Back to What?
By WellcomeMat on Feb 14, 2008 in Marketing
posted by Christian Sterner
Joel Burslem put out a post the other day about a common opinion within the industry that 2.0 tools will have little, if any effect on the real estate industry:
“There’s a belief that the principles of real estate marketing 201 (social media, blogging, video, social networking, micro-blogging, etc.) are never going to supplant traditional marketing.”
Jonathan Dalton identifies this Wizard of Oz shoe tapping, please take me back to a more comfortable time mentality in his post, “The Fallacy of ‘Going Back to the Basics’ .” Back to basics? Back to huh? Let’s do this instead: let’s pretend the internet didn’t ever happen. This is definitely the way to go: bare with me. Let’s also pretend that the junk mail that we get-you know..the mail that you get and immediately realize how wasteful this country really is-holds more weight in the eyes of our customers then when they do a Google search for hyper local information and find a knowledgeable, local expert (blog/video), whom happens to be a real estate professional.
These back to basics (huh?) and off-line/dig your head into the sand notions immediately serve as the catalyst to The Question. I am referring to The Question that crosses every single real estate technologist’s mind from time to time (don’t lie…I know you have thought this too): what in the hell am I doing in this industry? Trust me, it’s only a fleeting moment before I remember why I am here, working on WellcomeMat during every waking moment of each day; but, holy ?!?&#!!?
Please note that, even though I would immediately re-allocate all off-line marketing dollars to the web, I am not suggesting that anyone else do the same. All I am saying is test the waters, mark a percentage of off-line money to online marketing initiatives and see what happens. There are a lot of off-line marketing methods that work, have worked, and will continue to work. I get that.
Popularity: 90% [?]
On Feb 14, 2008, Jonathan Dalton said:
My personal two cents is it’s hard to beat the ROI of the Web if you do it right (and actually get leads.) Costs are minimal compared to some of the traditional methods (door knocking/cold calling aside) and you reach a far greater audience.
Many of my peers here in Phoenix are just now trying to figure out how to attract clients in Canada. I’ve been doing it for months by reaching out electronically to them. Can’t imagine a bulk e-mail to Calgary would have the same effect.
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On Feb 14, 2008, WellcomeMat said:
Here’s the thing: noone trusts BS advertising, bulk anything, spam, one size fits all messaging. If what you are doing, on or off-line, isn’t genuine, then you are part of the reason why real estate service professionals have such a PR nightmare on their hands. In a way, this presents a golden opportunity to anyone that is real. The industry is begging for stand out, upright, honest, high-volume, brilliant professionals.
To me, “Back to Basics” represents an endearment of practices that tossed the real estate industry into the dumpster of public opinion. Do the opposite of “The Basics.” Exactly the opposite.
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