Madonna is a maverick. Ever since the 80s she has been causing a stir by reinventing herself from the original material girl to the wild and wacky ethereal girl. By the time everyone catches on to her trends, she has moved on. As a blogger, you need to follow the "Madonna Model." Be a blogging maverick by "thinking outside the box" and doing things no one else is doing to drive traffic and convert leads.  

I was marketing feature films and was asked to "think outside the box" it scared me at first. I thought what the heck does that mean, where do I start and if no one has ever done it before, how do I know my idea will work? Then, a great marketing mentor of mine, sat me down and showed me the blueprints to "outside of the box thinking." So, in the spirit of mentorship, I will share the secrets to innovative marketing strategies with you:

What is outside the box marketing?

Simply put, outside the box marketing strategies are unique marketing tactics that connect directly with the consumer in a completely new and engaging manner. It is about what has already been done in your field to attract customers and doing something different. Remember Wendys "Wheres the Beef" commercial or how about those crazy Vonage commercials? Those are examples of out of the box marketing.

Need a site to spark your creative out of the box juices? Check out Marketing Professors Daily.

How do you brainstorm an out of the box idea?

Like everything in life you need to start with a goal. Generally, when you set a goal for your blog, you choose one of the following things:

1. Traffic
2. Leads
3. Comments
4. Backlinks

Read Also: Setting Goals for Your Real Estate Blog

NOTE: When setting your goal be very specific in both quantity and time frame. Fore example, make a goal to increase your traffic or comments by x% within 3 weeks. 

1. Engage people emotionally with a post about a local event that stirs up reader emotion or controversy
2. Add an interactive linkbait tool like a mashup, Zillow, poll, quiz, contest, open house registration or CMA lead generation tool.

1. Start commenting on other blogs with relevant information and suggestions
2. Create a blog war with a controversial post that will engage reader emotion enough to spark a flurry of commenting

1. Write "tutorial" posts where you give "How To..." information. Educational posts spark backlinks
2. Digg your posts and syndicate them on Technorati and Real Estate Voices.
3. Create a web 2.0 mashup tool. People love interactive tools and often link back to them if they find them particularly helpful.

Read also:    Boost traffic with a blog war

                        Linkbait for Realtors

                        Ultimate guide to backlinks

                        Humanizing a blog

                        Real estate blog writing 101

                        Commenting 101

You need to know where your traffic, leads, commenting, etc. are when you begin your new campaign and how they grow throughout it. Properly monitoring your results is the key to knowing how to quickly modify your campaign to get the best results. Most sites offer back-end statistics tools. Check them out throughout the weeks of your campaign to see your progress, if your back-end doesnt show weekly or monthly metrics, log your numbers in an Excel spreadsheet.

Read also:        Grow Traffic by 40% in one hour/day to see how I track and measure my marketing results for the RSS Pieces website.

What are outside of the box ideas for real estate?

Real Estate is so cool because the industry itself is just so perfectly set up for "outside the box" marketing. The simple acts of buying and selling homes are ideal for really great marketing strategies. There are probably a million ideas out there and Id love to hear your "outside the box" ideas in the comments of this post. But, here are the ones I came up with for using your blog "outside the box" or in this case, "outside the blog."

1. Contests: hold some crazy community based contest like best holiday decorations and have people submit photos of their homes. Check out Sellsius suggestions.

1. Blog War: Write a post that incites people to comment. Incite strife with an article at least once per month. Write about a local politician raising taxes, a certain "celebrity" community member causing problems with neighbors, etc. (note- do not attack your competition- in fact never mention your competition- stick to public figures and events)

1. Community Controversy: Be controversial. Have strong opinions and express them. If you dont like the fact the local fair is being held too close to a residential district- let people know. You will get all those neighbors commenting on your blog. You can even get press interest from this sort of thing. You end up looking like the Realtor that is THERE for people in the community- fighting alongside homeowners. Nothing better than a little free press, huh?

1. Interactive Mashup: People love cool tools. Youll need to get a developer do this for you, but its well worth it as it will help drive repeat traffic and spike your backlinks. Use the Zillow API as a lead generation tool (yes that can be done) or a local resource map. It shouldnt cost you more than $1000 to have a developer integrate a tool like that into your site. Or (shameless self promotion) you get an RSS Pieces blog that comes with both those cool features built right in.

1. Charity: Show your humanitarian side. Be the Angelina Jolie of your community with poignant blog posts that point out the sufferings of others and make a call to action to your readers for their help. For example, recently, The Lovely Wife wrote a post about a client that was in dire straights, took up a collection from her readers and then more than matched the funds collected to bail her clients out of their predicament. Now, I know she didnt do that with the intention of driving traffic to her blog, but compassionate people flocked to it and contributed. That post also showed the kind of compassion and humanity she has. And dont people want to work with a Realtor that cares for them? So, occasionally taking up someone elses cross and helping them through your blog will aid you in more personally connecting with your reader, build your credibility and increase the likelihood that you are the Realtor they want to work with when they buy or sell their next home.

1. Podcast or written interviews with satisfied customers: People like to know you have other happy customers. They also like to know that your happy customers had hard times and you helped them through them. For example, interview a client that was a FSBO that had their home on the market for over a year with no bite and you stepped in and had it sold within a month. This is very easy, simply put together 5 questions and email it to your client, have them either answer it them in writing or call them and record the interview if you have Podcasting capabilities.

1. Virtual Town Tours: People love to know about the town they are moving to. So, once a week, take a picture or video of some historic or funky location in town, tell people about it and how the town uses it or what people do when they are there. For example, I hail from Boston, so I would share some of the neat little places along the Freedom Trail and talk about the Boston Duck tours. It gives people an idea of whats available as far as amenities and entertainment goes and most importantly is shows you as an expert on all aspects of your community.

Read also:        Guerrilla Blogging

Be the Madonna of your blog. Hey, take off the pointed bra and garter belt! Save that for NAR. "Being the Madonna of your blog" means being a maverick that thinks way outside the box and is always on the cutting edge of trends. Find ways to engage your community through your blog. Use "Guerrilla Marketing" and "Outside the Box" techniques to continually re-invent how you connect with your readers. 

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