Allen F. Hainge, CRS, of Allen F. Hainge Seminars, recently led a class of Realtors from New Jersey, New York and Pennsylvania, attending the Triple Play 2000 convention, through the old rules for success that are changed by technology today:
Rule #1: It Takes A Long Time to Get Started in This Business
This is not true with the new technology. You need to create a plan for 'getting the word out' on you and your services. The heart of your campaign should be your domain name and you should build everything around that domain name. Put your domain name on everything you print and promote.
For example, Greg Gorman, of Naples, Florida even advertises his web site name on his PT Cruiser automobile. If you don't have a web site yet and need to get started, Hainge suggests using your own name for a domain name or even considering a template site for Realtors such as one from Homes.com.
Hainge also suggested that a real estate agent can create a whole web site for an area or add useful information and links to your site that is helpful to home buyers, sellers and owners (e.g., babysitters in area, golf courses, recent home sales data)
As part of your 'webcentric' marketing plan, consider using postcards that direct home buyers and sellers to your web site. WBcards.com sells inexpensive postcards that feature your web site on the postcard.
Rule #2: You've Got to Spend A Lot of Money Promoting Yourself
A good entry level web site costs between $500 and $2,000. Check out Programs.com, to see what they can provide for under $2,000, for example. Think about the cost savings of using a web site - less money spent on brochures, postcards, and promotion of listings.
Use an electronic newsletter and collect e-mails to send out a personalized newsletter, which you can send out every three weeks. Consider a contest, if allowed in your state. Go to WBcards.com and preprint your contest information to direct traffic your web site and then mail them out to your market.
Rule #3: Real Estate Magazines Exist to Promote Your Listings
Instead of posting the listings you have (particularly if your inventory is low because of a hot market), do something different with your ad in the homes magazines: take a screenshot of your web site and put that on the page you buy in the local homes magazines and invite home buyers and sellers to " Visit my Web Site for a Complete Listings of Homes and Virtual Tours".
[Note: By using the Print Screen function key and digital photo imaging software on your computer, you can capture the web page and crop out the tool bars, etc. to make a clean file and save it as a jpg file for your ad.]
Wynne Achatz, of Marine City, Michigan makes her flyers stand out from the pack. She brings samples to her Listing Presentations and explains how the two-sided flyer has all of her listings on the backside so that the home seller gets more promotion value by being on all of the flyers.
Hainge suggested that the audience check out the easy-to-use virtual tours available through VisualTour.com and the photocopying services of Expresscopy.com, which does great color flyers at the reasonable price of $39.00 for 100 copies.
Rule#4: Property Tours Are A Necessary Part of Our Business
Forget outdated, time-wasting property tours. Instead, put together virtual tours and get them to the appropriate agents in your marketplace, through e-mail or by mailing a disk. Hainge recommends that you never e-mail a virtual tour to the whole association, many of whom are not very active in the field. Just identify the top 10% of the Realtors in your association and e-mail them. Every listing on your web site should have a multimedia tour, such as Visual Tour, which allows you to record a sound file to accompany the photos or tour.
Rule#5: You've Got to Spend A Lot of Time Showing Properties!
Absolutely not true, according to Hainge. Put virtual tours on your web site to cut down on showings. E-mail your listings with maps and directions to prospects. Use a digital camera to capture images for flyers and virtual tours.
Create some tours of neighborhoods with digital photos of communities and representative housing and then narrate a tour and post on your web site to cut down on showings.
Hainge recommends that you have questionnaires on your web site, post listings on your site and have maps and neighborhood information (such as eNeighborhoods.com) there for home buyers, sellers, and relocating transferees.
Rule#6: Top Agents Have The Edge in Getting Listings
Use your digital camera as a closing tool, Hainge urges. Use photo-imaging software for a 'wow' effect. For example, learn how to turn a picture into a puzzle and put that on the front of your marketing brochure... 'Selling your home is a puzzle' -- let us put the pieces together.'
Buy canvas paper and using your inkjet color printer and the digital photo software that turns a photo into an oil painting to make a big impression on home buyers and sellers.
Rule#7: You Have to Spend A Lot of Money On Postcard Mailings
Send a personalized e-mail newsletter instead of postcards. Hainge stated that he sends out 15,000 newsletters and spends $50.00. You can choose a subdivision and create a special web page or pages about the area and send a newsletter that directs readers to the web site.
Rule#8: Send Those Tacky Holiday Calendars to Everyone in Your S.O.I.
Hainge suggests that instead of sending those run-of-the-mill calendars to everyone in your sphere of influence that you create your own, using a digital image of the home made to look like an oil painting by the digital photo software. If you use a program such as Microsoft Publisher and choose a calendar and use the canvas paper to print the "oil painting" image on, you can create a personalized calendar. The canvas texture paper is available from local office supply stores.
Rule#9: You've Got to Have a Geographical Farm
With the broad reach of the Internet, your geographical farm can be the world. Hainge stated that Alice Held of Come2AZ.com will make more than 300K off her web site this year and is able to refer people all over the world because of the popularity of her web site.
Rule#10: New Rules + New Tools = NEW RESULTS
Pat Rioux
