Please come and help us celebrate! You can also participate by giving a door prize, or be an event sponsor! Event sponsorship is only $150 and you'll be marketing your business to the top real estate professionals of the Hemet-San Jacinto Valley!
We have ALL heard the statistics about how many buyers use the Internet during a home search and it's a lot of consumers. NAR's last study reported a little over 80%. So I get why Realtors are all "taking their ad dollars online". But what frustrates me and is mind boggling to me are all the Realtors who think that the internet is THE ONLY way to market themselves.
Hear me out, here's something to think about: Did you know our internet reaches over 2 Billion users globally? Today, consumers are spending more time on the Internet than watching Television. And nearly 80% of consumers now use the Internet at some stage in the home buying process. Did you also know about 80% of people use the Internet to research cars before purchasing? And did you know about 80% of people use the Internet to research an engagement ring before purchasing? And I bet for most EVERY major purchase 80% people use the Internet before purchasing ANYTHING. It's simply not that big of a deal that people are looking for homes online.
The Internet is a tremendous tool for researching things and that’s exactly what consumers are doing, researching. No one is going online to find a Realtor. In fact, only 3% of buyers and sellers go online to find a Realtor according to a N.A.R. study.
See, the thing is that opportunities to effectively brand yourself to the illusive internet shopper are typically few and far between, further defining the importance of a strong, consistent personal brand in your offline advertising.
As a Realtor, you are the CEO of your company. You Realtors need to get with it and realize advertising remains critical for business success. That’s why you see TV commercials for cars, hear radio spots for engagement rings and so on. Because the only reason any one will ever do business with you is because of your reputation and brand. There aren’t any marketing professionals or fortune 500 companies who buy the “internet only” strategy. Fact is, leading marketers and real estate experts ALL agree that the BEST strategy for Real Estate Agent today is an integrated advertising campaign (print and internet combined).
Want proof? Here are some FACTS:
1) Dan Gooder Richard, esteemed real estate marketing expert and author of Real Estate Rainmaker Guide to Online Marketing presents 20 rules for today’s practitioner. Rule #5 reads Old Rule: Online Advertising will Surpass Offline Advertising. New Rule: Integrated Offline and Online Promotion Wins Every Time
2) Speaker, trainer, author, and consultant Michael J. Russer, AKA Mr. Internet from Realtor.com says “a multi-channel approach in which agents and brokers blend traditional print advertising with all the new online opportunities can best maximize their return on investment”
3) Jay Conrad Levinson, the father of Guerrilla Marketing says “One of the key factors in marketing today is integration. Integrated marketing gives your campaign a life of its own.”
4) According to Consumer Reports the #1 advice to Home Sellers is...PICK THE RIGHT BROKER. Look for local agents who are listing, marketing, and selling in your community, even if the market is slow. Ask several of them to make a listing presentation to discuss your home's value, justify their numbers and explain how they would market your property"
5) According to a Study of US Recessions: Agents that aggressively marketed in a recession grew their sales AND profits by as much as 256% post recession over those that stopped advertising.
We provide our advertisers with integration of both Print and Online, the traditional and the technological, to reach across every consumer segment and to best maximize your return on investment. We know that utilizing an integrated strategy of print advertising, targeted direct mail and online marketing will make a profound impact on reaching a diverse demographic audience. It’s Everything working together that engages the largest group of prospects.
The Diamond Valley Arts Council is pleased to present Festival of the Arts – 2008. This signature arts event will kick-off with a black-tie-optional hors d’oeurves and wine reception on Friday evening, October 17th on the second floor of the Hemet Public Library. It will continue on Saturday and Sunday (October 18th and 19th) during the hours of 10:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. This year, the event will feature a juried exhibition of both visual and literary works in five categories; 2-dimensional art, 3-dimensional art, photography, poetry, and short stories. Participation in the exhibition is open to all ages. The festival will include live music, performances by local theatrical groups, demonstrations of various artistic expressions and techniques, as well as opportunity drawing prizes. Be sure to save the date and experience the arts. For questions regarding tickets call (951) 651-1964.
This is the next big GOLF event is coming up fast!!! Please take part & participate in Century 21 Now’s Easter Seals Charity Golf Tournament. The flyer is attached with all the information & you can email your foursomes to c21jackieb@aol.com if you are interested in playing. Feel free to forward to all your golf enthusiasts. We still need door prizes, tee and hole sponsors, goodie bag stuffers and of course GOLFERS!!!!
1. ________________________________________ 0 Place me in a foursome
2._______________________________________ 0 We have a foursome
0 I would like to donate a gift for raffle
3.________________________________________ 0 Unable to attend – would like to donate $ ______________
4.________________________________________ 0 I would like to sponsor a hole $100.00
There seems to be a great deal of confusion among Realtors® as to what is their job duties and responsibilities and subsequently how to accomplish it. Every week I hear something new from a Realtor® about a marketing medium that doesn’t work – soon there will be nothing left for them to complain about. Then they will have to look for other work, as many are now these days.
TV, radio, magazines, billboards, newspapers, flyers, internet etc., these are all tools to be used. A home seller hires a Realtor® to 1) market their home, 2) to tap into their market expertise and 3) to handle the entire transaction so they can go about their lives. All three things have to come together to close the sale.
Real estate agents who want to succeed in the business need to obtain listings and/or work with buyers. How they go about doing this is up to them. Some elect to sit in the office and wait until someone walks up to them and says work with me please. Others will visit the office a couple of times a week, take some floor time, and possibly go on a listing appointment or two. In either case, or similar variations, these agents are passively engaging in the business hoping to make a few dollars. Then there are those who actively engage in the business who want to make a living and need to figure out how to do it. They need to obtain more listings and be talking to more buyers than everyone else. The question is how do they do it?
They market themselves. TV, radio, magazines, billboards, newspapers, flyers, internet, etc. are the tools available to them. Home sellers don’t really care how Realtors® get the job done. Buyers don’t care what the annual sales production is of the agent as long as they are pleasant to work with and the transaction goes smoothly. So the real estate sales person needs to figure out how to promote him/herself so that they get the desired results. As we all know we respond to many different forms of media depending on our moods, timing, and our personal motivations. Not a single one of us respond to only form of media; so what makes a Realtor® think that people who are looking for real estate will (ie. the internet).
Here’s the problem I find and NAR reports show it to be true too: Real estate agents are not taught how to market themselves or their personal business. They really do not seem to understand the benefits of promoting themselves as a brand. They tend to jump on board with anything that is new, especially if it is inexpensive, because they do not have a plan. Look in any market; there are always a select few agents who are the leaders in the market. It isn’t because they have the most listings or sales (even though they do), it is because they promote themselves and their business. They Brand themselves as being the one with the most listings or the highest sales.
What realtors better figure out soon is that the internet has replaced the need for their local mls. (It has not replaced print advertising). Buyers and sellers now have the same information as they do. Read paragraph two again. The second thing that Realtors® bring to the table is market expertise. Now that buyers and sellers have access to the same information (sale histories, comparable reports, active properties, community information, etc) they could price their home themselves. If Realtors® are not going to market the homes anywhere other than the internet, home sellers will soon figure out that they can list their homes on the same websites we do. If the agents don’t have to spend any money, why would the home seller. That wipes out my first item of an agent’s responsibility, marketing the home.
How much is the home seller willing to pay to have someone walk a buyer through their house? Agents don’t sell houses; they get people to the houses. The house either sells itself or it doesn’t.
My prediction is that agents and companies who think they will take their businesses all online will soon be out of business. It will be a slow painful death, but they will die. In a couple of my markets I have companies with virtual offices (every agent works out of their homes) and companies that only do online marketing. I can hardly remember their names or the names of their offices. They are not the top producers, not even close. They do not have the largest inventory of listings. Why, because it doesn’t work to be exclusive to only one media source especially one that is so well hidden from plain site.
What needs to happen is simple: For agents to remain in the business they need to do what really works and find ways to personally talk to home sellers to list their homes, speak in person to buyers and talk about the buying process, hand out business cards, promote their business and get their face and name in front of as many people as economically possible – in short, actively engage in the people business and market themselves.
Danae Aballi
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