Ubertor Real Estate Blog

I stopped by a community event in Kerrisdale today. For those that don’t know, Kerrisdale is an affluent area within Vancouver that is hard to find a livable home under 1 million dollars (CDN or USD). My big question is - where are the Realtors?

With a few thousand people on a single street, all within walking distance home owners or potential home owners - you would think Realtors would be all over the place. Instead, there were Kerrisdale businesses and charities on the street showcasing their brands and products. Why are there no Realtors visible? Where are the real estate companies? I thought about this during my visit to Kerrisdale, so I took my dog and wondered around as I thought maybe I had not seen them yet…..

I did see Daniel Lavery’s baseball team - which was great. He is a sponsor of a little league team in Kerrisdale and his team was in the Kerrisdale Day Parade holding his sign. Great Work!

A few Sutton balloons were seen, but I did not see where they were handing them out.

In my opinion, this is an excellent venue for real estate involvement. Where are the real estate companies? Why do you not have a big tent? a ride for kids? a visible presence?

Here are a few pictures from the event:

h/t - Joel

Greg has some interesting offline promotion techniques for promoting your new listings:

“We print business card-sized promotional pieces to advertise our open houses. These are distributed to every house in the neighborhood, since the neighbors may know someone who wants to live nearby.

During the school day, there will be more than 100 cars in the school parking lot, most of them driven there from out of the neighborhood. Some of those folks are sick of commuting.

Most local retailers will have some kind of bulletin board. Your cards belong there.”

continue…

Seth Godin recorded a podcast with a few big name authors the other day. Definitely worth the time to listen. Along with Seth is Chris Anderson the author of The Long Tail, Tim Ferris the author of the Four Hour Work Week and John Jantsch.

(click on the play button to listen - no software needed to hear podcast)
boomp3.com

Our pal Shane Gibson has posted some sales help videos on his sales blog (http://www.salesacademy.ca) Check them out. Shane has lots of interesting things to say and many helpful tips for those who want a hand in the sales world. Shane has also been a speaker at our Vancouver Real Estate Technology Meetup.

Remarkable marketing guru Seth Godin writes about Business card mistakes. One of the common mistakes he points out is how real estate agents business cards typically look alike. He says “don’t buy those color business cards with your face on them. You’re not an ordinary real estate agent, so there’s no sense in acting like one.”
(read his article to see the rest of his common mistakes)

The Globe and Mail ran a story on the changing real estate market and it’s effect on newspaper advertising.

“It’s bad enough that a cratering housing market is leading to a slump in real estate advertising at newspapers, as a dreary series of earnings reports showed last week.

What’s worse is that a lot of that advertising may never come back to newspapers even if the real estate sector recovers. That’s because a significant chunk of those advertising dollars are moving — you guessed, online.”

(complete article)

Are you still advertising in print? do you do any web marketing?

Whatever it is that you do… you should be tracking it. You should be able to know how much your online and print marketing is effecting your business. Do you know? This and this might help.

(hat tip - Rob Lewis)

I saw a post in the 37signals blog the other day about the 2008 Presidential Campaigns. Apparently all presidential candidate logos must use red, white, and blue. Sounds good right? Well, not if everyone is doing the same thing. Check out the logos for 2008… any of them stick out? (image care of 37signals via 4president.org)

Now think about your real estate business - Does your advertising look like your colleagues? How about your business card, does it look like your colleagues? If the answer is yes - time for a change.

I get flyers from real estate agents in the mail every day. Almost all of them are the same old look and feel.
Why not do something different?

The other day a Realtor put a flyer under my door to my condo. I heard it come through so I walked over and picked it up. Now, the flyer looked the same as any other but the delivery method got my attention and made me look at it. Initially I thought it was a good idea to gain access to a building and push flyers under every door, but then I wondered, what happened if the pizza guy did that? Chinese food delivery guy? etc.

Stand out from the crowd… it is worth it. Here are a few thoughts:
- why not hand out coffee/business card to drivers leaving their condo’s garage in the morning?
- when it snows, hire a few guys to run around and shovel your clients walk ways - be sure to leave a note saying it was done by you

Saw an interesting promotion being run by M&M’s today and thought it could be applied quite nicely to the real estate industry. It seems that most real estate professionals do similar marketing to their clients and potential clients - why not try something different?
- give a little bag of custom M&M’s to every person that walks into your open house
- send them to everyone who has bought or sold though you in the last year

Check them out - it might work for you. - http://www.mymms.com/shopnow3

Jordan Behan the President of TellTenFriends.com posted a list of tasks you can do to create some buzz marketing around your business. He has even promised to complete the list personally for his business. Here is the list from Jordan’s site (via Ron McDaniel):

1. Email an Old Friend or Acquaintance
2. Contact a Stale Connection
3. Email Extended Family
4. Call Someone You Have Never Talked To
5. Congratulations Call or Note
6. Send a Surprise Letter
7. Any Day Card
8. Mail a News Clipping
9. Social Networking
10. Online Directory
11. Squidoo Expert Lens
12. Tag Your Website or Blog
13. Blog/Message Board Comment
14. Join/Participate in an Online Group
15. Talk to a New Person in Person
16. Contact a Reporter or Writer
17. Contact an Old Employer/Employee
18. Customer Follow-up
19. Call/Email a Person You Respect
20. Mini Announcements
21. Digg Your Site
22. Flickr Fun
23. Personal Success Email List
24. Did You Know? - Trivia
25. Instant Messaging
26. Text Messaging
27. Email a Useful Link to Someone
28. Testimonials
29. Celebrate Success
30. Write a Blog
31. Have a “Get To Know You” Meal
32. Host a Dinner Party
33. Arrange a Networking Lunch
34. Publish an Article
35. Meet More Neighbors
36. Send a Press Release
37. Give a Speech
38. Volunteer
39. Online Interview/Podcast
40. Conduct a Survey
41. Local Government Involvement
42. Open House
43. Interview a Leader
44. YouTube.com
45. Meet Business Neighbors
46. eNewsletter or Newsletter
47. Produce an eBook
48. Nominate an Organization
49. Challenge a Coworker to a Buzz-Off
50. Podcast Show
51. Host a Seminar or Training Session
52. Unexpected Booth
53. Organize a Group
54. Become a Board Member
55. Conduct a Focus Group/Roundtable
56. Conduct a Customer Contest
57. Organize a Charitable Event

For more information feel free to contact Jordan directly as I’m sure he would be pleased to speak with you about buzz marketing and how you can take it to the next level for your business.

Jordan Behan
778-840-TELL(8355)
jordan[at]telltenfriends.com
www.telltenfriends.com