Arizona Realtor Marketing

VoicePad an old idea whose new technology rocks!

If you've been in Real Estate a while and tried every creative marketing idea in the book you have probably tried the old 800 number rider sign gig.  The way most of those services work is you purchase a small rider sign with an 800 number with different extensions for your yard sign, newspaper ad, magazine ad, or whatever.   

VoicePad a company out of Louisville, KY has improved on this technology and given us a tool that rocks.  With no software to install and no voice recordings required you simply login to your web account and enter your listing information.   And it's a local area code not an 800 number!

A future version will allow you to login and enter your mls listing number and all the data will be entered for you.  Once the data has been entered a professional voice recording of your listing is made available through  Eve.  Eve can play back your listing in English or Espanol and then forward you an email to you with the caller-id and name  of the person who called on your sign or ad.   

The recording also allows the caller to press 1 to be be forwarded directly to the Realtor or a press 2 function for an automated  mortage payment calculator. 

VociePad experience has shown that a 24 X 7 INFO rider sign will generate 3 - 5 times more inquiries on your property than just a Realtor phone number.  In addition, you can use the 24 X 7 Info tag on all your advertisements even in Craigslist to generate many more leads.   

At Go Crazy Marketing we have teamed with First Class Funding to provide a professional telemarketing department to help Realtors with call follow-up and lead qualification.   Many times the buyers may not qualify to purchase the house they called about but with a little work with the lending partner we can determine the maximum amount they can qualify for and provide them an LSR they can take directly to the Realtor of the sign they first called on.  Otherwise if they don't plan to make a purchase for a few months they go into the telemarketing database for later call back and Realtor referral.

More leads, more qualified leads and eventually more sales!  All provided for free by the program sponsors.

Realtor Blogging Seminar Flyer

It's been a piece of work to try and fit all the elements of a Realtor Blogging Seminar on a single 8.5 x 11" piece of paper.   I found you need to make sure that it suits the majority of people involved in providing the seminar, has enough information to explain the value to potential participants and yet retains an open "white space" look that is not so technical nor complex that no one would bother reading it.  Whew!

Of course it will always be a work in process and will get better with each iteration much like a website or a blogsite. 

To see the current Real Estate Blogging Seminar Flyer just click here!

Planning for Realtor Blogging Seminar

As a marketing specialist my job is often to find needle and thread,  put them together and show them how much they can do together.  In today's case the Realtor is the needle and blogging the thread that allows great results to occur.  Together they can be a very powerful force and it's amazing how few of them know how or why.

For the thread I have put together expertise from several subject matter experts to begin providing seminars for Realtors to learn how to use this valuable tool. 

The Real Estate Tomato is one of the expert groups that will be represented.  They are among the top 25 Real Estate Blogs in the world.  On a given day if you google blogging advice they will come up number one or two in that search.

Also providing expertise is a Phoenix based company called Business Blogging Pro's owned by Dave Barnhart.  http://businessbloggingpros.com.  He and his team are experts at providing hands on training to teach business both the value of blogging and how to blog.

Supporting us in our effort is Jobing.com.  They are very big on helping the community in so many ways and believe in the power of entrepreneurs and blogging. They are allowing us to use their impressive conference facility for the workshops.

My task now is to put together the packaging for Real Estate Brokers that will give them the clearest message on what is blogging, why should they care and what should they expect from a free blogging seminar.

Our group is working hard to prepare for our kick-off seminar which is scheduled for Tuesday, July 24th only 9 days from now.  The registration site is up and ready and can be seen by clicking the link below.

My information package must be completed this weekend and emailed to our best realtor friends and brokers to jump start our exciting new program. 

Steve Groves, former Director of Marketing at Realty Experts and an avid blogger himself will be speaking on the ROI of Blogging and has put together a nice workshop flyer which you can obtain by clicking here.

The last piece that I need to develop is a consise high level overview that contains the reason to attend and the call to action.  If I were a Realtor I'd want answers to the questions below.

1. Blogging is not a pretty word, what is it and why should I care
2. Show me Realtor Blogging success stories and testimonials.
3. How much of my time is it going to take to learn enough to decide if I'm interested.

I'm sure I've missed something important but I'm going to stop this blog for a few minutes and work on that piece.  When it's complete I'll add it to the blog and go for a much needed workout!

Realtor Agent 2.0 first step Launches in Phoenix

Which of these is most true?

Like most jobs the Real Estate Agent of the future is...

     *  Still much the same relationship building game as always.
     *  As good as the Realtor's network.
     *  Evolving almost Daily by Technology and Information Availability.

Though all these are true statements; never before in history has technology had such a revolutionary impact on the way people are investing and buying real estate. 

Realtors are adopting and changing their tactics at record pace trying to stay a step ahead of the consumer.  Many create a unique web address and a website for each listing. 

Others are using technology to put photos of every room and view of the house on the front yard for sale sign.  Still others are blogging to stake out their own Goggle Juice in a neighborhood search.

Let’s assume a potential out of state buyer has done some internet research and decided to purchase a home in the Scottsdale area for between $800K and $1M. 

A few of their many internet searches might have looked something like this:

     *  Scottsdale Arizona Information
     *  Best Schools in Scottsdale
     *  Best Scottsdale Neighborhoods
     *  Best Scottsdale Developers
     *  DC Ranch Developments
     *  DC Ranch Homes under $1M
     *  DC Ranch MLS Listings
     *  Google Earch DC Ranch 
     *  Satellite views of area's that look interesting
     *  DC Ranch Realtors

By now they have used easily understood technology to discover many of the attributes they are looking for in their new Scottsdale home.  Now they are exploring a few websites or blogs of Realtors that seem to focus on the area they plan to soon inhabit. 

So, if you are a Realtor without a website or a blog or are just a token computer user so you can print up color flyers for your sign posts you are so far out of the market you don't even know what you don't know.

Now that doesn't mean you can't continue to be successful.  It just means you could be more effective.  Much more effective.  Those that can and do adapt to the changes will have a distinct edge.  But take heart, it's happening in every industry and there are resources that can help you.
Go Crazy Marketing is working with several visionary companies on an "Agent 2.0" concept to provide Arizona Realtors with training and tools to quickly adapt to these market changes.  We are teaching them how to use Agent 2.0 to outpace their competition.

The first training session was held in Phoenix this week at the Jobing.com headquarters office with many more sessions planned.   The training was one of many planned under the Agent 2.0 umbrella. It is not a single solution or technology but many things working cohesively together to deliver value to clients in the way that is most helpful to them in this internet information age.

People skills and networking are still required and cold calling has not gone away but we are moving towards an era where the informed consumer requires pull marketing instead of push marketing.  In other words, if you position yourself correctly they are going to call in search of you and your expertise.  Well, isn't that new?  No, not really, but it's how you get to it these days that has changed.

As this ball of twine unwinds we will be working together with the top thinkers in Technology and Real Estate to bring our clients the tools they need to position themselves in the path of progress.

Realtor Marketing with Email Power

June 02, 2007

The Power of Email Marketing…

Last week I attended a seminar hosted by Constant Contact at the Arizona Association of Small Business Association facilities.

Thirty people were in attendance but our facilitator, Ron Cates, indicated that he had over 1,600 attendee’s at an upcoming Las Vegas Seminar. 

There is clearly a lot of interest in how to effectively use email as a marketing tool.  We covered all the basics from SPAM regulations to List Management to Sales Objectives for your Email.

Did you know?

• The best day to send an email is Tuesday?
• The best time of day to send an email is 10:30 AM or 1:30PM?
• 60% of People decide to open or not, your email based on the FROM line?
• 30% of People decide to open or not, your email based on the SUBJECT line?

The SUBJECT line…

• Needs to be read in 3 seconds or less
• No more than 5-8 words or 30 - 40 characters
• Should incorporate the benefit from opening the email
• Should incorporate your brand

Senders should use CAPITALIZATION and PUNCTUATION sparingly because that is one of the triggers for the SPAM filters.

Over 40M emails are sent each day.  On average 19.9% of them are blocked by SPAM filters.  Constant Contact averages 1.9% blockage.