In March’s Marketing and Branding Month, we’ll go deep on agent branding and best practices for spending with Zillow, Realtor.com and more. Top CMOs of leading firms drop by to share their newest tactics, too. And to top off this theme month, Inman is debuting a brand new set of awards for branding and marketing leaders in the industry called Marketing All-Stars.
When it’s time to tighten your belt, you probably start with the low-hanging fruit: Little-used tech platforms, irrelevant subscriptions and a moratorium on frivolous spending. When you dig a little deeper, you may end up having to make those really painful cuts to staffers, infrastructure and marketing initiatives.
We asked you to tell us where you’re trimming the fat in your budget: Where are you cutting back on your marketing spend? Are you simply forgoing new initiatives or ramping back your current strategies? Are you basing your cuts on analytics or cutting back across the board? Are you reducing your use of outside vendors in favor of bootstrapped, DIY solutions?
Here’s what you had to say (edited for clarity):
- We are ramping up our marketing to survive any slowdown and position our brokerage for success in the future.
- I am focusing more on my sphere and less on my farms, and I’m getting more personal with my communication. I’m using more pen and paper, making more phone calls, sending only useful postcards (baseball and festival schedules), and getting a little more creative with the handwritten cards I send, not only for birthdays but Happy New Year, Happy St. Patrick’s Day, etc.
- Facebook and Instagram
- I used to send monthly postcards to a farm area. I’ve stopped all direct mail farming.
- I’m not.
- Assistant, nine mailings annually per farm vs. 12
- Based on ROI results cutting. Online lead gen is a waste. Back to basics, doing tables and attending community events are working. Cutting frivolous [spending]. Keeping DIY tools definitely and CRM platforms to stay top-of-mind.
Now it’s your turn. Let us know where you’re cutting costs in the comments below.
