Chris Brunner is the featured Active Rain “Rainmaker” for Sunday, November 29, 2009 with his post, Six Marketing Strategy Caveats for Real Estate Agents! Here’s a snippet:
“1) Have a plan for the plan.
Before you do anything else, map out how you intend to execute your new plan and how you intend on measuring results. Develop an entry and exit strategy for your marketing plan. Think of a few ways that you may be able to make slight adjustments along the way to maximize your effectiveness.
2) If it isn’t broke, don’t fix it.
If what you’ve got going is working well, why change? I admit it’s good to try new things, but be careful not to abandon what you’ve already got. The saying goes, you don’t know what you’ve got until it’s gone applies.
As an alternative, test different approaches for a small segment of your marketing list. I believe that 10% is a good number to test on. Use 10% of your time and capital for experimenting, the other 90% for things you know work well. Run a campaign and gauge the results. If successful, apply this tactic to increasingly more of your list while not forgetting what already works.
3) Measure your results to determine what works best for you and your situation.
It is imperative with any marketing campaign to accurately measure results. How could you possibly make a good decision as to what is and is not working if you don’t have accurate figures?”