Keeping the Marketing Cycle Going

Markets go up and markets go down.  As you’ve seen recently, and perhaps  repeatedly, real estate is a true roller coast ride.  When you are busy with clients, you are too busy to prospect.  When you have time to prospect, you have no clients.  What is the solution? 

No matter what the market, you need to find time (and some money) to prospect continually.  You need to find new leads to have in the pipeline to replace closed sales. 

If you want a visual to tie to this pattern, think of an assembly line.  You finish putting together gadget #101 and there on the conveyor belt are the pieces for gadget #102, behind it gadget #103’s parts, and so on, as far as the eye can see.  When you have leads at different stages in your marketing cycle, you will have continual business, no matter what fluctuations the market may bring.

Seems simple to start up and adhere to a continual lead generation plan, but you get caught up in the hub-bub of a busy time and let the marketing lapse or slip.  You will certainly pay for that in very short order.  Your assembly line screeches to a halt as you closed client #36 and there are no would-be clients behind them!  You scramble around sending out a few emails, a late e-newsletter (was it six months ago you last sent one out?), whipping together a quick postcard, renewing a small ad you ran in the local newspaper, church bulletin and neighborhood newsletters.  Now you wait. 

Surely there is a better way.

The keys to your marketing cycle that you need to keep running every day, all year long are lead generation, prospect follow-up and long-term contact. 

Lead Generation:  Building up relationships that generate leads (either themselves or referrals). 

Prospect Follow-Up:  Following up with all leads no matter what stage they are in for selling or buying. 

Long-Term Contact:  Keeping in touch with clients after they buy or sell a house — or even with prospects that are still on the fence — to keep the professional relationship going so that you can harvest their business when they are ready or reap new referrals from their contacts.

If you don’t have the time to keep up with marketing during your busy times, you need an assistant.  If you already have one in-house, excellent – put them to work!  Their job can be to keep your marketing going no matter how busy you are.  If you don’t have an assistant, consider a virtual assistant.  VAs can take care of many marketing tasks you may not have time for, but are still vital tasks important to your business success. 

The key is staying focused on the clients at every stage.  Solve their problems.  Anticipate their questions.  Answer their concerns.  Step back from promoting yourself.  And, be sure to keep the leads flowing and traveling in the three-step cycle of lead generation, prospect follow-up and long-term contact.

Let us know how you are keeping your marketing going during a potentially slow time.  Or, share with us what you’ve learned during this market downturn about your marketing.