Getting the Most From a $100 Marketing Budget

If you had only $100 to spend on a killer marketing strategy, how would you spend it?

I posted that very question on my social media page at www.facebook.com/karendeis and I wanted to share with you some of the ideas, including many that don’t cost you anything but your time.

Do you have a marketing idea you’d like to share?  E-mail me at Karen@loanOfficerMagazine.com/

Let’s start with the freebie ideas first:

Free Ideas

• Create a Facebook Fan page and add content every other day.

• Blog on Active Rain and create your own local group of real estate agents.

• Write down the names and emails of your sphere of influence (family, friends, PTA, members of clubs you belong to) and email local housing information on a regular basis.

• Create an email database of title reps, appraisers, home inspectors, surveyors and home improvement contractors, and email them marketing tips on a regular basis.

• Call local title reps for a list of top real estate agents, and call those agents to set up an appointment to discuss how you can help them increase their business.

• If you don’t have database of past clients, start one today.

• Attend networking events.

• • Hold a “New Construction Boot Camp” for real estate agents. Ask a local builder to speak and go through the steps on what’s involved in building a home. (You may even want to go on a field trip to a subdivision?)

Less than $100 Ideas

• Laptops & Lunch Events—Show real estate agents how to set up Active Rain accounts www.blogging4biz.com.

• Write and send out five thank you cards every day for the next eight weeks (to title reps, real estate agents, sellers, etc.).

• Send out $5 Starbucks cards with a note saying “just thinking about you and want to meet you for coffee.”

• Realtor Roundtable Mastermind Meetings—Invite 20 Realtors and serve salad and bread sticks. Talk about current or local issues. Bring in speakers.

• Go to the local Toastmasters Club and ask them if they have a motivational speaker who would speak to your group of agents for free. Hold a breakfast meeting at the agent’s office with bagels and different cream cheeses.

• Buy a camera and start posting videos on your Facebook pages.

• Buy the book “Now Discover Your Strengths” by Marcus Buckingham, meet with real estate agents, have them take the one-line test and talk about how you two might work together. 

• Place an ad in the “For Sale by Owner” classified section of newspaper that says, “Don’t sell your home or buy another one until you get pre-approved for another home first…call me for a free report.”

• Hold "First" Seminars—but only for certain niches:  Veterans, women-only, first-time buyers, investment financing, new construction, etc.

• Send out a personalized closing booklet 30 days after closing.

• Send a tin of cookies to your client’s place of employment just before or just after closing.

The key is to choose an idea.  Develop a step-by-step plan and then “just do it” on a consistent basis.