St. Patrick’s Day eCard…

Create and Share!

This is a great, easy and fun thing to share with all your clients, family and friends. Post it directly to your Facebook wall, Twitter, blog or website. Go to ZingDing.com and check out the entire collection of special greetings and Holiday eCards.

Lower the rent. Everyone likes a sale, and a sale on a vacation is very appealing. Lower the cost of your rental properties in the off-season and keep your properties working for you.

Know what your audience wants. During the school year, you will be more successful at vacation rental marketing if you target couples without children looking for weekend getaways. Feature a fireplace, Jacuzzi or a sense of seclusion, and let go of your normal on-peak minimum stay. Having renters in your property for just a weekend is better than none at all.

Reconnect with peak-season guests. Don’t abandon the renters who know your properties from their peak-season stay. Your rental property marketing tactics worked with them once; maybe they will again. And even if the guests don’t need a vacation property in the off-season, they might know someone who does.

Partner with local attractions. All of the business owners in a seasonal community are suffering in the off-season. Form partnerships with local restaurants, attractions and cultural organizations to put together attractive vacation packages, combining your vacation rental marketing efforts with their marketing strategies, and everyone in your community will benefit.

Don’t give up. Non-peak seasons are the perfect time to put more effort into your rental property marketing. Send out eFlyers with attractive photos showcasing the unique features offered by your property. If you combine this with some of the deals already discussed, you will more than likely get some renters into your vacation rentals.

It would be easy to relax your vacation rental marketing efforts in non-peak seasons, but your income will suffer more than is necessary. Put some thought and effort into your marketing, and you could very well come out of the off-season ahead.

[ Photo by: r3beccaf, on Flickr, via CC License ]

Gone are the days when a snapshot and a brief recitation of the number of bedrooms and bathrooms would bring potential buyers to a showing. Today’s clients want to get a real feel for a property listing before they carve time out of their busy schedules to see it in person.

Here are some tips for using your real estate marketing tools to express the value of your property listing:

Real Estate Flyer

When you send out a real estate flyer, effective content is one of your most important real estate marketing tools. Use evocative and emotionally stirring language in the descriptions of your property listings. Call up memories of home and hearth, or the emphasize beauty of design. Describe the view or landscaping using words that recall color and texture.

Include professional photographs that show your property listing at its most beautiful in every real estate flyer. Make sure you have photos of any particularly memorable feature of the property, including the grounds surrounding the home. Use depth of field to focus on small details, and use computer photo editing software to enhance the original pictures; the photos will sell the property for you.

Virtual Tour

A virtual tour is one of the most effective real estate marketing tools available. Use the virtual tour to tell the story of a property listing. Walk your potential buyer through the home, pointing out all of its unique features. Be sure to style the home before you shoot to highlight its beauty, comfort and special qualities. Don’t forget to include a glimpse of the yard and views from the windows in your virtual tour. If you can, have a fire burning in the fireplace, especially during the winter.

Take advantage of the digital marketplace to showcase the value of your property listings, and you cannot help but succeed.

[ Photo by: Images_of_Money, on Flickr, via CC License ]

1. Create a syndicated listing.

A syndicated listing is an important internet marketing idea that requires you to create only one entry, which is then posted on many websites at the click of a button. Syndicated listings save time, prevent errors that often occur when entering information many times, and ensure that your real estate listings are being seen on all of the sites where prospective buyers are searching.

2. Produce a virtual home tour.

A virtual home tour is one of the best internet marketing ideas for real estate listings available, as video is the most sought-after type of content on the web. A virtual home tour gives potential buyers a detailed peek at the property, features its unique elements, and gives people a feel for your newest listing.

3. Share on social media.

Put links to your new listings on Facebook, Twitter and other social media platforms. Potential buyers will see them no matter where they like to get their information online. Another internet real estate marketing idea is to create a Facebook page; invite potential buyers to join, and they will receive notifications as soon as you post your new listings. This is also a great way to promote your virtual home tour. Make sure you monitor any comments or likes you receive from your social media marketing.

These are just a few of the potential internet marketing ideas for real estate listings available. Do you have any great ones that have worked for you? Please comment!

[ Photo by: Tim Green aka atoach, on Flickr, via CC License ]

Real estate niche marketing is not difficult, it just takes some thought. Although it seems as though you would be more successful marketing to the largest number of people, you will only close a sale with people who are interested in what you have to offer. If you can create a real estate marketing niche and target it, you can be even more successful than you would be marketing to everyone.

How do I create a niche for real estate marketing?

Think about your community. Successful real estate niche marketing starts with creating special searches of your listings: for the country club district, downtown, near the lake – any area of your community that has a local nickname. Assign these special searches to a link button on your website’s homepage to make it easy for potential buyers to find exactly what they are looking for with one click.

Another common tactic in real estate niche marketing is to become an expert on selling homes to a particular segment of the population, such as first-time homebuyers or empty nesters. Once you’ve determined the niche you want to pursue, research everything you can about people within that particular demographic – their needs, concerns, lifestyle habits and preferences. This type of real estate niche marketing often results in a lot of word-of-mouth business.

How do I market the niche?

Real estate niche marketing begins with your website – where you should brand yourself as the local expert in your niche and blog about topics of interest to your target market – but it doesn’t end there. Get links to your niche-focused web pages out on all of your communication channels, including Facebook and Twitter

You can also add your real estate niche marketing links to the eFlyers you send to list syndication sites; your holiday eCards; and your email signature. Make sure everyone you contact knows your area of expertise.

Once people know that your site offers an effective way to stay up-to-date on the type of property listings they want to see, they will come back over and over again until you sell them the perfect home. Real estate niche marketing can be what sets you apart from the big guys in web traffic and sales.

[ Photo by: Creative Tools, on Flickr, via CC License ]

The short answer is: When you have something to say. However, that happens more often than you might think. Examples of when to reach out to your contacts include:

When new properties become available.

Of course you contact your existing clients and potential buyers when you are listing new properties – that’s basic realtor marketing. But how you contact them is important, as well. Linking to new properties on your Facebook page and in your Twitter feed may feel like a passive form of contact, but people who use social media are monitoring their social media channels. Don’t neglect these essential real estate marketing tools. On the other hand, if the property is perfect for a particular client, text them to provide that feeling of urgency and attentiveness.

When you have news.

If there is a big cultural or community event happening within your area, contact your client list and invite them to attend. Family-oriented events are great for clients who have children. (Hint: The more events you help promote, the more opportunities you will have to reach out to your contact list.) Even openings of new retail stores or restaurants can be interesting to people who are deciding where to buy a home. Your realtor marketing target audience will appreciate being made a part of the community before they even move in.

To reconnect.

If you have not been in contact with a client in a long time, for whatever reason, you probably have a lot of interesting information for them about listings, events and changes in the community. Get in touch with them again. Use real estate marketing tools such as eCards for holidays and other special occasions. Even if they are no longer looking for a property, they might refer a friend or colleague who is in the market.

The bottom line is: Don’t contact your client list just to say, “Hi!” Use the real estate marketing tools in your toolbox to help you get your message out there. If you put some thought into your realtor marketing communications, there’s a good bet you always have something interesting and valuable to offer the people on your list.

From a realtor’s perspective, there are numerous benefits to creating a virtual tour for each property being sold:

1. More high-quality inquiries.

A virtual home tour will allow serious potential buyers to get a good idea of what the property is actually like. Although there is no consistent format for a virtual tour, many of them feature a slideshow of property photographs accompanied by music. Some virtual home tour applications even allow you to add animation. For instance, that kitchen will really gleam if you add an animated sparkle or two. You can also create an animation of snow falling outside a window, or add a crackling fire to a pictured fireplace.

All of these ingredients are alluring to buyers, who are more likely to pursue a property if they can get a good feel for it through a virtual tour video. If you add tour videos to your list of real estate marketing tools, chances are you’ll get more inquiries.

2. Easy to use.

Many real estate marketing tools are tedious and boring to use, but a virtual tour is fun and easy to create. No video camera is required; just upload property pictures, fill out an online form, choose your music and animation, and voila! You’ll have a beautiful virtual home tour all ready to entice renters and buyers.

3. Convey a property’s 411 and personality.

The video format informs potential buyers on several levels. First, consumers can quickly understand if a property’s basic characteristics will jive with their needs. The location, number of bedrooms and baths, and a basic asking price are a few examples of property characteristics that appeal to those with a left-brained, rational approach to home buying. These facts are generally included in a virtual tour video.

But a virtual home tour will also impart information on a “gut feeling” level. With a tour video, the viewer can quickly get an impression of the “personality” of each property. And as everyone who relies on real estate marketing tools to make a living can tell you, intuition and the good old gut instinct play a large part in buying and renting homes.

4. Highly sharable.

Depending on the online application you choose for creating each virtual tour, most tour videos are easy to post to social media sites, blogs and listing databases. Especially advanced virtual tour applications generate HTML code for easy transference to online listings such as Craigslist.

5. Ahead of the curve.

Studies have found that videos represent the future of the internet. Indeed, Cisco estimates that by 2015, 80 percent of internet traffic will be video. By setting up virtual video tours now, you will be better situated for the future of real estate marketing.

These are only a few of the advantages of creating a virtual tour for each piece of real estate. However, like other real estate marketing tools, some tour videos are more appealing than others. To create a video that will bring you plenty of in-person tour appointments, follow these basic suggestions:

Pay attention to lighting. If you take your own property photos, remember that more light will make most rooms seem larger and more appealing. Or you could always hire a professional photographer to really make your listings pop.

Consider adding a 360-degree viewer. This tool can make buyers feel like they are actually standing inside the property.

Don’t go overboard with music or animation. Too-personal music and an eyeful of animations will only turn off potential buyers. Make each virtual home tour video as universally appealing as possible.

Don’t get lazy. Virtual home tour videos can’t take the place of a great realtor. They will get you more leads, but you’ll need to be diligent about doing the follow-up work to turn those leads into sales.

Brand-Vision Integration

Part of the work of creating a brand is figuring out if your dreams are in line with your current approach. Although it might seem more logical to do the brand brainstorming before starting a business, the reality is that most business owners started working first and found their brands later. Marketing is often picked up “along the way,” while the owner is too busy with other priorities to spend much time analyzing the brand.

Fortunately, once you have your realtor marketing ideas in place, you can revise your business techniques and branding to reflect your new goals. For instance, let’s say your niche is young “greenies” in Portland’s Pearl district. These environmentally conscious consumers are successful, educated and willing to go out of their way to make eco-friendly purchases. Yet as you scan your marketing setup, you notice the paper you fail to recycle, the inefficient equipment and the outdated paper snail-mail newsletter. In this case, integrating your operations with your brand vision might involve switching to a digital newsletter or realtor eCards instead of paper and offsetting added server demands with clean energy credits.

Your capacity for critical thinking is one of your most valuable realtor marketing tools. By applying an analytical approach to your operations and culture, you can achieve brand integration. The more closely aligned you are to your brand, the more inspired and efficient you will be in marketing your message. Clarity is priceless in realtor marketing.

Extending Your Brand across All Realtor Marketing Tools

Once the challenging work of brand integration is done, the fun part starts. You get to plaster your message across all marketing channels. Think of this as your fresh debut. Redesign and revive your business cards, website, realtor eCards, flyers and online listings.

Hopefully, your realtor marketing vision will give you the motivation to blast through this update. Indeed, a brand vision should be a little bit audacious – it should give you butterflies and make your heart beat a little faster. Use this natural inspiration to figure out whether your new dreams match your old procedures. If you find discrepancies, either drop that marketing method or refresh your methods to match your new perspective and branding.

It’s always cost effective to do this work yourself, but you may find more success if you bring in an outside realtor business consultant. Contract with an expert who can give you an honest assessment of your marketing situation. He or she will be able to give you an unbiased appraisal of your brand integration. Plus, you’ll probably get a handful of truly great realtor marketing ideas along the way.

Realtor eCards: A Boon to your Realtor Marketing Strategy

While redesigning your marketing, consider dropping outdated methods in favor of more productive techniques. For instance, if a paper newsletter was one of your most cherished realtor marketing tools in the old model, your marketing update could encompass a switch to a new interactive email-newsletter, accompanied with an online realtor marketing blog.

Realtor eCards are an ideal tool for stepping into the modern era of realtor marketing. They allow you to create an engaging online video that showcases your property photographs and amenity descriptions. Music and animation make the final product more appealing to potential buyers. All you need to do is plug in a few details and upload your photographs. Information on price, local attractions, property amenities and policies can be included after the video ends. Best of all, realtor eCards are easy to share across social media and other online platforms, including eNewsletters, blogs and listings such as Craigslist.

By achieving brand integration, sending your new brand through all communication channels and utilizing realtor eCards, you can make your realtor marketing ideas a reality.

[ Photo by: dgray_xplane, on Flickr, via CC License ]

However, if you’re not up to date on your marketing approach, the housing upswing could pass you by. Below, we’ve gathered a list of the most effective real estate marketing techniques for the coming year. If you don’t already have these elements in place, do whatever it takes to bring your real estate organization up to speed.

How To: Marketing Real Estate in 2012

1. Get local.

Location, location, location – that’s the well-worn mantra of realtors everywhere. Yet some agents fail to stay current on local trends. Although the national real estate picture may be looking up for 2012, individual markets will move in unique ways. For instance, cities that are enjoying job growth will also see improved home sales – new workers means more people who need to buy homes. Demographics also matter; “younger” cities like Salt Lake City have a larger population of young people who are ready to buy homes.

2. Provide quality real estate content.

In general, realtors lag behind other industries in realizing the importance of providing complimentary, useful content to potential buyers. In case you’re not familiar with the content-based real estate marketing model, realtors provide blog posts, articles and micro-posts (such as Twitter tweets) that are rich with information that would be helpful for homebuyers. For instance, a real estate blog might include a description of each neighborhood in a city. Or a realtor who specializes in sales for first-time buyers might create a list of the top ten legal issues homebuyers should consider. Harris Interactive has found that 80 percent of home sales begin with online searches. If a homebuyer’s online search turns up your website, replete with useful information, chances are that potential buyer will return to your site for more tips – and perhaps to browse your open properties as well.

Today’s real estate marketing isn’t only about getting your flier in front of as many eyeballs as possible – it’s also about forming longer-term relationships with potential buyers. Online content creation helps you do just that. As a bonus, it can help drive traffic to your site, assuming you link to the right keywords.

3. Utilize video real estate marketing.

By 2015, Cisco tells us, 80 percent of all internet traffic will be video. To make sure your real estate marketing approach keeps up with this trend, add vlogging – i.e., video blogging. Your video presentations can be about:

• How your services differ from your competitors.
• Homes you’d like to highlight.
• More general real estate information buyers and sellers would find helpful.

If the very idea of setting up a video camera makes you shudder, have no fear – there are many options that can help you create engaging video content without even using a camera! For instance, some services now allow you to create home profile videos complete with music, animation and dozens of property pictures. You can bet these home profiles will get a lot more attention than old-school static flyers.

4. Use social media real estate marketing.

It is estimated that Facebook will reach one billion users sometime in 2012. As of today, more than half of all Americans have a Facebook account. And that’s only one social media site! In other words, social media isn’t going anywhere fast. More and more consumers are turning to Facebook, Twitter and other social media sites for shopping information. Recognizing this, businesses are creating their own social media profiles. If you don’t have a real estate business page set up on Facebook and Twitter, it’s time to join the social media revolution.

The social media potential for real estate marketing is huge. You can use social media sites as a method of distributing your other content – blogs, videos, property descriptions, etc. It’s also a great way to make connections that can eventually blossom into new business. For instance, if you become Facebook friends with someone who bought one of your properties a while back, he or she might forward your Facebook profile to other homebuyers.

[ Photo by: danielmoyle, on Flickr, via CC License  ]