[Note: To follow is an excerpt of an interview with Michael Minervini, founder of Multi-Family Specialist
Archive
Tag: trainingThe real estate sales business, like all other businesses in the world, is in a techno-revolution. The new technology in the world has created tremendous changes and growth in our industry. Agents and companies are dramatically changing the way they do business to take advantage of this vast new frontier. And technology is moving at a faster rate everyday. As an Agent, you must prepare and learn to capitalize on this revolution.
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Techno-Selling
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Mathew was frustrated.
Go here to see the original:
How to Plan Ahead To Recruit and Train Future Association Board Members
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Most of the learning we do in life is from observed behavior. This observed behavior happens in all environments from work to home. A few months ago, my wife, Joan, came to me because of observed behavior that Wesley, my five-year-old son, picked up. Joan was driving home from errands with Wesley in the car. She was following slow moving cars in front of her, and Wesley asked her why she was going so slow. Joan told him she couldn’t go any faster because there was a car in from of her. Wesley asked her, “Why don’t you just honk the horn; that’s what Daddy does.” I was busted! In Wesley’s mind, due to observation, he learned that a slow moving car means you should honk the horn.
Originally posted here:
Accomplish Team Training: Monkey See, Monkey Do
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So HD video might not be in your gameplan yet (see The Power of HD Video) – but video surely is coming.
I’ve been talking to Realtors and Brokers all over the country this year who are using video successfully in meeting and servicing buyers’ need and helping sellers market their homes (see Century 21 Puts Open Houses in Youtube).
And it seems large brokers are catching on and building video into their marketing plans too; just this week I saw a press release that East Coast brokerage Weichert, Realtors had announced a deal with Turnhere to add online video home tours to their website.
I wanted to probe a little deeper so I asked Morgan Brown, fellow Blogger and newly minted Marketing Director at Turnhere to answer a few questions about video.
How can real estate professionals use video in their marketing?
With such a large percentage of home owners starting their search for property online, using video in online listings is the first thing that comes to mind. Pictures are nice and descriptions are helpful, but there is no substitute to video for giving a user a firsthand experience of the property with a well-done video home tour. In addition to using video to highlight listings it can also be used to showcase neighborhood attributes and provide a profile of your business and team.
For example if you are a Realtor in the East Bay of California you can use video to highlight the quaint neighborhood of Rockridge and its beloved walking streets lined with local restaurants and shops. This content is ‘evergreen’ and helps people evaluating your listings get a true sense of the surrounding area.
Is appropriate for every listing?
I can’t think of a listing where it isn’t appropriate. Even properties that don’t have the most curb appeal can benefit from a video by capturing the attention of just the right buyer. Listings that are moving fast already and perhaps properties that rely less on online research for sales are exceptions to that statement.
Videos too expensive for most Realtors, right?
Professional video production is totally affordable for nearly all marketing budgets. Compared to traditional marketing channels it’s a bargain. It’s much cheaper than print materials, flyers, radio, TV, outdoor (bench and billboard) and other marketing vehicles.
What makes a good web video?
I think there is a big misconception out there that it is easy to make a good video. The fact is making good video that is compelling, authentic and relevant to the viewer is difficult. To wit, of the millions of videos watched on YouTube each day the average view time is less than 10 seconds. This is a direct result of most video not meeting the needs of the viewer.
When the viewer gives you permission to talk to them by clicking play you have to deliver, and deliver right away. To make good video for the Web (which is much different than traditional broadcast video advertising i.e. a :30 second TV spot) it needs to focus on three key things: authenticity, delivering a compelling message, production quality which makes it enjoyable to watch and drives action.
Bottom line is that web viewers have near-infinite choice for their attention and are typically skeptical. This means that your message has to be compelling, relevant and real. Over-produced sales pitches or videos that don’t meet the viewer needs are big turn-offs online.
What are some ways you can leverage the video content you create?
The nice part about video is that it’s a highly portable piece of content so you should look to get it out on the Web to get as many eyeballs to it as possible. Using a smart distribution strategy can put you in front of the right people at the right time. Whether it’s putting your video up on YouTube, Facebook, Active Rain or making it shareable via email and embeddable in a widget the idea is to get your video out there to where the viewers are.
Can you give us some examples of some of your favorite videos on the web? (Not those kind of videos…)
My favorite videos are ones that are compelling and interesting. They take a piece of everyday life and show it to you in a different way. I love to see the stuff that you don’t get every day in mainstream media. Show me the true character of a city by doing a tour of all the BBQ joints in town or show me the kitchen of the hotel that cranks out 1,000 four-star meals a day. Give me a clip of the author talking about why they wrote their new book. One of my favorite videos is the author David McCollough talking about how Washington escaped from the Red Coats at the site of the Brooklyn bridge – amazing insight that I would never get. I also love the videos of Mentos and Diet Coke so it goes both ways. Videos that give me a unique, authentic perspective on life are the ones that I love.
(Full Disclosure: Turnhere is owned by Inman News Publisher Bradley Inman)
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See the original post here:
Using Video in Your Real Estate Marketing
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photo by Atilla1000
Recently I picked up a new digital camera for an upcoming trip my wife and I are taking to Turkey. After humming and hawing for a while I picked up the new Panasonic Lumix TZ-5 point and shoot (thanks Jeff) to compliment my Canon DSLR. What ultimately pushed me over the top to buy this camera was the TZ-5’s video capability – it’s the only pocket-size camera on the market that shoots HD (720p) video.
We’re heading to Istanbul to visit my younger sister who’s getting married and along with all our other gear we’re carting along a Canon VIXIA HF100 for her to surprise her husband-to-be (shhh.. don’t tell Turkish Customs). It’s a beautiful camera and I have a serious case of gadget lust.
So what’s the point?
HD is here. Tools like the TZ-5 and HF100 make it cheaper and easier to produce your own HD video than ever before. And just like every technology that’s come before it – it’ll only get cheaper and easier.
The rest of the Web is catching on too. Video host Vimeo now lets you host and stream any HD videos you create.
Drama in the sky – Time Lapse from Paul Klinger on Vimeo.
For real estate marketing – HD lets you show a property in vivid detail that a grainy low-rez Youtube video could never deliver.
And vendors like HDPremier can now create a property tour in HD for you and the results are pretty impressive (and suprisingly affordable).
Sure – there are drawbacks to HD. Namely much larger file sizes mean much higher bandwidth costs when streaming. But again. This is only going to get easier and cheaper over time.
So if you’re considering bringing video to your marketing – HD might be the route to go. Whether you’re climbing over the ruins at Ephesus or doing a walkthru of a home in Portland, the results will blow you away.
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- YouTube Gives You Stats on Your Videos
- Producing a Kick Ass Neighborhood Profile Video
- Extate Launches Video Tours
- Behind the Scenes On a Video Shoot
- Thanks To The FOREM Readers
Excerpt from:
The Power of HD Video
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It used to be if you wanted to build your own ads online you were stuck writing boring text ads like Google AdWords or Zillow EZ ads.
Not any longer. AdReady is a self-service platform for marketers that’s aiming to change that. It lets you build out a targeted banner campaign in literally just a few minutes and a few clicks.
Basically it’s bringing Google Adwords-level simplicity to banner advertising.
Using AdReady you start an ad campaign for your business using a library of ready-made creative, which includes a number of pre-existing ads in the real estate category. You can choose your base design based on the most successful CTRs (click through rates) or simply pick whichever design catches your fancy.
The site lets you customize the basic design; change background colors, modify text and upload new photos through a slick Flash interface. When you’re done customizing it applies your changes to a series of IAB standard banner ads.
Just like with Google Adwords, you’re then ready to customize your media buy by choosing the length of the campaign and pegging a dollar figure on how much you’re willing to spend.
When you’re ready to publish, AdReady places your ad on a number of sites through its relationships with third-party ad networks. While you don’t get to choose the exact sites you want to appear on, you can geo-target your ad to a particular area and/or pick certain categories of publishers on which you’d like it to appear.
AdReady just announced a deal to bring the service to the New York Times and it’s not too much of a stretch to see that more publishers will go down a similar route self-service to add new options to small advertisers (and presumably, offload some of their excess banner inventory).
The downside of course, is that your ads will be fairly generic. But nevertheless, it’s interesting to think how you could use AdReady’s platform to create a flexible advertising campaign really quickly and inexpensive. You could advertise your blog, your business and even your listings.
This is definitely a growing trend I’m seeing. Online tools like AdReady, widget builders like Sprout (see Sprout Lets You Build Single Property Widgets) and video tools like Spotmixer (see Video Advertising to Dominate Online Ads) all give you loads of room to get creative, on the cheap.
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- Foreclosures, foreclosures, foreclosures
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View original here:
AdReady Lets You Get Creative with Your Ads
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Two years ago, when Zillow launched, it was a thrill to pull up your neighbors’ (or boss’) house on the site and see how much their house was worth.
It’s still insightful, it just might not be so much fun anymore (see NAR lowers 2008 price forecast).
And while there are still complaints over the accuracy of Zillow’s estimates — the company itself refers to them only as “starting points” — the Zestimates are still arguably the most compelling feature on the site.
In the same way that Zillow brought transparency to home values, Fundrace is bringing it to campaign donations in this election year. The site (which first launched in 2004) has now been swallowed up by mega-news site The Huffington Post.
On Fundrace, you can search by city or zip code and see the results mapped onto a Google Map. You can see to whom and how much your neighbors have been contributing to political campaigns.
Frankly, it’s a little creepy, but I guess it’s all public information.
You can also search by company to see how their employees break out. So, of course, I had to start looking at the real estate category…
Like Zillow.
What else did I find? It seems are real estate agents are overwhelmingly pro-Democrat.
$291,388 from 305 people to Republicans
$499,047 from 522 people to Democrats
How about NAR?
$750 from 2 people to Republicans
$6,850 from 8 people to Democrats
And the big brands?
$0 to Republicans
$521 from 2 people to Democrats
Coldwell Banker Campaign Donors
$131,672 from 138 people to Republicans
$294,329 from 302 people to Democrats
Keller/Williams Campaign Donors
$11,101 from 12 people to Republicans
$24,523 from 30 people to Democrats
$5,156 from 14 people to Republicans
$26,348 from 41 people to Democrats
$40,475 from 32 people to Republicans
$29,503 from 39 people to Democrats
It gets more interesting the deeper you dig – but I think I’m just going to stop right now.
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- 2008 Real Estate Trends Released
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Real Estate 2.0 and Election 2008
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Haven’t we heard this story before? (see Real Estate Search Stores – Coming Soon?)
Walmart has quietly launched a new classifieds portal on their web site Walmart.com (see Walmart Launches Classified Listings).
The service is powered by Oodle and has a dedicated real estate section.
I have to say it felt a little weird searching for houses on Walmart’s site – but I’m not a regular Walmart shopper. And I had quite a few problems accessing the site too which dampened the experience.
But I think the greater trend we’re seeing here is that map-based real estate search is fast becoming ubiquitous.
Oodle’s platform and competitors like Vast which power these initiatives are easily deployed on just about any site and I suspect we’ll start to see even more online retailers leap on this band wagon too.
The challenge here is how do the dedicated real estate search portals compete with these retail giants?
Pretty paltry traffic in comparison.
And I wonder do people really care where they start a real estate search online? Is searching at Walmart.com any different from Zillow.com? Do people know that they aren’t seeing all the listings? Do they care?
These are some of the questions I’m wrestling with.
One upside is that it’s almost impossible to find the classifieds link on Walmart’s home page. So they certainly aren’t doing all they can to drive traffic there – no need to hit the panic button yet.
But like I said, I think this is a growing trend. Perhaps Trulia has recognized this and realized that building a single destination is a long, expensive process. Perhaps why they’ve built the Trulia Publisher Platform to enable them to power these kinds of partnerships.
So how ultimately can the real estate destinations compete?
It’s no longer about just getting the listings – listings are everywhere. It’s going to come down to context and content and providing a great experience. Something these white-labeled retailer sites can’t deliver.
On the flip side – agents you just got a bunch more destinations to advertise your listings. And I guess that’s a good thing.
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Originally posted here:
Advertise Your Listings at Wal Mart
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Over the last few months we’ve seen some small splashes in mobile real estate search (see Trulia Launches iPhone Version or Terabitz Creates MLS iPhone Site).
I think the rock is going to drop very soon.
We’re only 4 days from the (much anticipated) launch of the new iPhone – but more importantly of the iPhone Apps storefront.
What does that mean for real estate?
When Apple first announced it was opening up the iPhone platform to native applications, I speculated we’d start to see new software that would run on the mobile platform (see Apple Releases SDK Kit for iPhone) and now we’re starting to see the first few trickle out. Over the coming weeks/months I expect this trickle may turn into a flood.
Here’s an app by CodeMorphic. It’s conceptual (i.e. pulls no real data) but the demo very slick – a brokerage wanting to make the leap into mobile or local MLS looking to offer new tools to consumers could easily rebrand this software.
Real estate search is inherently a mobile activity and the iPhone (which is more pocket computer than cell phone) coupled with advanced software like CodeMorphic’s AppFindr, is the perfect launching pad to start, conduct, modify a house hunt.
4 more days and we’ll start seeing more of this. Can’t wait.
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First Real Estate Apps for iPhone Start to Leak Out
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When Trulia launched its new ad network (see Trulia Launches First Online Real Estate Ad Network) it was an attempt to leverage their network of advertisers while providing a way for third party publishers to showcase their advertising inventory to larger brand advertisers.
It’s a proven business model that works well across the Net, as evidenced by the success of networks like Glam Media and Federated Media and niche networks like the Deck.
And to give credit where credit is due, it’s also a concept in the real estate space that blogger (and occasional FOREM contributor) Erik Hersman first brought up in his post on Realty Thoughts over a year ago (see The Need for a Real Estate Specific Ad Network).
(BTW – Erik walks the walk too and just built a fantastic ad network for the automotive vertical for Piston Media Group.)
So while Trulia’s network may have been the first, surely it wouldn’t be the last…
Yup, sho nuff.
Competitor Cyberhomes just announced they’ve partnered with ad-network provider Adify to launch a competing ad platform that they are calling their Real Estate Vertical Advertising Network.
How many ad networks is too many? At the recent EconAds seminar the question was asked “Is it a good time to start an Ad Network?” The answer:
Now’s as good a time as any to start an ad network business, several panelists said. It’s like starting an Italian restaurant in New York. The good ones will thrive.
So whose business will last? Trulia or Cyberhomes? I suppose it depends on the depth of the advertising relationships both sites maintain and to what degree they are successful in getting publishers to sign up.
There’s no question there is a glut of unsold advertising inventory available these days with so many ad-supported web sites having been launched over the last couple of years. We’re also seeing dollars being shifted into web based advertising like never before So the one that’s able to marry those two needs might very well have a great business on their hands.
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Excerpted from:
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photo credit: woodleywonderworks
Since Zillow launched its Zillow Mortgage Marketplace it has received over 28,000 loan requests (see Zillow Mortgage Marketplace Borrowers Have Spoken). Pretty good showing for a service that is only a little over a month old.
But it seems like Zillow is not the only online player who’s eyeing this market as an opportunity… word from SearchEngineLand that Google UK has launched Google Merchant Search – a way for consumers to compare and shop for loans from various originators (see FAQ).
No word whether this service will make it to US shores and how Google may end up integrating the service into its search results, though I could see them implementing the service into a Google Search for mortgage loans – much like how they integrate property listings from Google Base into real estate searches (see Another Hint at Google Real Estate?).
If they did, it could be a real blow to the services provided by Zillow and LendingTree and others.
(h/t screenwerk.com)
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Read the original:
Google Getting in to Mortgages?
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SoundBiteBlog meme’d me – so here goes…
Question 1: Who is your favorite Musical Artist?
No question – Joe Strummer and the Clash.
Loud and fast with a social conscience.
’nuff said.
Question 2: Who is my favorite Artist?
I’ve always been partial to the work of Northwest Native artists like Roy Henry Vickers.
That said, we have a lot of photography hanging on the walls of our home, my favorites being some prints by my friend Bennett Ho.
Question 3: Who is My Favorite Blogger?
My favorite blogger right now is my wife Amy who started a new blog recently called Portland Acupuncture Blog – I’m really proud of the work she’s put into it and it’s growing really quickly.
Question 4: If you could meet anyone (dead or alive), who would it be and what is interesting about them?
I’d like to meet Portland Timbers keeper Ray Burse. I’d ask him how he could have let in that weak goal versus the White Caps last week.
Question 5: What did I want to be when I grew up?
A Sea Captain like Godolphin James Burslem.
A Con Man like Godolphin Finney Burslem.
An Adventurer like Rollo Gillespie Burslem.
Question 6: What is the most interesting piece of Trivia that I know?
Uhh… pass. Need to dig out that Trivial Pursuit game.
Question 7: If you could live in any point of history when would it be and why?
London – May 8, 1945. That would have been an epic party.
Question 8: What is the most interesting job you’ve every had?
Goliath crane operater… OK – so it was only for a few minutes. But it was way cool.
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See original here:
I Wanted to be a Con Man
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Estately.com has long been one of my favorite real estate search experiences on the web (see 10 Kick Ass Real Estate Search Sites). And today it just got much better (well, for me at least, anyway).
This morning they announced that they have expanded in to Oregon by adding over 35,000+ Portland single family homes and condos into their search results. Listings are being pulled from the RMLS™ Regional Multiple Listing Service.
A couple of things really set Estately apart from the competition and certainly any of the local broker sites. First, the neighborhood search tool is fantastic. Say you want to do a search for a home in one of Portland’s hot neighborhoods; Mississippi, Sellwood or the Pearl, for example. Estately plots the neighborhood boundaries on to its map and confines the search to those boundaries – making it really easy to streamline your search.
(One weird bug I found was that when I did a search in my neighborhood it kept telling me I lived in North Bend – Estately founder Galen Ward confirmed this was a known issue and that they were working hard to fix it).
The second new feature in Estately, and one I think Rose City residents are going to love, is a revamped ability to confine your search results their proximity to mass transit routes like the MAX Light Rail Service.
An example search:
I suspect this type of information, along with services like WalkScore (see Measuring Walkability with Walk Score), are increasingly going to be factors that people build in to their home searches (especially as more and more stare down $4+ gas)
Brokers, I’d follow Estately’s lead and start building this type of functionality into your web sites. It’s could be a great point of differentiation in your marketing vis a vis your local competition.
Portland-based Realtors, Estately offers you a way to connect with and offer your services to local home buyers and sellers through its Agent Match program. Estately screens and vets all Realtors in the program to ensure an excellent level of service but if you’re looking to Connect with tech-savvy and tech-sophicasted buyers – this may be an excellent way to do so.
The downside to the new site is that — apparently due to the RMLS rules — Estately is not able to display the addresses of the properties displayed on the map. Apparently, according to Ward, they are able to share those via email – so the site will heavily encourage you to send those listings you’re interested in either to yourself or a partner in order to see the street address. A kludgey workaround but forced on them by the arcane rules of the local MLS.
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- Estately Schools the Competition
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- What’s Next for Estately.com?
View post:
Estately Comes to Portland
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Very cool. Probably not legal. But I’ve been using it anyway.
Hit it on your iPhone. It’s super slick (coded using Safire). Just in time too… (see Apple Releases SDK Kit for iPhone).
I doubt this is an in-house project. If it’s not, I hope the Z-team hires this guy and finds a way to bring it to Seattle before they shut it down.
Alternatively they could rebuild it themselves – the code’s right here.
Update – Spoke too soon it seems. The URL now seems to be kind of flakey… switching between the original site and a iGoogle page. Could it be it’s caught in the crossfire of a DNS switch after a Zillow takedown order? (The Z-team responds in comments) In any case, I captured a screen cap anyway if it goes away for good.
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More here:
Zillow for iPhone
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Style My House
