Archive for September, 2007

The Real Estate Coach Discusses Editorial Advertising for Marketing Your Real Estate Business

Tuesday, September 25th, 2007

Stories, Metaphors and the Power of Editorial Advertising for Cost Effective Lead Generation
Brian Rodgers, Craig Proctor, Gary Kent and a host of other million-dollar earners regularly use large editorial-style ads to drive new leads into their businesses.

Why? Because they work!

The power behind this style of advertising lies in the fact that most people will “pass over” anything they deem to be a paid advertisement, yet they will voraciously consume every written word of “news”.

The idea, then, is to design your advertisements to appear as if they are simply another news article - an unbiased story of interest.

The secret to optimizing any advertising campaign is to get more people to read the ad.

The secret to making an editorial-style ad work is to make the ad perfectly “blend in” with the editorial copy of the publication - to make the ad appear as news.

Here are 4 rules to optimize your editorial-style ads:

1. Get your ads placed on a right page, top right hand corner if at all possible. This works because the eyes naturally land here to help guide our hands into position to turn the page (amazing, but true!). If you can’t get top right, go for bottom right.

2. Try to avoid any labeling. You really, really don’t want the publisher to post a conspicuous “Paid Advertisement” notice above your ad. The KEY, remember is to cleverly disguise your ad to appear as normal news. The closer you get to matching the exact copy layout, style, font, size, column width and more… the greater your response. If the publisher insists on posting a notice, consider not running the ad.

3. Don’t highlight your name or company affiliation unless you have to. Again, the KEY is subtle disguise. News stories do not normally feature the contact information of the author of the story. Bury your contact information in the body of the “article” if at all possible.

4. Avoid any and all borders unless the publication uses borders to separate and highlight their news.

Free Access to The Largest Real Estate Marketing Community in The World is Just Days Away - The Real Estate Sales Coach

Wednesday, September 19th, 2007

In just a few short days the doors for the newly renovated BusyAgentPro (BAP) Community are going to swing open and remain open for a short window to allow new members absolutely free.  For over 7 years, BAP has been the largest online community dedicated to a single topic, Marketing your real estate business.  During this unprecedented opportunity to obtain access to the community that is normally $1,200 per year, any real estate professional interested in taking their business to the next level will be able to access the communitiy for absolutely no charge whatsoever and it is a lifetime membership.  

So what is the catch?  Well, it really is free but there are a few stipulations as follows:

1.  You have to give your real name and contact information.  Although your name will not be sold or shared with anyone, access will not be granted to anyone with correct identification.  There are a lot of real estate forums out there that allow anonymous membership and the BAP Real Estate Marketing Community feels this is counter productive to real breakthroughs in all of your real estate marketing systems.

2.  If you are a negative minded person and you only want access to The BAP Real Estate Marketing Forum to cause trouble, you will not be allowed in

3. If you work for or are associated with any third party real estate marketing lead generation company such as HomeGain, Realtor.com, HomeValues and the such, you will not be allowed in.

That’s it, as long as you are a positive minded person and have a burning desire to take your real estate business and marketing to the next level wherever you are in the business, you are in.  As soon as you sign up you will have access to The BAP Community forum as well as many other items for FREE including :

Over 300 Hours of Audio and Video Training

A Free State-of-the-art contact manager (Better than Top Producer, AgentOffice and any other contact manager out there)

The BusyAgentPro Ready-To-Copy Real Estate Marketing Library

Access to the #1 Real Estate Marketing forum in the world with over 17,000 Real Posts.

And Much more.

So, go get your free account, there is nothing to lose here and it may not be available for much longer.

Click Here to Get Your Free BAP Gold Account and Access to The #! Real Estate Marketing Community in the World.

Your real estate market has declined, what should you do?

Tuesday, September 11th, 2007

I have been hearing so many agents lately saying that they are really struggling because of tough market conditions, the mortgage mess and a lot of other things. I have been through up and down markets over the past 14 years and there is always one determining factor for the ongoing success that I have had regardless of what was going on around me in the office and real estate market.

Our job in real estate is not to worry about market conditions or anything else beyond our control. Our job, our only job is to find buyers that want to buy and sellers that want to sell and match them up, that’s it, it really is that simple. It is starting to bother me a bit when people use obstacles beyond their control as barriers to success.

As I wrote this, I remembered a line in one of my favorite movies and I want you to watch it if you are one of those agents that uses every excuse in the book instead of stepping up and taking control of your own success.

Here is the clip, enjoy:

How to Dominate Expired Real Estate Listings - The Real Estate Caoch

Thursday, September 6th, 2007

How to Dominate Expired Listings

This is the highest-impact method of obtaining listings in real estate. There is not a better, easier, less expensive way to get listings. T

These tips are from my expired listing system, which I believe is the most effective system in the real estate business—not only for me, but also for agents all over the United States. The first thing I want to do is address the most common myths about expireds. I have heard agents make these comments:

• They all list with the same agent.
• There is something wrong with the house, or it would have sold.
• They are all mean people.
• Mail doesn’t work because it will already be listed by the time they get the mail.

Here is what I have found to be true with these four myths:

One—They all list with the same agent—Through my experiences, I have found that about 50 percent of expireds will go back with the same agent for a number of reasons or they are under contract or the house has actually sold and the paper work hasn’t hit the computer yet. I have always said that the “previous agent” is our biggest competition. However, I suggest focusing on the 50 percent of expired sellers who do want a change.

Two—There is something wrong with the house, or it would have sold—There are certain mysteries in life, and this is definitely one of them. I have sold so many houses that had expired and had nothing wrong with them that it’s unreal.

I will admit there are certainly problems with some of the houses that expire. But don’t forget that you can sell any house if it is priced right.

Three—They are all mean people—A better description can be given: they are all disappointed. These are people who had a dream, or goal, that has been shattered, in many cases. And, of course, the Realtor gets full blame. Sometimes that is correct, but sometimes it’s not.

Early in my career I used to call them, and what I found was that the first day was when they were the least receptive to having a conversation. The system that has proven to be very successful is the system that I developed about two years ago. I will explain the details shortly.

Four—Mail doesn’t work because it will already be listed by the time they get the mail—This is probably the biggest myth of them all. Based on my experiences, these sellers want a break from the selling process. I personally have listed the vast majority of them from my consistent follow-up. I very rarely listed a house within the first couple of days after it expired. I have always found that we, not the seller, feel the biggest sense of urgency to get the house back on the market.

Remember this phrase: “The fortune is in the follow-up.”

After testing every scenario.

• Calling them the day it expires
• Calling them a day or two after
• Bringing the package to the house during the day (a waste of time)
• Bringing the package in the evening (great contact if you want to work after hours)
• What I found that works best is mail an initial package. It’s important to look at the big picture here. Set yourself up for success. If you set a system in place that you wont be able to do every day no matter what then you could be setting yourself up to fail.
That’s why it is so important to use systems that you can delegate to a part time non-licensed assistant. It will give you the consistency.

The most effective and cost effective method of following-up with expired sellers

I use the great little 4 1/4 x 5 1/2 post card and here is why:

• They have to see message on the way to the garbage can
• They Will see every message. Its almost impossible not to see the message its like when I say don’t think of the color blue.
• They get results.
• They are easy to use as a follow-up mechanism
• They are less expensive to mail.

Here is how to work expireds:

1. The day they expire send them a letter that will convince them that you are different. And they don’t care if you’re number one or have a fancy brochure.
2. Then send them a compelling postcard that backs up your initial letter
3. Send at least seven postcards, one every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.
4. Then mail them a postcard every 21 days.

I will end with this …

Here are some of the benefits to working expireds:

• The sellers are very identifiable, so we don’t have to spend a lot of time, money, and effort locating them; all we have to do is go into the MLS and there they are. There is actually a new service that is available, called the RedX, which has just about automated the entire process.
• About 50 percent of them will be your target.
• When you use my system consistently, the sellers will call you.
• When they call you first, they are nice.
• You don’t have any objections to overcome.
• You will be surprised at the number of sellers who will do what you say, because they really want to sell.
• There will be a steady stream of income if you work at it daily.

When you come to realize the effectiveness of marketing to expireds, you will be excited about having adopted this method of marketing … as you watch your business grow through this simple target.

I hope you benefit from this letter and decide to add the information in it to the marketing part of your business plan. The complete Expired System now comes free with Admission into The Real Estate Toolbox University. Click Below For Complete details:

http://www.realmarketingpros.com