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What is Involved in Marketing
Let’s discuss what marketing a Realtor does when marketing themselves and the homes that the agent lists…how much money is involved with all this marketing and who and what benefits come from the money spent?
As a Realtor there are certain fees that you must incur in order to do business that are ongoing or should I say oncoming.
- Join the local Association of Realtors
- Join the National Association of Realtors (if you want to be taken seriously)
- Join the local MLS
There are several other costs that we will consider as rudimentary costs that a Realtor needs to pay in order to conduct business. Did I mention you should have a computer? It really is a must. It’s sort of like having a driver’s license and not owning a car.
Signs are rather important and depending on the company that you work with, they may provide you with some or they may provide you with their own company signs. I highly recommend that you purchase your own signs. A little rider at the bottom of a sign with your name and phone number after seeing the large phone number of the Broker is hardly advertising YOU. Remember, you are in business and you need to advertise as such.
One of the obvious costs are business cards. It is essential
that you have these business cards if you want to be taken seriously. And aren’t you trying to project a business model?
A decent car that will be presentable in order to take clients out in and park in front of your seller’s home is usual considered important. Now, some like to place advertisements all over their vehicles and with some buyers and sellers that
works but with others it would hamper your abilities to sell yourself and may leave a bad taste in their mouth. That’s when you need to know what niche you fall into and then market accordingly. Brochures for some would be a consideration that could be mailed or given to your clients who may wonder about the services you have to offer.
There are even billboards that you can spend your hard earned cash on…we all h ave to learn!
A website is a must considering how many home buyers and home sellers are currently on-line investigating properties and who they might hire to represent them. This is a good spot to talk about whether a company website will do the trick or not for you. It’s great for added exposure but for your prime exposure, it is not. There are some aspects to a company site that you need to consider
1. Where do the leads from the company website go? To the company that may in turn charge you for the lead?
2. What happens when you leave that company? Gone forever.
3. Do you have the flexibility to add and write on the company website? Think not.
It is highly important to advertise yourself, not your company. Let them advertise and you can take up the slack with one of your own websites. My opinion is that if your company does not allow you to have your own website, then leave and find one that does.
Realtor.com is another website that you may pay or not pay for. As a Realtor your listings are automatically feed to Realtor.com by your MLS service. You may pay an additional fee in order to have an “upgraded” listing if you like. Although most realtors are not happy with the years of sell-out from Realtor.com, it is another avenue to advertise your seller’s house. Whether you choose as a Realtor to market yourself on their site is a different story.
Blogging and having a blog site appears to be another essential tool in the internet world for Realtors. Can you blog on your website or do you need a blog site that stands alone like Sacramento Real Estate Voice? This is just another tool in our bag of tricks to pull from and use as marketing strategy. This is an area where the viewer can read and learn a little about you and decide if they want you to represent them. It is important to be business like, follow the rules of blogging and yet be approachable. Can you get leads from blogging?
Now, we come to the predators that sell buyer and seller leads. You’ve heard of them, they grow by leaps and bounds. They’re the ones that call and interrupt your day to take your money and promise the moon. Their spiel may change a little but the final outcome remains the same. Lots of bogus leads and maybe one or two that amount to something. Some charge a percentage at the end of the transaction but most charge up front because they know that otherwise they would never be paid. These companies only stay in business because we, as Realtors keep feeding their pockets. It won’t stop until the Realtors wake up, realize what fools they are to line someone else’s pocket with the very leads that would have come to their own websites had they not helped to pay for the predators website by accepting to pay for these leads in the first place. We are our own worst enemy. It’s time to band together and stop this. Aren’t you tired of being taken advantage of? I know I am.
Do you as a Realtor market your seller’s house with a Virtual Tour? Do you place a dollar amount on the home you decide to market with a virtual tour? Do you have any guidelines for the house to qualify for a virtual tour; such as view, vastness of property, land etc. or does everyone get a virtual tour from you?
Some Realtors still advertise in the newspaper. But, my current mode of thinking is that it is primarily a waste since most buyers and sellers do not read the newspaper
but use the internet instead. I would rather focus my millions of advertising dollars on a surer thing. I have conducted several studies after running an ad for an Open House to see if just where the folks got the message and 9 times out of 10 it was clearly the signage, next came the internet and the ads were never even mentioned.
How about Just Listed, Just Sold postcards? You do, do them right? The question is do you generate them yourself or hire a company. Lot of companies out there for this very purpose. Another aspect of marketing is sending other market material to your farm and previous clients to keep in-touch. Magnets, Calendars, pens, notepads, recipe cards…the list goes on and on.
These are just a few of the marketing aspects out there to dive into your pockets. Not to mention of course, all of the designations that ask for your money, since it is another way and means of lining the pockets of even more people by Realtors. We as Realtors help the economy, terrifically! We are always shelling it out and keeping yet more folks in business everyday! I’m sure that I’m forgetting a few 100 other ways but you get the idea…
