The other day I was perusing through Facebook (my disease) and came upon a link to a video series that Inc. Magazine had done with Barbara Corcoran.
For those of you who do not know who Barbara Corcoran is, she is a real estate mogul and business expert.
She is one of the judges on “Shark Tank” (you gotta watch that show if you’re into business) and she’s a real estate commentator for the Today Show.
Barbara took a $1,000 loan to start The Corcoran Group. She parlayed that loan into a five-billion-dollar real estate business which she sold in 2001 for $66 million!
Here’s How Barbara Became Famous
When she started her struggling little real estate company in New York, her agents were mad at her because she wasn’t advertising.
No advertising = No leads = No sales = No money to agents
She didn’t have any money to advertise, so instead, she decided to do the next best lowest cost tactic.
She took all 11 properties she had sold that year, divided it by the selling price, and wrote a little one page report about the average selling price of a Manhattan apartment and called it, “The Corcoran Report.”
She then sent that little report to every news writer at the New York Times.
The Corcoran Report
Guess what.
Nothing happened.
Two weeks later she opened the real estate section of the New York Times and there it was.
The headline read, “New York Real Estate Prices Hit All Time Low!” and the article quoted her statistics.
She Was Shocked!
No one called. No one questioned her statistics.
She suddenly realized that she had a partner and they were called the New York Times!
So she started churning out report after report after report on just about anything statistic she could come up with.
She realized that the media not only wants a good story, but they CRAVE STATISTICS!
Statistics are what make the story credible and the media ALWAYS wants to be credible.
It was the “Corcoran Report” that made Barbara Corcoran filthy rich.
Her report vaulted her name and credibility to the top of the New York real estate scene.
Here’s The Huge Lesson For YOU!
Barbara used a marketing strategy that we call, “Education-Based Marketing” or “Content Marketing” to make her famous.
She did it through reports that she wrote and sent to the media.
You can do it too!
Just think of what type of statistics based report you can develop that you can publish in your industry niche.
Michael Stelzner did it to launch his site, TheSocialMediaExaminer.com.
He created a “Social Media Marketing Industry Report” by passing out a simple survey.
He compiled the results and formatted it into a report.
The report was immediately downloaded by tens of thousands of marketers, vaulting his name to the top of his industry and generating thousands of optins for his email list.
That report allowed him to launch his website and now is the top social media marketing website on the internet.
Why can’t you do the same thing?
We used this same strategy with our site MarriageAdvice.com.
We would create an online survey about a controversial topic and then we published the results in a press release and our website would get mentioned all over the internet.
In fact, one day I was sitting on a Southwest Airlines site thumbing through inflight magazine and BANG, there was our stats in a full page report in the back of their magazine!
Crazy!
It works!
Oh, by the way, if you want to watch a video of Barbara explaining her story of rags to riches, click here. Watch the video, “How Perception Creates Reality.” (pay close attention from the 2:00 min. mark to 5:00 min.).
P.S. Take a moment and check all of our $5 special reports.
About David Frey
David Frey is the Founder, MarketingBlogger.com. He is also the author of the best selling book, "The Small Business Marketing Bible" and many other marketing courses. To find out more about this author, visit www.WhoIsDavidFrey.com.
Twitter: rtmixmktg
says:
David,
Great post and it’s motivating me to get back to work on my podcast (and to consider doing a survey along with it).
Tom Treanor recently posted..Problem: Media Stage Fright / Solution: Face Your Worst Fears
Do surveys, then put them out to the media. We are going back to that strategy with our MarriageAdvice.com site. It worked so well for us, I’m not sure why we got away from it.
Good article David – I guess a lot of business owners wouldn’t bother because they would imagine it could never work – but in reality journalists are always looking for good content!
A quick question about this process – if you’re just starting out in a niche, and don’t have a list, or much of a following on social media of the audience you’d like to survey – how do you get your survey in front of the right people to generate a credible number of responses (in fact how many responses *would* be considered credible?) Thanks
Tanya Smith Lorenz recently posted..Love the Customers You Have!
Brilliant as ever David.
You know what?
I used to do this all the time! I haven’t for the past couple of years though!
With my email lists I can get some awesome stats for the media.
It’t back on my “to do” list David
Thanks man
Sean
Sean McPheat recently posted..A Witty Water Cooler Sales Story
Yeah, I got away from it too. Not sure why. It works like crazy.
I’m looking for a place where I can post my one question surveys to
get quick, statistically significant results. Then create press releases
from them and send them out through the premium PR web service.
I’m even wondering if you can put a survey on the Google content
network and soon as it hits a statistically significant number, you change
the survey and a new question that you can collect data on and create
a press release out of.
David Frey recently posted..Here’s The Fastest Way to Succeed At Anything
Many years ago I was in a similar predicament. Just started a company, where the market was dominated by two players. Nobody wanted to buy the same stuff from a new startup. So I went and spoke to some hostile customers and found out some of the things they wanted. I knew all the potential clients in the market and created a fax newsletter (yes it was some time ago!) This was filled with information I was getting from manufacturers alongside information we knew as well. Everyone got it, and we had very few who wanted to be removed. Within 4 years we went public on the stock exchange, and that company is now the number one worldwide. You have to prove to people you know your products. Most of the marketing I see these days tells me someone has a product or service, and it sells for a price. Educational marketing makes you stand out from the crowd.
Hi David,
Using Reports the way you cover is another great example of brains being able to achieve more than bucks. Thanks for sharing that with us.
Tom mentioned in his Comment that he’s working on a podcast. For any of your readers who’s like a free, text-to-voice generated podcast, I’d recommend they look at Odiogo.com They can see it in action on my blog at http://www.enviro-friendly.com/blog You may be surprised at the quality!
John Payne@solar hot water, solar panels, renewable energy
Twitter: ryanhache
says:
Hey David, Not sure you remember me, we worked together on the referral movie at (platinum synergy) back a few years, great article and I continue to refer your 12 step sales letter to this day
. Cheers.
Ryan Hache recently posted..How to Attract New Customers on Facebook for Free
Twitter: David_Frey
says:
Hey Ryan,
How’s it going man!
So you’re solo now or do you still work with Platinum?
Dude, you got a rock’in blog!
Let’s stay in touch (I just liked, and google circled you so now
I’m following you
Twitter: ryanhache
says:
Its going great man, I’m still with Platinum just moved into a more marketing role which is helping us improve our products. I also do some private consulting clients now.
I’m glad you like the blog.. I look forward to sharing more of your stuff with my fans.
Ryan Hache recently posted..How to Attract New Customers on Facebook for Free
The unexpected gave her billions of dollars. Who would have thought that New York Times will publish a statistics from a newly developed business.
Matt Evans recently posted..Curt Schilling’s video game company files for Chapter 7
Hi David,
This story really motivated me not to give up on my struggles. I remember when I launched JustRetweet.com I faced so many challenges but within 4months the site started gaining media attention and I really still pushing hard till I get there
Thanks for sharing.
Valentine
Statistically 8 out of 10 people who read this awesome post will not scroll down and read this comment…lol. Seriously though, great advice and thanks for recommending the Xshot in your other post. I ordered one based on your review and it arrived today. Your the best David.
I watched that on Barbara with my mouth open – it was amazing and shocking at the same time so glad that I saw that though. I’m going to do exactly that- The report on my niche thanks for posting this.
Lisa Cash Hanson recently posted..What ties @ScaryMommy @Dooce & @MompreneurMogul together- #SocialMedia