Real Estate Internet Marketing

If you were unable to attend Virtual Real Estate BarCamp on Tuesday, you missed out on many amazing presentations and tons of great real estate marketing advice. 

One presentation in particular that you didn’t want to miss was Steve Rosenbaum’s “The Best Free (and Nearly Free) Online Tools for Your Business.”  The good news is that he’s made his presentation available online.  In case you missed it the first time, or want to see it again, you will definitely want to watch and learn where to find the best web sites and programs.

Steve had hundreds of follow up requests for access to his $1,000,000 Rolodex of his favorite online real estate marketing tools and free software sites.  So, he’s made it available to all of you.  Just click on the link.

When you’re all done, make sure to download access to his list of the best real estate marketing resources.

To boosting your business,

Kathy Goughenour

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I just read a brilliant idea for extremely effective real estate marketing materials.  Seth Godin wrote about this idea in his blog post Time to Start a Newspaper.

Unless you’re a very rare real estate agent, you have more time than money on your hands these days.  So, it’s time to start thinking about how you can best use your time to generate business, not only for this year, but for the years to come.

Read and implement Seth’s idea of starting your own local newspaper.  It’s extremely inexpensive (practically free) and will build your brand in leaps and bounds.

If you want to add real estate tips and articles to your newspaper (which is a great way to add value to your newspaper), consider joining my Lead Booster Club.  For only $29.95 a month, you get 20 pre-written real estate articles every month on hot real estate topics.  That’ll make the job of filling up your newspaper with great information easy and inexpensive.

If you have any questions on how to implement Seth Godin’s idea, post your question in the comment section.  I promise to answer!  And when you start your newspaper, be sure to let me know.  I want to blog about it here.

Seth Godin’s idea is only one of many real estate marketing ideas I’ll be sharing with you during 2009.  If you haven’t already, be sure to subscribe to this blog by simply filling in your email address in the top left-hand corner of this page and clicking submit.  You’ll automatically receive my tips in your email inbox… and it’s free.  So, take 30 seconds and sign up now.

To creating successful real estate marketing materials,

Kathy Goughenour

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In Part 4 of Real Estate Marketing Online: 5 Ways to Find Qualified Prospects, I suggested you start a blog to pull in more qualified real estate leads.

Here’s my fifth suggestion for improving your real estate marketing online and finding more qualified prospects:

5. Add a Call to Action

What is a Call To Action? It’s a statement at the end of your marketing material that tells your reader exactly what you want them to do.

It’s a crucial part of any marketing material, whether that material is a print piece like a postcard, sales letter or business card or whether it’s a piece for your online real estate marketing like a blog post or a web page. (more…)

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In Part 3 of Real Estate Marketing Online: 5 Ways to Find Qualified Prospects, I shared with you a few ideas on how to SEO (search engine optimize) your website.

Today, we’ll talk about another method of finding qualified prospects using real estate marketing online.

4. Start a blog.

A blog is the ideal place for you to post additional information about listings, share stories that highlight your expertise and connect with potential and past clients. (more…)

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Yesterday, in Real Estate Marketing Online: 5 Ways to Find Qualified Prospects, Part 1, I shared with you my first suggestion for improving your real estate marketing online: targeting a niche market.

Here’s my second suggestion for improving your real estate marketing online and finding more qualified prospects:

2. Figure out what works for you.

How much business are you actually getting from each type of marketing you’re using? If you don’t know the answer to that question, step 1 is to figure that out.

One of the easiest ways to do this is to simply ask all new leads where they heard about you. Keep a running tally. That’ll give you the information you need to determine what marketing is working and what isn’t. (more…)

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Over the next 5 posts, I’ll share with you 5 ways to find qualified prospects using real estate marketing online.

One of the frustrations real estate agents face is finding qualified prospects. No one likes to spend their time and money on people who are not able or not interested in buying or selling a home. Yet, this is what many agents do each day in their quest to close a deal.

You know it doesn’t pay to spend time with someone who isn’t going to buy or list a home with you. So how do you find qualified prospects?

Here’s the first of five ways to find qualified prospects using real estate marketing online:

1. Target a niche marketing.

A marketing strategy designed for everyone isn’t a strategy. It’s a waste of time and money. You need to find your niche in the real estate market and focus your marketing time and money on that market.

No matter what market you choose, you will eliminate a percentage of the real estate market, but you can focus on this market and make it your own. You will know that you are marketing to people who are most interested in your services.

I know right now you’re probably saying to yourself, “I can’t narrow my market by choosing only one niche.” I beg of you to try this method. It’s proven time and again to increase your profit by bringing in more clients, creating loyal clients who come back to you and reducing money spent on marketing that doesn’t work because it’s too broad and too generic.

Exactly how do you determine your target market? First, you examine yourself. Who is your very favorite type of client to work with and what’s the best geographic area for that client to buy and sell in? You need to get as specific as possible. Identify your ideal client and geographic area by answering the following questions: (more…)

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Do you think only a word like MLS reaches real estate listing leads? Read on to learn why you may want to change that thinking…

In case you haven’t heard, there’s a legal, and ethical, debate going on regarding who is allowed to use the term “MLS.”

Apparently, the NAR and some MLSs are against REALTORS using the term MLS on their websites or marketing materials. That would include domain names, email addresses, text on websites, and any other marketing materials.

Sometimes it’s easier (and more profitable) to change than fight the system. So, instead of jumping into this debate about whether REALTORS should be allowed to use the term MLS, I’d like to give you ideas on how to avoid using the term, and still have wording that generates real estate listing leads.

By the way, if you want to read more about this issue, Inman News Blogs has a good post about it at: Use of MLS in a Realtor Web site: An ethical dilemma

Now for my suggestions:

Domain Name

To help get your website ranked higher on search engines, the keyword phrase people search on the most is what you want to use in your domain name. In most markets, that keyword phrase is some combination of “YourCityRealEstate.com”

For example, I’m currently writing web content for an agent in the greater Jackson Mississippi area. After searching for an available domain name, we came up with www.RealEstateJacksonMS.com.

Domain name bottom line: choosing a domain name with some combination of YourCityRealEstate.com will drive more traffic to most sites (and bring in more real estate listing leads) than a name with MLS in it.

Email Address

This should match your domain name. So, if your domain name is www.RealEstateJacksonMS.com, your email should be name@realestatejacksonms.com.

Website Wording

Instead of a button that reads “Search the MLS” use a button that reads “Search for Homes.” Believe it or not, some people don’t even know what MLS means, but everyone knows what “Search for Homes” means.

Instead of writing “Use this site to search the MLS” write “Use this site to search like a REALTOR.” Which sounds more powerful to you?

If you have a question about how to reword any uses of MLS on your website or marketing materials, post a comment to this blog. I promise to respond!

To Boosting your Business,

Kathy Goughenour

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