You are probably not getting the results that you expected from your marketing. There is an 80% chance that is true based on the Pareto principle. In fact, even that 20% that is actually giving you results… you may have no clue which 20% it is!!
In our business, there is a well-known joke that is actually no joke: One Real Estate agent says to his co-worker; I know that 20% of my marketing is working, problem is – I have no idea which 20%!!
Most salespeople- Real Estate, Mortgage, Insurance, etc. ignore at least 3 fundamental elements of their marketing and sales process that costs them plenty every month, every year. Here are those 3 things that you really need to have in place to make the most of your sales and marketing efforts;
- A well-laid-out marketing plan. Yes, you must be strategic about what you are doing. You’ve heard the old adage, if you fail to plan, you plan to fail.
- A way to follow up with your leads. It’s been said that most sales are made after at least 6 or more contacts, yet most of us follow up once and if we are at the top of the food chain, 2 or 3 times. That’s it!
- A tracking system so that, yes, you can have clear data showing you where you are having success in marketing. Most of us have no clue what’s working and what’s not. We spend thousands of dollars a year (some of us every month!) and we track nothing except the bank account.
So how can we have these three elements in place so we can start to get better results from our efforts? Here are some actionable suggestions you can begin with.
- Plan your marketing using a marketing calendar. It is very simple (not necessarily easy but it needs to be done) to pencil out some ideas of what you need to be doing to reach your customers throughout the year. Every month brings opportunities for you to give value to your audience, connect with them and promote your services. Part of planning your marketing efforts should include really understanding your ideal customer, and being intimately familiar with the customer journey. You need to have clear insights into their avatar and their journey from not even knowing they need your service, to identifying you as the person who will provide it for them. Once you are clear on these two areas, you will know exactly what marketing steps you must take to engage with them and turn them into satisfied, paying clients.
- Start using a CRM – the worn-out notebook you keep and lug around in your briefcase with names, phone #s, and notes on your prospects is not cutting it! It is so simple, and yes, easy in this case to sign up for a cloud base CRM at a very affordable price so you can put people on a database and systematically market to them. Follow-up is the single biggest reason why we fail in sales. Because we just don’t have enough bandwidth to do it unless it is systematic and easy to do.
- Tracking your results may depend on how you market. If you are doing digital marketing, like say for instance you have a website and you pay for traffic to generate leads… there are some simple tools you can use. The best and least expensive, as in totally free, are Google Analytics and Facebook tracking pixels. This is probably the biggest challenge for most salespeople. Tracking your marketing, gathering and analyzing data so you can figure out where you need to focus to get the best ROI on your marketing dollar. It behooves me why over 80% of those that come to me for a consultation, have no idea how to implement even the most basic marketing tracking mechanism. You may have heard the saying: “If you can’t measure it, you can’t improve it” – and nobody should be doing anything that is not working.
These three key components are like a three-legged stool- solid foundation, hard to rock.
As we near the end of Q2 2022 and start formulating our plan of action for 2018, you would be well served to use these three key points as a foundation upon which you can build a detailed, well-orchestrated marketing plan for the rest of the year.
