Random Acts Of Internet Marketing

You should have your e-Mail address and website on every printed item including e-Mail.  It should have upper and lower case letters for readability.  Example You@YourName.com or www.YourName.com.

Every mailer or announcement that mentions information about a listing should contain the following tag line: “For complete information, go to www.YourName.com”.

You voice mail message should include this sentence: “You can also contact me at You@YourName or can visit my website at www.YourName.com”.

Your website should open with listings as your homepage because that is what consumers want.  Don’t make them go through a splash movie or look at the litany of wonderful things you’ve done.  They want to see houses with addresses, prices, lots of photos and videos.  Once they know that you’ve got the goods, they’ll read about you.

The preferred method of communication for Internet consumers is e-Mail not the phone.  When they have found several homes they want to see, they’ll contact each of the listing agents by e-Mail and the first to respond will get to show all of them.  You could sit in front of your computer all day but then, you wouldn’t be listing and selling homes.

A real-time solution to this is wireless e-Mail to a direct device.  It has all of the functionality of a PDA, personal digital assistant, address book, calendar, To Do list, and memos, and it sends and receives e-Mail.   A strategy like this will cause you to sell more of your own listings.

I met a REALTOR® at a state convention this fall who eliminated all of his classified ads.  He noticed that it has not affected his business so the $10,000 he spent last year all goes to the bottom line.  He does have five websites to promote his listings and open houses and together, they only cost him $3,500 a year.

Get your favorite mortgage and title company and other service providers to advertise on your website.  In the retail world, money given by vendors to stores is called MDF, market development funds.  It is a legal way to encourage advertising of their specific brand of products to help both the store and the vendor. 

A lot of real estate agents have been afraid to accept money from mortgage and title companies because of RESPA that prohibits “kickbacks” without disclosure to all parties.  However, advertising on a website is not related to a particular transaction and it helps distribute the cost of marketing to all of the people who benefit from it.

There is a new Sony digital camera, DSP30, that takes both photos and mpg videos.  The mpg format is much smaller than the QuickTime videos taken by most digital cameras and will work well for websites and e-Mail.  This would allow an agent to shoot his or her own virtual tours and save money.  The one attachment that is a must is a wide-angle lens.

Ask everyone you see for his or her e-Mail address.  If you already have it, verify that it hasn’t changed.  Record it in your PDA and synch it with your computer so that you’ll be ready to send your next newsletter.

Web-based e-Mail will allow you to check your e-Mail from any computer that is connected to the Internet.  You won’t be restricted to using your own computer.

Your e-Mail address and your website should use the same domain.  It presents a consistent image and becomes easier to remember for your customers.

More can actually be less.  Some websites have so much on them that they are confusing and really encourage consumers to go somewhere else.  Avoid distracting ads, too much text, pop-up windows, and guest registers.  The consumer wants to look at listings quickly like the answers given on www.Google.com.

If you don’t have any open houses or featured homes to promote, remove the button from your site.  It is better to not have it than for there to be none available.

Limit the number of links away from your website.  Once you get them to your site, you don’t want to encourage them to go somewhere else.

The new trend in contact management is for it to be Internet-based.  This will allow you to access it from any computer connected to the Internet and you and your team can work from anywhere as a connection.

Conduct an Open House for your website by sending out a postcard telling all of the features that you have available.  Make sure that they are worded with your consumer in mind.

Your Open House register should have a place for the visitors to write their e-Mail address.  Some people would prefer to give that than their phone number.

A twist to the Two-Step listing presentation is to put the prospect’s home on your site but hold it back from the Internet.  You can show them what it will look like with the pictures, tours, and description.   Changes can be quickly made and a unique way to ask for the listing is “Are your ready to post it to the Internet?”

Consumers now expect complete information available on the Internet 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.  If you are not there, or are limiting the data, they consider that you are not a player.  The Internet consumer buys higher priced homes, in half the time than non-Internet buyers.  Learn how to do business with them.

Published in FPG’s March 2002 Issue (article written 12-2001)