Let’s face it “marketing” is a pain in the neck!
The ideas and concepts are great, and if you get it right, it can turn into that never-ending stream of leads that every marketing professional rants and raves about.
See how Partner Marketing Conversations with Privy™ can help your real estate marketing efforts.
There’s only one problem: the amount of time, money and energy it takes to build the foundation for marketing in the 21st century is expensive, overwhelming, and downright exhausting - and it hardly ever turns into the ROI you were expecting.
Before I dive into talking about this in more detail, let’s take a look at a definition of Integrated Digital Marketing in the 21st Century:
“Integrated Digital Marketing is an approach to creating a unified and seamless experience for consumers to interact with the brand/enterprise; it attempts to meld all aspects of marketing communication such as advertising, sales promotion, public relations, direct marketing, and social media, through their respective mix of tactics, methods, channels, media, and activities, so that all work together as a unified force. It is a process designed to ensure that all messaging and communications strategies are consistent across all channels, and are centered on the customer.”
Whew!
This is what it looks like:
That’s you in the middle. Yup, you are responsible for everything.
A marketing company can help you put the pieces together, but ultimately the whole kit and kaboodle is run off of you and your content. Your content is what attracts people to you. If you don’t put any out there, no one knows you exist. See what I mean?
With that in mind, your number one priority in the digital marketing age is to create content - not just any old content - content that sets you apart from all of your competitors. How do you do that? We’ll get there in a minute.
Ok, you got it. You need to create content. What you might not get is how much you need to create: LOTS of it!
We’re talking blog posts, videos, ebooks, white papers, interviews, testimonials, and anything else you think would be interesting and provide value. You’ll need to put it out every week, minimum, if you plan to gain any traction with digital marketing.
You might be getting clever now and thinking you can get someone to create this for you. Well, you could, but there’s a big problem with that. Your content person will never know your business and what sets you apart, or how to talk to your clients as well as you, and it’ll show in your content. You content will be mediocre, and it’ll come across that way. That’s the exact opposite of what you are trying to accomplish. What I’m trying to say is: it’s on you to create all of this content, period.
Let me explain. In a nutshell, you’re trying to show off your special skills and offerings to the world. You want to be seen as a “thought leader”, an “influencer” in your field. So when the time comes that someone needs your services/products, you’ll be top of mind. If you put out mediocre musings, that will be a direct reflection on how you do business. Not to mention, no one will read it, which kills your marketing effort before it even starts.
Let’s assume you have a sexy product and the ability to write musings that people will want to read. Good for you! You’re one of the lucky ones.
Don’t get too excited, though; everything else in the diagram above still needs to be built to create the ecosystem that will essentially keep your leads and clients entertained with your content - and therefore top of mind - until they are ready to buy.
Now, I can get into specifics about what’s all involved to build that ecosystem, but it’d add an additional 10,000+ words to this document, and you’d essentially end up in the same spot.
Here’s the point. Building, maintaining, and optimizing this “foundation” of your digital marketing platform is a time consuming, expensive, never-ending, headache that is going to be a huge distraction from you doing any real business from now on.
Aren’t you glad I spared you the 10,000 words? :)
Trust me, I’ve been down this rabbit-hole with close to a dozen different marketing companies.
I keep falling for it. I’m a sucker for the idea of an automated gold-mine of never-ending leads (and I love technology). The problem is it’s a pipe-dream. It’s pitched by every marketing company, everyday, in every city in the United States and beyond. If you’ve spoken to a marketing company, you know exactly what I am talking about. If you haven’t, pick a random marketing company, call them and see what they say.
Here’s the deal. If you have a sexy product or service, AND you are a great writer, AND you have plenty of spare time and money, AND you hired a legit marketing company, you have a chance of making all of this work. Take one of those things out of the equation, and this method of marketing start to fall apart.
My guess is at some level you’ve tried to figure out what all the hype is about and have gone down the rabbit-hole yourself, right now you are feeling my pain.
If not, keep reading before taking that leap as I’ll be providing an alternative that you should consider.
So what do you do?
The good news is, all is not lost. In fact, things are much brighter than you think. There is a solution!
“What is this black-magic you speak of?”. It’s called “Partnership Marketing,” and it’s what some are saying is the future of marketing. If you’re new to the concept, this is what it is.
“Partnership marketing is about collaborating with a person or business because they have a relationship with an area of a market that you’re interested in selling to”
Put a different way, it’s companies combining their offerings, services or products in order to offer more value to each others clients, past clients and new leads.
Adding more value is easily the best way to get people to work with you. Partnership Marketing is the friend that takes an active interest in your life. It’s giving without asking for anything in return. Run your business with a methodology of giving before receiving, and you’re setting yourself up for success.
The digital marketing model, conceptually speaking, is trying to do the same thing. You’re trying to provide value. The problem is that even if your intentions are pure and you are writing content because you have valuable things to share with the world, you’re still screwed!
Here’s why:
- Creating more value through content is extremely overplayed. Want proof? Look at your inbox and/or your social media feeds. It’s full of content for this and that and the other thing. You barely read any of it, or maybe you read none of it. Go the digital marketing route, and your content will be part of the problem. I hardly think that’s adding much value to anyone.
- Your product on its own probably isn’t sexy enough to compete with the world-class sexy products that have world-class writers on board and giant budgets.
- I guarantee you’re going to get burned out with all the writing, building, optimizing, (repeat ad infinitum).
Partnership Marketing is different. It’s cost-effective, puts the consumer first, and is a major differentiator from everyone else struggling in digital marketing land - and it’s fun!
Who doesn’t want to instantly upgrade their business and be the good guy in doing so?
There are a ton of examples of Partnership Marketing, and over the next few years you’ll see it more and more.
Here is an awesome article from our friends at SmartBug. They give 18 examples of Partnership Marketing. I’ll bet you’ve heard of most of them.
Co-branding and Partnership Marketing - 18 Examples
Partnership Marketing works, and it works VERY well for those those who provide services or products to the real estate investment industry. At my company, Privy™, Real Estate Investment Software, we are making these types of partnerships every week, and LOVING IT!
Our clients are happier, our partners’ clients are happier, our partners are happier, and we’re closing more deals than ever!
At Privy™ we happen to be in a unique position.
We’re set up to add some serious value to any business whose clients are residential real estate investors.
I like to think of it as the “extreme make-over” of real estate investor-focused businesses.
This is a real thing. To get started, you need to do your research. Finding a partner can seem daunting, but it doesn’t have to be.
I’m happy to help by offering some advice on how to find a partner or “if the shoe fits”, discuss partnering with us.
We currently have the bandwidth for a few more partnerships for those that want to put the consumer first and add more value. If that’s you, grab a spot in my calendar and let’s get the conversations started.
Partner Marketing Conversations with Privy™
Thanks for reading and please leave a comment below.
Digital Marketing on your own:
Partnership Marketing with Privy:
