Halloween - Dress Up Your Marketing

Happy Halloween! I love Halloween because everything is not as it seems. My husband becomes a social creature who has fun dressing up at work and making a huge spectacle of himself (usually he is a mild mannered IT Manager who doesn't say too much and dresses the same every day). Children get to pretend to be fairy princesses, Spider man or even their "favorite" politician!

You can dress yourself up professionally also. I have very slick, very professionally designed marketing materials that scream this agent has a track record. If you are new to the business, spend a few bucks and get a professional brochure done OR go to Vistaprint and they will help you design one for free if you order your brochures through them OR use one of the MS Publisher templates and buy some high quality paper to print them on.

This may take some time, but it eliminates A LOT of questions during the listing presentation. Because your materials look professional the client projects that on you also.

If you are a seasoned agent, look at your materials with a critical eye. Have any of them gone out of date? Could you change out some pictures and show a higher end clientele than what is on you materials now? How does your current look translate - have you stepped up into luxury while your listing presentation still says bargain basement?

Make your materials match what you are (or want to be!)

RealEstateMarketingPro

Lead Generation - Do it!

So this weekend I got a lead on a buyer from an article I wrote and a lead on a seller from www.tampa4salebyowner.com I will not be working either of these BUT will refer them out and and MAY make some money from them. That is much better than not having those opportunities.

I think that it is easy to forget that there is a direct correlation between how much prospecting and lead generating we do and HOW MANY LEADS WE GET! As anyone who has ever taken one of my classes knows - you have 100% more chance of getting a lead if you do ANYTHING instead of doing nothing.

Mondays are typically slow days for me (not many appointments) - so I spend them following up on leads from the weekend, adding to and mailing out to my FSBO and Expired lists, and in general contacting people who might like to buy or sell real estate from me.

I like to lead generate so this is one of my favorite days of the week - (sick I know) but I just feel like each thing I do COULD return me a new client!

RealEstateMarketingPro

Sincerity - Elections and Seth Godin

So I spent the last hour filling out my voting ballot for the election. Luckily there was only one race where I was UN-happy with both candidates and had to choose the lesser of two evils. Then I read Seth's blog about manipulators and I was reminded that there ARE people in the world who are out to do harm or manipulate the system, BUT I think in general the realtors that I know are just trying to do a good job and work hard for their clients.

When I read Freakonomics and the author spent a good part of the book comparing realtors to the KKK, I thought how far that was from what I see day to day in the office. I see agents agonizing over the fact that a client will lose their dream home - NOT pining over the lost commissions. I see agent who go ahead and price homes high and still market the heck out them in order to help a client who has gotten in a bad situation. AND I see agents working their tails off to sell houses in a market where a lot is stacked against us.

So today I have to apologize because there is not a lot of marketing in this post, but I just want to commend my collegues in the real estate community for going out there each day and working from a really sincere place to do the best for their clients. Keep up the good work!

Real Estat Marketing Pro

Slogans and Logos - Oh What A Relief It Is

Plop, Plop, Fizz, Fizz, Oh What a Relief It Is, Tough On Hands - Soft On Dishes, I'd Like To Build the World A Home And Furnish It With Hope

Anyone who is over 38 years old has heard these and is probably mad at me for getting them stuck in you head for the day, BUT.... Logos and slogans can make or break a product or an agent. Make sure you have a good one!

Marsee Wilhelms from the Millionaire Mondays series has the slogan "And get packing" - how cool! I have a more convoluted slogan A New Market, A New Approach | Market Your Home To A Local, National and International Market, BUT my Come To Clearwater Logo and the Little Waves are easily recognized on everything I do.

I was talking with a fellow this week and he does the beaches, that made me think of "He sells sea shores" or "Let's make some waves". Whatever you speciality, make sure you have something memorable and then run with it!

Real Estate Marketing Pro

------ Shameless Listing Promotion To Follow! -----

1040 Wideview Ave - Historical Tarpon Bayou, This home is an Auto Enthusiast’s Dream the 5 bay Garage opens into a show room. 4 Bed/3.5 Baths/5+ Gar Find out more!

Public Relations - Blatant Self Promotion

So today is all about me - I can hear the groans now. You guys don't want to hear all about me and my accomplishments. You don't want to know what I have been doing (writing articles, press releases and adding info to my websites) and which societies I have been joining (ILS - International Luxury Homes) , or which marketing campaigns I have launched. But you might want to know the hows and the whys of what I am doing it to keep my name and websites out there!

Today I am writing press releases about my blog. I will set that to release Saturday or Sunday as I do not consider that "news" and I do not think that any news outlet would like to pick it up. I DO however know that if I send out a press release and it is well written and thoughtful then realtors who are searching will be able to find out about my blog and then read it. I like that.

Today I am also writing a press release about becoming a founding member of the ILS. I DO think that that is news so I will submit it for release on Tuesday or Wednesday. Why Tuesday or Wednesday? Well Monday is when all the news junkies come back from the weekend and they will be innundated with things that are much more interesting than my press release. Tuesday or Wednesday I will be more interesting.

I am also adding the "Expert Article Writer" logo to my website with a link to my articles that have been published on www.ezines.com. I get some hits from my website through the links on the articles.

In addition I am going to add the ILS logo to my homepage with a link to my internal page that lists the properties I have available at that price range, a link to CastlesandEstates.com and I am uploading my listings there also.

What have you been doing that is noteworthy lately? Can you write a press release about joining a civic club, volunteering at a hosiptal, receiving an award, sponsoring a classroom, changing companies, launching a marketing campaign (I know news about news!) or ANYTHING else that is interesting or pertinent to promoting you. Do it today and tell me about it - I like that too!

Networking - Talking to Humans Face to Face

I am not a huge fan of networking. It is something that I am sometimes dragged kicking and screaming to do, but once I am there I usually have a great time!

Today I attended a Realtor.com event where my listing partner and I got to have a giggle over the FBI profiler, who told us all about our personality types and why we get along so well or get frustrated with each other sometimes. While there I handed out about 25 property cards to realtors from the tampa bay area AND met some nice agents who I might be able to recruit or use as referral partners in the future.

I then went to a brokers open house held by one of our office agents and then one held by an agent from another office. It was great to get to talk to the 8 or so agents I saw at them and in the process got to preview two great properties.

Yesterday I went to Rotary and got a lead on a listing and also talked to a banker about vender opportunities.

You other agents might say - that is a normal week for me. Well I tend to like to do the things that more solitary like designing marketing campaigns, working on adwords placements, doing website tweaks, or writing blogs! I guess today's post is to remind me as much as anybody that real estate IS a contact sport and sometimes you have to make contact.

Real Estate Marketing Pro

Print - Why you need a brochure

Having a 4 color trifold brochure gives you credibility. It gives all of your most important information to your prospect in gorgeous 4 color glossy splendor. It gives you an air of having been in business for a long time and having professionally done marketing materials. It makes you seem a step above the competition who does not have such a marketing piece. And now it is actually affordable enough that you will not buy 5000 of them and then never give them to anyone because they cost so much!

Some things that ARE important to include when designing your brochure:

1. What do you do for the client
2. What are your qualifications as they relate to the client (how does your background help them?)
3. Interesting facts about you, your business or your clients' business
4. Contact Infomation
5. Usability - I like to make my brochures as mailing pieces so that I can drop one in the mail when people request more info
6. Testimonials
7. Past client lists
8. Your designations (and how having them will help the client)

Some things that ARE NOT important to include when designing your brochure:

1. Going on about your history, your education or anything else IF it is not of value to the client
2. Pictures of the building where your business is housed
3. Infomation abou the team, group, agent to the exclusion of all else
4. Large pictures of you (a small picture by your bio is fine, a large picture of you on the front of the brochure is not!)
   

Overall just consider that they are buying your services, experience and knowledge and the more that you can tell them about how it will serve them the better!

Warning - Commercial Coming

People ask me all the time where I get my business cards, postcards and brochures - VistaPrint. It is cheap, easy to use and did I say cheap? The quality is stupendous and they have a superb interface that works much like MS Word so anyone can use it. If you are thinking about ordering some materials check out their templates and pricing BEFORE you spend a fortune.

End of Commercial

Real Estate Marketing Pro

Branding - I am NOT a criminal!

So this morning I did something fun and productive - I picked up trash by the road with members of my Rotary group. While it fast and easy, we were unsafe and risked being hit by a car because of branding. Everyone but one brave soul refused to wear the bright orange vest that would have provided more visibility. We risked life and limb because the work release program in Clearwater allows criminals to leave the jail to pick up trash and do landscaping IN ORANGE VESTS!

This reminded me of a great branding opportunity - when you go out of your area for Turning Points or Mardi Gras or Family Reunion get togethers, brand yourself. Have your website stitched onto the back of your shirt or have "ask me about clearwater" silk screened on a jacket. Let people know your affiliation and they WILL send you referrals when they have clients move to the area.

RealEstateMarketingPro

Internet - Flash and Music

Please be prepared for a rant! If you have a fancy Flash site with a landing page that people have to "click here to skip into" or if your site has music that plays as soon as you open it and people have to "click here to turn off music" this post is for you.

In 1999-2001 I worked for a company called Digital Chainsaw (I swear that was the name) and we were bought by a rather forward thinking broadband company because they liked the edgy nature of our work and our internet background. They were primarily concerned with selling Voice Over IP which still hasn't caught on with the general poplulation 5 years later - hence the forward thinking part. Well I sat in a meeting with them where they were telling me about this "great new stuff Flash" that would revolutionize how people viewed them and how we needed to spend tens of thousands of dollars developing a great Intro.

I told them what I am telling you now (5 years later) - EVERYBODY skips the intro. People do not have time to sit for even a minute to watch a mini advertisement about your company. If you are a realtor, I guarentee people want to see what services you offer OR view listings - NOT a mini movie. If you have music (and I know some of you do) - DISABLE IT. If people are looking at your listings or checking out your services they are not sitting in a totally silent room, they are watching TV or listening to their Ipod or doing something else and YOUR MUSIC IS DISTRACTING and could cause them to leave your site.

That having been said there are some great flash features that do add to the users experience - keep those and ditch the rest.

End of Rant

RealEstateMarketingPro

Public Relations - PRWeb

So today I am going to practice what I preach!

Almost every day I get a hit or two on my TampaBayUnder200K website from PR Web. That does not seem like a lot but considering that there have been 94,722 views of the article through PRWeb and that it was published on May 22, 2006 -- that adds up to about 225 (1.5X150 days) hits.

Today I am going use the $10 service which allows me to see stats but does not put the press release out to all the news agencies to advertise my blog. If the content of my release is good some nice things might happen:

1. I may be quoted as a knowledgable source
2. News feeds may pick it up and put it on their website for distribution
3. People may read about my blog and sign up
4. People may read about my services and decide that they want to be represented by someone with my expertise

Whatever happens today it will be more that what would happen if I did not send out a press release -- and isn't that the whole point?

RealEstateMarketingPro

Direct Response Mag - Marketing Addict

My name is Tara and I am a marketing addict. I know this because I spent this morning reading Direct Response Magazine which is the only publication for infomercial producers. I got excited because Andrea Boticelli beat out Girls Gone Wild on general principles because I think that GGW is exploitative and classical music needs a win. But overall it was a magazine about a marketing medium that I have very little chance of using BUT I still liked it!!!!

I talked with one of our agents in the office who has a jones on for Investing. He REALLY likes it and all the opportunities it provides to make money, network, travel and just in general enrich his life and other people's lives. This bears watching to see how far and how fast he can go - I will update you when he has the kinks worked out.

And last but not least is my closing coordinator - this woman gets the chills when she consumates a closing for us and has all the I's dotted and the T's crossed. Her face lights up when all her files are in order and when she has had a really great weekend of organizing them.

What do you like to do? Helping people buy or sell houses is a little vague. Figure out what you like to do anyways and then incorporate it into your real estate business. If you golf become familiar with all the golfing communities (maybe you can get a free round out of it!), if you are into art develop a list of homes that have galleries or great natural lighting, or if you like helping people become an expert on 1031 exchanges and help them keep their money!

Just because you pick an expertise does not mean you can't sell to everyone BUT it can make your career more enjoyable to you!

Tara

Real Estate Marketing Pro

Branding - Tell Them EXACTLY What You Mean!

My husband and I were driving through Dunedin today and we passed a small business that had just opened. It was in a small strip mall and was called "This and Thats" or Betty's "These and Those" or SOMETHING like that. The problem is that there is no indication of what the store does. Does it sell home furnishings or clothing or crafts, do they provide services or products? AND how is anyone going to remember that name? It is SO innocuous as to be harmful to the business.

I worked this week with a realtor who knew EXACTLY what she wanted to name her business and also what image she wanted to project. Her name is Minnie, and so she named her business/website Minnie Mighty Realtor. We developed a neat logo that featured those exact words. It was black and white and VERY tailored, just like the image she wanted to project.

I designed a look with another realtor who chose the icon of a sanddollar and who wanted a very polished look. She has carried that theme through her car signs, business cards and also sanddollar candies and handouts for her open houses and home flyers. This continuous look even helped to break the ice with an open house visitor who noticed that everything had a sanddollar on it! Her website also will carry out the theme.

Both these realtors will benefit greatly from their focus and how they have branded their businesses. It is easy to "picture" their logo/branding and so clients will be able to associate them with their businesses simply and quickly.

Real Estate Marketing Pro Blog

October - Holy Cow Is There A Lot To Do

I love October because it is the month of my birth and I make my family crazy by reminding them of that fact and making them celebrate over the course of 2-3 weeks! But I also noticed this year that there are A LOT of happenings that I could be involved with and I want to make sure I balance all of those things with the primary goal of selling houses (becasue as Arthur Motley so aptly stated Nothing happens until somebody sells something.)

One thing that goes on the caledar for sure is the Homebanc speaker. He is talking about busines planning and goal setting BUT that is not why I will attend. I will attend because I want to support my friends and associates Brian and Kelly (mortgage bankers). They support us by sponsoring events in our office, attending our brokers opens and working with us on various programs throughout the year. The least I can do is come to their speaker event.

I also may attend the Realtor.com seminar which features a former FBI profiler. I don't really need to know about Realtor.com BUT the information that he gives about how to profile your clients and the other realtor in the transaction is invaluable.

That having been said, there are numerous other events that I can attend during the working day that I will choose not to go to. I am focusing on time management and making sure that the things that will bring in business, make my clients happy, strengthen vendor relationships or increase the likelyhood that one of my listings will sell come first and everything else MUST be a distant second. I am not totally succeeding yet but I feel like I have a better chance of that happening if it is my first priority.

Does anyone else struggle with time manangement, and if so, do you have any nifty coping mechanisms? Real Estate Marketing Pro Blog

Friday the 13th Has Great PR

Friday the 13th is here and I must say that I am very impressed with the universal nature of people's fear of the number 13 and all associated with it. The fact that no one REALLY knows how this started would make me think that it would have died out by now - but it is going strong.

PR is much like that to me. Many people misunderstand the power of PR if it is used consistenly and aggressively. If you say that you are "Tampa Bay's Premier Realtor For Corporate Executives" in your marketing materials, in your website and on your signs, AND THEN send out press releases confirming that fact, human resource directors in the area will come looking for you when they are tasked with finding a home for the new CEO the board hired.

I love this concept (and may use it sometime so Tampa Bay Realtors you better hurry up and declare yourself soon so I don't beat you to it). Some things that you have to do to qualify include marketing early and often to the top 100 local companies' human resource directors, know the inventory for homes in prestigious areas ALL OVER Tampa Bay (you cannot just know the ones near your home or office for this gig), have affiliate relationships with interior decorators and other support staff AND then tell the world this is your niche.

www.PRweb.com allows you to send out press releases FOR FREE. I would utilize this service for at least monthly notices about your Corporate Executive Relocation superiority and then pay the extra fee (approx $80) only when you have milestone that you want to make sure everyone knows about - "Jane Doe, Tampa Bay's Premier Realtor For Corporate Executives Announces That Company X Has Successfully Completed Their Bid to Recruit Corporate Raider Jones Thanks In Part to Her Ability to Find A Suitable Mansion In Tampa".

This doesn't sound so hard to do - BUT tooting our own horns sometimes feels a little weird - get over it, pick a speciality and start talking about yourself to anyone who will listen!!!

PS - Make sure you put links to each of your "news stories" on your website to reinforce your position.

Print - Sharing The Load

I have to say that I am pretty pumped up about the print advertising that I have been doing lately! I am in a local free paper with an article plus an ad, the Pinellas Home Search and also the Real Estate Book....I can hear the groan from you all now - I can't afford that, print advertising doesn't work, there are no buyers right now so why spend the money, yada yada yada.

Well let's go over this step by step and see what all this print is costing. Timez Out (small local paper) The article is free and allows me show that I am a "real estate expert" in area. Small local papers are often looking for good, reliable submitters and you might just fit the bill. Here is this month's article. As you can see I was able to quote other industry sources like my Homebanc partner, Brian P. Forrester and also another agent from the office in the article, spreading the love around. I also paired up for the ad with my high end listing partner Sheila Santini so the cost was cut in half. $100 total (you also get a discount on the cost of the ad because of your article submissions!)

Pinellas Home Book This seemed somewhat cost prohibitive when I checked it out orginally, $500 a page per month. But what I did was buy two pages and sell the other ads to agents in my office who got the benefit of the lower price and "all" it took was my time (I had to commit to 6 inserts per year and have to do the individual agent billing myself). I figure I have about 10 hours in designing the ad and laying out the first spread. This month we added pages 3 and 4 which added another 6 or 7 hours to the process, BUT as they always say, when you are a newer agent what you have is time rather than money so I consider it time well spent!!! $38/ad

The Real Estate Book I went in with 2 other agents (Lori Crawford and Bill Sullivan) for this one. There is a year's commitment, but we all vowed to stay the full year or to find someone to buy us out if we were unable to do it. I got it in from the printer yesterday and it is GREAT!!! This one features 3 properties for each of us and is a month long publication (I just noticed that they all are month long - even better! Cha-ching). They also have an extensive online presence that comes for free with the listings. $136/month - 12 month committment.

So my monthly costs are about $312 to get in three separate publications. Considering I was spending well over that to be in one high end print magazine, I am VERY pleased that I have gotten my advertising costs under control and I am achieving a pretty high visibility.

Let's talk about print not working - I have heard from three separate agents in our office that they have gotten calls already from the Home Search magazine. I just started the Real Estate Book so I don't have any data on that one and the Timez Out is more for visibility and to show my listing clients I am advertising for them than to make the phone ring. Would I like more calls? YES! But....I also find it much easier to sell my services at a listing appointment when I am able to show them all the places they will be featured.

As for there being no buyers - I always am reminded of Henry Ford's quote "Whether you think that you can, or that you can't, you are usually right." If you are sure that there are no opportunities and that doing nothing is the safe bet, the results you get should be commensurate with your effort!

Print - Flyers, I Have Heard It A 1000 Times...

I have heard it 4 or 5 times (I know I exaggerated in the headline - get used to it!) that you should put other properties of your current inventory on the back sides of the flyers you hand out, well today I am going to do it!!!

It seems so simplistic, but I am doing a brokers open today and I think it would be nice if other agents got to see ALL of my listings and not just the one I am sitting at. Also, I was at a pitch session the other day and I handed out a flyer for different property and did not let the 20 or so other agents there know I had OTHER properties that are equally as wonderful.

I think that I may be missing a chance to "pick the low hanging fruit" as Mark Stevens in Your Marketing Sucks talks about.

Internet - Two For One On Google

So about a month ago I read an article on how to save money on Google Adwords, implemented the suggestions and totally broke my campaigns, going from a pretty good response to almost nothing overnight. If you are new to internet marketing I am sure this will sound strange to you, but if you have been doing it for a while I am sure you have done this before too.

Well last week I took a morning and fixed my AdWords campaigns and made some changes to my websites to try and get more leads, not just traffic. IT WORKED!

I have one site that gets A LOT of hits for very low click through costs on google (www.tampabayunder200k.com) but which is not a great lead generator for me. Knowing this I changed the format of the sidebar on the site to show pictures of my properties with compelling prices AND changed the link to my main site instead of linking to a subpage of the TBU200K site.

Traffic at TBU200K has increased (which is nice but not all that productive) BUT click-throughs to www.cometoclearwater.com and www.clearwater4salebyowner.com have ALSO INCREASED! Basically I am using my low click through cost on google to help drive additional traffic to my "real" websites - Two For One On Google!

Marketing Ideas and Anxiety

Trying something new is always hard - even when you are adventuresome - which I am. Starting a blog was somewhat intimidating for me - will I have something to write every day? will ANYONE ever read it? will I give all my ideas away to people who are wildly successful?

I hope to answer yes to all of these???s in the coming months. I have at least one "great" marketing idea each day and I agree with Seth Godin who says that ideas that are hidden die. I will be posting my ideas here each day and if you use any of them please let me know so I know that they went out into the world and GREW LEGS!

T