Tip of the Week: Capture Your Audience's Attention

By Chris Leithe for Inman.com

In the pre-digital age, marketing was straightforward: You placed an ad in the newspaper and sent out postcards. All marketing was physical.

Enter the internet, which now dominates consumers’ attention as they toggle from their desktop to their smartphone, amid their daily life. Today’s marketing needs to reflect these new habits to be effective.

The connection between offline and online these days is seamless. Whether consumers are planning a vacation or a big purchase such as a new home, they utilize the internet as one of their primary research tools. And when they visit or purchase products at retail stores, they are often asked for their email for online follow-up.

It can be easy to have a conversation with a great prospect at an open house, but if you don’t capture their information and follow up, the connection is lost.

It can be all-too-easy for agents to have a great conversation with a prospect at an open house, but let the lead slip away because they don’t have a seamless digital followup system in place.

That’s where an app such as Spacio can help; the app helps agents digitally capture leads at an open house and respond personally. With Adwerx, agents can complete the digital marketing loop by targeting that open house contact with digital ads that show up on the sites those consumers visit most online.

Accentuate the positive

Have you ever noticed how many large brands use feel-good stories to increase brand recognition?

Chicago real estate agent Sarah Pasquesi utilizes the “Agents for Change” campaign, a partnership between Adwerx and the real estate social responsibility firm Giveback Homes, to advertise her services to her sphere of influence. Giveback Homes receives a donation to building projects it helps fund for each ad she runs.

Pasquesi said she has seen above-average click-through rates and generated buzz among friends, acquaintances and family with these ads. The ads, along with her other marketing efforts, have helped solidify her brand and stand out, she added.

The most important component for effective recognition is consistency. Over the life of your career and business, repeated and regular contact will have far more impact than a media blitz done once and then forgotten.

Get physical

Physical items such as notepads, water bottles and advertising in print are effective because they help build recognition over time. They do what digital ads do in the online world: catch your target audience when they are doing something they like.

Handwritten notes combine the power of something physical with a personal touch. Using a service such as Bond, which sends handwritten notes and can do custom images on notecards, can help reinforce your brand through consistent use of the words and pictures your brand uses elsewhere.

To build up recognition and trust, you have to reach people where you find them most: online and in the real world. Top real estate agents know that to create the awareness that fosters trust they have to interact in both worlds in a consistent way.