Usually, you hear all kinds of okeydokey about how great blogs and social media can be for getting customers, clients, and prospects into your online door. And while a lot of that hype is partly true, I can assure you that there are other methods of traffic generation that works just as well.
Before I get too deep into those waters, I just want to make sure that you realize there are a lot ways (either paid or free) that you can use to get people to your landing page; however, none of that will matter much if you don’t have converting copy on your page to get prospects to take the action that you want them to take. So please, a little respect for the copywriting industry, ok?
In the realm of real estate investment and development firms, many of the CEO’s, firm partners and players in those fields are a pretty sophisticated bunch. Just to be clear, I’m not talking about your average 8th grade internet reader here, I’m talking about highly educated engineers, investors and CEO’s that are running these companies. These people are a different mindset that regular Internet marketers.
(Please read my last article about my epic fail of a marketing strategy, here.)
The Hard Lesson I Learned From Sending Army Bands $1.00
To give you an illustration of what I’m talking about, I’ll draw on my own personal experience to show you what I mean.
Years ago, my wife and I manufactured and sold an item to military bands around the world. This was an easy sell, because the bands all needed the item we sold badly, so 
we didn’t really have to sell the item so hard. However, being the entrepreneur and marketing wannabe that I am, I decided to see if I could get a higher conversion rate out of the sales letters I was sending out.
I was fortunate enough to have gotten a list of the army bands from the department of defense that even had the names of the supply sergeants for each band as well. I borrowed an idea from the famous copywriter, John Carlton, and stapled a dollar bill to the top of each sales letter I sent to the supply sergeants to really get their attention.
To cut a long epic short, I got a lot of calls from army bands, alright. They called me off the hook to explain to me that I couldn’t send them money like that because it was considered a bribe, plain and simple.
So, the big lesson here is: Right idea…Wrong format!
It’s the same thing with the sales letters and different formats you’d use with sophisticated clients in the real estate industry; certain marketing formats will work much better with these types of clients.
If you’re dealing with high end real estate investment and development executives, then a well-researched and data driven white paper is the way to go. As it turns out, these professionals love data and information, so white papers, if they are done right can be a great marketing tool.
Within Striking Distance with this Strategy
Here’s the main difference between white papers and blogs, sales pages, and other types of marketing vehicles:
- White papers are written in a much more formal tone than other types of information products and they are very similar in nature to case studies and research papers
- Good white papers use graphics sparingly and the use of well researched charts and graphs is a must. If you use a bar graph, then make sure you list a credible resource for the material that you are presenting
- White papers can be given away liberally and it doesn’t take very long before you can actually get your study into the hands of the right people
- When marketing with a white paper, make sure you keep the marketing aspect of it light so that it does not appear that you are marketing with it. If you do put any type of marketing message with your white paper, make sure that it is brief and at the very end of your report in your bio section
White papers can be great marketing vehicles, and can be used to get your marketing message out without posting loads of ads on your website of blog. If you’re interested in writing your own white paper, here are some links to sites that can get you started:
8 Rules for Writing White Papers
4 Keys for Writing Compelling White Papers
9 Steps to Writing White Papers
To Your Success!
Mark “Elmo” Ellis