Archive

Archive for November, 2009

Great Realtor Marketing Tools, Finally!

November 25th, 2009

3652495533_e8c4d1c3891There has never been a better time to be a Realtor. *You may be mumbling to yourself*, “you’re crazy, what about the 1990’s?” My rebuttal – bar none, you have the best Realtor marketing tools than ever before. Let me explain.

We’ll look at these Realtor marketing tools from a couple of different perspectives; incentives and technological.

A couple of weeks ago Congress extended the first time (and now repeat) home buyers tax credit and expanded the income limits as well. Michael Dimella of Charlesgate Realty Group wrote a good summary of how the new tax credit differs from the old version here.

Yes it’s true the market has been rocky lately, but these incentives combined with low interest rates and reasonable home prices surely gives a nice boon to our industry.

Next, let’s turn to some Realtor marketing tools using readily available technology that are ‘must haves’ for any real estate professional.

Name Mentions and Branding Alerts – People are talking about you whether you choose to listen or not. Are you burying your head in the sand unable to hear when your name (or company) is mentioned on the internet? A simple way to keep track is by signing up for Google alerts. You can choose to be notified via email or (for the more technically savvy, through your RSS feed).

Social Media - As you probably know by now, social media is starting to grow up and is definitely one of the Realtor marketing tools that will help you expand your market reach. Facebook is no longer about ‘who kissed who behind the bleachers’ and Twitter is not just for sharing what you had for lunch (ok, there are still some folks who have a need to share their unsolicited dietary habits with us) but we can ‘unfollow’ them and make contact with people who are of genuine interest to us. “The world is shifting to a more transparent form of business” as Johnathan Rivera describes in his article on why Realtors should use social media.

Branding Email Signature – Don’t miss a simple branding opportunity in your emails by not having your logo AND the various ways to connect with you. If you use If you use Gmail, Hotmail, Yahoo Mail!, or AOL Mail, there is an awesome Firefox plugin named Wisestamp which makes it super easy for people to connect with you using the mode of communication most comfortable for them. Think about it. Maybe they prefer to communicate through Linkedin, Twitter, or Facebook? If you’re afraid to ask because it’s something you’re not familiar with, just know that you may be isolating yourself from a huge potential market. Proficiency in this new way of communicating will serve you well.

What do you think? Is it necessary to be ‘plugged in’ to this new technology or are there plenty of clients out there who want nothing to do with this stuff? Let us know in the comments.

Photo Credit: Ivan Walsh

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Showing Suite Software Upgrade – 3.6

November 16th, 2009

Showing Suite has rolled out a new set of system upgrades for subscribers to enjoy at no additional charge.

Wondering what’s included in the most recent Showing Suite upgrade? Here’s a breakdown of what we added:

Layout / Design Changes

We’ve shortened some of the names on the top navigation tabs to make way for the new surveys feature that was added. The HomeFeedback tab is now just ‘Feedback’, Showing Calendar tab is now ‘Calendar’, and so forth.

The feedback settings page has also been cleaned up. We’ve rearranged some of the check-box setting items and moved the Showing Sync Settings into its own section on the page.

If you wander over to the Showing Sync setup page you will also notice that we’ve spruced up the design and made things more clear for users.

Account Dashboard

Alerts will now show on the dashboard when showings have been imported via Showing Sync. This will provide a high-level view as to how many showings have been imported into your Showing Suite account.

Note: Supra lockbox users will continue to be notified of new showings via the Showing Sync desktop application.

HomeFeedback

Having problems thinking of questions to ask showing agents after they’ve shown one of your properties? We have added a question pool to make it easier for you to build your showing feedback questionnaires. There are hundreds of pre-made questions to choose from.

When editing a question template you can now select to “Add a Question from Question Pool” and choose from the questions we have pre-loaded into the system.

Showing Sync

If a showing is imported but there is no email address on file for the showing agent, the system will create a manual feedback request for that particular showing and notify you of the reason it is being sent.

SentriLock users can now control listing lockbox assignments from inside their Showing Suite account. If you use SentriLock lockboxes and have set Showing Sync up in your account then an “Assign Lockboxes” link will show in your submenu to allow you to change the lockbox assignments.

Listing Sync

Have rental properties you want to get feedback on? Listing Sync was recently updated to pull not only listings for sale, but rental listings as well. Setup Listing Sync on your account and have all of your rental listings come in along with your listings for sale.

Showing Calendar

A lot of users were requesting that the showing appointment interval be changed to 30-minutes so we’ve gone ahead and changed it in the system.

Are you a current subscriber and want to see a new feature added in Showing Suite? Tell us!

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