Competing with Proctor & Gamble
Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf?Of course, as a real estate agent, you don’t need to fear Proctor & Gamble. You aren’t competing with them.
However, it is a good practice to every once in awhile look in a completely different industry and study successful companies, to see how they do things, why they have been successful for so long.
Proctor & Gamble is a great example. Especially when it comes to marketing and advertising consumer goods. Knowing a handful of people who have worked there, I’m able to offer you this advice.
Discipline: Create and Work the Plan
First, P&G is disciplined. Their guiding philosophy is to plan thoroughly, minimize risk and stick to proven principles.
Back in August I wrote about business and real estate marketing plans. I encouraged you to take the time to create both plans if you already haven’t. This helps you in the long run, allowing you to make more informed decisions faster.
And once that plan is finished, work and never deviate from it. Remain disciplined.
Prognosticate
Second, they use market research to identify consumer needs. They are forever trying to see what lies around the corner. They are forever studying the consumer and trying to identify new trends in tastes, needs, environment and living habits.
They are trying to predict the future.
More importantly, they have a way of creating products which are superior to their competitors. And with blind in-home tests, they make sure the superiority is apparent to the consumer.
The key to their successful marketing superior product performance…if the consumer does not perceive any real benefits in the brand, then no amount of ingenious advertising and selling can save it.
Your takeaway: make sure you communicate to your market why you are superior to every other real estate agent in the market. Avoid egotistical claims. Make it a real benefit for the home buyer or seller.
Present the Promise Clearly
Proctor & Gamble believes that the first duty of advertising is to communicate effectively, not to be original or entertaining.
Proctor & Gambles commercials deliver the promise verbally, and reinforce it. And in every commercial they typically end with a repetition of the promise. And in their commercials they tend to use a lot of words, sometimes more than a hundred in a 30-second commercial.
Communicating effectively goes back to delivering a promise to the home buyer or seller. If you are a new agent, it may take you some time to find out what you are really good at and what you can give the market that your competitors can’t.It will be hard work. But take the time. It will pay dividends because 90% your competitors won’t take the time. And they can drop out as you take their business.
In addition, they measure communication at three stages: before the copy is written, after the advertisements are run and in test markets.
You should do the same: knock on doors, call people, attend PTA meetings or volunteer for a local organization. Anything to get the inside scoop on a particular street, neighborhood or county.
Then sit down and knock out your ads.
Once you’ve launched the ads, measure their success. Keep a log of all of this information. For the next ad launch, tweak the copy or test a different photograph or market based on your results. They idea is to optimize the real winners.
And don’t forget A/B split tests. Their is even A/B split testing software available.
The Sacred “B” Word
Very often Proctor & Gamble will show the users of their products deriving some emotional benefit. That’s benefit with a capital B.
In your copy you should do the same. Make sure you are communicating clearly the benefit a home buyer or seller should get when they use you.
Try to fashion your headlines to contain one or more of these four key points:
- The most important is it must be written with the self-interest of your reader in mind
- Try to make the headline appear to be something news-worthy.
- Provide some timely news
- Make it appear that you have a quick and easy solution to their problem
- Avoid headlines that only provoke curiosity…combine curiosity
- with self-interest, news and a quick and easy solution and you’re
virtually guaranteed a winner
Using these tips will allow you to communicate a benefit to your reader.
Wall Street Journal Had It Right, Too
Once P&G have evolved a campaign that works, they keep running it for a long time, in many cases for ten years or more. But they continue to test new executions of the ongoing strategy.
Resist the temptation to change a winner because YOU are getting bored with it. You the results from your tests to determine when a winner has finally become a loser.
Wall Street Journal ran this ad for over 27 years.
Here’s how it starts:
Dear Reader:
On a beautiful late spring afternoon, twenty-five years ago, two young men graduated from the same college. They were very much alike, these two young men. Both had been better than average students, both were personable and both – as young college graduates are – were filled with ambitious dreams for the future.
Recently, these two men returned to college for their 25th reunion.
As long as it was working, they wouldn’t dream of pulling it. And you should keep the same discipline when it comes to your winners.
What to Do With Your Budget
Once Proctor & Gamble established the advertising budget, they continually test higher levels of expenditure.
This means that you increase your expense on an ad [whether you increase frequency, exposure or length] to see if you can optimize the results. You might find that paying an additional $100 a month brings in an additional 50 leads.
Flight Ads Only If It Works for You
Finally, almost all P&G brands are advertised through the year.
They have found that this works better than “flighting”–running an ad for six weeks on, six weeks off. It also provides considerable cost savings from bulk buys.
My advice for you: test to see if this works for you. We’ve tested it ourselves and we actually found the opposite to be true, that flighting allows the ad to refresh and pull better next time around.
One thing worth repeating: test everything. If you do that, you’ll learn, grow, dominate and succeed.