With over 85% of all Home Buyers accessing the Internet for their Home searches, the responsibility falls on us as Listing Agents to generate the greatest amount of meaningful exposure for our Seller's properties. Additionally, many markets across the country have a significant amount of competing inventory which demands that your marketing materials offer a quality presentation that effectively sets your listings apart from all the rest.
Fortunately, there are an abundance of excellent on-line tools available for just such challenges! Allow me to share some of the better tools that I've found:
Launched in October 2006, San Francisco based vFlyer.com was one of the first virtual flyer tools that I implemented in my business. Shortly after signing up for their service, one of the company founders, Oliver Muoto, called me personally to welcome me and answer any questions I had.
vflyer offers a very basic Personal Plan for FREE that allows you to create up to 2 listings. You can choose from up to 14 theme templates, including several that are 'brand' specific to national real estate companies. You can upload up to 9 photos in your gallery. To provide this free service, some Google Ads are placed within the flyer.
vflyer publishes your flyer to 15 high traffic real estate listing domains, including Trulia and Zillow.
There are 4 additional plans that range in price from $155 to $959 annually and allows you to create/manage up 125 flyers. They also offer a great vflyer Wiki and FREE webinars to explain all the various features and how to use them.
vflyer offers a feature that allows you to print or email your flyers. They also provide an 'Activity' feature which enables you to monitor the amount traffic your flyer is generating as well as the source of that traffic.
To see an example of a vflyer.com virtual flyer, click HERE.
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Postlets is another viable tool that has gained a lot of popularity among real estate agents.
Unlike vflyer, Postlets basic FREE service allows you to create as many flyers as you want, without any charges. However, there are some limitations in the number of available theme templates (10) and the number of photos you can download (6). The virtual flyers you create with the basic service also contain advertising in the sidebar.
Postlets allows you to monitor and track your traffic using Google Analytics. However, page views for the HTML or Mini widgets placed on other sites (e.g. craigslist or ActiveRain) are not tracked.
If you want to upgrade to Postlets Pro, it can cost as much as $10 per listing, but you get 10 more theme templates and the ability to upload a total of 18 photos.
Additionally, Postlets Pro effectively creates a Single Property Website that utilizes a multi-page layout, larger photo viewing size, an embedded slideshow viewer, and removes all advertising.
To see an example of a Postlets.com virtual flyer, click HERE.
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To me, selecting RealStateShows as a vital part of your marketing arsenal is a no-brainer, even though it is only available through an annual subscription of $125. The yearly investment is money well spent for all the features and benefits you will receive. A 14-day FREE trial period allows the opportunity for you to put the tool through its paces and evaluate its capabilities.
There are a number of options for what you can do with your show once its finished. You can publish your Show to Realtor.com, Homes.com, or add it to the virtual tour link on your local MLS. You can create a Show Flyer and send it to any or all of their distribution partners, or use the HTML code provided and post to Craigslist, ActiveRain. You can also create a mini-show widget and embed the code directly to your blog or website. And, you can download any show to your hard drive to make a CD.
RealEstateShows not only provides a very comprehensive tracking report for each listing, but they'll email the report to you each week so you can simply forward it onto your Sellers.
To see an example of an embedded RealEstateShows.com virtual slide show, go HERE.
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Since both vflyer and Postlets offer FREE base memberships, I would suggest that you simply try them both out. Use them to market your next two listings and compare the tracking results.
Both vflyer and Postlets publish your flyers to many of the same domains (approx. 15). RealEstateShows currently allows you to publish your flyer to 9 domains.
These tools are designed to make your job easier and provide enhanced exposure for your client's homes. Incorporating their use in your marketing efforts will enable both you and your listings to stand out from the crowd, and achieve greater results.
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Rich Jacobson is a licensed real estate professional providing knowledgeable empowerment and relentless representation for his clients of residential properties and vacant land throughout all of Kitsap County WA and portions of Pierce, Mason, and Jefferson Counties. You can also find him at KitsapLife.com, SOUNDBITEBLOG, Everyday CK, and Crabbing in the Hood, or you can e-mail him: kitsapagent@gmail.com
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