branding

How to Use Marketing Flyers to Build Brand Awareness for Your Small Business

Anonymous — Fri, 29 Jul 2022 13:25:48 +0000

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How to Use Marketing Flyers to Build Brand Awareness for Your Small Business

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Jul 29, 2022

Marketing Ideas

According to new research, Americans spend over 13.5 hours per day consuming media content, which includes smartphones, radio, TV, magazines/newspapers, as well as spending time on desktops and tablets. That’s a lot of consumption!

And it’s precisely the reason why print materials, such as flyers, brochures, and postcards continue to have a place for marketers. A tangible, tactile marketing piece grabs attention in a fresh way. Marketers agree that it remains an incredibly viable means of raising brand awareness in an era of digital overload.

We’ve talked about business card design and the various uses of brochures in previous posts. Here we’ll dive into flyers for small, local businesses and organizations.

Just how can you use marketing flyers to boost your business?
In what situations do they work well?
Read on!

Event marketing.

Marketing flyers are an excellent way to get the word out about your event.

Hang flyers in your community’s city hall or even in popular restaurants or businesses. Most businesses are happy to display your flyer if you offer them a gesture of appreciation, such as free access to your organization’s event.

Brand awareness.

If your business is newer, re-branding, or just in need of some love, flyers are an easy way to help spread the word about your organization. If you’re a for-profit organization, deliver flyers as a direct mail piece to members of your community with a special offer or deal.

For example, if you’re opening a new restaurant, send out marketing flyers letting recipients know that your business is ready for diners and offer a coupon for a free appetizer or dessert for those that come in by a particular date. If your restaurant impresses, you can be sure that people will tell their friends, which will increase foot traffic.

A good flyer strategy for non-profit brand awareness is to release flyers that request seasonal donations, such as in December for end-of-year giving. You can also remove any date-specific information and hang them up around town to increase brand awareness, encourage donations, and attract volunteers.

Announcements.

Whether it’s a move, a new location, or an expansion of services, flyers help your news become widespread in the community.

While you should implement digital marketing methods to share company updates with current customers through social media or email newsletters, flyers are a good way to echo major announcements throughout the larger community.

Those who may or may not have been interested in your business before might be more inclined to check it out once you’ve grabbed their attention.

Flyer tactics.

Always include a clear call-to-action and next steps for your flyer’s readers. This could include an email address, social media profile, phone number, URL and/or QR code, making sure that a real person is available to answer those emails and phone calls.

The pandemic ushered in the increased usage of QR codes with the need for contact-less restaurant menus and other regularly printed materials. As a result, people have become more comfortable using them. QR codes can help people easily access your website or specific landing page. Just make sure the website URL is also clearly visible.

As you can see, marketing flyers are an excellent communications tool useful for spreading the word about your business or organization in a variety of situations.

If you’re ready to get started with flyers, QuantumPostcards offers high-quality flyer printing that can be delivered right to your door in a quick turnaround time. Find out just how easy it is to make your own custom flyers today.

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The Real Estate Dish: 20 Minutes with Steve McKee of McKee Wallwork + Co

brianna_mckinney — Tue, 07 Jan 2020 19:37:02 +0000

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The Real Estate Dish: 20 Minutes with Steve McKee of McKee Wallwork + Co

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Jan 7, 2020

Podcast

Join QuantumDigital’s EVP and CMO Eric Cosway as he gets the latest dish on real estate trends and technology with Steve McKee, Co-Founder of McKee Wallwork + Co. Steve is one of the co-founders of McKee Wallwork + Co, which is an integrated advertising agency and marketing consulting firm based in Albuquerque, New Mexico. With more than 3 decades of experience as a leading brand strategist, Steve is also the author of award-winning books When Growth Stalls and Power Branding. Under his leadership, the company has received industry accolades, such as it’s two-time recognition by Advertising Age as “Southwest Small Agency of the Year” and one of the “Best Places to Work in Advertising."

Eric: Steve, welcome to the podcast.

Steve: Thank you, it’s blessed!

Eric: Can you give us a little, brief overview of what your role is and what you do at McKee Wallwork + Co? I have a pretty good idea, but I don’t know if our listeners do.

Steve: We were born, 22 years ago now, as an advertising agency. You can think of us as you would think about most advertising agencies. But we’ve really evolved quite a bit, particularly in the last few years, to the point where we consider ourselves a marketing advisory firm. And that’s not just semantics. Our task for our clients has evolved largely, from focusing on how they go to market with their messaging to how they go to market with everything—their product mix, their service mix, even their business model. There’s so much change in the wind these days that we’re helping clients increasingly modify their business models. So, we’ve gone from what we used to call “Little m” marketing, which is what the marketing department does, to “Big M” marketing, which is using the marketing philosophy to redesign how companies go to market. And we’re having a blast doing it.

Eric: Oh, it sounds like it. So, would you say you’re best known for that? Or what would you say you’re best known for with the legacy of the firm?

Steve: Yeah, well our reputation is… the shorthand we’ve come to is generating new momentum for stalled, stuck and stale industries. And that dates back to my first book, When Growth Stalls—which came out 10 years ago now—which really set us on this new course. And so, people often ask us, “What do you specialize in?” And my answer is, “It's not a ‘what’, it’s a ‘when.’” And, when you run into the rapids, when you run into rough waters or you’re not sure where to go or what to do, we’re the ones to call.

Eric: Fair enough. I’ve read that you also have another book, Power Branding. Can you give us a little bit of insight about Power Branding?

Steve: Sure. It’s 75 best practice principles that we’ve gathered, really, over the course of my career. And the best compliments I’ve gotten about the book is that the chapters are really short. So you can nod off in bed reading Power Branding and not feel guilty about it. Because you’ll probably finish the chapter. 75 principles, that’s a lot. But when the chapters are two and a half pages long, you can kind of imagine. It was a blast to write. They’re evergreen, these principles. And I think it’s a good read, but it’s also a good reference book just to thumb through. And you’ve had it for several years now.

Eric: And I’ve even made it through, and I’ve taken notes on it.

Steve: There you go.

Eric: And I didn’t fall asleep either, so I’m very proud of that. So, I’ve known you for a long time. You’ve done… in the last probably 5 or 7 years, you’ve done more and more work in the real estate sector with brokers, and they’re looking at their brokerages… what’s surprised you the most about this industry?

Steve: You know, there’s a couple of things. One is… I don’t know if it’s a surprise, but it’s something I learned… is how incredibly, if I could use a term, “commoditized”, it is. That real estate, generally speaking, is a local industry. And you know there are some seriously big national brands. But it has to do with local market. Every market is different. And yet, so many of the brokerages are very much the same. And how that manifests itself, in how they go to market, is the fact that they’re often competing on price. And that can manifest itself in different ways, as well. Because, obviously, the homeowner is the ultimate determiner of what the price is. And I’m not so much talking about the price of the homes that are bought and sold. I’m talking about the commission splits, and I’m talking about the fierce competition for agents, which is really just another manifestation of competing based on margins and price, which is the hallmarks of a commoditized industry. And we’re seeing some change. And we both know some brokerages that are doing some pretty exciting things. But, generally speaking, I think the industry is really ripe for business model redevelopment and redesign, and some significant advances.

Eric: So, do you think that what you’re seeing in real estate is unique? Or do all verticals face this at some point or another?

Steve: Yeah, the agent piece of it is kind of unique, because having your bread and butter be independent contractors, that’s somewhat unusual. But, other than that, largely the same issues. As we look at the business cycle and companies that go through acceleration and maturation, and then saturation and commoditization, the real estate industry is suffering from the same issues that every other industry does when it’s in that sort of saturation/commoditization mode. And one of those, unfortunately, is denial. Companies are often unable or unwilling to recognize that things need to change. We’re all subject to that. Because, especially successful entrepreneurs—and most brokers are successful entrepreneurs—you kind of do things a certain way for a decade or three. And so it can be hard to recognize sometimes when it’s stopped working or it’s slowed down working. Maybe there’s a change in the offing. And as I’m fond of saying, which you’ve heard before, is “Your business does not have a brand, your brand has a business.” Which simply means, the reputation that a brokerage has and what it means in the marketplace is what’s important, not the specific model it uses to go to market. You should hold that loosely in your hand. I think, once companies that, again, like every other sector… you know, the weak get eaten, the strong get stronger. And sometimes the way to get stronger is to recognize that a change is in the offing.

Eric: Do you think, in this industry though… I mean, if we look at the regional players—the second generation, third generation families that are driving the business now—do you think maybe they’re resting on their laurels of the brand’s been an anchor in the community for a long time, and it’s just part of the fabric?

Steve: Sure. That’s what makes it difficult. Because they are very well-respected brands, and they have been in the community a long time. Many of them are closely-held family businesses, and so that’s your father’s, or your grandfather’s, or your mother’s name on the door. And sometimes your father, your grandfather, your mother, your grandmother are still around. They have an office. And they have opinions. And, gee, if you’ve built a business for 40 or 50 or 60 years, you’re telling me that I need to change? Right? So, that’s something that’s, again, somewhat unique to this industry. Because it’s so reputation-based. And, I guess what I would say is, just because you have a great reputation doesn’t mean you don’t have to change. Again, you don’t want to depart from your reputation. You would never want to do that. You want to keep building it. But how you go to market, you should be open to change.

Eric: So, my sense is this, and maybe you can comment on it. A number of the brokerages that I’m aware of, when they’re faced with change, they go through a rebranding exercise. Kind of change the look and feel. Give us your commentary on that. That doesn’t feel like enough to me. If I’m going to dive deep into marketing advisory service, I’m going to just do more than my brand. Correct?

Steve: That’s right. And part of the problem is because we all use the term “brand” and we mean different things by it. You know, when you talk about your branding, you’re kind of talking about your logo, and design, and so forth. When you’re talking about your brand, you’re talking about everything, the substance of what you do in the marketplace. So, many rebranding efforts are… perhaps a great way to look at it would be like, when you reskin your website, you know you don’t really change any of the underlying technology or the links, but it looks different, that’s what often gets called a rebranding. And sometimes that’s all that’s required. But other times, you need to rearchitect your website, you know look at it with fresh eyes, do some user experience testing. When we work to rebrand clients, we kind of pull the engine apart and put it back together, rather than painting the car. It just depends on what’s required at the time.

Eric: Have you seen anything in real estate marketing that you’ve liked? Or was a bit of an “a-ha” moment for you that you thought, “That’s a good practice. That firm really knows what it’s doing.”

Steve: Not as much as I would like. I think most of the innovation that you see, certainly through the marketing lens, comes from the disruptors, you know the Zillows and the OpenDoors and the Purple Bricks, and I mean they’re having varying degrees of success, and they’re having their issues, and I’m not commenting so much on that. I’m simply saying, when they go to market, by definition they’re a new concept. And so, by definition, they’re thinking about it differently. And, by definition, they have to grab attention and awareness. And so they tend to be more creative. I think the real estate industry… it’s kind of interesting, because while on the one hand it’s mature from a business model standpoint, and being commoditized, it’s remained fairly immature from a branding standpoint. When I say that, again, we have to define terms. I mean, how the brokerages tend to talk about themselves. We joke, you know, that there’s certain words you can’t use in marketing, like “service” and “caring” and “integrity”...

Eric: Because everybody could say it.

Steve: That’s right. It’s because everybody can say it, and there’s no legitimate opposite. Right? And so, if you’re using words like “service” and “caring” and “integrity”... generally speaking, so are your competitors. And so, your differentiation is not so much there. And there’s just a lot of room for a lot more personality. We don’t have to take ourselves so seriously. And so, even if you’re not ready for a business model redesign, there’s such opportunities for fresh voices. And I have to qualify that by saying, you know, because it’s such a localized industry, I haven’t seen more than I have seen. And so, there may be some brokers out there that are knocking it out of the park… just haven’t really come across those where I… you know, where I sit back in my chair and say, “Man, I wish I had thought of that.” That’s what you want.

Eric: It seems to me, like the whole notion of segmentation is difficult. There’s probably some local examples of it, and some boutique firms that do a really good job in segmenting. But the whole notion of segmenting and standing for something, without worrying about potentially losing business, seems to be a bit nerve-wracking for a broker.

Steve: Well, yeah. And there are reasons for that. If you’re a very, very niche broker, you’re probably segmented by definition. You’re like at the extreme high end of the market, or vacation homes, or what have you. If you’re a big, successful brokerage with significant market share, the initial reaction to the thought of segmentation is “We can’t do that.” Right? Because we have to serve the whole market. Even that’s a misunderstanding of segmentation. To segment a market is simply to understand that different consumers have different personalities, different approaches, different needs. And it doesn’t mean you can’t meet multiple of them. It means you can’t be all things to all people. You know, that’s sort of a cliché. But you can certainly be all things to some people. And you can be some things, or something, to all people. But you can’t be all things to all people. Well, there’s room in there for being something to many different kinds of people. But that’s a pretty sophisticated approach. And, actually, if you have significant market share, it’s difficult to go anywhere but down. So, you have to find a way. Because your competitors are going to pick off your segments, or your new competitors will, anyway. So, you really have no choice but to get into it. So much of this is because, you know, it has been a fairly immature industry in terms of marketing and branding knowhow, and that’s why we love it. Because there’s such wonderful opportunity to really move brands forward.

Eric: So, if you were working with a broker today—maybe a 2nd or 3rd generation family of brokerages, as an example—what 2 or 3 pieces of advice would you give them of moving forward… absolute cutting through the clutter and standing for something different?

Steve: Well, at the risk of sounding like a broken record, or somebody who’s schlepping my book… you know in When Growth Stalls, we identified 4 internal dynamics that tend to derail companies. And 3 of them—I mean, all 4 if the shoe fits—but in terms of advice, 3 of them I would just double down on. The first one is “Focus.” We have a thought exercise that your listeners could do themselves, “The Five S’s”—I don’t know if you remember this, I think we’ve talked about it in the past—”Something, Someone, Somewhere, Somehow or Sometime.” You know, focus on something, someone, somewhere, somehow or sometime. It’s a fascinating way to generate ideas for how you might sharpen the tip of the spear. So, that’s number one. The second is related to it, and that is “Nerve.” You know, a loss of nerve often derails companies. That’s where you lose your gusto, you know, you lose your excitement and your conviction. And so, we say “Be bold in your messaging. Be willing to invest in it and promote it over time.” And it’s kind of interesting because that tends to be a byproduct of focus. When you find something exciting to focus on, it tends to overcome the fear you have, and it makes companies lose that loss of nerve. And the third one is perhaps the hardest one, and that is to “Be Consistent.” As I said in When Growth Stalls, “When you start over, you’re starting over.” And in this day and age, you simply have to pick and stick. And it is a misnomer to run an ad, or a direct mail campaign, or an email campaign, and 10 days later say “How did it work?” Now, there are certain kinds of campaigns that you can expect an immediate return on, typically those that harm the value of the business when they’re price-based, or you know. But, for a company to be successful long term, this is a great test to ask yourself: If you’re wondering whether you should spend the money, you’re in the wrong headspace. You should be wondering how you should spend the money on marketing. You can’t be a real businessperson without a real marketing budget—has to be realistic, has to fit your business, and fit your context—but, you shouldn’t ever be going back and forth as to whether it should be a matter of how. So Focus, Nerve, Consistency—those are the big three. Of course, the 4th one, as you know, is “Alignment.” You have to align your troops, and you typically have to align them around your focus. And so, I’m kind of giving away what we do with and for our clients, is we really help them navigate those 4 internal dynamics. And that’s, I think, what any brokerage, in today’s environment, needs more than ever.

Eric: As you look back at your career, and the projects you’ve done—because you really are in a consulting role, obviously, as a marketing advisory firm—what drives you crazy about clients? What sort of things have driven you crazy when you roll up all your recommendations, and you know it’s the right package, and the clients have a tough time with it? Walk me through that. How do you help clients through that? Because that’s a big step. That’s a big change for them.

Steve: That is THE big step, and we’ve failed for so long, until we finally decided to attack it ourselves. When I say “we failed” is… you know, we work with clients to get them to this point of tremendous focus, and nerve, and excitement. But it represents change, and that’s the hardest part, is to actually do it. We have a saying we coined, “Strategy without execution is only theory.” And I thought that was original until I came across a Goethe quote the other day, you know the old Revolutionary War era German poet. He said, “To think is easy. To act is hard. But the hardest thing in the world is to act in accordance with your thinking.” So, what drives me crazy is when we’re all in agreement, client and us alike, that this is the future and this is the roadmap. And, for one reason or another, it doesn’t get executed. Now, having said that, we have a healthy self image here. We believe that, if our clients aren’t acting in their own best interests, that that’s not their fault. Maybe that’s something we can help with. So we’ve been very inventive in recent years into helping ensure that execution is part of the package. Because, you got to get going. The second thing, if I could add one… it’s funny, because in the same article, it was the same Goethe quote. He says, “Seeking and blundering are good, for it is only by seeking and blundering we learn.” Our modern translation of that is “Momentum beats perfection.” That’s a really big statement. Because, 20 years ago when we started the firm, it was about coming up with the perfect plan, and the perfect ad, perfectly executed before you launch. With lean startup methodology, and all of the learning that we’ve gotten out of Silicon Valley, it really is true—you know “Failing fast,” “Momentum beats perfection”... get moving! Because, no matter what you do, it’s not going to be perfect. You know that. And so, get moving, get learning, and go from there.

Eric: That’s great coaching. So, what do you like to do? I know you’re a swimmer. I was going to ask you if you still wear a Speedo when you go to swim meets, but that’s probably not appropriate.

Steve: It’s probably not to ask, and it’s probably not to wear. I’ll just tease that.

Eric: So, what our audience probably doesn’t know, is you’re a fantastic master swimmer, who’s won a number of gold medals.

Steve: I enjoy it. I like to swim and run, and I’ve gone back to lifting recently, because… this weekend, it actually struck me that, you know, when you’re younger, it’s all about doing more every time. You get to a certain age, and it’s all about not doing less. So, you just try to maintain. But, no, I love to swim, both in the pool and open water, long distances. And love to read and write. Body, mind and soul. Church is also important to us. And we’re hanging out with our adult kids and grandkids. So, it’s all good.

Eric: Well, you’re such a humble guy, and it’s been excellent catching up, and you providing insights to your services as you made that shift to a marketing advisory firm, and also of some coaching for brokers out there and Realtors who are in the marketplace. I really appreciate the time you’ve given us today.

Steve: Likewise, it’s fun. Thank you.

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The Real Estate Dish: 20 Minutes with The Keyes Company's Paula Renaldo

brianna_mckinney — Tue, 19 Jul 2016 20:01:01 +0000

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The Real Estate Dish: 20 Minutes with The Keyes Company's Paula Renaldo

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Jul 19, 2016

Podcast

Join QuantumDigital’s EVP and CMO Eric Cosway as he spends 20 minutes with Paula Renaldo, CMO of The Keyes Company. Paula oversees and manages all marketing for the company and its 2,200 associates. She is a next-generation CMO who drove The Keyes Company’s rebranding project in the first quarter of 2016. Paula was born in Brazil and came to the U.S. speaking no English, and is a new mom who balances both a hectic work life and personal schedule.

Listen to the Interview [Audio]:

Eric: Paula, how did you get interested and involved in marketing?

Paula: Marketing, believe it or not, was my backup plan. I graduated from the University of Miami wanting to go to law school. But prior to really digging in and attending law school, I decided to get a job in a law firm in New York City, and I worked at the law firm for a year and decided that law was not for me. And I had a Bachelor of Business Administration in Marketing, so I said I’d like to stay in New York City, and my background is in marketing, so I’m going to find a job in marketing. And I started working with a financial services company by the name of Duff & Phelps in New York City as a Marketing Assistant, and I happened to be there while the company went public. And I just fell in love with the experience, fell in love with marketing, and everything that involved marketing the company and getting the deals done, and decided that was the route I was going to take and my path.

Eric: So, you went from almost becoming a lawyer to getting into marketing in New York City, then you moved into the real estate industry. Tell us more about that.

Paula: Sure! My husband and I got engaged, then we decided we wanted to come to Florida—because, obviously there’s no snow in Florida—so we said, “What could be better than no snow and a beach?” And my family is actually down here, so we moved back down to Florida. And, believe it or not, Keyes found me. Our EVP of Recruiting found my resume, and asked me to come in. And it was 8 years ago that I joined the company. I came on as a Marketing Manager in ‘08, which was not a super fun time in the real estate industry. But it was really exciting for me, and it was something new and different. And I’ve been at the company ever since.

Eric: As you look back at your marketing experience with financial services, what are the big differences between real estate marketing and the other industries, such as the one you worked in before?

Paula: You know, I’d have to say probably the biggest difference is, when we worked in the financial services, you’re marketing business to business. There's not a lot of emotions involved it’s just about “Get the deal done. Get the deal closed. Keep the client happy.” And you move on to the next one. With real estate, it’s really personal, and you have to connect with the people, and there are a lot of emotions involved. Because, again, it’s one of the largest decisions someone’s going to probably make in their lifetime. And I find that a lot of times we have to be the voice of reason. And you have to connect with that person, and really have a close relationship where they trust you, and they know that you’re on their side.

Eric: What do you find particularly challenging in your role as a CMO to market not only consumers, but also to help your agent team be successful?

Paula: I think you have to have a balance of listening to what the consumer wants, and listening to what your associates need. And so, for us, that’s really what we pursue with our associates. And a lot of times the challenge can be in—for a company our size, we have 2,600 agents, 37 offices—it’s getting them the information, and getting them the tools that they need, and making sure they understand what they have accessible to them.

Eric: What would someone in the real estate industry be surprised to learn about you?

Paula: You know, I think you probably shared it in the introduction! A lot of people are surprised to know I wasn’t born here, and I didn’t speak any English when I moved here. I had to learn… and I don’t have much of an accent. And so, a lot of people are surprised to find that I actually speak three different languages. And, it’s actually been quite beneficial for me, working down in south Florida because we have a lot of associates who speak Spanish and Portuguese, and work with a lot of international buyers. So, it’s nice to be able to connect with them on that level. I think it makes our agents comfortable that they can call me, and speak in their mother tongue, and I'll understand. They can tell me what they're going through and what they're experiencing, and we can work through it together.

Eric: You attended Ignite, one of the events we put on, and you walked us through some of the major rebranding you were doing. What was the main driver behind the rebranding?

Paula: To be fair Eric, when we started this process, I would have never been able to have told you that we would end up where we are today—with a different logo, brand new colors, and a complete overhaul. Really, this process was started ten years ago. Ten years ago, we actually did a full-fledged strategic planning for our company and where we wanted to go, and what our goals were. And the major goal we had for the company was that we wanted to get to a position where we were number one, number two or number three in all of our marketplaces. We are in six different counties, so we have a pretty large footprint in the state of Florida. And, over the last ten years, we've really put into place products, and services, and a structure that has allowed us—and I’m really proud to say this—we are actually currently number one in our two largest markets, which is huge for us. And so, what we found was happening was we had made all of these changes—and there were all these great things going on with our company—but, because our company is a 90-year-old company, a lot of people didn't see the change. They saw what Keyes once was, not what Keyes had become. And so we said, “Okay, so how are we going to bridge this disconnect?” And we said, “You know what? We think it's time for a refresh.” So that’s where really it started.

Eric: You’re still focusing on the same audiences you worked with before, but you really cleaned up and leveraged your independence. Is that correct?

Paula: Yes. So, if you look at our new logo, you’ll see that there is a K-logo lockup. That is, multiple pieces coming together to kind of build the K that now encompasses The Keyes Company. And for us—what that really meant was—we are a company of many pieces. So, we have our associates, we have our commercial division, we have our luxury division, we’re a shareholder of Leading RE [Leading Real Estate Companies of the World], we have a Family of Services division. We’re a one-stop shop—so we can provide title, insurance, property management, mortgage. And there are all these components that, when we put it together, that’s who our company is. And that's who our people are, but yet they're still the independent individual who is working, and providing for their family, and doing what works in their business. So, I think that’s really the beauty of our brand and where we are today.

Eric: So, you’re a family business, like we are. Is that still part of the brand as well?

Paula: Oh, absolutely! So, we have Mike and Tim Pappas at the head of the family business, which started with their father, our chairman, Ted Pappas, who took over from Kenneth Keyes. Everybody always wonders where “Keyes” comes from—a gentleman by the name of Ken Keyes actually started the company in 1926. And what’s really exciting to see now is we have the next generation coming in with Mike’s daughter Christina Pappas, and then Tim’s son Jason Pappas. And, so that’s been really exciting for us because we’re seeing the future kind of unfold throughout this entire rebrand process.

Eric: As you look back, what do you think were the key factors in helping you make this rebrand successful?

Paula: You know, I thought about this question, and I was trying to figure out what the answer really was. And I came down to 5 things that we’ve learned that I really feel made a difference for us. So, I’d say number one, find the right partner. You need to find a company that you can partner with who can guide you through this process. We actually put RFPs out for both local companies and outside companies, and what we learned was we really needed an opinion from an outsider. We wanted someone who knew nothing about Keyes and was going to learn from the ground up. In that process, I would highly recommend that when you're finding that partner, you have to negotiate and you have to negotiate hard, and you need to understand what your deliverables are going to be, and what it is that’s going to be included in what you are getting with that partner. So, that would be my first one.

My second one would be, don’t be afraid of focus groups. That was how we started this process. We spoke to our customers, our top producers, our managers, our leadership, and even our competition. And that wasn’t always easy because you really have to humble yourself, and really hear people out, and understand what it is that they’re communicating.

Three, I would say, be inclusive of the process. And our focus groups really kind of led into number 3, because what we did was, by involving our team, when we were ready to do the launch, everybody felt like they had been heard. And everybody felt like they were involved—which made a huge difference when we unveiled the brand.

Number four, I would say—and this is a biggie—you have to be patient. And that, for me, was probably the hardest thing. It is not going to be an easy process. Our For Sale signage alone, I can tell you, took ten revisions before we finally got to where we thought, “This is going to be a great ‘For Sale’ sign that we can be proud of, and put in front of homes that we are selling.” So, you definitely have to be patient.

And last, but not least—I call it the “shock and awe effect”—and the shock and awe effect for us actually was a recommendation that came from our management team. And this was a tough call to make. And they said to us, “Look. Originally our idea was, we’re going to deliver this piecemeal. We’re going to change different products at a time, and it will take us 6 months to do the full conversion.” And they came to us and they said, “No, you have to change this with the flip of a switch.” And we were like, “Man, this is really going to be tough!” because it meant delaying the launch 6 months.

This was a really tough call to make. And we did! We said, “Okay, we are going to delay 6 months, so that when March 18th comes, we will flip a switch at our event and all of our tools will be transitioned.” And, honestly Eric, it was the best thing we could have done. It was such a “wow” factor, not only for our agents, but also for the community. People saw that something had happened, and something was different. And the excitement was there, which was really amazing to see.

Eric: As you look at that process, you talked about tools and how they helped you. What tools or technologies helped unify the company around the new brand and help maintain consistency at the consumer, broker, or associate level?

Paula: That’s a really tough question. And I don’t think there’s ever a perfect answer. However, in my time here at Keyes, and with everything we do, what I’ve learned is to automate and default—what we like to call “default market” for the associates. So, I’ll give you an example: partnering with QuantumDigital to do our automated just listed/just sold postcards. The brand is built-in to the the cards. And because you’re automating it for the agents, you’re one: making it easier for them to use, and two: maintaining control of what you’ve built. So, I would say definitely default marketing is the way to go, and partnering with people who can help you do that.

Eric: The real estate market landscape has certainly changed over the last few years. As you look at that, how are you managing these shifts in the Florida market and expectations of consumers and your associates?

Paula: I’d have to say, we listen. We are very much what I like to call a “bottom up” company. And so what that means for us is that, instead of us coming up with big ideas, and big things that we want to do, and then pushing it on our associates and consumers, we really try to have a pulse on the organization. And we listen to our associates—what they're needing and how they're communicating with consumers. And I think for us that has been so important in being able to go through these shifts of social media, mobile apps, web site usage, and communication via text messaging. A lot of new things are now part of our day-to-day life, you know, and are now what we have to do to do business. So, I think listening to the associates and having a good pulse on your organization makes a difference.

Eric: You have an “under 40s” group called Keyes Next-Gen. When you say “listen to the agents”, do you go out and have this particular group and others provide input for you on a formal basis?

Paula: Absolutely! So, what’s great is that Christina and Jason Pappas are actually running our current Keyes Next-Gen Group. And so, they meet with them regularly, and then they attend our leadership and our management meetings. And they’re running a lot of our events for us. They’re doing a lot of our social media training for the agents, which is fantastic to see this next generation getting involved in the business. And so, we really use them as a sounding board to make sure we’re doing the things that need to be done to bridge that gap, if you know what I mean.

Eric: You’re a busy marketer. I know you’re always thinking of creative ways to incentivize agents to use your tools. Can you tell us more about that? You seem to be very active in helping agents engage with what you’ve got for them.

Paula: Sure. You know, with all of our products, we find that we’re really in a partnership with our associates. We try to get creative during the launch to give them a better understanding of what the product is, and what it can do for them, but also make it easier for them to use. I’d love to be able to give you an example. Currently we’re running our Pappas Summer Tour, and this is something very unique to our organization, and it’s one of the things that I love that we do. Every summer, we go into all of our 37 offices, and we have a big meeting in each one of the offices, and it’s our president, myself, and our Family of Services team. We come in, we talk about the market and we talk about new products and tools that we’re rolling out… one of which, this year, is QuantumDigital’s TriggerMarketing®, and the TriggerMarketing Social product. And so we built a contest around the Pappas Summer Tour, and we did “Where in the Company is Mike Pappas?”—who is our president. It’s actually really cute. So what we do is, with each office, we take a photograph and then we post that to our Facebook and our Twitter handles. And our agents actually get to go in and guess what office they think they’re in… what office are we visiting. And with every correct guess, they’re being entered for a chance to win 50 free TriggerMarketing postcards from QuantumDigital.

It’s a fun way to get them involved, not only with the tour, but also to get them to get excited about the new product and using that product.

Eric: As you look at marketing and technology, there’s a convergence of a lot of innovation taking place in the real estate game… and even for the associates and consumers. What have been game-changers for you and your agent associates this year?

Paula: I would say we probably have 2 products that I would say are the big game-changers for us. And the first one is our Keyes Makes Me Social platform. And basically what Keyes Makes Me Social does, is we heard from a lot of our agents that—while they understand that social media is important, and they they need to be on Facebook and Twitter, and on LinkedIn—they didn’t know what to do with it. They never know “Where do I go to find articles?” because it takes too much time, “How do I promote it?”, “What do I do?” And so, it was getting very cumbersome. So, with our Keyes Makes Me Social platform, once one of our associates signs up for it, we are actually able to automatically post articles, holiday messages, their listings—a lot of information—to their Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn accounts. So, they don’t really have to do much. They just sign up, and we take care of the rest for them. So, that seems to have really made a difference for them in their businesses.

Eric: With your associates, do you feel they understand the value of the new social channels?

Paula: Yeah, absolutely. You know what I think happens a lot? I think everybody understands the importance of it, but they don’t know how to use it. And they don’t know how to make it work for them. Like, they know “I should be on Facebook. But once I’m there, what do I do?”

Eric: That is true. And, in your case, are the next-gen teaching the rest of the associates how to use these new channels? Do you see that happening?

Paula: Absolutely! Actually, I’ll tell you a cute, quick story. One of our next-geners was telling us they were teaching one of our older associates, who has been with us for a really long time, about hashtags. And they were having a really difficult time understanding what the hashtag did. And the next-gener actually decided and said to them, “You know how you have a file name? And you can search for that file name on your desktop to get anything that falls under that file?” And they were like, “Yeah, absolutely!” And they said, “Well, that’s what a hashtag is. Every time you use that hashtag, when you pull up that hashtag, you’re going to pull up any information that relates to that. Just as you would with a file on your desktop.” And I thought, “That’s a genius way to explain that!”

Eric: What about their personal lives? Have you seen technology advancements make an impact on the associate’s personal life?

Paula: Oh, absolutely! I think what it’s done is, one, we’ve been able to help them become more successful and become more productive—because, again, they’re focusing on what they know best, which is getting the deals done, meeting the people, and like what we like to say “kissing the babies.” So, that’s what they’re good at. So, by us taking over this back-office stuff, we’re giving them more time to do that. And by us doing that, they’re becoming more productive, more successful, and I hate to say it, for me being the mother of a 15-month old, they have more time to spend with their families. They have more time to have the freedom and the flexibility to do what they love. And, so I think that’s been really important.

Eric: If you look forward to the second half of the year, what excites you about the remainder of 2016?

Paula: I’d have to say for us, it’s never a dull moment here. Our company is continuing to grow, and it looks like over the summer we’re going to have a pretty large merger... that’s going to be happening, so you’ll have to keep an eye out on The Keyes Company and what’s happening. But, most importantly, I’m really excited to see the rebrand unfold throughout all of our offices, and the associates. Really, as we look forward to what’s coming for us in the next 90 years, I think there are going to be some really exciting things. And I’m excited for it.

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3 Ways You Could Be Putting Your Real Estate Brand at Risk During the Busy Season

brianna_mckinney — Tue, 19 Apr 2016 22:13:48 +0000

Title

3 Ways You Could Be Putting Your Real Estate Brand at Risk During the Busy Season

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Post date

Apr 19, 2016

Marketing Ideas

Real Estate

As the real estate market gets busier in the coming months and the demands of the day are building, there are a few areas that are critical to not neglect. There’s a good chance that you’re making first impressions with future clients every day. Maintaining your brand quality standard is not a seasonal investment; that’s why it’s called the standard. Consistently displaying top notch service throughout your brand experience aids in preserving your position as a top producer throughout the year. Since we know you're already feeling the pressure of the busy season, we've found a few sources to help you avoid three common ways you may be putting your real estate brand at risk as you become increasingly busy. Pay some extra attention to each category and help ensure your reputation remains intact.

Your Brand Starts to Look Sloppy

Presenting your brand the same way across every platform is important. This includes everything from the flyers in the box in front of every home you’re selling to your social media profile and header images. There are many opportunities to show uniformity and allow you to build on the momentum of being a recognizable brand. Aside from the essential practice of including your logo, some other areas you may not consider are color, tone of language, and quality of your collateral. When you're producing more materials as the market heats up such as just listed and just sold postcards, flyers, and others, the increase in marketing material volume also means an increase in spend, which can make it tempting to start scaling back on quality. Here are three things you don't want to let slide.

Color

RIS Media: Branding Consistency: Color is Key
“In the real estate business, color is key when creating customer communications across all platform. Consistent color branding imparts a professional and memorable brand impression that resonates with your prospects. Xerox research reveals that color improves brand recognition by up to 80% and increases comprehension by as much as 73%.”

Tone

The language you use as a company is important - both to minimize confusion and to set the standard for your professional tone. Consider the culture of your brokerage and reflect it in the tone of your messages. Then, think about the type of clients you’d like to attract, and communicate with using language that would both attract and make them feel comfortable. Tone should be established early on, and can be essential for social media channels where people are interacting with your brand in casual setting.

Print Quality

Your farming area may receive multiple direct mail pieces if their neighborhood is a hot market. When the time comes for them to select their realtor, there’s a good chance they’ll want their home represented in an impressive way on printed pieces. Some aspects to consider when choosing a printer are image quality, color consistency, paper weight, and possibly size. These details communicate almost as much as the overall message. Since direct mail and flyers are an in-hand peice, look and feel can help the response rate by attracting and standing out among the rest. Your printed materials need to represent the quality of service you bring to the table regardless of the price of the listing - and how busy you are.

You Let Your Marketing Campaigns Fall Apart

Experienced marketers know that it takes time to see results from any campaign. Building awareness and getting an audience to engage takes time. The most effective way to invest in marketing is to do so on a regular basis using multiple channels. If your pipeline is not constantly being built, you could look up after a busy season and find yourself with an unfortunate lull in sales.

Frequency

Leading Agent: CONSISTENCY Should Be The First Concern With Any Real Estate Marketing
“Every successful business in the universe plans ahead. They may be involved in a certain marketing activity at this particular moment, but I guarantee somebody at that company is already working on the next thing. Our firm for instance is generally working 3-6 months into the future, at any given time. As Realtors®, you wear many hats. Because of this, we suggest that Realtors® always have their marketing plans set up and planned out for a minimum of six (6) months and hopefully twelve (12) months. The reality is that you are very busy and there are only so many hours in the day. Because of this, the most effective use of your time is to work with your marketing team/outside marketing partner and get all this stuff done at once.”

Tactics

Multi-channel marketing garners results because it reaches an audience in multiple settings, unifying the experience and minimizing the chance they could miss you all together. It also helps to keep your brand top of mind because your audience may see it multiple times in one week. Once the homeowner you’ve been farming is ready to list or buy a home, you will have a better chance of being remembered when they think about realtors they know in the area. Being present on and offline also helps increase your word of mouth referrals. A postcard on a kitchen counter can spark a conversation and a Facebook post could be viewed by a client just before catching up with a friend looking to sell his or her home. Consistently maintaining these channels helps your brand get noticed and utimately remembered.

Your Relationships Suffer

Top agents know that so much of this business is about who you know. As with many sales positions, building strong relationships with a large network of people can source leads as well as bring more opportunities to your attention. Aside from always being professional and respectful, there are additional things to remember when times get busy that help maintain your position in a community.

Community Involvement

Market Leader: How Community Involvement Can Help Your Real Estate Business
“There are two types of community involvement that real estate agents typically gravitate toward. First, there are the agencies and individual agents that give money to a cause and consider it “community involvement.” Their websites typically boast that they’ll give “$100 from every home sale to the Breast Cancer Foundation!” or “Fifteen percent of my commission to the local humane society!” That sort of giving is admirable, and a boon to the charity recipient...The type of community involvement that other agents gravitate toward is hands-on volunteerism: the boots-on-the-ground, belly-to-belly, nitty-gritty of community involvement. While neither of these types of giving back to the community is necessarily “better’ in the main, the latter is hands down better for your real estate business. Quite frankly, the type of giving back that puts you face-to-face with groups of people who may turn into clients is good for business...It may start out as a selfless desire to give to others, but side benefits of community involvement include the fact that it’s an awesome way to generate leads, get your name linked to the community, and increase your brand and public persona."

Customer Service

BiggerPockets: Yes, Customer Service DOES Matter in Real Estate: Here’s How to Make Yours Top-Notch
“It can be difficult to see the potential benefits of practicing strong, consistent customer service. But it’s also impossible to ignore the obvious: It’s only a matter of time before the real estate industry gets caught up to similar retail industries. We are living in a world where the customer is more informed than ever before. This access to information is not only growing, it’s accelerating. Make a commitment to running a proactive real estate business that acknowledges the importance of your customers. It’s the responsibility of all of us to lead by example and work to uphold the reputation of our industry.”

So, Set the Standard and Maintain Consistency

Inman: 4 ways to brand yourself to attract more real estate business
“Whether you’re online or offline, the most important thing to keep in mind when building a brand is consistency. You have to be the same across all mediums— be relevant, be true and be genuine to who you are. People can spot a phony from a mile away, which doesn’t bode well when you’re dealing with most people’s largest investment. So, be consistent in who you are, and also in the experience clients can expect. The client experience should be seamless and consistent from search to post-close follow-up. Part of creating and maintaining that consistency is developing a team of people whom you work with regularly, and who are part of your trusted brand. People who are loyal to a brand (you) are more likely to try out other services from that brand (your colleagues). Those colleagues might include mortgage brokers, attorneys or moving companies who can also participate in the seamlessness of the transaction. Developing your brand to include these service providers ensures not only that your client is well taken care of today, but also will be in the future when they decide to return for round two.”

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