Innovation is the Answer for Realtors to Boost Business in a Slow Market

For Becky Woodbridge, the expensive and glossy magazine
ads are not the answers. The broker and firm owner is getting personal
using her database as her primary marketing effort as the real estate market softens and competition among brokers heats up.

Woodbridge,
broker and CEO with Becky Woodbridge Properties Inc., a Delray
Beach-based real estate firm, said that they are fighting for market
share. According to her, Ads aren't driving the business, and they are
getting fewer calls from advertising. Even tangential businesses, like
mortgage companies and the firms that support or train them, are
becoming proactive in their own marketing efforts.

Just
like Woodbridge, Hoodwin has turned less to print and traditional
marketing, and more to his database and word-of-mouth efforts to drive
business. For Realtors like Woodbridge, the customer database taps a
time-tested approach of reaching friends and business associates.
According to her, referrals are the strongest form of marketing.

Woodbridge
targets her database with an e-mail blast or a direct mail distribution
every 21 days. Woodbridge is working with Buffini & Co., a referral
and coaching company, to reach people in new ways.

A
recent Woodbridge database mailing featured a full-color, one-page list
of monthly home maintenance projects. Working with D&G
Communications Group, her Delray Beach advertising agency, she recently
prepared a sales brochure for a high-end, Delray Beach property.
Woodbridge is sending more client appreciation gifts. She said that Ad
dollars spent on branding, as opposed to driving leads, do little to
boost her bottom line during a softening real estate market.

By M. Sese
Real Estate Press