Marketing in Real Life

As anyone who reads this blog knows, I am a believer in good old fashioned market research and testing. But I am also fan of moving (and winning or failing) fast. Often times we as marketers let the perfect be the enemy of the good when it comes to testing. There is unquestionably a place for scientific rigor but how do we get the list of things that make it to that stage. To me, it's simply putting things in market and seeing what happens, even if the results are only directional. Because directional is certainly better than directionless.

Right now I am in the process of wrapping up both buying and selling a house.  As most people who have gone through this process can attest, it’s not easy and you often feel pretty helpless.  For me, it was even harder as a new age marketer who can’t stop thinking about things like inbound strategies, calls to action, and real-time insights.   Here are three relatively simple things that realtors could do to make the process easier and more effective for themselves and their clients. Narrow the Calls to Action.   As marketers, we know that too many choices are a bad thing.  As are calls to action that don’t have a reason to act attached. Yet every day I walked outside of my front door to a “For Sale” sign with five calls to action and no reason to choose one or the other.  A phone number for my realtor.  A phone number and a web site for my realtor’s office.  A phone number for my realtor’s partner. And finally the URL for a dedicated websi...