Real Estate Marketing Tools

A carpenter can’t build a home without construction tools and an agent can’t sell a home without the right marketing tools. For years the Flyer, Letter and Postcard were the hammer and nails of every real estate agent. These tools are still important but they are being augmented with email marketing, online directories, and virtual tours. The modern real estate agent needs to understand this brave new world of real estate marketing. Any of these marketing campaigns can sell a home and although all of these systems are valuable, you have to know how to use them in a cost effective way.

Flyers

Flyers are the most popular and the oldest advertising tools but they should not be overlooked. Overture metrics show that “Real Estate Marketing Flyers” are still the most popular real estate marketing search terms in search engines. Though real estate flyers have a long history they are being created in new ways. Software, especially online software allow the real estate agent to create very professional flyers, at a much lower price than the traditional method of using graphic designers, copywriters and printers.

Example Template Flyers provided by Imprev.
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Letters

Real Estate marketing letters can be a headache for even the best real estate agents - yet effective communication is vital to maintaining client relationships. Great sellers are not always the best writers. Several online companies such as realestateletters.com offering pre-made marketing letters. Imprev offers a phrase assistant that allows you to individually select sentences and paragraphs that can be put together to create a customized and well written description.

Text Box: Download and use these marketing letters for free: 1. Free Real Estate Marketing Letter 2. Sample Real Estate Letter

Postcards

Postcards are a great way to stay in touch with clients without bombarding them with mountains of information. A great marketing postcard says “Hi, nice to see you. I’ll get out of your way now.” With postcards the image really needs to do the talking and text should be limited to only a few words. Postcards are still one of the most popular real estate marketing tools according to Overture metrics.

Online Directories

The newest breed of real estate marketing tools are online. Online directories work because they are better at bringing information to a larger audience. Buyers love being able to sort through piles of data to find the house that fit their needs. Online tools allow the buyer to zero in on the properties that meet their specification, in their price range they want. Online tools facilitate communication between the agent and the buyer and they accomplish this task at a much lower cost than traditional mail.
Online Directories are great because they can do so much more than the paperwork they replace. The newest and most advanced directories can broadcast your listing to several cites, giving you the largest audience for your listing. Craigslist has local listings for every major city in the United States and Canada. Craigslist leads in this category because it is fee to use and syndicates it’s listings into a large number of other sites. Other great sites such as Zipreality.com and Zillow.com place listings on a map.

Email Marketing

Email marketing is a highly effective way of communicating with your clients and one of the most effective sales tools. It is also one of the trickiest. SPAM, the unwanted and unsolicited email that makes up the bulk of modern email, has made it difficult to create good communication methods via email. In addition, the graphic HTML email that is the preferred type of marketing email can be very difficult to create without extensive technical expertise. These problems have provided an opportunity for companies to create systems that manage this process. Customizable email templates combined with contact management and SPAM avoidance technologies make these packages very valuable.

Web Sites

Real estate agents have been creating web sites for the last ten years. Much like business cards they have become an indispensable business tool. A URL is like a phone number. Because web sites have a longer history than other online methods much has been learned about how to create sites that provide a solid Return on Investment. Simply hiring your neighborhood web master is not as effective as creating a web strategy that includes professional graphics, copywriting, search marketing and "pay-per-click” advertising.

Virtual Tours

Virtual Tours are one of the newest and most effective Real Estate Marketing Tools. The Virtual Tour is just what it says: it is a multimedia tour of a property including sound, images, and interaction that can be viewed from any computer with an internet connection. Virtual tours are a very effective tool because they can package information in a far more descriptive manner than a flyer or online listing. Most virtual tour software allows the agent to link to the tour from any online directory. The down side to virtual tours is that they require greater time and investment. A virtual tour is, in essence, a miniature movie and needs to be produced in as such in order to yield the desired results.
Pay-Per-Click
Systems like Google Adsense and Yahoo’s Overture can be extremely valuable for an agent that understands them. Pay per click systems offer advertisers a way to direct their advertising toward very specific terms. A specific term such as “Maple Leaf Two Bedroom” should trigger a result that could lead directly to a sale. Systems such as Google Adsense, Overture and MSN have the most popular systems. These systems require a significant learning curve but the cost is well worth the price.

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