S.P.A.M. - JUNK MAIL - MARKETING OFFERS
RESPOND TO THEM OR DELETE THEM?
As I went through my normal morning rituals this morning and reached the point of checking my emails hoping for a new client email that says "Scott! You are the greatest real estate agent on the planet and we have $10,000,000 cash that we want to buy MLS ( or "NLS" ) number XXXXXXX and we want you to write the offer and we will be available to meet to sign the agreement at 12:00 P.M. today. And we also have three $5,000,000 homes that we need listed and we want to market each one for a mere $2,500,000 so bring your listing agreements for the properties located at 123, 125,127 Main St Dreamville, Fl. See you at NOON!" I was disappointed that the following email was the one I received instead:
Subject: Realtor free advice and report on search engine rankings
Send me your webpage address and I will see
how it ranks on the search engines and send you
a free report. It will detail what your average ranking
is along with link count and advice on what your
website needs in possible changes to meta tags and
content. First try the free report. No charge no obligation.
I work with realtors to optimize their webpages so their
rankings move towards the top of search engines. I give
a lot of free advice on how to change your page so you
get unsolicited business in this tough market. I was a realtor
for over 10 years so I understand your needs. Realtors are
dropping all print advertising and using the internet.
I charge for submitting to the search engines and changing meta tags.
I am by far the most inexpensive in the business. First just try the
free report. You are under no obligation.
[SIGNATURE DELETED FROM HERE FOR PRIVACY REASONS - and I don't wish to offer any shameless plugs for this marketing genius ]
to unsubscribe or opt-out clcik dahnerlaurence@aol.com and I will remove you from this campaign. If you wish to do so by mail send it to 612 se norseman dr, port st lucie, fl 34984. Remember when you email to send the email address to be removed.
Now, notice that this marketing guru has a broken shift key on his keyboard apparently because he is obviously unable to capitalize any letters that really ought to be. Hmm? 
So, I decided to offer him my " suggestion " on how to better market himself by offering the following in response:
Dahner,
I would think that since you somehow found my email address and if you are as good as you state you are that your marketing skills must have a small defect or at the very least a large oversite.
Think about what you just offered for "FREE".
Since you already have my email address you should have figured out from my email address what my domain is.
Since you are offering this analysis for free wouldn't it have been far more productive to do the work that you are offering for free. Send the report on the rankings, links, meta tags etc as a courtesy to the potential clients that you are attempting to market to for new business with those statistics allowing them to see exactly how much work they might need and then include what the statistics would be if you were to do your optimization for them?
Think about it. "GIVE" the users the information that you are offering for free along with the improvement you believe you can offer. Show them EXACTLY what they are going to receive and then sell them with that.
Wow, I'm a freakin' marketing genius! :) Now, I won't charge you for that advice either.
But if you do offer this you darn well better produce. You stated you were once in real estate. Which I can't for the life of me understand how you could not still be in the business if you are as good as you promote yourself to be at web marketing. But that is another story. If you were in this business for any length of time at all then you know that if you sell this service and do not produce the word of mouth will travel quickly throughout the agent world and you will get blackballed quickly.
Try that method suggested above and I'm sure you will see far better results from your simple offer of free SEO checks. Give the SEO check in your initial contact along with the improvements you state you will produce. Then produce them. I'm betting your RIO will increase by 75%!
Good luck.
Scott McClain - FULL TIME REALTORĀ®
I intentionally removed my contact information from the signature because I really want to see what is response to this will be and if he can figure out what my domain is, will he then do the FREE work that he advertised and/or will he take my suggestion and run with it by using my own domain and sending me back the results.
Or do you think he will be insulted and respond with a defensive nature?
Hmm? Time will tell.
I will post the responses when I get back from my mini vacation on Tuesday.
This should be fun and interesting.
LONN! WHERE ARE YOU? LOL