The air is crisper, the nights are cooler, and the leaves on the trees are changing colours. It must be fall. With any change of season, keep in mind, it is soon time to take new photos. Why? Soon enough the leaves will be gone, and the snow will fall, and your exterior photos will become dated. If you have a house on the market that has a beautiful exterior photo taken when the flowers were in full bloom, and there is now snow on the ground, the listing will look old before even reviewing the details. A fresh photo brings a fresh perspective, and keeps the listing looking current.
So get out there and update your photos!
Carolyn Budreski Marketing Specialist Rob Johnstone Real Estate Inc.
It seems these days, we all wear many different hats. Myself, I am Rob Johnstone's Marketing Specialist & Assistant, and on the side, I am a freelance photographer as well. Here are some tips on photographing homes, for all that might be interested.
1) Lighting Lighting Lighting! Make sure that there is plenty of light, both natural and artificial when possible. When there is only a single light source, photos can come out looking harsh and shadowy. To avoid this, use more than one source of light.
Caution - If you are using a "point & shoot" camera. When you push the button to take a picture, your camera meters the available light in the room, and fires the flash at a strength needed for that particular photo.
Lets say you are taking photos of a room and you want to show that it has a big window that lets in lots of light. Your first move might be to open the curtains, raise the blinds, and take a photo with the window being the main focus. Unfortunately, when you do this, your camera meters how much light is available by the light streaming in through the window. Your flash will not fire strongly enough to light the whole room, and you will end up with a photo of a blown-out (too bright) window, and everything else in the shot will be shadowy. Ironically, this will make the room feel dark. (Think of how a basement looks when light is streaming in through the window - shadowy and dark).
To show that a room is light and bright, you need even lighting. This doesn't mean close the blinds all the way. leave curtains or blinds in a neutral position, so that they let in light, but don't overpower the shot. Now, take a step back (or several steps back) and take a photo of the whole room. Buyers don't need a photo of a window to figure out if a room is light or not. If the whole room is evenly lit & bright, the subtle message will come through.
2) Remember, that a camera is often referred to as "the 1-eyed idiot". You want a potential buyer to get the feeling of being in the house from looking at a photo. When you step into a room, your eyes don't stay stationary. You look around. You need to provide this in a photo. How? step back, all the way back, into the corners of the room if you can. Shoot from all four corners if possible.
3) Don't make drunken photos. You would think it would be common sense, but if I had a dollar for every photo I have seen that was crooked, I would be very wealthy. Actually look at the photo that you are taking. If shooting from the corner, look at what is directly across from you in the center of the photo. Is is up and down or crooked? A common mistake is to look at a wall to your left or right, and try to match the photo "up and down" (90 degrees). That wall or vertical object will be a perfect 90 degrees, but I'm willing to bet that the rest of your photo won't be! Remember folks - the earth is round, the eye is round, and the lens is round.
Hopefully these couple of pointers will be usefull in making photos that help your homes sell even faster!
Carolyn Budreski Marketing Specialist to Rob Johnstone, Calgary Real Estate www.CalgaryHomePros.com
Just wondering if anyone here had any experience with Rob Tucker and his internet marketing coaching program? If you have, we would love to hear about your experience.
Thanks,
Carolyn Budreski Marketing Specialist for Rob Johnstone
In a previous life before coming to work for Rob, I worked for Ad Agencies, and on the Marketing and Sales side of Condo Projects. These past experiences taught me a LOT about what NOT to do when designing an advertisement.
Rule #1: Just because you are printing in Colour, doesn't mean you have to cover every square inch of paper in ink.
Yes, I know that it costs more to print in colour than it does to print in Grayscale. However, if you are adding colour just for the sake of adding colour "since you're paying for it anyway", you are making a big mistake. You want to use colours to draw attention to specific parts of your design. Using colour everywhere would be like bolding every single word in this post. Nothing would stand out, because you would be drawing extra attention to everything.
Rule #2: Yes, symmetry is nice, however, take a step back.
Not everything needs to be centered. In fact, many designers in ad agencies "eyeball" their work. Different colours can trick the eye into thinking sizes are off, so go with what looks right to you - which might not always be the same as what your ruler tells you.
Rule #3 Bold, Italic & Underline:
Taking a word and adding all three is NOT a design style. It shows that you are doing everything that the program you are using will let you do.
Rule #4: The More Fonts the Better? NO!
Using a variety of fonts on one web page is NOT a design style either. It is distracting, looks silly, and lacks consistency. The only exception to this rule is with logos.
Rule #5: Don't be a square
Another novice design mistake is to put everything in boxes or charts. Your audience is smarter than you might think - they don't need boxes around everything for their eye to understand where one design element ends, and the next begins.
A final Rule - What is your main focus?
Instead of trying to draw attention to every single element of your ad, you need balance. What do you want your audience's eyes to pick up first? Second? Not everything needs to be highlighted, bolded, and have blinking arrows next to it. When in doubt, ask yourself "what is the main focus"?
Have a look at competitors pieces, and other advertisements too. Chances are, you are drawn to ads that don't look anything like the ones you are in the habit of designing. (that is, if you have been breaking some of the rules mentioned above).
Carolyn Budreski Marketing Specialist Rob Johnstone Real Estate Inc. Re/Max Real Estate (Mountain View) Ltd Calgary, Alberta www.CalgaryHomePros.com
The Web Prospects software was presented to us recently, and after weighing the pros & cons, we have decided to switch over. We were previously using Agent Office as a means of contact management, and had been looking for a web-based solution.
We are currently in the process of working out all of the little quirks of the new software, but so far, it does seem to be intuitive. For example, because it is connected to MLS, we can look up one of our listings, and link it to the client who is listing it. We can also book showings online, which is especially useful when a Realtor is in a Team situation or has an assistant. (As we all know, realtors don't stop taking calls just because its after 5:00pm). When another realtor is showing one of your listings, you can book it using WP (Web Prospects), mark it confirmed, schedule a reminder to ask for feedback, etc. The software can automatically look up the contact information of the realtor who is showing and add it to your contacts, if you so desire.
Web Prospects also allows you to create action plans, so that you can schedule future activities by date, or by number of days after you initiate the plan. The only downside we have found with action plans is that the account with WP that Calgary Realtors get for free only allows you to have up to 10 action plans. If you work in a team, then each member has 10 action plans, which can be shared amongst the team.
One other drawback that we found with the software was that it was presented to us that to add a team member or assistant account wouldn't cost anything. This is true, only if the other member or assistant has their Real Estate license. Otherwise, you have to pay for the assistant's account.
We are still learning the ins and outs of the software as we integrate it, and would be interested in hearing viewpoints of others using it as well.
Carolyn Budreski Marketing Specialist BCOMM Marketing Management Rob Johnstone Real Estate Inc. Re/Max Real Estate (Mountain View) Ltd
Recently, we joined a pay-per-click website that has the premise of "looking smart". We loaded up one campaign, with the intention of marketing a website that was dedicated to a very specific niche market in Calgary.
We set our maximum cost per click to 30cents, and maximum daily spend to $10. After just over a month, hundreds of dollars have been charged.
How is it possible that this website generates more clicks than google? True, this website promoted us on a variety of its family of websites, however our traffic to the niche site that we were promoting did not increase. At all.
We have had very positive experiences with Yahoo, MSN, and Google in the past - We're wondering what the general consensus is. It has been said that there are only 2 search engines - Google, and then the others. Others will vouch for Google, Yahoo, and MSN.
Its starting to appear that these three search engines are essentially the only ones worth the time and money spent on their pay per click programs.
This post is not meant to directly bash or "flame" anyone or any organization in particular. [It is however, intended to generate discussion on past experiences.]
Just out of curiosity, does anyone here use a search engine other than Google, Yahoo, MSN, Ask, or Looksmart? I'm willing to bet that 99% of you use one of the search engines that I just mentioned. So this brings me to wonder, why do we feel so inclined to promote ourselves on so many different search engines, when we ourselves are loyal to a small select few? What makes us thing that the people that we are targeting with our online marketing are so different from us? Chances are, they use the same search engines that we do.
Here is some food for thought:
Why is it that the smaller PPC search engine sites give more prominence to their PPC programs than they do to the features of their search engine? It makes you wonder who the real "client" is. When the PPC is given more prominence than the search engine itself, it makes you wonder who they are targeting.
This brings me to my next point: Targeting. Any Marketing 101 Class should tell you that the most important thing in Advertising is reaching your Target Market. How exactly do these smaller PPC sites do that? It seems that they are targeting us, the advertisers, moreso than the audience we are trying to attract.
If you read the smaller print, you'll see that some of these smaller sites use affiliate marketing. This might sound ok at first - but that means you really have no control over where your ad appears. What if a member of hte affiliate program has a site that consists mainly of links? Did you know that your search engine rating actually goes down if you have links leading to your site from pages like this?
Just my two cents.......
Carolyn Budreski Marketing Specialist for Rob Johnstone Re/Max Real Estate Mountain View (Calgary AB)
If you're on this site, I don't have to tell you twice that blogging and networking sites have taken off. Most recently, MySpace and Facebook seem to be the most popular.
Has anyone heard of LinkedIn? For anyone who hasn't heard of it, it is similar to facebook, except its purpose is for networking with other professionals - and seems to be a good tool to source referrals. Has anyone here had any luck using this service? It seems useful, but we're curious if this has turned into good leads for anyone?
In Real Estate, we hear the term "drip email" thrown around a lot, however how many companies/programs actually offer this option? We recently went in search of a program that would take care of our drip emails for us, with the following features:
The ability to brand the emails going out with our own header,footer, photo etc.
The option to add someone to the drip, and they would start at email #1.
The option to schedule a specified number of days in between each email message.
The option to be notified when the drip campaign that a particular client is assigned to is about to expire.
The ability to have several different campaigns to assign clients & potential clients to.
We thought we had found a solution - however the program we found was more of a mass-mailer than an actual drip-email solution.
With the number of Realtors working in todays market, you would think that there would be a solution available for a non-exorbitant price!!
Rob Johnstone
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