RSimple, Cost-Effective Ways to Produce Professional-Quality Marketing Materials

Simple, Cost-Effective Ways to Produce Professional-Quality Marketing Materials (continued)

Color for Real Estate / Marketing for Properties

Year Founded: acquired by Merrill Communications (printer) in 2004
Licensed Users: 289,000 (source: company website as of April 24, 2008)
Types of Products Supported: flyers, brochures, postcards, refrigerator magnets and more
Integrated distribution options: print
Custom options: text and images fully customizable
For more information: http://www.colorforrealestate.com

Summary: Color for Real Estate is a viable option if you have an immediate need for print materials and don’t have a solution already in place. If you have an ongoing need for printing, if you want a single solution for all your marketing needs, or if you want an agency-quality look and feel, another provider may serve you better.

Description: Color for Real Estate is essentially a printer. They are owned by Merrill Communications, one of the largest printers in the real estate industry. They provide templates for a wide variety of print materials – postcards, brochures, flyers, refrigerator magnets, etc.

Color for Real Estate claims to have 289,000 users, but because it is a per-use system, it’s hard to say how this number compares to the active licensed users reported by suppliers that charge an annual fee.

Color for Real Estate only covers print materials (its sister site, Marketing for Property has a section for virtual tours, but we were unable to navigate the site in order to verify that these could be ordered). Its printing fees are relatively expensive (perhaps a premium of 50% versus providers that charge an annual fee to use their system). If you run the math, you’re better off using one of the providers that charges an annual fee, if you produce more than a certain number of print pieces per year.

That said, they make it very easy to create a print piece and send it to their printers. User feedback on online message boards seems to be positive, although not as effusive about the quality of design.

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