Great Realtor Marketing Tools, Finally!

There 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

Tagged as: branding, marketing, real estate marketing