Blogging Your Way To Riches (Or Let Someone Else Blog Your Way)

June 29, 2009 By Leave a Comment

Blogging your way to riches! Real Estate Agents who have gotten on bored with a new way to advertise to buyers and sellers have begun to realize the massive potential to this new medium.

Blogging for businesses is truly a new wave of the future. Not only is using blogging as a major form of advertising very, very inexpensive, it carries a lot of weight with the home sellers and home buyers. 

Everybody goes directly to the Internet now to gain useful information. It really is the first place they start the search for any problem they have. Using blogging you can be the expert they are searching for.

By having lots of posts detailing the new tax rebate for first time homebuyers, or going into over all about how to stage a home for sale you will attract buyers and sellers to your web site thereby giving you an opportunity to make them into clients. A great way to do that is to follow the blog with a “click to get more information” link. You can offer a free market analysis of their home, or offer to put buyers on an emailing list that will send them the newest listing in their area.

The possibilities abound with all the amazing ways to use a blog site. Not only will it make you lots of money it will put you and your business out to the public as an expert in your field.

Don’t have time to create and post your own blogs (yes, you should have multiple blogs for optimum SEO and lead generation)?

Outsource!

Filed Under: Blog

Top 11 Reasons Why You Shouldn’t Outsource Your Marketing

June 20, 2009 By Leave a Comment
You have unlimited time to write your own blogs and press releases AND submit them to related web sites
  1. Your office resources are endless to help to develop ads and post to BackPage, CraigsList and Kijiji
  2. You have a dedicated Web team to analyze your Web site stats and optimize your Web content accordingly
  3. Your in-house graphic design team develops all your brochures / postcards for mailings and CDs / flyers for open houses
  4. Your independently wealthy and can afford to spend money on hiring additional staff to create and maintain your real estate marketing needs
  5. Your team of experts knows how to create videos from photos and post them on video Web sites
  6. You don’t mind paying for paid vacations, medical / dental insurance, sick leave, SUI, FUI, overtime, bonuses…should I continue?
  7. You have lots of room in your office or home office for your staff
  8. Your Web listings automatically write their own descriptions and post themselves on real estate Web sites AND maintain themselves
  9. Your favorite part of the week is creating electronic newsletters to send to your sphere of influence and past clients
  10. You know so much about social networking you should be teaching others how to use it to generate leads

My tagline is “The Internet has changed the way clients find you – let us help them.”  is very true of today’s marketing of listings. Stats prove that potential home buyers research communities, school, subdivisions and even agents before making contact with anyone.

The more of a presence you have on the Web, the more impressed clients will be with you. The more your name, Web site, etc. is out there, the better potential clients will find you.

I have a client who has received several BUYER leads from Craiglist “homes for sale” because they are researching the marketing the agent does for others.

Internet and social networking have created a time consuming monster for agents to keep up with what others are doing to stay in the game. Unfortunately, not everyone has the experience, time to learn, time to maintain, desire to do any of it or understand why they should do it. By developing a marketing plan (and updating it regularly) you can figure out what is the most “bang for your buck”, what is eating up your time and what you might want to outsource.

There are cost effective ways to outsource these marketing efforts so you can spend time where it needs to be, working with current and potential clients.

Filed Under: eclassified, Facebook, Flyer, Lead Generation, Linked In, Listing Syndication, Marketing, Outsourcing, SEO, Social Media, Social Networking, Trulia, Twitter, WordPress

Using the Internet to Broadcast Yourself

June 10, 2009 By Leave a Comment
A new area has begun in real estate the digital revolution is here and some agents are going to be left behind. Smart agents have discovered a powerful new tool they can use to advertise their listings, their business and themselves. The internet can propel your sales to a whole new level you have never realized. By using some of the top video upload sites agents can blast information about their listings to millions of people. No other way of advertising can make such an impact when considering most online video sites are completely free for people to go on and place their ads.

Now comes the complicated and most important part about using the internet to promote your business; how do you get people to view your content before everybody else’s? The answer is simple it comes down to how you choose your key words on each site. Most real estate agents new to using the internet to advertise their listings will have trouble at first getting the response they need. A great way to bend the learning curve in your favor is to hire some help to get you on the net and set you on your way to understanding the ins and outs of these sites.

The main places to get your videos out there are:

  • TubeMogul (video syndication site / tracking of videos)
  • YouTube
  • Google Video
  • Yahoo! Video
  • MySpace

On every site they have help section that will go over ways to increase your exposure and advertise your business better. Best of all these web sites allow you to include your company logo and picture so your clients are sure they have found your listings.

This is so popular with sellers now leading agents have started including these web sites as part of their listing presentation. Home owners really like being able to show family and friends the detailed presentation video web sites can provide. Utilizing these tools will greatly increase your business’ exposure to home buyers and sellers and will get you more sales.

Filed Under: Social Media, TubeMogul, Video Marketing, YouTube

Impact of Internet Marketing on Your Business

June 6, 2009 By Leave a Comment
(source California Association of REALTORS®, 09/23/08)

A new age is truly upon us and some will be left behind. The newest and best tool out there for real estate agents to get their name out to the public is the internet. Comparing 2007 and 2008 statistics on how sellers found their listing agent sheds some light and some reality based data to the huge question of what is the best way to market your business.

When an agent sent materials directly to a seller through direct mail marketing in 2007 they saw a 27% return in 2008 it was 44%. So sending materials to a seller is still one of the good ways to promote a business up 17% from 2007. By looking at previous transaction data though we see it has gone down 10% with 53% of the people, in 2007, used their agents again and 43% in 2008.

By having your sign in front of a home you advertising saw a dip also in 2008 going down 4% from 2007. 2007 showed 6% of sellers using yard signs to find their agent and 2008 showing only 2%.

The biggest gain not surprisingly is the Internet. In 2007 only 6% used it to find an agent but in 2008 that number jumped to 33%. That is a 27% hike in sellers discovering their agent online.

Internet marketing is obviously on the rise and with it the availability of quality companies out there to help utilize the net to its upmost potential.

Filed Under: Marketing
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