Arnie-ism #1 - for REALTORS®

If 70% of all real estate business comes from referrals, do you have a referral plan in place?
Even the successful REALTOR® may not know exactly how they get referrals from their data base list, they just happen. Imagine how many referrals one might get if they actually had a plan in place.
With today's market conditions, if you have no set plan for referrals (which of course come from customer relationships) your data base will begin to diminish.
I am seeing long-term REALTORS® who were successful without nurturing customer relationships actually leaving the business. Why? Because in a shrinking market those REALTORS® that are growing their business are taking the business away from other REALTORS® and from their data base of customers.
There are probably REALTORS® in your office that are doing better this year than last year, that have ignored the doomsayers and have plans in place to create more referral business. Not only are they doing well now, but when the markets begin to stabalize and grow again, they will become MEGA REALTORS®.
I see the industry changing drastically with the boom that will come in time. The REALTORS® that are survivors in the business will be fewer in numbers, and they will have become experts in marketing, data base cultivation, and a reliable source (go-to-person) by their clients for a multitude of lifestyle considerations.

This post is a quote from my latest eBOOK "Hints for Becoming a MEGA REALTOR®"
It can be found at www.mktgusa.com in the book store.
Arnie
arnie@mktgusa.com or arnie@a-gmarketing.com Cell (317) 489-5337

Customer Retention... Referrals

Roy Chitwood in his article, Key to Retaining Customers, states, “The key to retaining your customers in actuality is not very complicated. In fact, it can be quite simple:
Customers come to you when they have problems and needs. To both serve them well and keep them coming back, you have to provide better solutions than do your competitors.”

One executive describes customer loyalty; he says, “Correctly mining your customer database will create a means to acquire new clients over time. A system to creatively mine your customer database, providing “Treats” along the way is a sure way of creating and maintaining a successful business.”

Loyalty marketing is the management process of identifying “best customers” and utilizing customer data and insight to create, retain and grow profitable relationships.

Best customers are those who are the most commercially valuable – they bring the most profit.

Also important are those whose characteristics suggest that they have the potential to become categorized as best customers.

Keeping a client year after year is attaining customer loyalty that involves fitting together several pieces of the relationship puzzle.
There is a science to understanding client loyalty, to recognizing the value of loyal clients, plus creating and maintaining loyal clients. We will cover the basics of client loyalty and teach you ways to create more loyal clients than ever before in your business. I have found to create a successful customer loyalty strategy and action plan, one must first understand the numerous factors that determine the level of loyalty by customers.
First we will define Customer Loyalty and begin on a trip regarding the growth of Customer Loyalty. The purpose of the information is to review the make-up and use of Customer Loyalty.

Arnie Goldberg, quotes from book "Give Your Dog A Treat" www.giveyourdogatreat.com

WHY LOYALTY MARKETING?

Why loyalty marketing? Because the overwhelming majority of real estate transactions come from referrals, you need a marketing strategy that not only retains existing clients, but gets them to recommend you to others more often.

Loyalty marketing is a process that identifies best customers by retaining and growing profitable relationships. Your most profitable customers not only transact with you, but also refer new business opportunities to you.

Most successful companies that deal with consumers have robust and capital intensive loyalty marketing programs -- because THEY WORK!

American Airlines years ago offered a loyalty rewards program and other airlines followed them. Credit card companies came with rewards programs. In recent years Target decided to take a major share of their advertising budget and give it back to their existing customers. They determined it was more effective and less costly to do loyalty marketing to existing customers than try to convert the whole buying public.

Rewards Programs and many loyalty activities are transactional based -- "purchase this" and "get this" -- these are reactive

Loyalty Marketing is relationship focused and pro-active rather than re-active

Let's use as an example a REALTOR® with a data base of 250 and they actually know 50 people well. The question becomes, how many of even the 50 are willing to talk about the REALTOR®? Those are the ones you need to engage and cultivate relationships with, and need to move others of the 200 into those that will "carry your banner."

You need a loyalty marketing solution that identifies those customers and cultivates your relationship with them.



Arnie Goldberg, VP Loyalty Builder, LLC agoldberg@loyaltybuilder.com