5 Personal Marketing Tips for Jamaican Real Estate Agents

1) Write a helpful Real Estate Article for one of the local newspapers This will of course give you exposure, position you as an expert and give you some credibility. The key though is to make the article content-rich, helpful and not promotional. You will however, get credit at the end of the article which can contain your name, email address and possibly your website.

2) Start a blog So easy to set up. You can use a free platform like Wordpress.com or Blogspot.com or one with your own domain name. You can promote your blog on your business cards, email signature, classified Ads, facebook profile, twitter profile, LinkedIn profile.

3) Start an e-Newsletter Follow up with prospects or new networking contacts by inviting them to sign up for your Monthly, Weekly or Bi-Weekly e-Newsletter. For email newsletter marketing ideas, click here for a previous blog post on the subject.

4) Use Customer Testimonials on your blog, website or email newsletter Praise and credit by others sometimes have more weight than your own selling points.

5) Staple your business cards to giveaways that you are affiliated with For instance, advertisers in the Jamaica Real Estate Guide sometimes staple their cards to the magazine and leave in office lounges, doctors’ offices and similar high-traffic areas.

How’s your Referral Business? Back to Basics

Referrals are great for a Real Estate professional’s business for a number of reasons. Firstly, they are prequalified, meaning they come to you already in the market for buying or selling real estate. Secondly, it gives you instant credibility when they are referred by someone they know and trust. Thirdly, they are instantly profitable because no advertising dollars were directly spent to get them to you.

Here are 5 key components of building a solid Real Estate Referral Business:

1) Organize your database Simple, but easily neglected. You need a database system for your past and current clients, potential referral partners, industry professionals and companies, etc. This can be easily done electronically using Microsoft Outlook or on paper using a diary, address book and/or business card holder.

2) Organize your contact regularly How many times have you received a business card that goes into your pocket and stays there until laundry day, then probably gets tossed? How many times have you written someone’s information on a post-it note and placed it somewhere until the glue wears away and it ends up in the garbage? Commit to updating your database of choice daily or weekly and stick to it.

3) Attend networking events Get out there. Always be marketing. Attend an event once per week or other regular schedule to meet new people, exchange business cards and start a networking relationship. You never know where your next lead will come from.

4) Contact at least 2 persons each day As they say, out of sight, out of mind. The more you stay in contact with people the more they are likely to throw business your way. And if you calculate 2 persons per day for an average of 20 to 25 working days per Month, that’s 40 to 50 people per Month.

5) Send them your e-Newsletter The easiest way to follow up with your referral sources is to add them to your e-Newsletter list. [Note: Let them know when you meet them that you send out an e-Newsletter and ask them if they would like you to add them to your list. Better yet, after adding them to your list, request a double opt-in via your email newsletter program to make sure they want to receive it.] Also, in each e-Newsletter you send out, include a referral request note to remind people because it may not come to mind to refer you on their own.

Spending a few minutes per day or week as the case might be, can do volumes to increasing your referral business and your Jamaican Real Estate business in general.