0

Give the Poor Tools to Lift Themselves Out of Poverty

Okay, this has absolutely nothing to do with real estate…but it does have to do with helping another person. So bear with me.

Recently I’ve been following the Grameen Foundation, and have had a profound interest in the organization and what they are doing to help the poor–especially woman: providing microloans to help these people defeat poverty and make better lives for their families.

Are you familiar with microloans or microfinance?

Muhammed Yunnus, the man behind Grameen, is called “the banker of the poor” and a “micro lending pioneer,” which earned him a Nobel Peace Prize last year. He basically came up with the concept of microloans.

And he has a goal to reach 5 million new clients in 5 years.

The way I see it, that’s literally 5 million men or women who could provide appropriate food, shelter and clothing for their children.

And to me that is very exciting. And immensely rewarding to stay informed, spread the word and donate.

If you are interested in learning more about this effective poverty reduction strategy, visit the Grameen site.

And let me know what you think. I really am excited about this and would like to hear from you.

0

Monday Marketing Mashup

Outside the very bad spice puns, Copyblogger Brian Clark delivers 3 ways to write blog posts that excite, inflame, entice and impress.

Get the PDF or video on Jamie Glenn’s presentation at Real Estate Connect San Francisco last week on 50 ways to market real estate online.

“Markets are conversations. Talk is cheap. Silence is fatal.” That’s the subtitle to the 1996 book that pretty much predicted the rise of social media like blogs. Read Cluetrain Manifesto free. It’s a must.

Jim Cronin over at Real Estate Tomato suggests baiting blog readers with these 3 “soft barriers.” And I believe him.

It would be hard to dream up a more appalling publicity stunt…but definitely give a variation of one of these top ten successful marketing stunts a shot.

Mitch Meyerson and Jay Conrad Levinson provide a PDF with 100 guerrilla marketing weapons for you that you can use right away and don’t cost a lot of money.

One of the 10 ways that Smart Company says you can get stinking filthy rich is to buy a patch of dirt. Sounds like real estate, doesn’t it? There’s a catch: the dirt should have minerals in it. And you have to dig.

Back in December 2006 Mr. Internet explained this living, breathing thing called your website needs to be inspected: you need to know how visitors are using your website. Since then Google Anayltics, which is still very, very free (read: you have zero excuse not to be using it), has been re-designed to help you learn even more about where your visitors come from and how they interact with your site. And let me tell you…it is a beautiful thing.

And speaking of your website: do you know the one thing everyone with a website has to know?

416. That’s the number of pages you have to read if you want to learn one hundreds years worth of groundbreaking, innovative and occassionally outlandish ways to master the game of golf.  (Okay, this may have nothing to do with marketing…but it has everything to do with golf, right? And golf is very important to real estate, correct? Eh, it’s Monday morning: cut me some slack.)

By the way, all you need to do to subscribe to our real estate marketing blog.

 

0

10 Ways to Becoming a Better Negotiator

1. Negotiate.

2. Negotiate more.

3. Negotiate even more. 

4. Negotiate with the clothing store clerk, the garbage man, the mail carrier.

5. Negotiate with your broker.

6. Negotiate when you don’t want to.

7. Negotiate when you want to.

8. Negotiate when you know you can get something better, bigger, faster.

9. Negotiate everyday.

10. Always negotiate.

2

How to Start Your Own Real Estate Marketing Blog

How about this for an incentive to starting a blog…

During the final wrap up session of the Real Estate Connect San Francisco Diane Cohn of Chase International Reno Sparks Real Estate got up from the audience and said she’s closed $10 million in business in the last year, and that 95 percent of it came from her blog.

On July 19 I posted the question “Should you start your own blog?” In that post I went more into the strategy side of starting a blog, like identifying your niche and how to create cornerstone content.

In this post I’d like to address the question of where do I start? How do I even get a blog? (Btw: this post came from Brenda’s cry for help.)

Paid v. Free Blog Services

First, decide whether you want to use hosting or web browser software.

Examples of hosting blog software are WordPress and Typepad.

Both have great features like professionally designed themes you can choose and customize over time, WYSIWYG editors for easy posting and functions to categorize your posts and create automatic archives, allowing your readers to find exactly what they want.

For $29.95 a month Typepad will give you advanced administration tools, priority tech support and custom invoicing. You can also build your own design and customize fonts, colors and borders.

Both WordPress and Typed will allow you to insert photos quickly with automatic resizing.

WordPress costs about the amount of hosting, normally under ten dollars. If you don’t need the flexibility of a full web host, you may consider getting a free blog on WordPress.com.

Or go with a free Blogger account.

Keep in mind, free blog accounts typically don’t allow you to have a custom domain name. This is a drawback when trying to blog for search engine results.

So it may be worth the effort to go with a paid service.

For further help, check out these resources:

wikiHow: How to Start a Blog

Phil Windley’s Tecnometria: How to Start a Blog

Here’s a Washington Post article worth reading: Start a Winning Blog.

And before you launch your brand new blog, make sure you read this post by Copyblogger Brian Clark who shares 5 ways to open your blog posts with a bang.

Conclusion

So, did I answer all of your questions? Am I missing anything?

Let me know by giving me some feedback.

Also, if you are a successful blogger like Diane, how successful have you been? Is blogging having an impact on your business, whether good or bad?

Okay, a majority of you might be generating business out of blogging? Does anyone think that it’s hype? An out of control bandwagon effect?

And what about horror stories as a blogger? Anything juicy you might consider sharing?

Looking forward to hearing from you.

And if you haven’t done so already, subscribe to the Real Estate Marketing Blog today!

1

7 Viral Marketing Campaigns You Should Steal Ideas From

Viral marketing is a great, low-cost way to spread an idea, your name, your brand because if you have the right ingredients your idea can take off and spread like wild fire…without you even breaking a sweat.

The following is a list of some effective campaigns from 2006 and the first half of 2007.

The sheer range of these campaigns proves practically any marketer targeting any demographic online can use viral successfully. One note:

Micro-budgets still OK.

One of the most popular campaigns we picked was created on a $1000 budget. A few others were created by in-house shops or single-man operations. That’s not to say you shouldn’t hire an experienced viral agency to help (many of the best are represented here too.) But, if you can’t afford it and you are a *very* clever and/or lucky marketer, viral can still be do-it-yourself tactic.

Now…for that list. Real estate agents of all stripes–prepare to be inspired!

1. Known as “Real Estate’s Greatest Sales Legend,” the slimy Ted Truit and his interactive website (quiz and all!) created a firestorm of response from Virginia REALTORS, and birthed an effective image campaign for VAR.

2. 258,000. That’s the number of people Obama’s viral marketing machine has encouraged to donate to him during his Democratic nomination campaign.

3. I think the prizes are the best I’ve seen for an SEO keyword contest, but that alone doesn’t explain the success of v7’s viral campaign. This got press from USA Today even.

4. This campaign is proof that if you blatantly appeal to bloggers’ egos and desire for more traffic/attention, they will in turn happily link to you.

5. What I really liked about this knife website was that the viral element came out of left field: a police newsletter picked the demonstration video up to warn police officers about it. The article basically said “watch out for this.” Sales went crazy…all to police officers.

6. According to the Inman Blog, at the Real Estate Connect SF August 2 Keynote address, Hugh MacLeod explained how a viral marketing campaign he engineered for a South African winery, Stormhoek, has helped boost sales from 50,000 cases to a projected 250,000 cases in 2007.

7. Finally (and possibly my favorite because of the humor), this DVD video called The Pitch, Poker and the Public published on YouTube by Dave Lakhani created a sensation in the Internet marketing arena and sold a thousand books in one day.

So what did you think? Are you inspired to create a compelling video that will rapidly spread through your market? Maybe even the nation? Have any suggestions for effective viral campaigns that I haven’t mentioned here? Or am I off my rocker and viral campaigns are a waste of time in the real estate market?

I want to hear from you!

If you haven’t done so already, subscribe to the Real Estate Marketing Blog today!

15

SEO as a Marketing Strategy for Real Estate

So, would you like to know more about search engine optimization (SEO)?

Not sure? Not sure you should even care?

Well, let me ask you this: when someone searches for homes in your area on the Internet, would you like your website to be the first result to show up? In a nutshell, would you like to drive more traffic to your website?

If so, then this post is for you. Furthermore…

In a recent post I wrote an extensive article about creating a real estate marketing plan and…just recently realized that I failed to mention SEO in the web marketing portion.

Here’s why SEO is important to you and your website and SHOULD NOT be a strategy left out of your marketing plan:

In 2005 the NAR reports that nearly eight out of ten home buyers start their home search online. More importantly, as noted in an earlier study, 76% percent of people used the first agent they contacted.

That means if you can be the top agent on Google for home searches in your area, then you’ll hog all the business. Which means a lot in our 2007 belt tightening market.

Before you get started, however, the first thing you need to decide is whether you or somebody else is going to optimize your site.

You might be the type who likes to tinker with your website or you might be someone who doesn’t. If you don’t, then choose a seo company or consultant. (I don’t have any recommendations at the moment, so you’re on your own.)

After that, get to work…and keep some of these the following ideas in mind as you pursue your seo marketing strategy.

Eye tracking studies have shown that searchers scan a search results page from top to bottom and left to right, looking for a relevant result. Placement at or near the top of the rankings therefore increases the number of searchers who will visit a site. Cool, not-to-be-missed heat map stuff.

However, more search engine referrals does not guarantee more sales. SEO is not necessarily an appropriate strategy for every website, and other Internet marketing strategies can be much more effective, depending on the site operator’s goals. You make the decision, but my feeling is that every agent website should be optimized. This article is just to make you aware of those OTHER things, like viral marketing, out there to drive traffic to your site.

A successful Internet marketing campaign may drive organic search results to pages, but it also may involve the use of paid advertising on search engines and other pages, building high quality web pages to engage and persuade, addressing technical issues that may keep search engines from crawling and indexing those sites, setting up analytics programs to enable site owners to measure their successes, and, most importantly, improving a site’s conversion rate.

SEO also should, obviously, generate a return on investment. However, search engines are not paid for organic search traffic, their algorithms change, and there are no guarantees of continued referrals. Due to this lack of guarantees and certainty, a business that relies heavily on search engine traffic can suffer major losses if the search engines stop sending visitors. That’s why SEO should be one strategy among many that drives traffic to your site.

In addition to paid search listings, websites also often receive search traffic from free, so-called organic listings. These visitors are obviously no problem, except that you can’t count on them as a sustainable strategy, since organic listings can change without notice.

According to notable technologist Jakob Nielsen, website operators should liberate themselves from dependence on search engine traffic because of this fact. That is, don’t put all your eggs in one basket.

And remember this: three or four months down the road, when you’ve got some mileage on your seo strategy, let me know how you are doing. Okay?

Here’s to your SEO success!

If you haven’t done so already, subscribe to the Real Estate Marketing Blog today!

7

Developing Your Real Estate Marketing Plan

I love my dentist. So much so that I actually look forward to visiting him. Even if he has to do a root canal or fit a crown.

I know. This is an oxymoron: the words “joy” and “dentist” in the same sentence. But the guy is just so darn neat. And successful.

One time after he cleaned my teeth he stopped to chat for a few minutes. I always admired how he ran his business so I took the opportunity to ask him why he thought he was capable of running a great business for over 27 years.

His quick answer: love people. That was apparent. He followed up with this: you have to have a long term plan for success…and you have to work that plan. (As a side note, his marketing plan is so good, and he works it SO consistent I refer to him as “my militant dentist.”)

As Dirk Zeller once said, “One of the biggest hurdles to long term success in real estate is creating a vision for your business.” Too often we are just working day-to-day and moment-by-moment. But the most successful business owners, including my dentist, have a long-term marketing plan that describes what their business and life will look like 5 to 10 years from now. And they work the dog out of that plan.

Perhaps you’ve only been in the business for less than a year and are just wondering what you need to do to survive AND thrive. Maybe you’re considered a veteran but are feeling bored, stale, overworked or just want a new way of doing things. Or perhaps you just want an idea or two about marketing and business that will help you reach that tipping point your business needs to go to the next level.

Whatever the case is, consider the following ideas on how to put a marketing plan on paper. But before you do that, your first step, if you don’t have one already, is to create a simple business plan first.

1. Create a business mission statement. Know your core values, purposes and principles. These are guiding ideas that define your character, your business’ purpose. These are guiding principles that you never waiver from, that last the lifetime of your business, that help you make decisions. If you haven’t done so, creating a personal mission statement is not a bad idea either.

2. Understand profit. Of course you already know this if you’ve been in the business for any length of time, but a profitable business is your major challenge. But one thing you have to understand though is that a business that attracts and cares for clients will in the long run be profitable. Make people your primary target, like my dentist did, and not only will you be satisfied and fulfilled, but you’ll also become financially independent. However, you still need to have a fundamental understanding of profit.

Your P&L statement is your primary tool. This allows you to understand and control your expenses. By watching your expenses you can manage and grow your advertising as you make money, thus making more money.

Also, if your expenses aren’t making you money, ditch those expenses by all means.

But if the expense is making you money, ask yourself, “Does the net profit justify the expense?” If you have to spend $1,000 to make $1,001 dollars, you have to wonder if there isn’t a better way.

Also, take in consideration if an expense can save you time. For instance, spending a couple grand to create a video listing presentation that cuts the length of your appointments in half can be viewed as a good investment. (Now go use that half hour you just saved to prospect more. Or play with your children.  See how that works?)

Once you’ve got these principles pinned down, go ahead and create that business plan. The Small Business Administration website makes it easy.

As you’ll see, part of writing that business plan involves writing a marketing plan. Because that is our specialty, we’re going to drill down on your marketing plan here.

1. Your Marketing Budget. Marketing budgets are usually based on either a percent of sales or an arbitrary amount. A better method is to set a marketing objective for the cost of prospecting for clients and listing a home. Then determine your strategies and tactics for reaching these objectives and add up the costs for execution. The result is your marketing budget.

For example, if you decide to build a website, invest in call capture technology and engage a coach to help you prospect for new clients, figure out how much that is going to cost. The result will be your marketing budget. Do the same for selling a home.

2. Your Communication Strategy. When thinking about how you are going to talk to the people you want to work with, think about this:

Who is my target audience? Am I going to specialize in buyers or just sellers? Relocation, luxury or resort homes? Am I going to tackle three zip codes, or just one?

Then, define the benefits you can bring to this target audience. Briefly explain the features that will help you deliver the benefits. And create a positioning statement.

Next, practice your basic selling line. Your elevator speech. The purpose here is to interpret your mission statement so that it makes sense to the individual in a short period of time. Don’t try to be cute. Be unique. And make sure the benefit you can deliver is clear and believable to the individual. Of course, test it out on different people.

One of things you want to determine when developing your marketing plan are the hot buttons for the prospect. What are the problems you can solve? What advantage do you have over other agents? These are the questions you have to answer to create a compelling unique selling proposition.

3. Formatting Your Ads. If your objective is to squeeze out the maximum number of prospects per dollar, run small ads. However, if your objective is to persuade people to work with you, the opposite is true.

Basically, the more space you use to persuade people to work with you, the higher chances that they will. In other words, if you are trying to persuade a prospect to do something, go with the larger ad.

Also, stay away from reverse print or surprinting. And always have one dominant focal point, preferably the headline.

Research indicates that ads with photographs obtain higher readership than those with artwork. And ads with photographs depicting a benefit to the reader scores the highest. The eye usually glances at the photo and if it finds it interesting, moves to the headline, etc.

4. Using direct marketing to produce leads. Sending out targeted mailers to generate leads is only one benefit of using direct mail. Direct mail will also help you build your data base, identify which mailers are working best and increase your personal touch with prospects. Your mailings should match your positioning statement. Don’t send out the typical junk mail when you are a quality act. And get this: nothing precipitates success faster than one-to-one relationships. So include 800 numbers on your mailers.

5. Using public relations for free ads. Press releases should be your biggest FREE promotional tool. It is free press when you can share valuable news with the local media.  The media has to fill their pages and air time. Take advantage of this situation. I suggest you follow this 10-step method when writing a press release.

6. Using the Internet. Creating exposure and generating leads on the Internet is easier now than ever. Starting a blog is a cinch, as is having a website. Sending property reports via email or RSS feed are also things you should highly consider.

7. Following up with past clients. In real estate, frequent and consistent referrals is sort of the mother lode of selling real estate for two reasons: referrals are free and pre-warmed up to work with you.

That’s why sincere customer care, feedback research and repeated communication with past clients AFTER the transaction is imperative. Getting to a point where you are thriving in real estate simply on referrals is a very nice place to be. So make a point of striving for this goal to increase repeat and referral business.

Conclusion
One last reminder: you only want to send out things that are a benefit to your prospect. And anything that is a benefit can be observed. If it can be observed, it can be counted and if it can be counted, it can be measured.

So be sure you have a measureable objective for each parts of your marketing plan. Monitor these objectives and feed this information back into your plan to help you beat the economy and your competitors.

And don’t forget to work that plan like a dog.

Here’s to your success!

If you haven’t done so already, subscribe to the Real Estate Marketing Blog today!

2

How This Insect Is Connected to Selling Homes

Did you know this: a particular insect native to all 50 states could easily get any home, in any market, in any season sold in record time…even if we’re experiencing the worst drop in home sales in 18 years?

And no, I’m not talking about a termite. Or carpenter ant. Or even lice.

What insect am I talking about?

Nothing greater than the common household fly.

I realize that may sound like a ridiculous, tabloid-worthy assertion, but think about it…

If you were a fly on the wall you could easily hear every word that comes out of a buyer’s mouth. Then you could share it with the seller verbatim. And price reductions and needed fix ups (two pieces needed to selling stagnant homes)…are a near guarantee.

Or are they?

I first picked up this concept from a popular television program, tweaked it a bit, and now will share with you my version…

Are you familiar with this story?

A real estate agent tours a listing with her client’s. The family walks from the living room to the bedrooms to bathrooms. During this time the buyer’s discuss with what they see, frankly, openly and honestly…and then they walk out.

No offer. No suggestions. Nothing.

As the selling agent, all you know is that they were there. You don’t even get a whiff of their impression of the home. Your seller thinks they were just the wrong people. You, having previously pointed out potential problems, know better.

Now…what if you did have access to the buyer’s impression of the home? Would it even make a difference?

Are sellers so embedded in their current hope that their home appreciation is going to continue to multiply despite the fact that there isn’t anyone available to buy it?

What do you think? Do you think sharing frank, uncensored comments about the home can change the sellers mind? Will this help seller’s see their misconceptions? Is the current buyer attitude “wait-and-see” an attitude that you can really change simply by reducing the price or updating the home? What do you think the current consumer in today’s market is looking for?  Or can even afford?

If you haven’t done so already, subscribe to the Real Estate Marketing Blog today!

0

Monday Mashup: Productivity, Listings and Eeyore

Michael Wright, Executive Editor of Agent Inner Circle, shares an ingenious listing agreement submitted by reader David Rake to close more listings. See the agreement that gets the whole family involved in selling the property.

One reader claimed that giving up prospects is an insane idea in the current falling market. I disagree. But you be the judge.

Time management professional Dr. Donald E. Wetmore shares five techniques to recapture a wasted hour or two every week.

In the March 1, 2006 article “Automating Showing Feedback” Michael Russer (aka Mr. Internet) demonstrated “a far better way to get valuable comments from showing agents without wasting time on the phone or cranking out reports.”

In May of this year we showed you how to automate showing feedback for free.

The Future of Real Estateblogger Joel Burelsom explains “anyone who gets into blogging quickly finds out – Really Simple Syndication (RSS) feeds are an indispensable way to keep on top of a tidal wave of information that exists out there.” But far from just simply keeping tabs on the industry, he shares five ways you can expand your blog habit, take it to the next level, better your day and improve your productivity .

All you can really expect when using Microsoft’s new Vista operating platform is an incremental improvement in productivity. Or so says David Berlind. In the meantime, stick with XP until 2009. Or 2014. Or buy that Mac.

And finally, Lifehacker Dustin Mix shares six ideas on how to kill that vile and despicable enemy of productivity: Eeyore.

4

How to Open the Vault of Anyone’s Mind

You ever been to a networking event trying to engage a prospect event and when that person takes their eyeglasses off and sets them on the table?

Do you realize what that means?

How about when you are at a listing appointment and the seller leans forward and puts his chin in his hand?

Do you know what that means?

Ever see a master locksmith at work? It looks like magic, doesn’t it? He plays with the lock, listens, hears things you don’t see, feels things you don’t feel. And opens the lock. Effortlessly.

Master communicators are the same way. They see things, hear things, feel things that helps them unlock the combination to anyone’s mind. And if you do that elegantly and attentively, you can do the same.

According to NLP techniques like I’ve discussed in the past, body language, eye movement and voice tonality give us cues about people’s thoughts, mental strategies and desires.

Did you know visual people speak in quick bursts, usually high-pitched, nasal or strained. Did you know feelers speak in low, deep and slow speech? Did you know an even, clear speaker is someone who responds to audio clues?

Auditory people tend to respond to you when you speak slowly, more rhythmic and measured. Words mean a lot to them. They respond to things like “That sounds right to me” or ” I can hear what you’re saying” or “Everything clicks.”

Visual people see the world in pictures. And because they are trying to keep up with the pictures in their mind, they speak rapidly. They don’t care how they get it out. They appreciate visual metaphors. Explanations on how things look to a person, patterns and whether something looks bright or dark.

A person who feels, or is kinesthetic, tend to speak even slower than audio people. They respond to voices that are deep. They appreciate hearing metaphors like “grasping for something concrete.” Things are “heavy” and “intense” and they need to “get in touch” with things. They say things like ” I’m reaching for an answer, but I haven’t got a hold of it yet.”

Body language also gives us clues about a person.

When a person breathes high in their chest, their visual. Even breathing in the whole chest, audio. Deep breathing low in the stomach means they are feelers, kinesthetic.

You can also read skin tone and head position.

Visual thinkers tend to have paler faces. A flushed face indicates a feeler. When someone’s head is up, they are thinking visually. If it is cocked or balanced, he’s audio. If the head is down or relaxed, he’s a feeler.

Eye movement is another indicator of how a person thinks.

Someone looking down and to the right is typically a feeler. Audio people tend to look straight to the right with half a smile or to the left with a full smile or down to the left with a frown. Visual’s do it a little bit differently. They may look directly at you and smile, eyes wide. Or up to the left with a  smirk.

When speaking to a prospect, observe their voices, their pacing, their tonality, skin color, head position and eye movement. Use the technique of complimenting or grab and pass to break the ice. Then ask general, open-ended questions to get them to talk about themselves.

If you can get them to talk about themselves, you will have no problem figuring out whether they are audio, visual or kinesthetic. And when you figure this out, start to respond in like manner. If you do this, people will start to like you and open up even further and your next step (getting permission to give them something of value) is an easy step away.

So even with minimal communication you can get a clear unmistakable cue about how a person’s mind works and what sort of messages he uses and, most importantly, responds to.

[By the way: when someone takes off their eyeglasses and sets them on the table means they have stopped listening to you. You need to stop and listen to them to find out what you need to do to get them back on track. But if someone leans forward and puts their chin in their palm means they want to hear more.]

I know this may be a lot to process, but take it one step at a time and practice. And let me know if these things work for you. Or if you have something else I missed. I’m always very interested in hearing from you.

Subscribe to the Real Estate Marketing Blog today!