Realtors up your marketing not your spending.

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Market savvy Realtors are not going on vacation until the market improves – they are aggressively marketing their listings and services. The trend of course is to put more marketing dollars into online venues and less towards the old fashioned print ad. This makes sense of course because you can get more value online plus according to NAR Home Buyer and Seller Survey

Eighty-seven percent of home buyers who used the Internet to search for a home purchased through a real estate agent, in contrast with 72 percent of non-Internet users who were more likely to purchase directly from a builder or from an owner they already knew in a private transaction.

While there is no confusion as to where and why Realtors should be focusing their marking efforts on the web, there seems to be much confusion about how to do this.

More than a few of my clients see the initiative as simply duplicating their print materials in PDF format and posting it on their web sites. This, despite the long conversations we share on the benefit of RSS feeds, widgets, SEO and so forth. I realize that while I create much enthusiasm and excitement during these consulting calls, the plan usually falls short of execution. The simple reasons: too much work, too much new stuff to remember, I shut you off when I heard you say “blog…..feed…rss…etc…and the enthusiasm was all your own”.

This is true, I have unbounded enthusiasm for opportunities on the web; The great equalizer that gives Realtors the opportunity to level the playing field. (or any small business playing against the big guys)

OK – so it’s happening again, let’s get back to the reason for this post: A simple way to cover your bases on new technologies:

Listing Syndication, RSS Feeds, Widgets, Mobile access & SMS, Email distribution, Single property websites, Craigslist and Ebay!

vFlyer is the closest thing to a one-stop real estate marketing service that I have seen. It is very easy to create virtual tours, single property sites, printable flyers, and professional content for Craigslist postings. On top of that, vFlyer automatically submits your listings to leading marketplaces such as Zillow, Trulia, Cyberhomes/AOL, Google and more. vFlyer subscriptions are affordable. I understand that most real estate agents sign up for the vFlyer Starter subscription at $12.95/month. That subscription supports up to 10 active listings. vFlyer supplements good online help with email and phone support.

Check out vFlyer

What is RSS and how can Realtors use it.

What Realtors ought to know about their websites

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What was popular for your real estate website a couple of years ago is no longer working. If you have a site that hasn’t been updated recently you can relate to this. You’ve noticed less activity, visits, leads etc. and likely a drop in your search position on Google. This isn’t about your meta tags and keywords, it’s about your content.

The good news is that you really don’t have to throw money at traditional advertising to improve your online search strategy and conversion. And while improving your content takes work, this work can take the place of other less profitable marketing strategies while saving you time and effort in addition to money.

Take a few minutes to view this video. It will help you get in the frame of mind to accept how quickly things are changing. And why you need to change your online marketing strategy to keep up.

Some people think this video is creepy or scary. Change is always a little scary and seeing how quickly technology is evolving can be intimidating but also exciting.

People surf the web to research or to be entertained. If your website is simply an advertisement about how great you are then you are missing an opportunity to connect with your visitor. You won’t be able to hold their attention because you are not meeting their needs.

Your affiliations, years in business, awards and sales volume is not content aimed at meeting the needs of your visitors. Don’t say “I’m a luxury homes specialist” prove it. Provide interesting  information about the luxury home market. Define your audience. Who purchases/sells luxury homes? What topics would be of specific interest to that demographic? Educate and engage your visitors.

Check out the following resources for writing engaging customer focused content:
“First of all, you’d better be blogging. You’ve got to join the conversation and have something valuable to say before anyone will bother acknowledging you. In the excellent business blogging book Naked Conversations, authors Robert Scoble and Shel Israel envision a day when a business that doesn’t blog will be viewed with suspicion by the public. Blog marketing has been dismissed as fad and reviled as fanciful, but the denial stage is over, and everyone is getting in on the action.”
Quoted from: Viral Copy: Trading Words for Traffic
download the full 30 page report and visit copyblogger.com for more information and articles about viral marketing and creating great content for your real estate web site.

The Customer Focus Calculator (We-We Calculator):
A great tool to illustrate whether your site is focusing on the customers’ needs…or just loves the sound of its own voice.

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How real estate agents can use Google Alerts for SEO

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Google alerts are just like the “daily email updates” your IDX system sends out to people searching for homes. Except instead of emailing new real estate listings, Google will email you the latest relevant Google search results that match your search criteria. This includes web, news, blog posts etc.

Pretty cool right? You get the latest relevant Google results on any topic, keyword phrase, a persons name, whatever your interest, automatically emailed to you, once a day, as it happens or once a week. Your choice.

Some of the Google Alerts you may want to consider setting up:

  • Your name
  • Your website name
  • Your latest industry news
  • Your competitors
  • Your market area
  • The keyword phrases you would expect people use to find your web site

The last item on the list is the one I most want to discuss. Most realtors I speak with want to be found this way in a Google search: city state real estate

example: westport ct real estate

Google Alert for Westport CT Real Estate

Google Alert for Westport CT Real Estate

Using Google Alerts will make the concept crystal clear about two things I explain to clients on an almost daily basis:

  1. The old fashioned marketing strategy of static content is no longer performing for real estate web sites.
  2. If you don’t have relevant content including your keyword phrases you can not expect to be found for that particular search.

Another important thing to remember, and creating Google Alerts will remind you, is this: People don’t necessarily come to your web site to read your content. Specific headlines and including your market area (city and state) and topic in your copy is essential for search engines and for understanding what your content is about outside the context of your web site.

Create a Google Alert and improve your web marketing strategy now! www.google.com/alerts

The price of economic pessimism

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Optimists see the world as a benevolent place.
Image via Wikipedia

We have a responsibility to be optimistic about the economy. The truth is ‘thoughts become things” and if we focus on the bad economy, worry constantly about not having enough money, losing jobs, clients, etc. then that is what we manifest in our lives.

Below is a short optimistic story you may already be familiar with and below that are links to post that may help you feel more inclined to optimism. I hope!

The story goes that two shoe salesman are sent to a new teritory to set up shop and discover that people there don’t wear shoes at all. One salesman calls the home office to say, “Don’t ship any shoes! I’m returning to headquarters immediately. This trip is a waste, nobody here wears shoes.”

The other salesman calls headquarters to say, “Send as many shoes as you can! This place is a goldmine – nobody here has any shoes!”

How Are We Doing
The American economy is in a rough patch. But the long-term trends are good—and there is a price to economic pessimism.

Here’s the Good News
Forget headlines – the world economy has never been better.

The Good news of Economic Collapse
The best and the brightest minds of the world will use their skills to replace the oil based economy that presently exists because of the tremendous monopoly profits that come from a 19th century technology.

Why I’m optimistic even now
As a Chapel Hill attorney, a member of the community of real estate professionals, a small business owner, a longtime local citizen and a parent, I have experienced firsthand the struggles and challenges we have all been faced with of late. And yet I find myself, like so many others, filled with gratitude for what we have, and sincerely optimistic about what we will achieve going forward.

When your Thoughts Become Things
Yogi Gupta: When your thoughts become creative psychically they will bring results in your life which at first will appear to you just unbelievable, startling, miraculous and supernatural. But really there is nothing miraculous and supernatural in the results which come purely by the use of the higher forces of Nature, known as psychic powers. Every move of the process which transforms your thoughts into things is made in accordance with natural law and order of Nature.

Your Positive Thoughts Can Make a Difference
Life Coach Barbara Scala reminds us how we are all connected, gives practical advice and shares her “game” on how to develop and maintain a positive attitude.

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Lie to Me. Your brochure says you are lying!

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I’ve recently been sucked in to a new TV drama called “Lie to Me”. If you haven’t seen it, it’s about a guy who is supposed to be the world’s leading deception expert. He can read you like a book using your facial expressions and body language. They cut in real footage of well known liars in the act of lying and show you how the facial expression or gesture is exactly the same. Fascinating!

While most people don’t have PHD’s in this field they are intuitive and can detect lies or sense that someone is saying one thing but telling another with their non-verbal language. We call it intuition but an expert will tell you it is not intuition, it’s a scientific fact – the difference is that you and I can’t name what it is or why we know it. We aren’t trained – we just know.

This same concept is true with your marketing materials. Website, brochures, fliers, postcards, newsletters, etc. The personal computer has given everyone the tools to make cool stuff. The problem is that not everyone has the design training or the intuition to use design to effectively support their message. Your brochure copy may be saying you are a waterfront luxury homes specialist while the actual brochure is telling people you are a used car salesman. Or maybe your marketing materials are saying you are lazy, unorganized, downmarket – whatever. The point is your brochure is NOT supporting your message.

An example of this would be a brochure about Home Stageing & Decluttering. This brochure tells us that decluttering will make our home more attractive to buyers. We should agree it’s absolutely a good investment to hire an expert to declutter and showcase our home BUT this brochure is putting doubt in our minds and we are not fully sold. Why? Because the clutter and mess on this brochure is even worse than our most neglected spare room! We don’t have the design degree or training to name it – we’re just not sold.

Consider that having your admininistrative assistant design your marketing pieces may not be in your best interest. Their time could be better spent performing tasks they are proficient with. Designing brochures and ads will likely take them longer than a professional and with sub par results. A more cost effective solution would be to hire a professional to provide you with templates that you can re-use for new brochures, newsletters and so forth. This will cut down costs and give you the added benefit of all marketing materials being professional and consistent.

If you are a die hard DIY person then I would suggest purchasing a professionally designed template or use one that comes with your publishing program which you can modify. There are resources available that will help you improve your layouts by helping you learn to identify what needs improvement and to call out many of the usual amateur pitfalls:

Non-Designer’s Design Book, The (3rd Edition) (Non Designer’s Design Book)
The Non-Designer’s Design and Type Books, Deluxe Edition