Archive for the ‘Marketing Tools’ Category

5 Methods of Using Technology to Sell Real Estate Part 1

When you consider all of the methods to communicate with people over the Internet and ways to use it to sell a house or a piece of property, the considerations are staggering.  Consider this fact: The National Association of Realtors reported the results of a survey that showed a whopping 80% of the people that are looking to buy a piece of property today, start looking online first.  Now, that should indicate to you that if you are in the real estate business and you are not using online tools and are not “tech savvy” you may want to consider the option of giving yourself an upgrade.

So, over the course of the next 4 or 5 blog posts, I am going to share with you even more creative methods of using technology to market and sell real estate while getting those exclusive real estate leads.  Ideas that I didn’t even think about considering the fact that I’m scratching my head every day, trying to figure out how to expand this subject.

Staging a House When it is Not Staged

In this posting I’m going to show you how to stage a house over the Internet that is not staged.  In order to do this, though you will need a halfway decent graphics editing program, but bear in mind that if you are running a real estate office, you may want to consider either buying one of these programs ( which is not the best way to do this) or outsourcing this work ( the better way of doing it) . The reason why I say that outsourcing is the netter way of doing this is because, even if you buy the necessary software to do this, which is kind of expensive, you will still need to learn how to use it.  Adobe Photoshop, which is the industry leader in photo altering technology, will run you about $700, while its immediate competitor, Corel Paintshop Photo Pro will run you right around $300.   As I said earlier, you will need to take the time to outsource this work if you don’t know how to use these programs or have the time to learn them.

Once you either find someone or get the software, you can then alter a totally naked room of any house by putting furniture into the rooms that wasn’t even there.   The best scenario would be to have the rooms completely bare when you take the photographs of them originally.  This will reduce the amount of work that you will need to do.  Once you take the pictures of the rooms, it is a very simple step to add the furniture that you want from the room.

Clip art and Photography packages abound on the Internet wherein you can download or buy pictures of furniture to fill in these rooms.  However, I am all for outsourcing this work dirt cheap.  One of the best places for finding people to do this type of work is at Fiverr (www.fiverr.com) wherein you can hire just about anyone to do anything for $5.00.

In my next post, I’m going to show you how to use mobile devices to sell houses and properties

In this blog we usually talk about ways that you can gain real estate sales leads using technology.  In this posting we are going to kinda – sorta deviate away from this idea a bit and talk about a time tested method for marketing to your target real estate market.  I am speaking specifically of real estate marketing postcards and how you can use them to gain more listings and prospects.

Just a Little Deviation Away From Technology in Real Estate Marketing

Actually, we really aren’t getting away from marketing with technology aspect of selling real estate because we will still be using technology in the delivery system of the real estate postcards.  You can easily go to an online service and order post cards for your marketing campaigns.  Most of these online services will not only allow you to design your postcards using stock photography, but they will print them up in the quantity you need and then send them out to the address that you give them.  This saves you a tremendous amount of time.

However, don’t expect the printing service that you choose to write a marketing message for you.  For that task, you will either have to learn how to write the message yourself, or hire someone that is real good at it.  At any rate, you will want to have a call to action somewhere on the real estate marketing post cards so that people or potential real estate sales leads will be spurred onto to call you.

The best call to action that a real estate marketing postcard can have is something that is tangible for free;  just for getting together with you and talking about your services.  You can always get boat loads of inexpensive gifts to give to people that make an appointment with you. There are tons of online companies that gratuitous gifts that have your company’s logo and contact information on them, from pens to desk clocks.  Generally, offering a free consultation is what many real estate professionals use, but this does not work and does not have a strong enough pull for real estate leads to actually take action and meet with you.

Make Your Real Estate Marketing Postcards Unique!

Another thing you have to consider when dealing with marketing with this type of vehicle is that on average, people make a decision whether or not to read or keep an advertisement sent to them within three seconds.  You have to really have a unique post card that initially arouses a person’s interest enough to make them read it.  Many of the online companies that make these types of post cards have templates that are like this.  Look, if you get a post card in the mail with a pink penguin on it that has big yellow letters on it that says “NAKED”, wouldn’t you at least look at the back of the card to read it???  So, make sure that you have a mind blowing picture with a caption that makes the prospect interested enough to read the back side of it.

To recap on how to Get Real Estate Sales Leads With Real Estate Marketing Postcards, remember to have a good free offer with something tangible, make sure there is a good call to action, and always have a compelling picture and text on the front to ensure that the prospect will read your message.

It is vital to know how to get real estate leads if you are going to be successful at selling properties.  As a matter of fact, the only way that you can guarantee that your real estate business will succeed is if you know how to prospect in a way which is conducive to your business goals.  It is very important to know how to keep the clients that you have and market back to them, but without your initial client base, that is going to be very hard.  It probably goes without saying, that if you want to become successful in the real estate business then knowing how to generate real estate leads is vitally important.

Most people usually go through the route of handing out business cards, advertising, attending community events, running newspaper ads, and cold calling, but without a proper system in place, your marketing plans as well as your prospecting efforts will go unrewarded.  The best system to have is an automated one wherein prospects contact you and then your system automatically collects their contact information for you.  There are several ways to do this, which is what we will be discussing in this article.

Getting Real Estate Leads Using a Call Capture System

A call capture system is a system wherein you place an advertisement talking about your listings or services and then people call you and leave you their call back number.  You can actually have the number placed on a real estate website asking the potential prospect top call and leave their information, or you can use an online service like Aweber to place an opt – in box on your website to get them to leave their contact information.

Usually, a call capture system has several features that go along with its services.  You can have your own unique 1-800 number system put into service from the company that provides these services for you and these numbers make it very easy for you to capture real estate leads with.  One of the best innovations that is included with the call capture system is what is called an “Automatic Number Identification” or “ANI”.  Basically, this system allows you to store in memory any numbers that call your number so that you will have their number to call back.  Having this system in place will also protect you from the dreaded “do not call” list because it will give you proof that the prospect initiated the contact with you.

Once a real estate agent or Realtor has the call capture system in place, they can begin to publish and use their number whenever they begin to market their business.  You should put your number on every advertisement, website, business card or any other marketing vehicle that you are using.  You ought to use the number liberally with your ads and you should display the number prominently in all of your marketing ads no matter where they appear.

Call capture systems can sometimes be rather extensive on learning how to use them; this has been just a brief overview on how to set up and use a call capture system to generate and get real estate leads for your business.  The best way to see some of these phone systems and ads that are in actual use is in the various opportunity magazines that you can find at the store. Looking at these ads will allow you to not only see how ads are set up to use this phone-marketing vehicle, but it will also let you take a look at the ad copy and call to action that is used by each business.

Before the advent of the Internet, real estate marketers had to rely on media such as radio, TV, the Yellow Pages and newspapers to generate leads for their real estate sales and listings. Despite the power and draw of the Internet in the real estate marketplace today, a Realtor or agent can still use offline medial to generate interest in their listings and services.  Newspapers, TV, radio, and especially direct mail, plus all of the other traditional ways of advertising should still be a part of your marketing plan.

Here are a couple of tips that you can use to build your print media off-line marketing plan in generating real estate leads:

1. In the real estate realm, there are many related publications that you may be able to use.  Now, you don’t want to use real estate publications, but if there are magazines that focus on local issues and articles, then you may want to get some ads or articles placed in those periodicals.
2. You should know your real estate geographic target market.  If you are in a big city, you should have a good idea of who you will be selling to and in which location.  In these areas, try to find out which publications are popular and then try to target the publications that are most related to your business.  If you are dealing with upscale people then the local upscale metro magazine should be a great place for you to put a small advertisement with your web address and contact information on it.
3. If you are a pretty successful Realtor that handles vacation properties, try to find out which national publications that you can get into that will help you market seasonal properties.  Seasonal rentals, vacation properties, time shares, etc. are great for this type of marketing idea.
4. To break down the best method to generate the types of real estate leads that you want you can run print ads in different publications and have your web address a phone number in the ads that you run.  If the prospect calls your toll free number, then you can have a service set up (at a modest price, of course) so that it will automatically take their contact information.  If the prospects go to your site after seeing your real estate ads, then they can simply fill out a form that is on your website so that you can call them and talk to them about what you have to offer them.

Bear in mind when placing these advertisements to generate real estate leads that you are getting collateral prospects that quite possibly most other real estate professionals and Realtors may not be considering.  A large number of people are looking on line these days so don’t expect a flood with printed media.  Also, you may want to start collecting small advertisements from several magazines which will give you an idea of how to write a small ad with a call to action on it.  If you want to write a bigger ad with a larger advertising space, expect to pay for it.  These types of advertisements, even in local periodicals and papers can still run you quite a bit of money.

In my last blog post, I told you the first steps that you need to take and some of the things that you will need to consider when creating a real estate flyer.  If you want to generate good qualified real estate lead leads that actually will want to contact you, then you will have to put some thought and work into creating your flyers and advertisements.

How to Create Text and Content for Your Real Estate Flyers

A key factor that you will want to consider in creating your flyers, is the font and the size of the font which must be clear and easy to read.  My personal favorites are Arial and Verdana because they are very easy to read.  I also like to use between a sizes 10 to 12 font when putting text into a document, because it is easier for most people to see.  You don’t want to use fancy or artsy-tartsy fonts and letters except for your logo if that requires it.  You will also need to break up the paragraphs into small chunks and be as concise with your writing as you can.

In the case of writing, you will want to use the old adage, “less is more”.  You are trying to generate interest in your services or the houses that you represent, so, don’t run on too much with the dialogue about a subject, just state basic information and try to have a call to action on your flyer.

Writing Your Real Estate Flyer Content In a Way That Will Generate Real Estate Leads

You must write the ad content of your flyer in a way that will grab your reader’s attention very quickly. You will want to answer all the questions that prospects will probably want to know while spurring them on to take some sort of action that will be conducive to your real estate sales.

Tip: If you are going to be designing and writing advertisements online or off line you should invest in a couple of books that will train you on how to write advertising copy.  The popular marketing expert, Dan Kennedy, has a great book on this subject on Amazon or you can buy one of his courses at his online store, here.  This would be an excellent way to learn how to write and copy to magnetically generate real estate leads.

Don’t Forget the Important Details on Your Real Estate Flyer!

If you are designing a flyer that is specifically trying to sell a particular house, then you will need to include the exact address of the property or properties, and directions on how to get there. You can use Google maps to get graphics so that you can actually print it up and place it on your flyer, if you want.  Make sure that your contact information can easily be seen right next to your call to action and make sure that all of this information is correct.

Tip: You should always make sure that your ads are as professional as possible with zero mistakes in the content.  Get a ruler and straight edge of some sort and go through the content line by line reading in aloud.  Next, get two other people to read it to see if they can find any mistakes.  Whenever you work with something too close, it is always easy to make errors and overlook them.  By having a fresh set of eyes looking at them you can get that error rate in your content moved down to nothing.

I hope that this post can help you get the real estate leads that you need  and I hope you can and will use the advice in this post to help you design your real estate flyers for your prospecting and sales marketing plan.

In the last blog post, wrote about how you could use Google Maps to get prospects to come to your open house.  In this blog post, I will show you how you can create great, effective and professional looking real estate flyers to generate qualified interest in your real estate services and listings.

Real estate advertising has evolved from the printed page into internet marketing from the old days when people used to use news paper ads and even flyers. Today, most real estate advertising is usually done online, which has become the predominant method of selling real estate.  As a matter of fact, over 80% of all people looking for a home that was surveyed stated that they look for homes on the Internet first over any other method.  However, real estate leads and letting people know that your client’s home is up for sale in the bricks and mortar world with a flyer would definitely attract possible buyers to visit your location. Fliers are an integral part of real estate marketing, because these are the marketing vehicles that people will look at if they bump into you or come to your open house.  In this article I will give you step by step directions on how you can create great flyers for your own real estate marketing plan.

I have listed here, a step by step guide as to how to create a great real estate flyer that you can use to promote any open house or event you might have.

Identify your Real Estate Market Before You Make Your Real Estate Flyer

When you are trying to decide what type of flyer content you are going to need, you must consider your audience and ensure that you make different types of flyers that can be used for different situations. You should make flyers that relate to the different types of people it will be used for in order for it to be effective and interesting. You will also need to consider what understand what the different groups of people will need and think about how you can design an advertisement out of that market.  If you can make the real estate flyer relevant and hit a particular need, then this will help you increase their interest in what you have to offer.

Decide On What Type of Art and Layout You Will Need

When you are trying to figure out the best type of design for a real estate flyer there are a couple of things you need to think about.  First of all you will want to consider the size of the flyer, color of the background, as well as the number of pictures and types of photos.  The reason you need to first consider the size of your flyer is because the price depends on the size, and when you think about all of the information that you will be putting on them they will have to be easy to read. We will also need to think about the text fonts and the finish on the paper.  Now, when you begin thinking about your color scheme, you will want to consider your company’s branding and use of color. Try to use a color scheme that will catch a person’s eye while using the colors of your company’s logo or advertising design.  You don’t want to use colors that are too bright or florescent because it makes the flyers, as well as your real estate business, look cheap.

You are going to of course think about the number of photos that you will be placing on your flyer, and as the size of the flyer will naturally affect the size and the number of the photographs on your advertisement.  If you have room to include pictures of the property, then try to use the rooms that people are most concerned with, such as the kitchen. You should also choose your most professional looking photograph to place on any of your advertisements.  One of my pet peeves in real estate marketing is seeing female realtor’s pictures that look like they were made at the photography vendor, “Glamour Shots.”  Ladies, have those kinds of pictures made for your husbands or boyfriends; when it comes to the sales business of real estate, you should get the most professional business picture you can afford.  You are trying to sell and represent a real estate business, not attract the opposite sex.

In my next blog post, I am going to tell you how to write content for your real estate flyer so that it will create a need for real estate leads and prospects to contact you about the services or properties that you are representing.

Jott.com is an inexpensive and powerful tool for real estate marketers and sales people. Jott is a system that allows you to send voice messages out to other people’s cell phones as a converted text message. This voice messaging system can save a real estate sales professional precious time because it creates short 60 second messages that deliver exactly what you want to say concisely. Here are a couple of other things Jott can do for your business:

1. You can utilize Google’s Calendar program to post times for call in meetings or events that you will be having.
2. You will have the ability to convert voice messages into text messages and then send them to specified contacts on your list.
3. Reminders can be set in the Jott system which will send you a text message when you need to be reminded of an event or important task.

Setting up Jott is relatively easy, just go to www.Jott.com and set up a free account. Once you are finished with that, you will be able to input clients and business partner’s names so that you can send out a message to everyone on your list. You can then enter your message enter your message by voice which will then be converted into a computerized text message (These short messages are called Jotts, just like Twitter calls its short messages “tweets”.) The Jott system will then send out the voice message to everyone on your list.

I used the free account that Jott offered just to see how well it worked. When I called into the system a voice came on that said, “Who do you want to Jott?” I then sent myself a converted voice into text message by simply telling the system to send it to my account. It was really a very easy system to learn and use.

Jott is a Great Tool for Real Estate Agents to Save Time With

I can easily see where this service would save a Realtor or sales agent a lot of time. For one thing, it would help you avoid lengthy conversations that usually occur whenever you need to tell a client or business partner something. For example, if you wanted to tell a buyer that their offer has been accepted, then all you would have to do is say the name of the client when you called up your Jott account. Just like magic, the Jott system would send out the voice message in the form of an email. Jott will also send you an email confirmation letting you know that it has delivered your message.

Jott also can be used with other online applications like Google’s Calendar. By simply calling into Jott, you can tell the system what app to use by using one word commands. If you wanted to place an event into Google’s Calendar, just simply say the word “Google” and say something like, “Meet Freddy at 4:45 on Monday at Fanzoli’s Restaurant for meeting.” Jott will then convert that message into text, and then send it to your Google Calendar where it will appear in text form.

There are many more functions and features that you can use with this program, so much more than I would be able to go into here. However, you can jump over to Jott’s website at: http://www.Jott.com to get a free account and start checking the system and some of these features out.

Email Marketing for Real Estate Agents Part IV

In my last blog post I wrote extensively about how a real estate professional should use quality email marketing pieces and never, ever spam anyone for any reason.  Today I’m going to write to you about one of the lists that you should learn to put together called the “announcement list”.

The announcement list is just exactly as it sounds.  It is a list that specifically talks about blog updates, product announcements, or anything that is of a particular interest in your target subgroup or list.  (To see more about subgroups, go to one of my last blog posts on email marketing.)

Now, if you create one of those lists, you can then put on your salesman hat, because people want to know about new products that have either developed or are basically selling from your web site.  This list is probably one of the most profitable subgroups that you can have in email marketing because they are EXPECTING you to send them information on the products that you are selling.  Now, if you have a good readership, reputation and people have come to respect your sage advice, then chances are, you will make good money from a list like this and you won’t see too many unsubscribe notices from them either.

There are marketers that are out on the Internet that make considerable money from lists like this and there is nothing at all wrong with it.  As a matter of fact, there is everything right with doing business this way, just make sure that you have an opt-in list and that you never spam anyone for any reason.

There are however, several basic types of email announcements for real estate agents that can deliver these types of messages and they are as follows:

1. Free Trial Offers – If you are a part of an affiliate program or know of a certain type of item that you can backend and make some extra money, then you can get an individual to try the service or program out.  You don’t have to sell you own product or service and there are loads of companies that will have free trial built into their affiliate programs as well.
2. E-zine Articles – If you publish a regular online newsletter this can be a very viable way of delivering a targeted message to people.  You can easily disguise advertisements as product reviews and critiques without appearing too salesman like.  Also, this type of format could be seen as another entirely different subgroup wherein you could inform other publishers that you have an article they can use in their newsletter.
3. E-books – I have used this method extensively and it works great.  You can make e-books (.pdf files) on specific subjects and have them on your website available for free downloading.  You can put all sorts of affiliate links in those e-books and in some cases the affiliate companies will even let you customize them with your affiliate number so you can make money from it.

In my next post I am going to try to do a recap of some of the most important aspects of email marketing before moving on to another subject.

Email Marketing for Real Estate Agents Part III

If you read my earlier marketing real estate with email articles, part I and part II, you know that my philosophy concerning the use of email is pretty important in the world of establishing yourself with your real estate marketing online.  Today I want to back off just a little and talk about the most basic principles of email marketing to make sure you understand the fundamental strategies you must use to become successful.

First of all, if you are like me and consider email to be the foundation of your Internet marketing presence, then you should make sure that you do it right.  In other words you must put the time into the early phases of email marketing and have patience.  It is the same care and patience you must use when you are putting together a blog.  It is a daily process of writing and tailoring your message to a good, well targeted market.  As one master email marketer once said, “Impatience is the forerunner to quitting.”

You want to make sure that you are taking the time and care to slowly build your readership; otherwise you will never see the fruits of your labor.  At the most, you will wander off into the sunset thinking that you either were led astray or you just did not have whatever it took to become successful n the online marketing world.  So please, take your time whenever you are building your email list and when working your blog, it will definitely pay off.

Doing Email Marketing Right When Selling Real Estate Means Quality Writing

Repeat after me, “Quality is more important than quantity.”  I personally would rather have an email list that is only several hundred  strong than a massive list, because I will know that only a small number of people will actually read my message in the first place.  What you really want in email marketing is a tight group of people that you know exactly what they are looking for, or several lists that are sub grouped in the same manner.   For example, you could have one or two hundred people that are interested in renting or renovating condominiums rather than a massive list of people that want to talk about real estate investing in general.  Why? Well, for one thing on a larger list, you are going to have to have a vast amount of knowledge and some people will be interested in some subjects while others will not.  Second, if you don’t address the needs of one group of people they may leave or opt out, so catering to everyone is going to be difficult.

Do Not Spam! One sacred rule of email marketing of any kind on the Internet is to make sure that you are not tempted to buy a list and spam people.  There is also software you can get that will scour the Internet and find people’s email addresses as well.  DON’T EVEN GO THERE!!!  Those kinds of tactics will kill what business you have and really turn people off.  There are literally no short cuts or magic software out there outside of careful planning and hard work.  Even if you can find some sort of short cut, you will have to pay dearly for it anyway.

If you really want to know how to use email properly and what tools you will need, please sign up for my free real estate marketing course at the top right hand side of this blog.

In my next blog post I will talk about the different formats you can use for your subgroups so that you can begin to use these tools to get a tightly grouped herd of people that will actually listen o your marketing message.

Email Marketing for Real Estate Agents Part II

In my last blog post I discussed the most important aspects of marketing your real estate blog or website with email and in this episode, I will attempt to talk to you about how to divide those lists up into the different groups of people that you will need to service in your real estate sales cycle.

You know, I have already quite extensively talked about why email marketing is so important and attractive to your marketing strategy.  For one thing, email is cheap and it can be sent quite frequently. Heck, you could send it just about every day but I would recommend at the most three times to once a week.  You also don’t want to start selling to people right away with them either.  I will go over more of these basics later, but right now I want to talk about setting up different lists tailored to your marketing efforts and real estate sales cycle.

Categorize Your List When Using Email to Market Real Estate

As you now, there are different cycles to the real estate market and depending on where your readers and subscribers are at, you can send out different messages to different groups.  These are what are sometimes called subgroups.

Here is a bullet list of some of the different subgroups that you could email market to:

• Young couples just looking for that first starter home
• People that have already bought a property from you and you want to stay in touch with them so that they can give you referrals.
• People that are looking for rentals for their college students
• People that are becoming empty nesters because their children have moved on.  As you know, these are people that want to downsize.
• People that want to move into the country.
• People looking for retirement communities.
• Other agents that you are networking with across the country.

In using email to market real estate, you can tailor messages to your subgroups very easily.  The reason you want to do this is so that you can cater to the needs of these people that you have either serviced or will be in the process of serving.  In the case of the above list, it would be a very large stretch of the imagination to try to write a good, fresh message to every one of your subgroups every week.  However, you could cycle through the subgroups and that way you would not have to come up with tons of content; your recipients would probably not feel like you have been emailing them to death either.

When you consider these subgroups, you may have very small lists in them.  This is good believe it or not because a tightly targeted group is far more receptive to you message that a group that is too generalized. I know of a marketer that has 500,000 people on his list.  Guess what? He is a very frustrated individual because he barely does any business.  The reason for this is because he sends out a message that is far too general and hard to maintain.  If your audience feels like they are not being addressed on a level that concerns THEIR NEEDS then they will either delete your message or unsubscribe from your list.