Marketing to Realtors: Bringing Your Methods of Marketing Up to Date

Remember the good old days when you could simply stuff rate sheets into the mail slots of Realtors and spend the afternoon fielding phone calls? Unfortunately, those days of marketing the realtors with simple rate sheets has changed.

It seems that all loan officers are marketing to Realtors in the same way. Shoving rate sheets and brochures promising real estate marketing secrets into envelopes and sending them off to every agent they know. In order to get noticed, you need to make your marketing stand out from your competition.

Realtors receive an incredible amount of marketing materials every week. On average, they receive over 50 pieces in one week. How many of those pieces prompted action? You guessed it, none!

So what can you do differently? With effective marketing strategies, you can easily turn the mail slot into an entryway to the Realtor.

Target Your Audience Carefully

Not every real estate agent is the right focus for your services. If you want to attract more agents, you have to pick and choose your targets carefully.

Do you know which Realtors are your intended target? Do you know which agents are most likely to be your probable and most profitable client? Start by compiling a list of those Realtors.

Your best bet is to work towards the people that will work the hardest for you. Every week add more people to your list. Eventually, you will develop a full list of prospects.

You can simply use one of two methods to put together a prospect list. First, you can determine which problem you have the most expertise at solving and then find prospects that fit this profile. Or, you can create a list of potential prospects and then survey them to find out what their problems are. When you discover that there are common problems that you can address, develop marketing plans towards those issues.

What Benefits Do You Offer?

Simply targeting your audience and asking for their business is not going to make your marketing piece any more effective, in fact, your marketing may come across as confrontational.

Once you have targeted the best agents to receive your services, you now need to show them how you can offer them a benefit. One example is a free report that explains how to solve the problem.

Basically, your free report is a detailed marketing piece for your services. Not only does the report help the agent understand their problem, but it also helps them understand how you can help them develop a solution of how to solve that problem.

This can be a little scary. If you show them how to solve problems, why should they work with you?

Marketing Towards Relationships

Instead of merely solving the problem, you are there to build a relationship. You are not merely there for a one time fix, but instead you are willing to help Realtors over the lifetime of their business.

Marketing to Realtors is more than sending out materials. It is a process of tailoring your materials to reflect your desire to turn business into a relationship with loyal clients. Problem solving is more than merely finding the best solution, it is helping agents uncover the problem and giving them a solution they can rely on for years to come.

Jeff Nelson helps loan officers increase loan originations by attracting quality relationships with real estate agents from the development of customized relationship-building strategies.

Click here to get a free copy of the Marketing Planning Guide, a 20-page workbook designed to help you outline a strategy to become an Agent Magnet.

Visit us at http://www.loan-officer-marketing.com