. What works with one type of ad may not work with another type. You have to test this to find out.
Split-tests are the easiest tests you can perform on your real estate marketing campaigns. Split-tests can be used on your real estate marketing campaign in general or any component within the campaign. They are easy to perform and don't require a large investment. But they do give you valuable information for modifying your real estate marketing campaign and making a greater return on your real estate marketing dollar.
You can perform a split-test on just about anything. For example, you create two ads for a listing. You run each version simultaneously with the other in the newspaper. But each one has a separate phone number or extension number associated with it. After running the ads for one weekend, you find that the second version of the ad got more phone responses. You now know that the second ad was more efficient at getting people to phone in. Simple as that.
You could do the same thing by using the exact same ad but with a different headline. Or maybe a different call to action. See what I mean? Over time, you will learn what really works and what doesn't. When you create advertisements in the future, you will know which types get you the most responses and leads.
Tracking and testing your realtor web site is a bit more involved. Especially if you are offering information to your real estate lead and capturing their contact information through an opt-in form. It might be that you will have to purchase an inexpensive software to enable you to track your ad campaigns. But the software will be well worth it to help you determine where best to place your realtor marketing efforts.
One good software package to track your online endeavors is:
DynaTracker With this software you will be able to track any "click" on your web site that your visitors make. You can perform split testing of any component of an ad or campaign.
The main point is that you don't know what's making you money if you don't test. Testing your real estate marketing campaigns will give you valuable information on how to construct campaigns in the future. Testing will also tell you which ads and advertising dollars give you more return on your investment.
Without this information, you're stabbing in the dark. You have no idea, no clue. Since most realtors don't test their advertising and marketing campaigns, you could pull ahead of your competition by just knowing what works and what doesn't in you local real estate market. Imagine what this would mean to your future and your family.
