January 15, 2012

The Future of Real Estate Online Marketing

Google has been developing its own kind of patented processes in its search results. It has its own algorithmic program which ensures the best type of site to be delivered in its search engine list. This is why more and more businesses are turning to online marketing and advertising. With the flourishing online market that establish business partnerships and technical integrations all throughout the nation that made this niche as the leading online real estate marketplace.

Through real estate online marketing you can start from creating an effective online newsletter or ezine as it’s called in the online community, and give it away for free. A good content is always an advantage, you can educate them about consumer loans, the pro’s and con’s of buying and selling real estate properties, how to establish homes to sell for maximum revenue, etc.

This important information on real estate online marketing is your advantage to gain a lot of visitors. The right real estate online marketing strategy will make you an expert in your community as you established yourself as a good resource by providing buyers and sellers’ informative content. Then at the end of the day it is much easier for you to market your real estate website.

Nevertheless when it comes to the real estate online marketing you need to remember especially if you are new into the business to use and support only White Hat SEO practices and refuse spam of any nature. White hats means the proper strategy and standard way of gathering back links and traffic to your sites. You must keep in mind not to violate any policy rules from any search engines. A white hat real estate online marketing or ethical SEO not only makes your online real estate keep its standards but also develop your reputation as a real estate agent.

Keep in mind that generating real estate leads online can be effortless and cost affordable. When you identify with what customers are looking for, how to get huge amounts of traffic inexpensively, and then how to change those leads into business you can close. Learn from Real Estate SEO Blueprint which is known as the only course of it’s kind that is specifically made for real estate professionals. Because it’s made by real estate professionals it addresses the unique concerns of the professional real estate community.

 

Become skilled at how to do your real estate marketing online and real estate search engine optimization so you can benefit from leads daily and more closed commissions.

ListHub Launches Real Estate Network
Mike Pappas, president and chief executive officer of The Keyes Company, a real estate brokerage based in Miami, Florida, said, "We have promoted our listings on competitors' websites for years through IDX to maximize the marketing value we deliver to …
Read more on MarketWatch (press release)

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January 14, 2012

Real Estate Email Marketing- Related Hint For Email Marketing Program

Email marketing is very useful for small company and particularly for those that are endeavoring to keep abreast of net services – like independent record stores as an example. The existence of the iTunes tune shop makes it extremely hard for them to remain in business as music can be simply obtained without patrons ever leaving home.

If you’re looking for info about real estate email marketing, you will find the below similar article actually useful. It gives a refreshing perspective that is much related to real estate email marketing and in some demeanour related to email direct marketing tool,opt email marketing or free email newsletter software,email marketing freeware.

While there’s not a predictable activity to being able to avoid the spam tag, there are some things you can do to give yourself the best chance of avoiding it.

First don’t capitalize whole words, or God-forbid, a whole subject line. Second, avoid most punctuation, especially the oft-overused exclamation point.

An easy tip sheet that they can easily reference can be an invaluable tool to your customers as well as a major selling point to your prospects. Create your tip sheet primarily based on your own knowledge of your service. This kind of insider info has great accepted worth.

RECESS — As is plain from the half of this document, regardless of if your direct search is real estate email marketing, reading to the end will prove useful, as this piece has also helped those attempting to find info regarding email newsletter marketing, free email software, bulk email services email marketing, affordable email marketing software.

Email has the benefit of being able to give a message without having to be eye to eye with the receiver. On occasions this might be precisely what is desired. However, on occasions in which human interaction is intertwined and complex messages and meanings are concerned email is at a real disadvantage.

Business to business email promoting can have a particularly positive effect on relations, leading to increased harmony between firms or between supplier and customers. Where there is a good relationship the possibility for elevated sales is high.

We discovered that many individuals who were also searching for info related to real estate email marketingalso searched online for related information like email lists for marketing, personal selling, and even email internet marketing,mass marketing email list.

Most e-mail selling corporations allow their customers the ability to test e-mails before officially sending them out to their list of subscribers. One reason this is good is to find out how the subject line looks in your own mailbox. Check for spelling, readability and that it doesn’t get cut off.

Coldwell Banker Thanks Medfield Community for Toy Drive Support
Coldwell Banker Residential Brokerage is the largest residential real estate brokerage company in New England. With more than 4000 sales associates and staff in approximately 90 office locations, the organization serves consumers in Massachusetts, …
Read more on Patch.com

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December 7, 2011

The Beginner’s Guide to Internet Real Estate Marketing

Article by Corey Dubeau

Are you a developer, builder or brokerage looking for a new way to generate leads to sell your property? Have you already tried using the internet to do marketing, but could not produce a reasonable ROI, or just didn’t generate enough visitors to your listings? If this sounds like you, then this guide is exactly what you need to help your real estate business advance. By making use of internet marketing methods, I will show you an effective method to generate real estate leads at an affordable rate. So what are we waiting for?

Overview – How Marketing For Real Estate Online Works

This real estate marketing process that I will be explaining, is built on all areas of search marketing, from search query to ad click to lead generation. How it works is quite simple, and can be outlined in a few steps: Making a website, getting targeted traffic, and getting leads. Continue reading the next 3 stages to get a general idea of how you can start promoting your property using internet real estate marketing.

Stage 1 – Building a Listing Web Page

The first target is to build a website that is targeted on one main subject (ex. New Homes in Dallas). That’s where you will endorse your house with pictures, designs, video clips, amenities, etc. You can do this easily using a professional web design company, or you can use a wide assortment of free alternatives, such as WordPress, Blogger, etc.

Stage 2 – Generating Visitors

When you have a site built and populated with data about your listings, you will want to generate targeted traffic to it. You can do this in a couple ways, still the two most frequent choices are PPC and SEO. Pay-Per-Click (PPC) Marketing is a process where you pay per click by featuring your advertisement on search engines for specific keywords. The second alternative is to use Search Engine Optimization (SEO), which takes longer and is typically more difficult, but the bonus is that the benefits last longer and tend not to rely on your finances.

Stage 3 – Turning Visitors into Leads

So seeing that you now have a website presenting your home, and traffic going to your webpage, you’ll want to turn those visitors into sales opportunities. To best do this, you should start by making it simple for traffic to contact you. Make sure that your website has various contact options. Second It would be best to give people a reason to contact you. Try engaging them with a captivating Call-to-Action (CTA).

By now you must comprehend the fundamentals of how you can use search engine marketing to promote your listing and develop leads from future buyers.

Corey is an internet marketing professional that specializes in lead generation. To download the full guide to real estate marketing services visit http://www.atmosmarketing.ca










Movoto.com Surveys Real Estate Agents on Use of Social Media and the Internet
Only 35% of agents are spending more than $ 100/month for online advertising, making online a small part of their overall personal marketing budget. Social media adoption by real estate agents is high. Real estate agents appear to prefer LinkedIn with …
Read more on San Francisco Chronicle (press release)

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December 3, 2011

The Emergence Of A Real Estate Flipping

My name is D. Sidney Potter and I flip houses. I started in 2002 from a whim with the expectation that I buy a House and for me in their lives. Accidentally to this House as one of the mean first prospects. On this first House in I bought I was passively waiting for about three to four months to be completed at home. After a while, I noticed a little funny, and that was that the price up stage started after phase of small steps in the area of $6,000 $8,000. After the property was fully built, he came to I some seven to eight months later concluded that this new home of mine out in Riverside, California, may not be as profitable idea. In a split decision, I have the House on the market for $425,000 and sold it two months later for $415,000.

Amazing, from the gate I earned $101,000 on my first home and I can tell you that it not always from the works in this way. You do not always $ 100,000 on a flip. And I can tell you in a way that I get on this happiness. I hope that an interest in real estate investing haben-and in particular new tract help home mirrors – in a reduced risk environment, the both comfortable, profitable and is reasonably achievable.

In particular, the purpose of this article is a roadmap and construction for those who want, investments in real estate, with a focus on new tract earn a considerable profit with the completion of housing for the sole purpose to provide.

Often referred to in the media, people like me as fins or speculators. Given the criticism through the media, you would think that we were a real estate monster of some sort, or maybe the Gordon Gekko real estate buy! The core of easy hitting new tract housing is that the investor buys easy for one low price, before the home is actually created. Regardless of the current product type is home to only an empty dirt lot in a suburb. Normally, it may be even a concrete slab or only in the frame, it is live, but the bottom line, a House, which has not been completed – which makes it ripe for opportunity. The goal, if completed the House – what is typically a few months later-is to immediately resell the home to a significant profit. This is flip methodology in its simplest articulation.

Although in 2011, and given the change in the market, a flip today better than an “intermediate flip” could be referred to, in the light of the hold strategy required to harvest the appreciation. What happens from cradle to grave, is A to Z, beginning to end, nuts, bolts, which includes this article. It is like a new tract buy home, hold it by its development stage and resell it quickly after it purchased from the developer. During this period of incubation, I call what “flip candidates,” given that they are not yet fully mature and inserted, but not a transferable currency. As a result, they are still only flip candidates, until they are actually purchased and closed by the developer. Since up to that point, and no matter how much they value can have risen during the Build-Out period, nothing means nothing until you actually own the property itself.

Of a real estate brokerage background, where I previously sold shopping centres for five years with two large national brokerage firms in Los Angeles, and with my experience as a mortgage in another bank customer websites across the country, which included the assessment and acquisition takes the issuance of mortgage in multi-million-dollar portfolio, I was operations consultant, where I worked clearly qualified for better or worse, come to understand, the acquisition and disposition of investment product and the bits and pieces of underwriting guidelines, that a very large role in determining whether a profit there are made, or will be made in new tract home investments.

You as a reader may notice that the purchase of real estate, even if you have assigned resources just for you is. And if this is the case, that’s okay. But read this article and you durchlesend other real estate books before and after him, make at least the well-considered and deliberative decision making that is required if such momentous company — what the buying and selling of real estate in quick succession is enables.

As a member of the National Association of Realtors and the National Association of home builders, Sidney began his real estate career in 1992 as mortgage operations consultant for synergy consultancy group, and went retail shopping malls to work for Marcus & Millichap and Sperry Van Ness as sell a commercial real estate brokers and showcase. In addition to the be a former member of the Council International in shopping malls, he holds a BA, 2 MBA and part of the graduated Pepperdine University. He was on the Board of Directors for two large HOA in Las Vegas.

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October 12, 2010

Marketing Real Estate | Real Estate Website Traffic – Sem

Search Engine Marketing: Drawing traffic to your real estate website

What is search engine marketing (SEM)? and why it’s important for getting ahead of your competition in real estate marketing.

  1. Sponsored (paid) listings are a great way to get fast visibility on the major search engines. Also called pay-per-click, (PPC) sponsored listings are those that show up at the top of search engines such as Google in a blue box or in a column along the right side of the page. These results are clearly labeled “Sponsored listings.” The more popular the keyword, the more paid listings come up.
  2. Lead tracking can help your real estate business become stronger by attracting quality leads. Lead tracking brings both short- and long-term benefits to your company – giving you instant access to information about each sales prospect while also helping to streamline and manage the sales process.
  3. Email marketing is the icing on the SEM cake – it impresses your prospects by allowing you to send them valuable information on the market and it helps you to stay fresh in their minds.
  4. Third-party SEM providers can take the mystery and work out of effective marketing. If you do not have the time to do a comprehensive SEM campaign, or you simply want to spend less time on the Internet and more time with your customers, you can go through a third-party provider to run your SEM campaign for you.

But before you start your campaign, you have some work to do.
Targeting your customers

Most likely, you know yourself and your business pretty well. But have you ever sat down and wrote out lists of words and phrases that other people might use to describe you? Probably not – but now is the time to do it.

Even if you’re using a third-party provider, you need to know who your potential customers are to a T. What are they looking for and why would they want to use you to help them buy or sell their home?

All aspects of real estate search engine marketing – sponsored listings, lead tracking, and email marketing – rely on keywords in one way or another to work.
Keywords are key to SEM

What are keywords, and where should they go in your site? Keywords are simply, well, key words that determine which category your site will be listed under in search engines and directories. In terms of sponsored listings, the keywords you choose to bid on will determine where your ads show up.

You have to figure out what words and phrases home buyers and sellers are potentially going to use to find you, determine which are the most important to your business, then use them accordingly.

Your website will attract more hits if you spend some time doing this seemingly mundane, but extremely important, job. There are just a few simple guidelines for an effective keyword plan, but they do take some time to do well.
Brainstorming your Keywords

Take an hour or so to sit down and write every single imaginable word that someone might use to find your real estate service. For example, if you specialize in high-end new constructions in the Los Angeles area, you may come up with the following:

  • Luxury Brentwood homes
  • Upscale Los Angeles real estate
  • Best neighborhoods Los Angeles

However, not everyone who is looking for “upscale Los Angeles real estate” will come up with that phrase. So you need to think about every conceivable term that they might use to describe the same thing. Such as:

  • West Side Homes
  • Luxury condos
  • Southern California real estate
  • Full service brokerage
  • Mansions Beverly Hills
  • Best schools Los Angeles
  • And on and on…

The important thing to remember in brainstorming is that you should try to think of what you would look for, and branch out from there. The more specific your keywords are – the better. It’s best to come up with 40-50 keywords and phrases, and then narrow them down to the top 20 absolute most effective. The more specific you are, the better your chances are of having words that differ from your competition. Remember, in Pay-per-click, the more popular a keyword is, the more expensive it is.

If you really are at a loss for relevant keywords, try using Wordtracker (- a site that suggests and evaluates the keywords most relevant to your business.

Once you have a solid list of keywords and keyword phrases, you can use that information to build other aspects of your SEM campaign, including lead tracking.
Beyond keywords – creating a better business focus

Aside from drawing traffic to your sponsored listings and real estate lead tracking efforts, brainstorming keywords has an added benefit – giving you more focus in your real estate business.

Times are changing in the real estate business. Models that worked for you in 2003 may not work in 2006. The more you can specialize your services and differentiate yourself from the herd, the better. Creating keyword lists can lead to all kinds of unexpected new ideas for selling your services. You might come up with a new idea for an email marketing campaign, or a better way of attracting hard-to-reach leads and thus bring more real estate traffic to your real estate website.

For example, say you come up with the keyword phrase “retirement homes.” You then do a little research and discover that many baby boomers are looking for homes that are smaller, but still have luxurious details. You could then use that information to write an email about how smaller homes are fast becoming the size of choice for many retirees. You never know what keywords will spark a new idea, so be open-minded!

This article is originally published here: Real Estate Website Traffic – SEM.

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August 21, 2010

Real Estate Investing | A Simple Plan: Buying Stocks At A Discount To The Market

Sounds like it should be a title for a movie, doesn’t it? With all seriousness though you can and should be using this strategy especially in a nasty bear market. Lets face it, who really knows when we are at the bottom? Stocks that look like a bargain today can have their values halved in a short period of time. Does that mean you sit on the sidelines and wait for a recovery? The answer is yes, but that is a lot easier said than done. Very few people will invest at the bottom of the market. In fact most people wait till it’s too late to get into the market. With this simple plan you wont have to wait, and you wont have to worry about whether you purchased the stock too early or should have waited. If you follow the strategy as outlined you will be able to purchase a stock at a discount to the current market price and if not still make a return that is above average expectations. Did I get your attention?
A short while ago I wrote Bottom Fishing With the Bears outline a procedure of investing in bad markets. Now I would like to show you another strategy to use for bear market investing, in fact it will work in all kinds of markets as long as you are an investor with realistic return expectations. At this point I would like to urge you to read Bottom Fishing With the Bears, both strategies can be used simultaneously and have the potential to become an important part of your investment planning. Don’t kid yourself serious investing requires planning! Anyone can buy shares in a company but overlook the second and most important part of investing–proper money management.

Bottom Fishing With the Bears used a fictional company trading on the NYSE (New York Stock Exchange) under the symbol DOG. This illustration will use an ETF (Exchange Traded Fund) which is composed of the largest DOG companies in the United States and trades under the symbol (you guessed it) DOGS. Keep in mind that although the stock is fictitious the actual illustration is based on an actual ETF comprised of DOGS and it does trade on a major U.S. stock exchange. We want to keep the strategy as real as possible without giving any specific investment advice. It’s the plan that I would like to focus on and leave the investment decisions and selection in your capable hands. Yes I know I’m stroking you a bit, but since you took the time to read this far you demonstrated that you are open to new ideas and do have enough common sense to decide for yourself.

Back to the Simple Plan: Buying shares at a discount to the current market price. How is it done? Though the concept is simple, take sometime to reread the strategy since some of the instruments used can be complicated and require full understanding. Don’t rely on anyone else, learn it yourself before you begin implementation. There are three things you will require immediately before you begin. They are money, cash brokerage account and an options account. While the first two are obvious having an options account may be unfamiliar. However, you will need all three.

Having everything in place and your account funded with $10,000 in cash, I would not recommend that you should use this strategy with less. We are buying quality investments not speculating. Anything less and your return will be diminished by commission costs. At the $10,000 level the commission costs are almost insignificant, depending which financial institution you have your account. Now that you are ready to go, lets see how and what you would do to buy shares at a discount in the ETF of DOGS.

As of this writing DOGS ETF closed at $8.24 per share. Remember though it’s for demonstration purposes only it is based on an actual trading ETF. Since DOGS is composed of some of the largest U.S. institutions beaten down by the current market conditions, this may be a good time to jump in and invest. Since the market is bad you are not sure whether the shares will go even lower or whether they bottomed out at this level. Your obvious choice is to go out and purchase 1,000 shares of DOGS at $8.24 for a total investment of $8,240 before commission. The rest of the illustration will be based on costs before commission. That’s one way and most of us are familiar with this method. Nothing new here. However, let’s look a little deeper and see what we uncover.

At the time the shares of DOGS closed at $8.24, its 6 month $8 PUTS were trading at $2.34 per PUT. What is a PUT? Good question, I’m glad you asked. A PUT is an option giving the owner the RIGHT to SELL 100 shares of an underlying instrument at a specified price by a specified period of time. In our example for instance the owner of a PUT with a strike price of $8 has the RIGHT (not an obligation) to sell 100 shares of DOGS to the seller of the PUT (also called the writer) at $8 per share at anytime during the 6 month period regardless of the price of the stock. On the other hand the seller or writer of the PUT has an OBLIGATION to purchase 100 shares of DOGS at $8 per share during this 6 month period regardless of the price of the shares. Got all that? If not read it over again before I show you how you can benefit.

Rather than outright purchasing 1,000 shares of DOGS at $8.24 you place your funds into a high yield money market instrument. Then sell (or write) 10 six month $8 PUTS on DOGS for $2.34. Since each PUT represents 100 shares and you sold 10 PUTS you are now OBLIGATED to purchase 1,000 shares of DOGS at $8 per share. For this OBLIGATION you will receive $2,340 ($2.34 x 100x 10). These funds are yours to keep. During the next six months three possible scenarios can occur with DOGS. The price of the stock can go up, down or stay the same. Correct? Well let’s see what happens with each scenario.

The shares of DOGS go up in six months. In this case your upside potential is limited. You are limited to the price you would through ordinary method purchased the stock plus the premium on the PUTS you received ($8.24 + $2.34=$10.58). Anything above $10.58 is your cap. However should this happen your return by using the simple plan is 28.3 percent in six months. This does not include the interest earned on your original capital of $10,000. All in all a pretty good return, a 57 percent annualized rate of return. Should the shares of DOGS remain at $8 or any amount above your return will be exactly the same as above.

On the other hand should the price of the stock drop below $8 per share during this 6 month time period the owner of the PUTS will sell you 1,000 shares of DOGS at $8 per share and you will be OBLIGATED to purchase the stock at $8 per share or $8,000. However since you received a premium for selling (writing) the PUTS your actual cost for 1,000 shares of DOGS is $5,660 ($8.00-$2.34 x 1,000= $5.66). As long as the stock is $5.66 or higher you haven’t lost anything. Had you purchased the shares outright at $8.24 and the stock is trading now at $5.66 your loss would be $2.58 per share or 31.3 percent as opposed to zero. Also, keep in mind that you now have 1,000 shares of DOGS at a cost of $5.66 per share. Any increase from this point is a profit in your pocket.

Think of this strategy as an alternative to outright stock buying. It’s a great way to bottom fish. As I have mentioned before, very few people know when we are at the bottom. Some of us get lucky and buy at the bottom, but this is an exception and not the rule. Investing requires careful planning, luck happens but should not be relied upon. I am reminded of a saying that a broken clock is right at least twice a day. However, I prefer having once that runs. What about you? Apply this Simple Plan to your investment ideas and workout the possible returns. It’s worth the effort.

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April 6, 2010

Real Estate Market | How To Market & Promote Your Real Estate Business

Every real estate brokerage, mortgage company, interior design company, and real estate law firm wants to increase business, to drive up sales and revenues. They may try a variety of tactics, but the results often fall short of expectations. What to do?

To attract new clients, one must be positioned as a leading expert. No one wants to retain the services of mediocrities. One begins to be perceived as an expert by publishing bylined articles, being the subject of press releases and of direct mail solicitations, and by putting on seminars and webinars. One’s years of accomplishment, skills at achieving results, and creativity in overcoming obstacles can all be highlighted and, where possible, made the subject of valuable media stories.

Here’s a concrete example of what I did for one of my clients, an interior design firm. Prior to retaining my services, the principals had been making cold calls and knocking on doors trying to drum up business. They got a few prospects, but an even smaller number of them turned out to be clients. They tried to make deals with leasing agents and building managers, but so does everyone, and the competition is fierce. Raising the ante of incentives can made one feel the need for an ever-faster revolving line-of credit.

They needed to do something new, something different, something that would set them above their competition. Here’s what I did: first, I wrote a case history for a real estate publication in which I explained how an interior design company can make a building more attractive by redecorating its public areas; I used specific examples about how such techniques have been used in a variety of buildings to attract new tenants and reduce the vacancy rate. Once the article appeared, I made reprints of it and mailed it, with a covering letter, to building owners and operators. After ten business days, I had a trained college student working from a script call each of the recipients. The caller tried to set up as many appointments as possible for my client. For each arranged appointment, the caller received additional compensation. Once appointments had been scheduled, I prepared a scripted presentation for my client that included a video of work they had done. What was the result of such a procedure? Voila! New business.

There are, of course, other sources of business for an interior design company, and it is essential to identify as many marketing targets as possible. Another target, for example, was showroom tenants. My client had expertise in designing showrooms for garment tenants. I built on that expertise and wrote an article about how my client helped several showroom tenants improve their images and so increased business. The article contained

Jeffrey Sussman is president of Jeffrey Sussman, Inc. a marketing public relations firm in New York City. He is the author of the best-selling book, POWER PROMOTING: How To Market Your Business to the Top! His website is http://www.powerpublicity.com and his e-mail is marketingpro@aol.com

Jeffrey Sussman
Jeffrey Sussman Inc
http://www.powerpublicity.com
212-421-4475

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March 28, 2010

Marketing Real Estate | 5 Keys To Unlocking The Door To Postcard Profits For Real Estate Agents

Does this sound like an agent you know?

Joe Agent gets a farm list from his title company of everyone in his zip code. He then calls up his favorite postcard print company and tells them what he wants designed.

Of course, he wants a picture of a perfectly manicured home on the front side of his postcard, his handsome profile picture in the upper left hand corner on the back side and a cheesy slogan underneath saying, “Making Your Dream Home Come True”.

Joe wants a small blurb about himself placed below his lovely slogan describing how long he’s been in real estate, how many deals he’s done and how he’s the best agent in the world.

If he’s really on his game, he’ll give his website address (which will probably be an unprofessional jumbled mess of shoddy images and sales copy that will make you gag).

Joe then blasts out his postcard once a month for 3 months; gets 2 phone calls and zero buyers or listings. He “wisely” surmises that postcards are a waste and immediately stops throwing good money after bad.

Joe did everything right, didn’t he? No, of course not or else we wouldn’t have been so rough on poor Joe.

Here are 5 steps Joe should have walked to have commission checks rolling in instead of cash going out:

1) Get a list of prospects most likely to use your services. Joe just grabbed everyone in a particular zip code. He didn’t narrow down his criteria; home value, ownership length, mortgage balance relative to the home’s value, etc. This way, when you get a response, you’re almost darn sure you can work with them and not have to let them down gently like the smelly guy at the gym who keeps asking you out every Saturday night.

2) Don’t make your postcard like every other “wanna-be” agent out there. You’re not like Joe; you’re a pro (rhyme not intended). Stand out like one and make it unique. Use an eye catching image on the front that will make people actually turn over your postcard over instead of throwing it away. Think about the emotion you’re trying to hit in your prospect and give them that image.

3) Go ahead and put your picture on the back BUT make it of you with a client and not with some slogan that’s as cheesy as that nacho dip you had Friday night (or like that line itself). You can even blend your slogan with your paragraph underneath. But don’t go boasting about yourself. Talk about your prospect, not about you. People want to be “talked about”, not “talked to”.

Think about what they want and write a few benefits that give it to them. For example, don’t say, “I’ve been the #1 top producing agent for 14 years in Yourtown.” Instead, say something like, “You don’t want to risk this type of financial transaction with an unqualified agent. You want the peace of mind and security knowing they have the experience and expertise to handle any road bumps that come up, saving you thousands in the process.” Paint word pictures that hit their emotions.

4) A website. Simple? You’d think so but it’s not. Too many agents throw up these (I’ll call them sad looking just to be nice) sites that prospects click off faster than it took them to pull up. It all starts with impressions and many folks will go to your site before they do anything else. Make it count. Make it professional. Project an image of uniqueness, clarity, organization, humor, etc. Get crazy and use video and/or audio. Touch all your prospects senses, except for smell unless you know a way that I don’t.

5) Here’s the big one… guide them to what you want them to do. Don’t throw up a garbled mess of links, pictures and text. If you want them to get to know you, which is how you’ll get their business, be intentional! Give them expert advice and collect their contact information. Sure, you can sit back and wait for folks to eventually, hopefully call or email you.

But why not entice them to provide their info upfront? But they’re going to protect this more than their IRA so you need to give them something in return. It’s only fair, right? How about a “Free guide to saving $10,000 on your next home purchase” or “5 pitfalls to avoid when selling that will save you $7,000.” Of course not everyone will give up their email for your freebie but a certain number will and that will allow you to start the relationship rather than sitting back and waiting on the couch. Bottom line, you’ll appear as the expert providing all the info and the commission checks will roll in quicker. It’s all about building a relationship and this is how to start it off right!

BONUS STEP: Repeat your mailing! Don’t stop after 2 mailings because you’re not getting the response you want. Studies show that it takes consumers upwards of seeing an ad 7 times before they remember it and act upon it. Use that to your advantage and be patient. On average, the longer you mail, the higher your response rate will be!

Josh Sanders is the Founder of Shiloh Street, a one-of-a-kind real estate brokerage in Seattle, WA, “Founded by Agents to Serve You Better.”

Having been in the mortgage and real estate business since the age of 21, he saw a need for a real estate brokerage centered around real estate agents specifically, allowing them to prosper more than the owners of the company and serve their clients at the highest level.

The vision came from not only his own ideas of what he wanted as an agent but also from a mass of agents in Western WA. Shiloh Street launched in January 2010 and has been getting great growth as well as fantastic word of mouth buzz.

Josh lives with his wife of 6+ years in Bothell, WA and our 4 dogs… and counting :) My wife has been a Certified Real Estate Appraiser for 8+ years in the Puget Sound Region.

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June 18, 2008

Ask Your Real Estate Agent These Questions Posted By : Richard Brazil

A real estate agent is a person licensed by a state to represent a buyer or seller in a real estate transaction in exchange for a commission. They work in association with a real estate broker or a brokerage company. Smart customers always want an agent who will help and guide them to find a suitable home that meets their needs and can get them through closing without any hassle.

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January 17, 2008

CORRECTED: Merrill Lynch takes about $16 billion in writedowns (Reuters)

A graph showing Merrill Lynch's share performance for one year to the January 16,2008 close. (Graphics/Reuters)Reuters – Merrill Lynch & Co Inc on
Thursday posted a quarterly loss of nearly $10 billion after
writedowns and adjustments totaling about $16 billion as bad
subprime mortgage bets forced the brokerage to sell stakes in
the company to foreign investors to raise capital.

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