Real Estate Information Center

Often real estate professionals avoid marketing because they don’t know what direction to start with. Many decide to just do some sort of “branding” in the hopes of getting more business, only to be told that they must do more “branding” before they will get phone calls. A focus on real estate marketing means getting results from every ad, mailing piece, or website page that is placed. Marketing doesn’t have to be difficult, as long as you have the right ideas to put into action.

Part of your real estate marketing strategy should be to put into action ideas that generate calls for business every month. This doesn’t mean trying “gimmicks” it just means taking time to understand your market and meeting their needs with the right messages. Take into consideration the following marketing ideas to generate more calls and start closing more business.

1. Place ads on transactional words- Instead of placing pay per click ads on generic words like “my area real estate” consider placing ads on transactional words. These keywords are often over looked and will result in leads who will act quickly. Adding transactional related keywords like “buy” and “purchase” will help you to focus on buyers who are ready to get out in the field and take action.

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In the world of real estate the most important method of gaining new clients is word of mouth. People regularly recommend a real estate agent who they have worked with to their friends and family members which can quickly lead to a large list of prospective clients. The key to successfully achieving this sort of success using word of mouth is business cards because they allow your existing clients to easily remember your name and your contact information.

Real estate business cards also serve an important purpose in that they allow real estate agents to get their name out more quickly. Simply leaving business cards at any homes which you are showing is a great way to potentially find new clients and to ensure that anyone looking at the house is able to contact you if you are a listing agent.

The most important factor to success with real estate business cards of any other type of business card is to ensure that you have a well designed business card. These simple cards which may not seem like much can easily mean the difference between getting clients and not getting clients. A well designed card which is professional and easy to read helps to improve your image in the eyes of prospective clients while a poorly designed card can easily turn people off.

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If you don’t have written goals, then you have no goals. You already know that, you’ve heard people say it 100 times. But besides your written goals what other types of written plans do you have?

You should have your daily “to do” list that you write every day. And, here’s one of the most important things you need to have written down and planned out: YOUR MARKETING PLAN! Marketing as you’re well aware is the lifeblood of your business. If I were to ask you right now the exact date that your next batch of letters is supposed to go out, would you be able to answer me? Too many people don’t have a written marketing plan and they wonder why they haven’t closed a deal in a few months.

Investors come up to me at meetings, or I’m doing a conference call and they all say “I don’t seem to be getting any leads or closing any deals, what should I do?” I immediately ask them if they are mailing 1,000 letters a month, putting out 100 signs a month, driving for dollars and emailing Craigslist ads….of course we all know the answer to this–The only thing people have to offer up is excuses.

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As a luxury real estate marketing professional, your marketing materials must look and feel different, from the competition. Great packaging is crucial. Whatever you leave behind with home sellers at your listing presentation should stand out and scream “marketing savvy”. The way you market yourself is like a test drive of what your client can expect when you market their home.

Think about it! Basically, what is in that folder, the data and the conclusions reached on the selling price are generally pretty close; the market research is identical if your competition is also competent. But, your packaging should look good enough to stay on their coffee table, like a coffee table book! And, it should make your competitors materials pale in comparison.

Here is a lesson from the world of marketing gelato or Italian ice cream. The word “gelato” means frozen in Italian. There is no gelatin in gelato as some people believe. We are aficionados of gelato in Italy. Our favorite is Vivoli’is in Florence, behind the Piazza Santa Croce church. We also treasure memories of hazelnut gelato sundaes sitting outside under the arcades in Torino.

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So you’re a real estate agent and you want to take advantage of the lucrative commissions you can make by encouraging other agents to share referrals with you.

To make a long story short, it’s all about “networking” – both online and offline. But because with agent referrals you are dealing with agents in other cities, one of your most important tools for networking with other agents will be the internet.

In a nutshell, here are the three most important steps for developing a strategy for generating agent-to-agent referral activity.

1. Develop a referral network with agents in other cities. Use internet networking sites, email and telephone.

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Although there are a lot of different aspects to a real estate investment marketing plan, one unique way to get the word out about your business and attract private lenders is by doing a Webinar. A Webinar is a method you can use to deliver your presentation or seminar over the Internet.

A Webinar is a convenient and effective way to deliver your presentation and allow others to participate right from the comfort of their home. A Webinar offers the ability to deliver your real estate investment information, receive feedback from others, and hold discussions on the topic.

How to Create a Webinar

* Organize Your Presentation: Organize your presentation of the topic of real estate investment you will be talking about. In addition, you will need to organize a schedule within a specific time frame, especially if you are going to have any other speakers, different activities, questions and answers, or something else.

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Luxury real estate marketing professionals should always pay close attention to details in their marketing materials, their website and their client services. With personal branding for real estate agents, it is the little things that can distinguish you from your competitors. The more sophisticated your target market the more they will appreciate the details. But, almost everyone appreciates even minor acts of kindness and thoughtfulness. Small things make a big difference.

To tune into the importance of details as a strategic differentiator study the major luxury brands. We are firm believers in out-thinking not out-spending your competition to achieve more market share. Here is a very simple example of how a very minor design element can completely influence a major buying decision and even cause someone to switch brands all together.

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You have seen their names in every book store, on television infomercials promoting countless live seminars and all over the internet. Real Estate experts are held in high regard and they are making a fortune in promoting and selling their expertise, and perhaps making even more money off joint venture property deals with students too.

There are experts in every area of real estate from sales agents, brokers and investors to timeshare sellers and any of hundreds of other specializations. Then there are the secondary support services to the market including mortgage brokers, home inspectors, attorneys, home inspectors, etc. and taking it further there are the producers and publishers that analyze and report on the industry.

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Is a property photo always worth a 1000 words, to a ‘for sale by owner’, an agent, or anyone else for that matter? Advertisers tend to forget that buyers need motivation to tour a property, that they should not be prejudging it based solely on the photo presentation or virtual tour. Photographs should pique a buyer’s curiosity, validate the opinion that has been formed from reading the text, then entice them to view the product.

One black and white exterior photo

As a real estate agent who launched his career in 1979, and now the publisher of a niche property, e-commerce website, I am amazed at how the use of photos in advertising properties for sale has evolved. Of course thirty years ago we didn’t have the luxury of the Internet to advertise a vendor’s property. The usual practice was to periodically place a newspaper classified ad in an effort to generate phone calls, and to add our property listing to the office display ad that usually was published every Saturday in the local newspaper. The ad, as a rule, amounted to a few lines of copy highlighting the most important features, and included an exterior black and white photo of the property.

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Social media advertising is currently taking the Internet by storm and social media sites are no longer for just the younger people. Social media sites such as Facebook and LinkedIn are for professionals and business people. Along with social media advertising has emerged the trend of social bookmarking which is a great way to attract the attention of private lenders.

What is Social Bookmarking? Social bookmarking allows you to share your expertise and save a series of bookmarks for your own personal use and to share with others. You can also take bookmarks that have been saved by others, add them to your bookmarks, and subscribe to the list of bookmarks saved by others. Social bookmarks are capable of being shared and reciprocated with specific groups of people inside a specific network or through public and private domains. They can be viewed by tags or through the use of a search engine. Although social bookmarking sounds complicated it is a relatively easy and resourceful tool for getting the word out about your real estate investment business. How Does Social Bookmarking Work? Social bookmarking is provided by websites like StumbleUpon, Digg, Redd-It, OnlyWire, and others. These sites provide useful content for your real estate investment business by storing blogs, articles, websites, videos, and other types of content for the purpose of expanding your knowledge and providing you with a tremendous opportunity to network with other real estate prospects.

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