For Becky Woodbridge, the expensive and glossy magazine ads are not the answers. The broker and firm owner is getting personal using her database as her primary marketing effort as the real estate market softens and competition among brokers heats up.

Woodbridge, broker and CEO with Becky Woodbridge Properties Inc., a Delray Beach-based real estate firm, said that they are fighting for market share. According to her, Ads aren't driving the business, and they are getting fewer calls from advertising. Even tangential businesses, like mortgage companies and the firms that support or train them, are becoming proactive in their own marketing efforts.

Just like Woodbridge, Hoodwin has turned less to print and traditional marketing, and more to his database and word-of-mouth efforts to drive business. For Realtors like Woodbridge, the customer database taps a time-tested approach of reaching friends and business associates. According to her, referrals are the strongest form of marketing.

Woodbridge targets her database with an e-mail blast or a direct mail distribution every 21 days. Woodbridge is working with Buffini & Co., a referral and coaching company, to reach people in new ways.

A recent Woodbridge database mailing featured a full-color, one-page list of monthly home maintenance projects. Working with D&G Communications Group, her Delray Beach advertising agency, she recently prepared a sales brochure for a high-end, Delray Beach property. Woodbridge is sending more client appreciation gifts. She said that Ad dollars spent on branding, as opposed to driving leads, do little to boost her bottom line during a softening real estate market.

By M. Sese
http://realestatepress.org