BRER Real Estate Marketing Blog

I’m seeing a lot more real estate blogs on the ‘Net.  They are being used in a variety of ways, including:  to post listings, discuss the housing market, or to post updates on things to do.

If you have a real estate blog, let us know how you set it up, what you are using it for, how often you post information, if you like it or hate it.

And, feel free to post the URL for your blog - we can all learn from each other!

The February Real Estate Results Newsletter was published today.  It contains some great tips about ordering free plants for your clients, a promotional item that your prospects will really use, and one approach for being your home sellers’ hero.

If you’d like to receive your own Newsletter once a month, visit our real estate marketing Newsletter page to register.  You can also access the Newsletter Archive on that page.

Read the February newsletter for more real estate marketing tips!

If you’re a full-service real estate agent or broker, how can you respond to the companies offering a low-cost MLS listing service?

The low-cost providers are promoting the concept that selling a home is easy.  Put a sign in the yard, put a listing on the local MLS, and wait for the offers to come streaming in.  And, it can be tough selling against that concept - everyone would like to think it is really that simple.

So, should your listing presentation try to burst the bubble?  I don’t think so.  It’s fine to say “My experience has been that it just isn’t that simple”.  But, that’s just an opinion.

Your presentation needs to define how your approach is different - and better!  That’s where having a clear definition of your brand can make a big difference.  When you can clearly describe the reasons why someone should work with you as opposed to any other agent, you’ve got the MLS listing service beaten by a mile.

Avoid common real estate brand pitfalls.  And, let us know if we can help!

Most of the real estate postcards and newspaper ads I see fit into the category of awareness advertising.  The marketing message is:  I’m a really good real estate agent, and if you want to buy or sell, call me.

There’s certainly a place for awareness advertising.  The yard sign in the front yard of your listings is building awareness.  The T-shirts you buy for a local little league team is building awareness because your logo is on each one.

But, when you are making direct contact with your target market, you’ll find that direct response marketing will be much more effective.  Using direct response marketing, your marketing message solicits a very specific and quantifiable response.

For example, offer something that is valuable to your target market, and ask them to take a specific action such as visiting your website or calling your office to take advantage of the offer.

In fact, direct response marketing is a great way to drive traffic to your website.  You know that the more people who “adopt” your website as their headquarters for real estate research, the more leads your site will generate.

So, the next time you send a postcard to your people in your farm area, make them an offer they can’t refuse!

Think about it.  As a real estate agent, you possess a lot of information and knowledge that is big news to the general public.  Figure out what your target market wants to know, and offer it to them in your next mailing!

If you’d like assistance, visit our real estate marketing materials information page. 

If you are using a real estate blog, you need incoming links.  There are a number of directories where you can list your blog.  But, don’t miss this one - it focuses entirely on real estate blogs:  www.real-estate-blogs.com

One of the most important things you can do when you set up a real estate website is choose the best keyword phrases to use when you optimize the site.

Many people think that the best keywords are the ones that get the most searches.  But, using the most popular keywords may not be the best strategy!

The most popular keywords are also the most competitive.  Consider that you will be competing against millions of other sites, many of which have been building search engine rankings over a very long timeframe.  You have to decide whether starting with a less competitive keyword will bring faster results.

The goal for a real estate website is to generate leads.  If you can start generating leads by optimizing for a less competitive keyword, you’re setting your site up to pay for itself faster.  For a new website with a new domain name, it may be more effective to optimize the home page for the less competitive keyword, and optimize an internal page for the most competitive. 

As your site ages and your SEO efforts start to pay off,  your internal page will quietly build strength, while the home page rank is generating visitors.

Sometimes when I mention creating a real estate brand to some agents, their first reaction is: “I don’t want to plaster my face all over town.”

And, I agree.  If you are a real estate agent, you are running a business.  It’s a real estate consulting practice.  So, your brand needs to represent your competitive advantage.  Which for most people, is not their face.

Your brand could be your name or a description of your company, such as ABC Realty Group.  The really important part of creating a brand is defining what it stands for.

If you’re not an expert on analyzing a link opportunity to spot “bad neighborhoods”, the best way to obtain link exchanges is to use the real estate forums.  Most forums have a category for link exchanges.  You can post a request to exchange links, or answer posts other people have placed on the forum.

The other advantage to using a forum is that people who are good at spotting bad neighborhoods are active on most forums.  If someone posts a link exchange to a bad neighborhood, someone on the forum will usually call them on it.  So, forums are usually a safe place to identify link exchange partners.

Here are some forums to check out:

Real Estate Webmasters

RealEstateForum.com

Pro Real Estate Network

AgentsOnline.net