How NOT to market your business!

A few minutes ago I did a Google search looking for homes & land in my area. I gave up after clicking on just a few search results, and here’s why:

The first Google search result I clicked on wanted me to register just to do a search. Unbelievable! I quickly clicked my “back” button, and moved on to search result #2.

This one allowed me to do a search, review the results, and click on the “more details” link. I did, and guess what? I hit a page telling me I had to register before I could view details on that particular home.

No thanks. Time to move on to the third result.

And so I did. This one let me search without registering, but I couldn’t view the search results until I did.

What the hell is the matter with these people? Especially at a time when the real estate market is dead, you’d think real estate brokers would have enough sense to use their brains when putting these sites together!

Unfortunately, common sense is uncommon. They fail to realize this one basic truth of marketing:

Anything that isn’t helping people to buy is preventing them from buying.

Think about that for a minute. Anything that isn’t helping your sale is hurting it. That means unnecessary pages, unnecessary registrations, unnecessary product details or brochures, unnecessary company information, and on and on.

You may have heard the concept of “filters and amplifiers” in marketing. Simply put, anything that doesn’t amplify the power of your marketing is acting as a filter between you and your prospect. These stupid, idiotic, moronic pages that demand I register my personal information before I can view a simple real estate agent listing (or even search in the first place) are a prime example of a filter. A big-time filter, at that… not only will I not be buying from agents who pull this nonsense, I left their sites completely and won’t be doing business with them at all.

Do this right now: Review your entire marketing system, from traffic generation, to your opt-in pages, all the way through to your thank-you pages. Identify any and all filters and either remove them, or convert them into amplifiers. Your marketing success depends on it. Remember, anything that isn’t helping people to buy is preventing them from buying.