Yesterday, Seth points out that Real Estate brokers used to all charge the same fee. Not anymore. This begs the question, “what would you need to do to justify charging, say, 7%?” …. and, how successful would you be if you did that same thing but only charge 5%?.

Here’s a story; My wife returned from Belknap Tire and recounted an interesting story. She entered the store and the desk clerk took her keys before she was even able to set them down on the counter. After just 20 minutes she had her keys back in-hand, paid for the service and was on her merry way!

You might be thinking that it was just a slow day for them. Not so. There were 5 other customers who were tended to equally well. What about the price? GREAT! A HUNDRED dollars less than two other estimates. I’m not sure about your experiences but I’ve never been to a dealership and have been able to walk out so quickly.

Great service, great prices, attention to detail, great products, local and convenient. HECK YEAH, I think they’ve been reading Seth’s blog!

Go Ahead, Socialize ...

Allen Voivod gives us a great (and funny) review and wrap up of the RainToday webinar he attended yesterday afternoon. I would have attended it as well had I not been eyeball deep in a project…. I say that comfortably because I saw the same event announcement that Allen saw and thought how interesting it would be.

Here’s the point Allen makes;

” … if you think [snip] telemarketing is a dead end, you…€™d be wrong. Telemarketing… may not… get people to buy, but it got people to go to the presentation …€¦ where they were much more likely to buy.”

AND, to extend Allen’s logic, it was the email marketing that got him (and many others to go to the webinar). AND, a webinar is best presented if you give multiple levels of product for the attendees to buy. AND there should be some type of follow-up with each attendee to extend the buying experience into the future so it will lead to new sales.

The bottom line: Email marketing is not dead. Telemarketing is not dead. ADVERTISING, however, is quickly fading away and is being replaced by comprehensive, well thought out, integrated marketing plans…. These new strategies replace hard-sell, advertising tactics with a rich mix of; education, information, free interchange of ideas and helpful advice … all leading to, of course, the sale.

It is, indeed, a new world.

The “take-away” tidbit: When creating your integrated marketing plan, give away the “What and Why” and lead your give-away directly to the point where you “Sell the How.”

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When you’ve built up soooo much brand equity over the course of generations, and have become synonymous with your entire product category (like Kleenex has done), you might tend to rest on your brand laurels a bit. Not so for this super-star brand. Watch this TV commercial and, in particular, note the tagline and the tie to the website. It just brings a tear to my eye … sniff, sniff … quick, hand me a Kleenex!

Go Ahead, Socialize ...