Kim Bartells

Creating a basic website potential clients will want to use isn't as hard as you may think. Why do people come to your website? Search for homes, find area information, find real estate information, find financing information, etc., etc. Build off that...

1- Search for Homes - make sure your search engine is very prominent and easy to use. Create a large link of the home page directing people to that page. You can also setup pre-designed searches that may target your niche - say, homes in a certain area, for a certain price, or foreclosure/short sale listings, golf course communities, 55+ communities, etc. Be creative with it.

2- Real Estate Information - the most important topic you can have on your site today through June of 2010 is related to the tax credit. Make sure you have a prominent link on your site that directs visitors to all the details. Also, sellers like to see market data. Have a page that you update bi-weekly or monthly for your areas sales and listing data.

3- Virtual Tours - Buyers love Virtual Tours! Create one for each of your listings and market it. Under your featured property section, be sure to include links to each listings virtual tour.

4- Open Houses - Potential buyers go to open houses. Especially if they aren't working with an agent yet. Make it easy/motivational for them to contact you and get a list of open houses directly from the MLS.

5- Blog - create a blog and post to it often. It will generate leads for your site and encourage people to come back often. Loyalty is important. You don't want your leads going and finding another site.

6- Finally - offer value. What makes you better than every other agent? Buyers and Sellers don't care about awards. They care about results (even though they run hand and hand). Don't say that you are a Multi-Million Dollar Producer, say that your listings sell for 97% of list price. That's what they want to hear. They need to feel like they are getting something more from you than another agent.

You may have come up with other great ideas for content to include, but just don't have the time to create or implement them. That is what TC Business Management, LLC - www.TCMandD.com - is for! We are a firm that specializes marketing. Your time should be spent with clients, not designing marketing materials. TC believes in result driven marketing. We want to grow your business as much as you do!

Times change fast! What you did this year, let alone 2 years ago, may not be the most effective or cost efficient means for reaching your sphere and farm anymore.

Here's a marketing plan I think your will love for 2010.

Sphere:

•· Monthly Email Newsletters

•· Quarterly Newsletters

•· Phone calls - yes, call them!

•· Become Facebook Friends

•· Birthday/Holiday Cards or Letters

•· Client Appreciation Party

Farm:

•· Monthly Postcards with the right content

•· Door Knocking w/ Market Stats

•· Send them your listings (quarterly) with some of your own agent statistics.

Listing Marketing:

•· Get online!

•· Online Listing Syndication

•· Virtual Tours

•· High Quality Photos

•· Individual Property Websites

•· 800 Numbers - Get more leads!

•· No more FREE CMA's! How about a home staging consultation or home enhancement consultation from a contractor?

•· Website Hit/Lead Reports to sellers - communication is key!

•· Print advertisements are still relevant, but make them worth it. Make buyers or sellers want to call you.

General Marketing:

•· Update/New Website

•· SEO for your website - your website should be generating you leads...

•· Pay-per-click

•· Blog Posts/Article Writing

•· Facebook is a huge marketing asset. Use it!

•· Seminars - Buyer, Seller, Short Sale

•· Don't forget about FSBO's & Expireds

Test Your Marketing:

•· Track your results!

•· Where are the calls coming and not coming from?

•· Edit plan as needed to get the best results

This marketing plan is extremely simple, yet most agents don't even get this far. It's hard to manage clients AND handle all the aspects of being a business owner, but just a little effort will go a long way towards increasing your sales.

TC Business Management, LLC - www.TCMandD.com - can provide you with the help you need at a very modest cost. We are a firm that specializes marketing. Your time should be spent with clients, not designing marketing materials. TC believes in result driven marketing. If it doesn't work, we will correct it until it does!*

*See website for details on our marketing results guarantee.

Not Marketing? Bad Idea...

Do you send email newsletters to your database? If not, you're crazy!

The cost savings email marketing can provide is unbelievable in itself, let alone still managing to maintain a fantastic branding and lead generating opportunity. If you don't think you can afford to market in this market - think again.

Initial cost to create the email format - anywhere from $125 - $300 depending on revisions and requests. That's less than sending 300 postcards to your database. Maintenance, updating and sending costs around $50-$100/month. Can you figure out the cost savings??? Say you have a database of 500 contacts, in one year you would spend about $2,700 mailing out a single postcard once a month. Sending out a single email newsletter once a month will only cost you $850!! That's a yearly savings of $1,850.

The savings are all well and good, but I believe in holding ALL marketing accountable. A lot of times graphic designers create beautiful, yet unresponsive marketing pieces. Your message and call for action are EXTREMELY important. That's why I focus on result driven marketing. Nice design that also uses effective copywrite.

Email newsletters (when they are created correctly) put a lot of useful, wanted information at your clients fingertips. It instills in their heads that you are a real estate expert. And it does it all for cheap! What more could you ask for?

**Direct mail should still be a part of your marketing plan, but off setting costs with email newsletters not only appeal to your clients, but it makes you appear more technologically advanced.**

TC Business Management, LLC - www.TCMandD.com - focuses on result driven marketing. We create marketing that not only looks good, but most importantly, generates results!