Real Estate Rookies Need to Work Smarter, Not Harder

The housing boom has attracted a flood of newcomers to the real estate profession. Those that have been downsized, retirees and even people who just want a better life style see real estate careers as exciting, less stressful and offering high rewards.

But they soon discover that the real estate profession is saturated and very competitive. It is difficult to break into the market and gain a clientele. Sadly, following the standard real estate formula for new agents usually leads to several years of long hours with low compensation. Most give up and drop out, and their brokers and "established" agents gladly follow up on any leads they may have generated.

According to a recent study by the National Association of REALTORS^®, rookie agents are working more but earning less. Agents who have been in real estate for two years or less earned an average of just $12,850 in 2004, and most (54 percent) reported working more than 40 hours weekly. This figure dropped from a median income of $27,973 earned in 2002. Conclusion: there are a lot more people in real estate now all competing for the same business. Trying to gain traction strictly through referrals, sitting in open houses, sending out postcards or handing out flyers is a long haul for novice REALTORS.

In today's residential real estate market, the name of the game is getting listings and buyers from all sources. Just "farming" a territory in the traditional fashion is not a practical strategy for real estate rookies. First, there are no virgin territories. Second, rookies must always overcome entrenched competition. To accelerate their success, new real estate agents need to work smarter than established colleagues by leveraging Internet marketing tactics to promote themselves, tap a broader market and to increase productivity.

Unless a newbie enters the real estate profession with a captive clientele, he or she is better off taking control of their own business strategy. And the one way that a new agent can distinguish themselves today is by coloring outside the lines. Internet marketing is a proven means of helping new agents to stand out from the crowd. Here are some strong recommendations for a new kid on the block:

1. Get you own Website, not a page or subdomain of someone else's site. Build your site to promote yourself, your talents, your listings and your services.
2. Use your Website as the focal point of all your marketing efforts. Everything you do, marketing wise, should be calculated to drive traffic to your Website.
3. Make your Website as enticing as possible. Refresh the content often with community news and relevant RSS feeds to ensure that visitors return often. Try a blog – they are easy to implement and generate interesting content. Offer meaningful articles that appeal to potential buyers and sellers (industry outlook for mortgage rates, major "must do's when selling your home, a summary of local sales, home value trends, etc.).
4. Build visibility among the major search engines, so that your site pops up on the first page when someone performs a search for agents in your locality:

1. Establish a meaningful domain name that reflects your location and market emphasis.
2. Optimize your site for search engines by choosing specific keywords based on your geographical location. Establish proper keyword density in your site content, meta tags, alt tags and internal links.
3. Set up a link-exchange program with complementary sites, such as non-competing REALTORS or real-estate-related services. Building external links adds to your search engine ranking and leads qualified traffic to your site.
4. Be sure to get listed in the major business and real estate directories.
5. Use sponsored search engine listings along with affordable "local search" listings and pay-per-click advertising to boost online visibility and acquire qualified traffic.
6. Get a listing with one or more of the popular online "Yellow Pages," like Verizon Superpages.
7. Tap into local free advertising, like Craig's List.
8. Learn how to use landing pages to capture metrics and tweak your promotional activities for optimal performance.

5. Use viral marketing tactics, such as placing a "forward to a friend" script on your site and in your newsletter, to gain clients with whom you have had no previous contact.
6. Implement marketing tactics to capture sales lead information from Website visitors:

1. Start a free monthly newsletter and offer a meaningful incentive to subscribe. Use this as a mechanism to nurture potential clients through "drip, drip, drip" marketing.
2. Write or acquire a relevant whitepaper or ebook. Use this as a giveaway to entice new newsletter subscriptions.
3. Offer a free "home valuation" service based on local comparables.
4. Place "special offers" in your newsletter that only subscribers can enjoy. This will promote viral marketing among friends and relatives.
5. Hold an online drawing for a desirable prize to acquire email addresses, and then solicit newsletter subscriptions from the entries.
6. If you can afford it, tie into your MLS database so that registered visitors can survey local listings.

7. Enhance your productivity by using an autoresponder for newsletter delivery and automated follow-up to inquiries.

In short, make your Website the destination for all marketing activities. Even off-line advertising should be designed to drive traffic to your Website. Once there, focus on selling yourself and your services to prospective clients. Differentiate yourself from competitors by presenting yourself as more attuned to today's marketing methods, tapping more modern and advanced tactics to find the best home for buyers or achieve the quickest sell at the best price for homeowners.

Compared to the "old school" of real estate marketing, Websites are 24x7 virtual storefronts promoting products, services and talents around the clock to a worldwide audience. Internet marketing makes your promotional dollars go further and helps you to stand out from the crowd. It also dramatically expands your audience, bringing in clients from around the country and even the world.

Rookie agents need to chart their own course to be successful. Don't be afraid to embrace new methods of marketing your services. Above all, don't follow the herd. Be different - take control of your real estate career and leapfrog your competitors through aggressive internet marketing!

About the Author

Al Kernek is a real estate broker and author of "Creating E-Mail Newsletters – A Practical Guide for the Real Estate Community" and "Put Your Business Online." To learn more about increasing real estate sales using low-cost Internet marketing techniques, visit http://www.renewsletter.com

Read more...

Real Estate Rookies Need to Work Smarter, Not Harder

The housing boom has attracted a flood of newcomers to the real estate profession. Those that have been downsized, retirees and even people who just want a better life style see real estate careers as exciting, less stressful and offering high rewards.

But they soon discover that the real estate profession is saturated and very competitive. It is difficult to break into the market and gain a clientele. Sadly, following the standard real estate formula for new agents usually leads to several years of long hours with low compensation. Most give up and drop out, and their brokers and "established" agents gladly follow up on any leads they may have generated.

According to a recent study by the National Association of REALTORS^®, rookie agents are working more but earning less. Agents who have been in real estate for two years or less earned an average of just $12,850 in 2004, and most (54 percent) reported working more than 40 hours weekly. This figure dropped from a median income of $27,973 earned in 2002. Conclusion: there are a lot more people in real estate now all competing for the same business. Trying to gain traction strictly through referrals, sitting in open houses, sending out postcards or handing out flyers is a long haul for novice REALTORS.

In today's residential real estate market, the name of the game is getting listings and buyers from all sources. Just "farming" a territory in the traditional fashion is not a practical strategy for real estate rookies. First, there are no virgin territories. Second, rookies must always overcome entrenched competition. To accelerate their success, new real estate agents need to work smarter than established colleagues by leveraging Internet marketing tactics to promote themselves, tap a broader market and to increase productivity.

Unless a newbie enters the real estate profession with a captive clientele, he or she is better off taking control of their own business strategy. And the one way that a new agent can distinguish themselves today is by coloring outside the lines. Internet marketing is a proven means of helping new agents to stand out from the crowd. Here are some strong recommendations for a new kid on the block:

1. Get you own Website, not a page or subdomain of someone else's site. Build your site to promote yourself, your talents, your listings and your services.
2. Use your Website as the focal point of all your marketing efforts. Everything you do, marketing wise, should be calculated to drive traffic to your Website.
3. Make your Website as enticing as possible. Refresh the content often with community news and relevant RSS feeds to ensure that visitors return often. Try a blog – they are easy to implement and generate interesting content. Offer meaningful articles that appeal to potential buyers and sellers (industry outlook for mortgage rates, major "must do's when selling your home, a summary of local sales, home value trends, etc.).
4. Build visibility among the major search engines, so that your site pops up on the first page when someone performs a search for agents in your locality:

1. Establish a meaningful domain name that reflects your location and market emphasis.
2. Optimize your site for search engines by choosing specific keywords based on your geographical location. Establish proper keyword density in your site content, meta tags, alt tags and internal links.
3. Set up a link-exchange program with complementary sites, such as non-competing REALTORS or real-estate-related services. Building external links adds to your search engine ranking and leads qualified traffic to your site.
4. Be sure to get listed in the major business and real estate directories.
5. Use sponsored search engine listings along with affordable "local search" listings and pay-per-click advertising to boost online visibility and acquire qualified traffic.
6. Get a listing with one or more of the popular online "Yellow Pages," like Verizon Superpages.
7. Tap into local free advertising, like Craig's List.
8. Learn how to use landing pages to capture metrics and tweak your promotional activities for optimal performance.

5. Use viral marketing tactics, such as placing a "forward to a friend" script on your site and in your newsletter, to gain clients with whom you have had no previous contact.
6. Implement marketing tactics to capture sales lead information from Website visitors:

1. Start a free monthly newsletter and offer a meaningful incentive to subscribe. Use this as a mechanism to nurture potential clients through "drip, drip, drip" marketing.
2. Write or acquire a relevant whitepaper or ebook. Use this as a giveaway to entice new newsletter subscriptions.
3. Offer a free "home valuation" service based on local comparables.
4. Place "special offers" in your newsletter that only subscribers can enjoy. This will promote viral marketing among friends and relatives.
5. Hold an online drawing for a desirable prize to acquire email addresses, and then solicit newsletter subscriptions from the entries.
6. If you can afford it, tie into your MLS database so that registered visitors can survey local listings.

7. Enhance your productivity by using an autoresponder for newsletter delivery and automated follow-up to inquiries.

In short, make your Website the destination for all marketing activities. Even off-line advertising should be designed to drive traffic to your Website. Once there, focus on selling yourself and your services to prospective clients. Differentiate yourself from competitors by presenting yourself as more attuned to today's marketing methods, tapping more modern and advanced tactics to find the best home for buyers or achieve the quickest sell at the best price for homeowners.

Compared to the "old school" of real estate marketing, Websites are 24x7 virtual storefronts promoting products, services and talents around the clock to a worldwide audience. Internet marketing makes your promotional dollars go further and helps you to stand out from the crowd. It also dramatically expands your audience, bringing in clients from around the country and even the world.

Rookie agents need to chart their own course to be successful. Don't be afraid to embrace new methods of marketing your services. Above all, don't follow the herd. Be different - take control of your real estate career and leapfrog your competitors through aggressive internet marketing!

About the Author

Al Kernek is a real estate broker and author of "Creating E-Mail Newsletters – A Practical Guide for the Real Estate Community" and "Put Your Business Online." To learn more about increasing real estate sales using low-cost Internet marketing techniques, visit http://www.renewsletter.com

Read more...

Online Email Newsletter Preparation Service Constant Contact Product Review

Constant Contact is a popular entry-level Web-based service for the creation, distribution and management of email newsletters. It is optimized for non-techies who want a fast, easy answer for low-to-moderate volume email promotions. Over 90,000 small businesses, associations, non-profit organizations and Realtors are said to be utilizing their online service.

While not "hiccup" free, the service fulfills a market need. I found Constant Contact to be an affordable answer for small organizations that lack inhouse technical resources, but wish to leverage low-cost email marketing to promote their products or services.

Constant Contact provides easy-to-use tools for developing attractive email newsletters, managing email lists, and handling distribution issues (compliance with spam laws, bounces, unsubscribes and filters). It also provides tracking tools and reports for evaluating results.

If you are familiar with the features and functionality of any word-processing program, then you can easily use Constant Contact for your email campaigns. They have a plethora of templates, tutorials, guides and "step-by-step" screens which ensure that anyone can create email masterpieces. Email pieces can contain one or more links to landing pages on your Website or even PayPal buttons for direct purchases.

Constant Contact makes it easy to sign up for their service. They offer a sixty-day free trial without a credit card requirement (for up to one hundred email contacts), pricing is attractive (starting at just $15 monthly for up to 500 email contacts), there is no software to purchase or install, and no long-term contract is required. Moreover, if you have less than 50 email contacts, the service is free!

As with any Web-based interactive service, however, Constant Contact is recommended only for those who have a DSL or cable Internet connection. Otherwise, you may be in for a frustrating experience -- it can take a while for your newsletter editing inputs to show up on the browser screen.

The newsletter creation process itself is simple. It involves modifying your choice of several newsletter templates with your own content and images. Constant Contact has worked hard to make this an easy process. In addition to modifying overall appearance (background color, font, etc.), you can customize the content and look of each template section employing tools familiar to any Microsoft Word user.

A word of caution here. There are some quirks. Sometimes, what you want to happen doesn't happen. For example, I found that font and spacing actions sometimes produced unsought results. Despite an "undo" button, you might just have to close the newsletter editing function, and then re-open it to eliminate unintended results. It thus pays to "save' your work frequently as you go along. But, if you know a little HTML, you can open a "code" window and usually resolve these mishaps in quick fashion.

Here is a hint - copy any text prepared in a word-processing application or copied from a Website to the Microsoft Notepad before inserting it into the Constant Content newsletter template. This will remove any underlying formatting code that could affect your newsletter display.

I particularly like their list import capabilities. Constant Contact offers a downloadable tool for easily importing selected contacts from Microsoft Outlook. Other lists can be imported in .csv, .txt and .xml formats. And your lists can be segmented for targeted email campaigns.

A newsletter sign-up form or button is automatically generated for you. All you have to do is copy its underlying HTML into one or more pages on your Website to promote your newsletter to site visitors. Obviously, you will get more subscribers if you also offer an incentive, such as a free report or discount, to sign-up for your free newsletter.

But Constant Contact is about more than just sending out newsletters. It also allows you to set up email promotional campaigns. For instance, you can modify their templates to promote events, seasonal specials, or product announcements. These can then be sent to targeted segments of your email list(s) along with embedded coupons or links to special offers.

In summary, Constant Contact gets "two thumbs up" for being an affordable, hassle-free solution for low volume emailings (up to a thousand or so contacts). Its ease-of-use, extensive functionality, variety of templates and helpful learning resources make Constant Contact an excellent answer for small businesses and real estate professionals. With Constant Contact, you can quickly launch and easily manage professional-looking newsletters and other email promotions without a steep learning curve or breaking your wallet.

About the Author

Al Kernek is a real estate broker and author of "Creating E-Mail Newsletters – A Practical Guide for the Real Estate Community" and "Put Your Business Online." To learn more about increasing real estate sales using low-cost Internet marketing techniques, visit http://www.renewsletter.com

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Succeeding in a Slow Real Estate Market

Although the real estate market may not be a bubble about to burst, it definitely is slowing down. Now is the time for REALTORS to position themselves to be competitive in a market that has lower prices, fewer buyers and longer sales cycles.

The hot real estate market attracted thousands of new agents. And business has been good as long as the interest rates remained low. Now the times are changing, and many new agents will be washed out of the profession as the market slows down.

Those that intend to survive must leverage online marketing tools for maximum competitiveness. This means learning how to drive prospective buyers and sellers to your Website and then capturing them as clients. Here are some suggestions that will help real estate agents succeed in a fiercely competitive market:

1. To be credible in today's real estate world, you must have your own Website to promote yourself and your listings. Make sure you have your own domain name (i.e., Website address). If your "Website" is just a page on your broker's or an association's site, then any money you spend promoting yourself online is really promoting that site, not yours. There are low-cost solutions that allow you to have your own site for just pennies a day, so immediately take advantage of these. Don't dilute your promotion dollars and time by filtering them through a parent site.

2. Recognize that just having a Website is not enough. You must promote your Website to be successful! Fortunately, there are several ways to do this without having to spend a lot of money:
1. Obtain local Google and Yahoo listings that come up when someone does a search for real estate agents in your locale.
2. Get a listing in the online Yellow Pages or Verizon SuperPages.
3. Use local pay-per-click advertising that only displays when someone in your target marketplace performs an online search. Better yet, you are only charged when they actually click on your ad to go to your Website!
4. Gain new clients by offering a MLS feed on your Website that allows visitors to peruse local listings AFTER they first register on your site.
5. Offer promotions on your Website, such as a free neighborhood pricing analysis for prospective sellers.
6. Refresh your Website content regularly with new information of interest to buyers and sellers to keep them coming back. Use RSS feeds to get up-to-date, free information displayed on your site.
7. Do an inexpensive online press release.
8. Start a blog on your site – they work!

3. Increase your search engine ranking by optimizing your Website for a few keywords that relate to your local real estate market. With just a few changes, your Website can become visible to buyers in other cities who are moving to your area.

4. Build a mail list and send out a monthly email newsletter to nurture your clients and gain new customers through "viral" marketing, which is what occurs when interesting newsletters get "forwarded" to friends and relatives.

5. Promote your Website offline too. Be sure your Website address is on everything you distribute – business cards, flyers….everything! Consider running a small ad in local newspapers too, pointing readers to your Website. Write a short press release too and send it to your local papers.

The real estate marketing landscape has changed dramatically in the past few years. Success today depends heavily on levering an online presence. Those that survive and flourish in a tighter, more competitive market will be the ones who proactively embrace this virtual medium and learn how to use it to their full advantage.

About the Author

Al Kernek is a real estate broker and author of "Creating E-Mail Newsletters – A Practical Guide for the Real Estate Community" and "Put Your Business Online." To learn more about increasing real estate sales using low-cost Internet marketing techniques, visit http://www.renewsletter.com

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Real Estate Agents – What Type of Content Should You Include in Your Newsletter?

One of the biggest concerns for Realtors who publish their own email newsletter is determining the type of content that will gain interest from their readership. After all, real estate agents who engage in this endeavor want prospective buyers and sellers to open their newsletter and thus be reminded that the agent is their local real estate expert. Ideally, readers should find the content so interesting that they will even forward the newsletter to their friends or relatives who might be prospective clients as well. This "viral marketing" often leads to a profitable source of income for agents.

An important first step is to determine what is of interest to your readers. Put yourself in their shoes. Here are some questions to ask yourself:

• What real-estate related topics are of interest to my target market? Is it mortgage rates? Property values? Equity loans? Closing costs? The escrow process? How appraisals determine market value? A piece of legislation that could affect property taxes?

• Why types of questions have you and your associates been asked lately? These may indicate an interest in understanding the escrow or loan process, for example, or how a local school bond might affect future property values. Is a major road improvement scheduled to begin soon, and what impact could that have on local residents? Are new zoning laws being considered? Is a new shopping center or theme park planned for the area? Maybe it’s what to do in the event of an earthquake.

• Is there a real estate issue that is costing your clients money? Do you have a solution or suggestion on how to handle this problem? Maybe it’s termite season. Is there a new regional development on the horizon, such as cable Internet? Perhaps your readers would be interested in knowing how to do simple home repairs or where to get assistance.

• Do you have any new business programs or services to introduce to clients? Or, use your newsletter to explain the direct benefits of an existing program.

• Are there any promotional offers (e.g., no closing costs for the next 30 days!) that you wish to communicate to your market?

The point is, there are a multitude of relevant subjects about which plenty of information is available. All you have to do is scratch your head and think a little. Look in the local newspaper to get ideas or brainstorm with other people in your office. Surf real estate sites on the Web. Ask your clients what they would like to see in a newsletter. Use your imagination and the ideas will come quickly.

About the Author

Al Kernek is a real estate broker and author of "Creating E-Mail Newsletters – A Practical Guide for the Real Estate Community" and "Put Your Business Online." To learn more about increasing real estate sales using low-cost Internet marketing techniques, visit http://www.renewsletter.com

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Use Landing Pages to Boost Real Estate Sales and Capture Metrics

If you are sending out a periodic real estate email newsletter, no doubt it contains links back to your Website. These links probably take the responder to a service promotion, a featured offering, a contest sign-up location, or essentially any offer which is a means of gaining new clients or increasing your real estate earnings. What happens all too often, however, is that the person responding to your link wanders off somewhere else on your Website or else quickly leaves your site for other Internet destinations. Once you entice a newsletter recipient to visit your site, it is critical that you carefully guide him or her to take the actions you wish.

The best means to accomplish this is to set up a "landing page." This is a special Webpage constructed solely to handle promotional responses. It is not reachable through your main Website (unless you want it to be). Here, motivating text copy steers the buyer to take a desired action. The links on a landing page are thus limited to those that you want the prospect to follow.

Implementing landing pages will significantly improve the success of your real estate newsletter promotions. This technique also allows you to capture important metrics to gauge your success. Since the only visitors to a landing page come as a consequence of your newsletter promotion, you can easily determine two critical measurements:

• The number of click-throughs from your newsletter for this offer, and
• The sales conversion rate among those who visit the landing page.

After putting all the effort into preparing a newsletter promotion, complete the process by creating a special landing page. This simple step will boost your sales and give you the data you need to refine campaigns.

About the Author

Al Kernek is a real estate broker and author of "Creating E-Mail Newsletters – A Practical Guide for the Real Estate Community" and "Put Your Business Online." To learn more about increasing real estate sales using low-cost Internet marketing techniques, visit http://www.renewsletter.com

Read more...