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Have you ever had the experience of seeing an interesting advertisement or solicitation but didn’t follow up on it because you knew that you would have to talk to some pushy salesman or something and you just didn’t want the hassle, you just didn’t want to deal with it?

I have many times. So has everyone else, I’m sure.

Now get this: You will dramatically increase the number of leads you get from any direct marketing campaign by eliminating this fear factor.

A Good Call Capture System Is The Answer!!

Look…here’s an example:

WARNING:  DO NOT SELL YOUR HOME WITHOUT READING THIS FREE REPORT

Free report reveals how you can save thousands of dollars when you sell your home.  Call 1-800-555-1212 ext. 540, 24 hours, for a FREE Recorded message and copy of this report.  After all…it’s your money!

Call 1-800-555-1212 ext 540 Now!!!

As every good marketer knows, everything we send out or hand out should ask for some type of action—a call to action—from the recipient, right? (After all, the saying goes… Ask, and you shall receive… not, hope and pray they’ll pick up the phone without being asked!)

In this case, we want our prospects to take the action of requesting a FREE REPORT. This will clue us into the fact they are at least looking to buy or sell a home sometime in the near future.

Now, if you listed your office number or even your direct line for these wonderfully shy prospects to call—you will receive fewer calls. Not because they aren’t prospects, mind you, but simply because they didn’t want to have to deal with a salesperson right now—they didn’t want the hassle. Or, perhaps, they are just considering the possibilities at this point in time… simply seeking more information… and they are not, at this time, ready to make a commitment to their dreams.

Realizing this, and also realizing our goal in prospecting is to create a funnel of incoming leads from which we can pick and choose… we use a voice mail response system, a 24 hour recorded message, to effectively remove their worries and concerns about having to talk to a high pressure salesperson.

In their minds, the worst thing that could happen is they call your toll-free 1-800 number, listen to a message they really didn’t walk to hear, and hang up. No worries, no hassles. Absolutely, positively, 100% pain-free, risk-free.

Because of your risk-free, pain-free method of contact… there is absolutely no logical or emotional reason preventing them from calling you and responding to your action solicitation. None whatsoever.

Does this make sense?

I hope so, because this one strategy can put more leads in your lead bank than you ever imagined. You can, quite literally, create a stream of incoming prospects flooding your phone lines within hours of initiating this type of lead-generation campaign.

Listen. If you need leads… then you need to begin using these 6 magic words:

24 HOURS FOR A FREE RECORDED MESSAGE!

Don’t underestimate the power of these six words. They can increase the "pulling power" of your advertising 10-fold or more!

Really!

You have to remember that we are in the age of skepticism. No one trusts anyone. No one believes anybody anymore. Everyone is fearful of being pressured and ripped off.

Realizing this pervasive fear and trepidation does exist, the key to massive, wallet-busting lead generation is to recognize, address, and eliminate this fear from the onset. Give your prospect what they want—first! Then you’ll find yourself in a position to lead them into what they need.

Now one of the questions I’m always asked is: "Why use an 800 # when I only want local calls? Why should I have to pay for it?" Okay. I’ll grant you that. Maybe you can don’t need to use an 800 #… that’s a function of testing. Test. Test both scenarios. Only testing can answer the question: "Does my advertising campaigns pull better using a local number with the phrase "24 hours for a free recorded message" or using a 800# with the phrase "24 hours for a free recorded message"?

Test. Test. Test. If the local number works fine for you—great! Use it. The key isn’t the number, IF THE CALLER IS MAKING A FREE CALL—it’s the non-threatening nature of the call. However, if there is a chance a number of your respondents might incur a toll charge by calling then, by all mean, use an 800 # and your responses will see a dramatic improvement.

Make it FREE, make it easy, and you’ll begin to make a fortune…

Now promise me…

You will immediately start

1.      asking for an action to be taken on everything you hand out or mail out or in your ads and

2.      use the 6 magic words to give them an absolutely painless way to respond.

Exten$ion$

Imagine purchasing a lottery ticket only to never look at the numbers to see if you have the winning combination…

… Or playing BINGO without the aid of markers to document the numbers called…

… Or simultaneously running a direct response ad, property ads, mailing a series of ‘just-listed’ postcards, offering a free comprehensive market analysis within the context of your newsletter, and doing a radio spot—without the systems in place to measure each campaign individually and distinctly apart from the others.

You might have won the lottery—but you would never know it if you ignore your numbers. You might have a winning BINGO card—but who’s to know unless you track the numbers called.

And you might have designed a winning marketing campaign, have created the perfect lead-generation system—but you’ll never know unless you have the systems in place which enable you to track the results of each and every campaign you design independently and distinctly from every other campaign you have going.

Enter voice mail telephone extensions. You know, 1-800-000-0000 ext. 222.

Voice mail telephone extension numbers are a perfect, low-cost way to separate and measure all of your various marketing campaigns to determine what is and what is not working for you.

Every ad you design, every postcard you mail, every letter you write, and every Pre-Sell Pack you deliver should be keyed with its own distinctive voice mail extension number. Why? Tracking.

The day will come when you hit pay dirt, when you hit upon just the right emotional combination which speaks to your market and prompts your prospects to pick up the phone and call. But if you don’t have a tracking system in place, if you don’t have the means to measure what is and what isn’t working for you… it’s like knowing you have rights to claim a vast treasure chest of riches only you don’t have a map available to find it. And what good is that?

One of the most costly mistakes you can make is to not test and measure the effectiveness of your marketing campaigns. If you don’t test, if you are not operating from a foundation of quantification… then you are just guessing—which can be disastrous—or, at best, wasteful.

For instance, let’s say you are currently spending $600 a month on a full-page ad in Harmon Homes or some similar style magazine. You are also forking out a couple hundred in radio spots. $500 in newsletter mailings and another $100 stuffing your brochure boxes full of flyers. You’re getting results… but since you don’t have any way of determining which campaign is generating what… you just keep on doing the same thing month after month and writing the same expense checks month after month.

Okay. Now let’s assign extension numbers to each of our campaigns and track where our results are coming from. Let’s say the Harmon Home campaign, extension #101 generates 14 calls in the course of the month and you convert 3 of these calls into good, solid prospects. Each "prospect" then cost you approximately $200.00.

Your newsletter, extension #102, generates only 4 calls… but they all convert. You cost per qualified prospect = $125.

The radio spot (which you thought to be really, really good) didn’t produce one single call! Not one. And since Power Marketing Rule #1 is to always expect and demand your marketing efforts to produce a tangible, cash-in-the-pants result… the radio show either has to go… or it has to be redesigned… aired to a different market at a different time… something! Every marketing campaign must be held accountable to produce a result. If not (and you’ll only know by testing)—get rid of it or tweak it.

And, much to your surprise, your lowly brochures… extension #104… have pulled a whopping 3 calls also. Why "whopping?!" Think about your costs. If you invested $100 to print and distribute these flyers… your cost per qualified prospect equals only $33!

Now, let me ask you. With these figures in mind, what would be your game plan next month? Repeat as usual and quite literally throw away a couple hundred bucks? OR would you be better served dumping the radio campaign and increasing your brochure campaigns to the tune of $300 instead of $100? If the numbers played out… you’d have an additional 6 qualified leads for the same amount of money! USE voice mail extensions… they pay HUGE dividends.

Speaking of Voice Mail

As we’ve discussed, voice mail services are an invaluable addition to your marketing arsenal. A good voice mail system can be used as a non-threatening method of first contact as well as providing the means of tracking, testing, and measuring the effectiveness of your various campaigns—after all, what you don’t know can hurt you…

But the value of voice mail doesn’t end there.

Consider sign riders.

Your signs are really miniature billboards. And, being billboards, their purpose is to market. So… use them accordingly. For instance, every property you have listed should be assigned a distinctive voice mail extension number and this number should be prominently displayed on your sign.

When prospects call in they hear information not only about that particular listing, but also any additional listings you have available in that particular price range and neighborhood. You can also provide a voice capture option wherein your prospects can leave their names and request additional information and/or take you up on an free offer you made.

You can even further optimize your voice mail system by having your service bureau provide you with a fax-back option. Then, upon request, your callers can immediately obtain a fact sheet on that particular listing, information on all of your listings, your scheduled open houses, and any other information you deem important.

For instance, I’ve concluded that many people calling in off a yard sign are potential sellers in the same neighborhood seeking additional information. Consequently, I make it a point to actively market this segment of callers by always providing a copy of my "Easy Exit Listing Agreement" and other information pertinent to sellers.

You also want to obtain an Automatic Number Identification service for your 1-800 voice mail number if available. Why?

Two reasons. First, it lends for a more accurate measurement of inbound calls. Every caller is identified for you… even in the event they hang up without leaving a voice mail or exercising a fax-back option. And accurate measurement is the back-bone of testing.

Secondly, when a prospect does call into your voice mail system in response to one of your advertisements, signs, or other marketing campaigns… statistics show that 87% of them will eventually utilize the service that peaked their interest and prompted the call.

These folks are hot, Hot, HOT leads. People who will, 87% of the time, eventually do business with somebody… and it might as well be you, right?

After all, they noticed your advertisement, read it, took the time to jot down the number, and expended whatever calories were necessary to pick up the phone and call. These folks are gold…

You already appealed to some emotional need, want, or desire in them… they’ve already made an effort to identify themselves as someone you were talking to… they’ve already raised their hands and said, "Yeah, you’re talking to me. Tell me more! I might be interested." So call them! These folks, by virtue of their involvement, have initiated a relationship. They are no longer cold calls by any stretch of the term. These wonderfully shy people are warm calls… eager to be lead into the vast unknown by you, Paradigm Pioneer, marketing maestro extraordinaire.

And if they get offended in some way or come right out and ask you how you got their phone number… your answer is simple and generally accepted without question (after all, big brother is watching):

"It’s in the computer." Pretty simple, really. And it works! We’ve called literally thousands of people who didn’t leave a name, number or address and less than a dozen times have we ever been asked, ‘Where did you get my number.’ And it pays huge dividends to call. We have consummated many, many deals with people who didn’t have the personal fortitude to leave their contact information and earned thousands upon thousand of dollars in commission.

Don’t leave this valuable lead source untapped. Don’t.

At the very least… you should strive to use your Criss-Cross directory to determine their address and put them into your data-base for monthly mailings!

Remember… Automatic Number Identification.

Automatic Seller Updates

Your listing inventory is getting huge, and the demands your sellers are placing upon your time and that of your assistants are ever increasing. Your phone is ringing off the hook—everyone wants to know what’s going on with their property…

Your plan to call each and every seller on a weekly basis is getting tougher and tougher. Why… between the fact your inventory is getting bigger, your evenings are tied up with presentations, your weekends with buyers, and telephone tag seems to have become the rule… it is virtually impossible.

Enter your voice mail service again! (And you thought we were through with the benefits of having a voice mail system in place!!)

Here’s what you do:

1.      Assign every seller a unique voice mail extension number of their own

2.      Set aside a specific time each week to update all of your sellers at one sitting.

3.      Call each of your seller’s voice mail extensions and record your weekly update as well as any announcements you’d like to make at that time.

Inform you seller’s of their assigned number and let them know they are free to call at their convenience to retrieve your ‘what’s going on’ messages!

No more telephone tag. No more headaches or hassles. No more wasted time and energy individually explaining your weekly results…

Why, thanks to the technology of voice mail, you can now update all of prospects in a matter of minutes instead of hours…

AND this "service" will also make a wonderful addition to your listing presentation repertoire.

Proven Ad Copy Which Pulls Big!!

Selling Your Home?  FREE REPORT reveals 7 steps to selling your home for the most money, fast — with or without a real estate agent.  Call now for a 24 hr FREE RECORDED MESSAGE.

Selling Your Home? Free Report Reveals 17 Costly Mistakes You Must Avoid!  Report also reveal how to save thousands!  Call Now for a 24 hr FREE RECORDED MESSAGE.

WARNING!  Paying Rent is Hazardous to Your Financial Health. FREE REPORT reveals how to stop throwing your money away renting and own your own home instead.  Call Now. 24 hr FREE RECORDED MESSAGE.

If you think it is expensive to hire a professional… wait until you hire an amateur!  FREE REPORT reveals 7 questions you must ask any real estate agent BEFORE you hire them.Call Now. 24 hr FREE RECORDED MESSAGE.

FREE COMPLETE EQUITY ANALYSIS BY PHONE.  Call Now. 24 hr FREE VOICE ACTIVATED MESSAGE will record your address and phone number… then we’ll go to work.  You will receive your complete equity analysis by phone or by mail… your choice.  Call Now. 24 hr FREE RECORDED MESSAGE.

Buying a Home?   FREE REPORT Shows How You Can Save Thousands of Dollars! Call Now. 24 hr FREE RECORDED MESSAGE.  This report will ensure you do not pay one dollar more than any home is worth - potentially saving you thousands.

Are your juices flowing, yet?   Good!! Go for it!!

 

Happy Selling!

Brandon Patrick

Dean of Students

Real Estate Toolbox University