Ok, I came across an interesting video on YouTube the other day. Instead of voicing my opinion on this one I thought it would be fun to just go ahead and post this video and let you my loyal audience decide what you think about it yourself.
Archive for the ‘Internet Marketing’ Category
Real Estate Technology Tips Series - You be the judge
Tuesday, January 27th, 2009Real Estate Technology and Marketing Series - Setting up your BAP Publishing System part 1
Saturday, October 18th, 2008A lot of people have been asking me about the new real estate websites and Publishing system we have just released over at BusyAgentPro.com. I think the number one question i have received is how I was able to achieve a #4 listing in Google in less than two weeks using nothing but the new blog system over at BAP. I used no backlinks from other sites, not search engine submission, etc. just blog posts. Well watch the video below to see in real time how I went about it. This is step 1 of setting up the system which is setting up a main site in BAP that you can link to from your blogs for even more future search engine juice.
Click here to watch Part 1: http://screencast.com/t/GRpDQEEWa
Real Estate Technology and Marketing Series - BAP Vs. ActiveRain
Monday, October 13th, 2008For the past two weeks I have been testing out the BusyAgentPro.com real estate websites and Publishing System to see how the new platform stacks up against ActiveRain and several other blogging solutions out there. So for the past two weeks I have post 6 times to the BAP System using only content provided by BAP for me to post. The key with the BAP Publishing system is they have a patent pending technology that allows them to provide each user content that the system spins and localizes to you and your market so you don’t even have to write a single word. Although I helped develop this system and am a bit biased, this already puts BAP ahead of ActiveRain and others.
Here are my results targeting the keywords Hutchinson KS real estate and Hutchinson Kansas Real Estate.
In less than two weeks, a #8 first page listing on Google as well as a #11. The BAP sites shot past my ActiveRain sites as well as ahead of almost all of the lead companies working in my market. If you haven’t checked it out yet, you need to run over there as fast as you can!
Real Estate Technology Tips Series - The Real Estate Marketing Coach
Thursday, September 11th, 2008If you have been marketing online or at least lurking online for any amount of time you have surely been reading about how to implement blogging, podcasting and vlogging into your real estate business. There have been some great companies popping up that offer some of the tools needed to accomplish a solid web 2.0 plan for your real estate business. One of those companies is ActiveRain. When ActiveRain first launched and until as recent as about 6 months ago I felt ActiveRain was a valuable service and should be used somewhere in your marketing plan. Due to many developments at ActiveRain, namely them selling a portion of their company to one of the most well known lead aggregation company, I can no longer use it or recommend it at all. If there is enoguh response or comments to this post I would be happy to go into details, but for now, I will leave it at that.
Capture the Names and Addresses from EVERY Visitor to Your Website!
Wednesday, May 28th, 2008People do not read ads for pleasure. People read ads because they are looking to either solve a problem or gain a result.
Think about it. Think back to the last time you picked up a newspaper and flipped to the classifieds. Did you have a specific purpose in mind or did you pick them up to enjoy a few moments of light reading?
Chances are you had a very specific purpose in mind.
Perhaps you had a car you were looking to sell and you wanted to check out what others in a similar condition were going for so you could establish a fair price. Or perhaps you wanted to check out what type of property ads your competitors were running. Or perhaps you turned to the classifieds to make sure your ads were actually placed and everything was spelled right.
In any event, like most people, you perused the ads with a very specific purpose in mind. And browsing the Internet for realty is just another form of perusing ads. Which means the majority of visitors to your website actually land there for a very specific reason:
- They are looking for properties.
- They are comparing prices in preparation to sell their own home.
- They want to determine if they can afford to buy.
- They are weighing the pros and cons of using realty.
- They heard about exclusive buyer representation and are checking it out.
- They read your URL off a brochure they picked up and want to see if you have more. information or inside photos of the home they drove by last weekend available.
- They want to check current interest rates.
- They are due to be transferred and are anxious about the area, desiring to rate the local schools, parks, and recreation facilities.
- They want to see how you are presenting their Aunt Mary’s property.
- They are following up on a referral.
You get the idea. And unless you have the very expensive benefit of having your real estate website address posted boldly on the front page of large portal sites like Google, Yahoo, MSN or AOL — most of the visitors to your site have worked to get there–meaning they are hot, viable, prime prospects! Sooo…
Capture their names! And follow up!!
Happy Selling!
Brandon Patrick
Dean of Students
Real Estate Toolbox University
Real Estate Marketing Coach Brandon Patrick Discusses Stories, Metaphors and the Power of Editorial Advertising for Cost Effective Lead Generation
Tuesday, May 6th, 2008Brian Rodgers, Craig Proctor 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.
Happy Selling!
Brandon Patrick
Dean of Students
Real Estate Toolbox University
Brandon Patrick Talks with Sales Skills Master and Boxcar Millionaire Author Tom Black!
Saturday, April 19th, 2008Brandon Patrick interviews one of the true icons in selling skills, best-selling author Tom Black on what it takes to succeed in selling in 2008! Tom is currently on a speaking tour in 2008 with Chicken Soup for the Soul legend and author Mark Victor Hansen, Art Linkletter and sports psychologist Dr. Dennis Waitley on the Mega Success Seminars. Tom has written what is sure to be a must have book on life, Boxcar Millionaire; a chronicle of his life growing up actually living in a boxcar with his family while growing up, to the choices he made in life that took him to multi-millionaire status. Get over to the podcast!
Real Estate Blog Tips Series - Real Estate Marketing Coach Brandon Patrick Reveals How to Write Classified Ads for Sellers!
Sunday, April 13th, 2008Z101
Writing classified ads to secure seller leads is somewhat tougher than writing to secure buyer leads. But that’s not to say it can’t be done. It has been done, continues to be done… and, especially on the Internet (where your costs of minimal), it is most certainly worth your time.
The key to writing for sellers is to understand that people are persuaded to act either to avoid pain (be it emotional, physical, or spiritual) or to gain pleasure (be it real or anticipatory). So, with that in mind, we’ll want to design our ads to appeal to the sellers on this innate, emotional level. That is, we’ll want to push some emotional hot buttons. For example, this ad promises to move the potential buyer away from loss (a pain):
7 Big Homeseller Mistakes Which Cost You a Fortune
Which of these costly homeseller mistakes will you make
Which of these costly homeseller mistakes will you make
when you sell your home? You don’t have to make any! Call 555-1212
Here’s an example of moving towards pleasure (it addresses greed):
How to Sell Your Home for $3,000 to $7,000
More Than Your Neighbor! Free report reveal all.
See http://www.yourname.com
-or-
For Sale By Owners: Don’t even think about setting the price
for your home by looking in here. That’s the SECOND
biggest mistake you can make. Want to know the FIRST?
Call for your free homeseller report. 555-1212
XYZ Realty
If you’re looking for specific sellers in a specific area, simply add "qualifiers" to your ad like this:
South Carson — Sellers! New free online
report gives 10 Tips to Pocketing $5,447 or more
when you sell your home! Visit http://www.yourname.com/freerpt.htm
You get the idea. Now analyze each of these ads. Have we attracted the attention of potential sellers, have we grabbed their attention? What about the ads keep your interest? Have we stimulated a desire in you to want to know more about the information being advertised? And finally, what action must you take if you really want to know more?
Notice how all four elements are present in the ads. Recognize and understand the basic formula. Practice, and keep at it, over and over, every day until the formula, the idea, and the feel of this kind of ad writing becomes second nature to you. This is the ONLY WAY to gain expertise in writing good classified ads. And a GUARANTEED way to generate a number of highly responsive leads fast… both online and off!
Happy Selling!
Brandon Patrick
Dean of Students
Real Estate Toolbox University
Real Estate Marketing Coach Brandon Patrick Shows You How to Sell $20 Million in Real Estate While Sitting at Home in Your Underwear!
Monday, March 17th, 2008First of all….I HATE this headline. I HATE promoting anything that discourages hard work. At the same time, it is funny how we see headlines like this every day in the real estate industry. The reason why we constantly see them is because everyone wants the "Magic Bullet"…..you know….the one that is "silver" and puts down the werewolf in the horror movies…(Hey….who wasn’t scared of the werewolf in Dark Shadows of the 60’s, the werewolf on Scooby Doo in the 70’s or The Howling in the early 80’s…..I spent alot of time hiding behind the couch from werewolves as a kid….
)….the one bullet that is a hollow point that totally annihilates whatever it hits…..which is our problems…..again….EVERYONE wants the Magic Bullet. Unfortunately, these "Magic Bullets" rarely get us to where we want to go.
Hard, smart work is what takes us further. Life in general is not a bed of roses. It would be nice to think of that long lost rich uncle that will someday leave us a fortune, or that lottery ticket that will someday win, but nothing beats hard, smart work. I work hard. My buddy and Co-Founder of the Real Estate Toolbox University Brian Rodgers works hard. I cannot tell you the countless calls we make to each other every day, sometimes going into the late hours of night to bring you relevant information that will bring value to your business. We don’t sit on our butts doing nothing, and we don’t expect any less from you. We will continue to bring you the best information and insight to the real estate world, and your job is to utilize the wealth of knowledge. It is your decision………success in real estate and graduating with honors from the Real Estate Toolbox University, or "getting around to it later" in using this gift of marketing skills and flunking out. Flunking out means back to mediocre sales, or finding another career because you couldn’t make it in the business during hard times. Are you an eagle who soars to over 30,000 feet and is king of the air, soaring over the highest mountains, and when he gets hungry targets his kills, or are you a buzzard sitting in the trees living off the scraps of real estate roadkill? I, for one, believe you are here for a reason. I believe you are reading this because you are an eagle, or you want to be an eagle in training.
We have to realize that nothing worthwhile having is free or comes easily. If you do something half way, you don’t get halfway results……you get NO results. Real estate is hard…..life is hard. Hard, continuous, smart work will get you to where you want to go…..NO MAGIC BULLETS!
Now…….go over to your lessons at The Real Estate Toolbox University and study them…..make the lessons second nature…..apply what you learn. Make it a part of your business.
I BELIEVE IN YOU!
Brandon Patrick
Dean of Students
Real Estate Toolbox University
Real Estate Marketing Coach Brandon Patrick Wants to Know…Are You Loving Your Clients???
Friday, March 7th, 2008As we continue on our journey of relational marketing, I wonder how many of us are sitting down with our clients to review our relationships with them…..Hummmmm……. we actually have to go out and SEE our clients! You know…the people who put food on our table and in our kids’ mouths….the people who make our mortgage companies happy….the people who allow us to have the finer things in life! Yes, THOSE people. As in relationships with our spouses, siblings, parents, loved one’s etc., we need an annual if not bi-annual check IN PERSON to see how we are doing. The worst thing that can happen to our business is that we neglect our clients and another agent slips in and forms a relationship that is stronger than the one we have with our clients. It is ten times more cost effective to retain our clients than it is to continually be on the prowl for "new business"…the folks that have absolutely no relationship with us. Why is it that real estate agents spend 95% of their marketing dollar always trying to drum up new business when they have people that already love them that want to do business with them? It does not make much sense. I personally believe that we should be spending no less than 80% of our marketing budget on people we have already have relationships with. It just makes sense.
"Brandon…..I agree with you…..I have neglected my clients", you say. "Where do I go from here????"
OK, young Jedi Knight, here is the gameplan……
1. Call you clients and see when a good time would be at their convenience.
2. Coffee or lunch is the best. Starbucks, McDonalds, etc. It doesn’t have to be expensive.
3. Ask your client what your weaknesses or imperfections are and get deep into problem areas. Don’t be afraid to take the chance. Problems solved are clients for life!!! If you don’t ask what you can do to be better, you will never know.
4. When you get feedback, write it down. Look at implementing the ideas and feedback you are given.
5. Find out about different parts of your clients lives. You will be suprised at how business just falls into your lap if you just ask them about themselves or those around them.
6. Remind your clients of services you do. Unless you tell them certain niches they cover, they may forget!
7. Enjoy time with your client-friend! This is, after all, about the relationship.
Happy Selling!
Brandon Patrick
Dean of Students
Real Estate Toolbox University
