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Realtor Marketing – Remax Logos

Tara Jacobsen — Thu, 18 Aug 2011 17:32:30 +0000

From a realtor marketing standpoint, the Remax International logo has a fun and varied history! I find it fascinating that a huge corporation like this has SO many different looks and feels to their branding.

John Jacobsen (my fabulous photographer husband) took this picture at a balloon show here in Erie, Colorado.

The history of the Remax balloon starts in 1978 when the first Remax hot air balloon flew at the the Hot Air Balloon Fiesta. This is when the corporate offices picked the balloon for the icon at Remax and to this day, a fleet of 120 Remax balloons are flying across North America. The advertising power of this iconic shape is listed on the Remax Balloon page:

The average RE/MAX Balloon makes 65 appearances a year, each event averaging more than an hour, for a fleet total of about 6,400 hours of advertising – equal to nearly nine months of 24-hour flying.

Remax Logos

Remax Balloon Logo – transparent png.

Remax Balloon Photo Logo – transparent png.

The Remax Logo – transparent png.

If you are looking for the official link to all different kinds of Remax Logos, check out the Remax Media Page. If you would like to find out more about realtor marketing logos, click the link to check out our posts!

How To Close 98.5% of Your Listing Appointments, Safeguard Your Commission and Sell Houses Faster

If you would like to find out how, please check out our FREE MLS Listing Guide & MP3

Realtor Marketing – FSBO or Expired YouTube Campaign

Tara Jacobsen — Mon, 27 Jun 2011 13:54:14 +0000

Realtor marketing has many different aspects and doing YouTube videos can seem overwhelming, but learning the ins and outs of doing basic, basic videos is SO worth your time! In this post we will talk about how to set up a FSBO YouTube Campaign!

Overview of a FSBO and Expired Marketing Campaign

When you are doing a FSBO and Expired marketing campaign, you are going to work the homeowner through a series of steps until they are dying to list their home with you because of all the great information that you have given them.

FSBO and Expired Marketing Campaign Step 1 – Go on the Preview appointment. For those of you who are just getting your feet wet with FSBOs, this means that you ask them to view their home to put into your database of potential properties for sale that are not currently listed with the MLS (either because they are For Sale By Owner or Expired). This meeting should not take more than about 15 minutes.
Drip on them until they list with you! – So, just two steps? That’s right! After you have the face-to-face meeting, you should be calling, emailing or popping by to see them every couple of days. The easiest way to get “face-to-face” is with a YouTube video, which leads us to:

FSBO or Expired YouTube Campaign

Deborah Ward, Keller Williams Clearwater Realtor, was kind enough to share her FSBO and Expired Follow Up Video Campaign with our Marketing Artfully University Realtor Marketing members, although we do have step one laid out for you here!

Follow Up Letter Number 1

Dear XXX,

Thank you for meeting with me to tour you home! Because we work with buyers also, it always good to know ALL the home available in the marketplace, not just the ones listed in the MLS.

One of the things in this market that makes a huge difference in how quickly you home sells is price, I KNOW, that is what everyone says! Unfortunately they say it because it is true and as we talked about, I am always going to tell you straight, not sugar coat it to make to you list with me!

One of the things that we offer during our listing presentation is a comprehensive CMA (Comparative Market Analysis) that will show you what homes are on the market competing WITH you and which homes BEAT you by being sold before yours. If you would like to make an “official” listing appointment, please give me a call and I will get you on calendar for next week!

Thanks so much, Deborah

Deborah Ward
727-216-9247

www.ComeToClearwater.com
Deborah@deborahward.com

Technical Bits Of Doing A FSBO or Expired YouTube Campaign

The first thing you want to do is make a follow up video series (Deborah has 4 messages that she sends out). You can use a Flip video camera or even your cell phone.
Upload your video to YouTube.
Set up your autoresponder program to send out your videos every two or three days! If you are using Top Producer, that will be an action plan, if you are using gmail, you are going to have to remember to send them BUT it is so worth your time!

I KNOW, it sounds too easy to be true, but that is it! If your email program allows HTML, you can embed the video, if not, put a link to it and you are done!

If you would like to know EXACTLY how to set up your FSBO or Expired YouTube Campaign with ALL of the videos and letters PLUS additional videos on how to make it work, check out our Realtor Marketing How To Videos on Marketing Artfully University!

Unfriending Your Real Estate Clients – Realtor Marketing

Tara Jacobsen — Fri, 25 Feb 2011 14:11:46 +0000

Realtor marketing question – should you be unfriending your real estate clients on Facebook? This week we got A LOT of questions asking about a post that one person had written, suggesting that if you have friends on Facebook you could be, scary music sounds go here, ruining your real estate career and putting your license at danger of being revoked.

First off, I hear a “sky is falling” thing EVERY day. Earlier this week was that Realtors should stop using Facebook as a lead generating tool, talk to people who they like, are a client or might be a client.

On Wednesday I got a frantic call from another client who said, “DID I KNOW THAT THERE WAS A FACEBOOK PHONEBOOK AND THAT EVERYONE’S NUMBER IS LIKE PUBLIC?!?!?!” I did know that and so what. If you are in business in general, your number is on your website, on your business cards, in your ads and generally available for, huh, people to call you. If you are a Realtor, your number is generally in eight inch high numbers on each of your yard signs.

So let’s address this new “calamity”. Per Facebook’s terms of service, “You will not post anyone’s identification documents or sensitive financial information on Facebook.” There. If you are a Realtor, do not post identification documents or sensitive financial information on Facebook. This will protect you from violating your terms of Facebook service.

Here is one person’s opinion that got everyone in an uproar:

For example, what are your obligations in terms of protecting your clients’ private information? Do you need a disclosure that says that if a client becomes your Facebook friend that Facebook may distribute their contact information including their cell phone number to third-party advertisers? Could you be sued for violating client confidentiality?

The bottom line here is that if you are doing a transaction with a Facebook friend, the smart move may be to unfriend your clients immediately. For friends who do become your clients, the moment you enter into an agency relationship, you may need to remove that relationship from Facebook as well.

If your clients ask about your decision, explain to them that you are concerned about protecting their privacy and that you will be communicating with them either through a transaction tracking platform, e-mail, phone or text messaging. http://lowes.inman.com/inmaninf/lowes/news/137520

BIG DISCLAIMER – you are a grown up, if you agree with this writer and want to unfriend all of your clients, do that. If you read my opinion below, you lose the ability to sue me for saying what I believe, should you do something stupid and lose your license.

So what does that mean to Realtor Marketing on Facebook. Nothing. If you are a normal agent, you have clients on your Facebook and you talk to them about your dog, the weather, showings you have done, listings that are neat, etc. THEY know that per the terms of service they should not post sensitive financial information on the Facebook and I am sure YOU know that you would not be putting their closing updates on their wall for the world to see. Additionally, THEY have posted whatever contact information that is relevant to them on THEIR page and you do not have any control over that.

Like everything else in life, this requires a little common sense. I would not post updates to their file on Facebook, I would send them an email or use a transaction software. If we are negotiating a contract I would not post it on Facebook, I would give them a call or send them a PDF.

I see things come through on Facebook every day. Yesterday one of our client’s client posted that he wanted an update on the showings on his house. Since the client instigated it online IN PUBLIC, the agent could have answered, but I wouldn’t do it there. I would say something like, “hey I will shoot you an email with an update” and get on with my day.

Facebook for realtor marketing is like everything else in life, have a little common sense and you will be fine!

Realtor Marketing | Real Estate Email Newsletters

Tara Jacobsen — Fri, 11 Feb 2011 14:16:25 +0000

Realtor marketing is a funny thing, especially real estate email newsletters. I get hundreds of email newsletters from agents every year and most of them are WAY off the mark as far as good marketing practices and just plain old sales techniques.

Today we are going to tear up Danielle Sharp’s email newsletter! She is a fabulous Cape Coral Short Sale Realtor, but not such a great email marketer (AND she has a thick skin so her feelings will not get hurt!)

Basically Danielle is doing everything wrong from her subject line, to content to delivery method and we are going to go over all that and make sure you know WHY they are all wrong and WHAT to do to make them better!

Real Estate Email Newsletter Subject Lines

As you can see from the picture, the subject line of the email was “newsletter”. Now that is factually correct, but doesn’t really give me a reason to open it other than that I like Danielle and am on her list. I have seen other subject lines such as “Monthly News From The Irish Realtor” or “Jason Lee’s Financial Newsletter”. Each month (or week) the same email subject line. Yawn.

What happens when you send the same email month after month, your readers get fatigue and stop being excited to read what you wrote. So what are some good email subject lines?

Check out these “SPOOKTACULAR” properties – Lori Crawford, Trinity Realtor, has a sense of humor and sends out the best real estate newsletter email subject lines. She reports that people email her back with funny comments and she has even had showings because people looked at her listings, imagine that!
Pinellas Home Prices Take A Nosedive, What is the market coming to? – we are going to talk later about market statistics BUT if you lived in that county, town or subdivision, wouldn’t you be interested in knowing what that is all about? You could add a “call me for a free CMA” to get even more out of the news!
Want to know how many homes sold in Denver last month?
3 Things You MUST Do Before Putting Your Home On The Market
Top 5 Things That Most Buyers Miss In A Home Inspection

You get the drift. All of these headlines are a REASON for me to want to open the real estate email newsletter BEYOND the fact that I like the agent. Using these kinds of teasers will increase your open rates and make doing that newsletter less boring because you know that people will be reading.

How To Close 98.5% of Your Listing Appointments, Safeguard Your Commission and Sell Houses Faster

There are key challenges in today’s real estate world, holdovers from years past, problems that are literally killing your closing efforts. What if you could learn how to; Get Any Listing You Talk To – But Only The Ones YOU Choose To Take, Receive Your Full Commission – Even If You Double Dip The Sale, AND Get The Property Priced To SELL! Request a FREE MLS Listing Guide & MP3

Real Estate Email Newsletter Mailing Companies

Most Realtors want to use what is easy to send their newsletters, whether it is effective or not. Database companies like Top Producer, Wise Agent and MyRedTools are not set up to be email newsletter distributors. Their skills lie in being REALLY good contact databases. If you are going to take the time to write a great email newsletter I STRONGLY recommend that you pick a true email company like Constant Contact to do your mailing.

Their ONLY job is to send email newsletters and they are very good at it. They make sure that they stay off of blacklists and that your messages will get delivered. Now, it does mean another $20-ish going out a month BUT that is just a cost of doing business. Trying to jury-rig something that is good enough is a waste of time and energy if the emails never get delivered.

Additionally, they send out HTML emails (the pretty ones that open up right in your email client). Danielle resorted to sending a PDF of her newsletter. Now I don’t know about you but I have heard HUNDREDS of times not to open up attachments, so she might lose some people there. I also am super busy and tend to just glance at a message to see if it would be something I would want to read, she would lose those people also as they probably don’t have to time to download and open a PDF (if there is anyone reading this who is NOT super busy I have some work that I would like to offload on you!).

Real Estate Email Newsletter Content

This is a HUGE bone of contention for me! Realtors LOVE to send out recipes, health tips and other such fluff in their email newsletters and I contend that they should stick to real estate and home related topics because they are not chefs or Martha Stewart. Danielle said that she was still going to have a section for fun stuff she found that was not real estate related – can’t win them all!

So what should you talk about in your newsletters?

Market statistics – EVERY MLS on the planet publishes last months market statistics. How many homes sold, how many condos, what the median price was, etc. Make a nice format for these types of things and then send them monthly with a little overview from you about what they all mean. You can talk about seasonality to sales, absorption rate, all the things that you know and never let the world hear!
FAQs – Your email sent mail folder is FULL of questions that you have answered for prospective sellers and buyers. Include the question and answer to one of these a month.
Featured Clients – People love to read about other people! Write a case study about that first time homebuyer you just closed or the short sale couple you helped. This is called social proof and makes people want to work with YOU rather than all the other agents who send newsletters.
Articles about the national real estate market
Articles about the mortgage market - you can even get your mortgage guy or gal to help with some of the content!
Home Inspection Tips
Staging Tips

There are literally HUNDREDS of things that you can mail out. Oh, oh, oh, if you have a blog, why not post a blurb about recent posts with a link to the article. Drive to web baby! AND if you have Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, links to those go in the template of the email also.

There you have it, my rant about real estate email newsletters! If you have any good suggestions, let me know, if this sounds like too much work and want us to do it for you, check out our Realtor Marketing Services page!

Disclaimer – there IS an affiliate link to constant contact and a couple of gratuitous links to realtors I think are doing a good job!

Real Estate Marketing To A Farm Area

Tara Jacobsen — Mon, 24 Jan 2011 13:56:57 +0000

Real estate marketing to a farm area means that you are picking out a geographic location such as a subdivision or a small town and focusing on making a name for yourself in that area, becoming the defacto Realtor of choice.

I would like to say from the start that I am PRO farming as a part of your real estate marketing efforts! Having a farm is a way to lay claim to an area which you become EXTREMELY familiar with and which becomes easier to service because of economies of scale!

How To Pick A Farm Area

This is a tricky one! If there is a super high end subdivision in your area, it would seem like that would be a farm area of choice for the aggressive Realtor. Couple of things to consider there though:

How many homes sell per year in that farm area
Can you afford the higher costs you will incur to sell million or multi-million dollar properties?

My trick was always to pick a subdivision with a high turnover rate that was in the high first time homebuyer or low move-up buyer price range. Targeting this price point will assure that you will have a ready, willing and able pool of buyers to purchase all those listings you get!

Economies of Scale With A Farm

I briefly touched on this, BUT there are HUGE economies of scale when you have a farm area. Here are a few that come to mind:

You can service all your brochure boxes at once (yes in a farm you want to have a brochure box so that all those lovely neighbors can see your name in print!)
You can organize neighborhood open houses with your own listings
You can stop by and see sellers with one drive
When advertising, they will all be able to go into the same types of publications
You can cross sell your other listings when getting buyer calls
If you pay to have flyers distributed, you are only looking at one route
You can develop email and mailing lists to that one area and save the cost of purchasing them
You will know all the problems and benefits of the community (for example, one area that I worked had dysfunctional gas tanks in the ground that HAD to be removed prior to the sale. It was MUCH cheaper and less stressful to tell the sellers that BEFORE we listed the house rather than when under contract!)

Effective Real Estate Marketing To A Farm

There are many things that you can do when marketing to your farm, some more effective than others either monetarily or time-wise. I am sure to catch flack for where I put some of these but here are my suggestions!

Sending just listed or just solds – NOT just for your farm area but include your farm in EVERY mailing you send. This will let them know that you are an active agent!
Neighborhood Newsletter – it is VERY easy to get the mailing lists for homeowners. Some MLSs provide tax records or if not you can buy them from a list broker. Remember that you want to get the OWNERS for listings and the RENTERS for buyers!
Brochure Box Flyers – I HATED brochure boxes, they were always empty and the most likely to trip me up, BUT they are great for branding yourself with neighbors! Make sure to list all your other homes for sale in your farm on the back so that you can cross-promote them all.
Open Houses – Make sure to do LOTS of open houses in your farm area. This is a way to meet the neighbors and to get their contact information. Tell them that you have a great email neighborhood newsletter and get their email address! Once you have a bunch of emails you can send your hard copy newsletter quarterly and the email newsletter on the off months.
Farm Signs – If you Realtor Association allows it, brand yourself as the neighborhood expert with sign riders or custom signs right for that area. You can call yourself the neighborhood expert BEFORE you are, there are no “expert” police!
Special Features – Let your farm know that you are willing to let them know BEFORE homes in the area go on the market. They might not buy but they will appreciate knowing what is going on (neighbors ARE nosy!)
Neighborhood Videos – Get a flip camera and drive around your neighborhood, recording interesting details. These videos can be posted on youtube.com, Twitter, Facebook and your blog.

Time Wasting, Soul Sucking Real Estate Marketing To A Farm

Setting up a community page on the Facebook – This is one I hear A LOT! The thinking is that you are going set up a community page and then the people who live there will flock to it and you will be able to market to them. First, once you get them to join your page, you cannot get their emails out of Facebook to add them to your “real” mailing list. Second, you have to know them BEFORE you can invite them to your page so why not make them a “friend” on Facebook and get them to “like” you regular business page. This sounds like A LOT of work for very little reward!
Sending Calendars, Magnets and Stickers – Ask any big-dog listing agent how many listing agreements they have signed with other agents calendar magnets hanging on the fridgie right behind them! They will tell you a lot! I firmly believe that Realtors should send real estate marketing pieces like market statistics and neighborhood news, NOT calendars, recipes or stickers.
Setting Up Neighborhood Yard Sales – ALL my KW friends like this idea! Hold a neighborhood yard sale for the homeowners and they will list their house with you…sigh…not sure I get the connection! The time taken organizing that sale could be used to door knock, do open houses, lick and stick postcards, any number of things. For heavens sake, you are a Realtor NOT an event planner!

Okay, let me have it! If you are a Realtor with real estate marketing ideas that I missed, please let me know! If you pet real estate marketing project got shot down and you have had great success using it recently, post a comment and let me know!

Realtor Marketing – Real Estate Newsletters

Tara Jacobsen — Tue, 21 Dec 2010 14:54:07 +0000

Realtor marketing encompasses many different aspects, but one of the most high value things you can implement for your business is effective, consistent real estate newsletters.

The two types of real estate newsletters are email newsletters and hard copy printed newsletters. Both should contain the same great content but each has a different chance of success depending on whether your database is receiving it in their inbox or their mailbox.

Direct Mail Real Estate Newsletters

Anecdotally, I have to say that a hard copy, direct mailed newsletter is hard to beat. With the drop in direct mail being utilized, sending a newsletter via the post office can set you apart from the crowd. The cost is not overly prohibitive, especially if you invest in a bulk mail stamp or have a mailing house handle it.

Direct Mail Real Estate Newsletter Tips

Get a designer to set up your newsletter format for you. I KNOW, you can do Publisher like a fiend, but most direct mail houses cannot use Publisher files. The cost for having someone make this for you is SO outweighed by how much better your newsletter will represent you!
Avoid sending them out during election times. There is so much competition for those few weeks that your effectiveness will drop greatly
Consider setting up a page on your blog or website that you can send readers to so that you can track the response of your mailing (ie – www.yoursite.com/newsletter or www.yoursite.com/farmname)
To decrease the cost, contact a direct mail house that can sell you “carrier routes” which lower the postage costs dramatically
If you are doing a tri-fold, use colored paper with black print. If you send the same color every time you will be branding your company with that color (I use acid green which everyone knows means Marketing Artfully!).
Instead of a tri-fold, consider doing a postcard for your real estate newsletters. They are colorful and do not need to be opened to get the benefit. There is something to be said for getting their eyeballs for that 30 seconds on the way to the circular file.

Email Real Estate Newsletters

This is a no-brainer for any Realtor! The cost is cheap and there is not a better way to make sure that you stay in front of your clients, prospects and sphere. The key to succeeding with an email newsletter is consistency. Make sure that you are sending it out once a month, once a quarter or weekly. If you send one and then fail to send another for a couple of months, your list will forget you and think you are spamming them.

Email Real Estate Newsletter Tips

Use a “real” email program like Constant Contact. I KNOW, you like to have your database and email list together, BUT there are numerous reasons it makes sense to have a realtor database like Brokers Helper, My Red Tools or Top Producer AND a email delivery service. These database services are great for monitoring your listings, buyers and prospects BUT they are not great for sending emails to large lists. Many limit the amount you can send per day AND they often are not focused on keeping off of the email blacklists as that is not their core mission. Keep your contacts in your database and when you are ready to send your email newsletter, simply export the file to the email provider.
Send your email out in the morning on either Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday. This will increase your open rates significantly.
Make sure the subject line of your email is interesting! News from “agent’s name” over and over again will not make anyone interested in reading.
Get a template set up with your branding and stick to it. Make the content the star not a new look and feel.
Use pictures to break up big blocks of text in your newsletter. Reading 5 or 6 paragraphs is just not in most people’s time frame. You can also write a sentence or two and then drive them to your blog or website to finish the article.

Building A Mailing List For Your Realtor Marketing Newsletter

When you start a real estate newsletter, getting people onto your mailing list can seem like an insurmountable task BUT building a list is EASY! Simply add 5 people a day to your list and in a year you will have 1,825 people on your list.

Look in your inbox – I KNOW you have sent out hundreds of emails and received even more. Every one of those addresses is someone that you should add to your email list
Call your past clients and ask for their mailing address or email address. Many of you have phone numbers for everyone under the sun but not physical or email addresses. This does double duty as it allows you to touch your sphere AND get more contact info. If you cannot do this, trade lists with another agent in your office and have them say “I am calling to update Mary Agent’s database, do you mind if I make sure everything she has here is correct?” If anything is missing, add it.
It is easy to build an offline mailing list, many MLS’s give you access to your local tax records or you can buy mailing lists from a direct mail house.
Put a sign-in sheet out at your open houses. Pre-fill the first line with ALL the information that you want so that you “train” them to fill it out completely. Bring several copies so that if someone only gives you their name you can flip the next sheet. Visitors will copy what the person above them has done!
DO NOT forget to add Realtors to your lists. You do know that most houses are sold by Realtors don’t you?

Well there you have it, my top tips for Realtor Marketing Real Estate Newsletters. If you have any other suggestions I would love to hear them in the comments.

If this sounds like too much work, we work with many Realtors around the country to help them with their overall marketing plan, give Stacy a jingle to find out more (727) 505-5384 or check out our Realtor Marketing page.

Realtor Marketing – Realtor Videos and YouTube

Tara Jacobsen — Fri, 03 Dec 2010 19:28:35 +0000

Realtor Videos are one area that I see agents missing the boat on. It amazes me that there are these FABULOUS opportunities out there to get traffic to your website or blog and so many agents are not capitalizing on this opportunity.

I think that one of the reasons that Realtors do not make videos is that they do not want to be on camera. This is an easy peasy one, very few people want to “see” you. They are looking for information about an area or a house, not for the smiling face of the Realtor. Additionally, our voice always sounds funny when we are not hearing it inside of our head. This one you are just going to have to get over, remember that what you are hearing on the video sounds like what everyone else hears all of the time!

Some Suggested Realtor Videos That You Can Put On YouTube

Realtor Videos Of Your Farm Or Target Market Area

There are GREAT opportunities to drive around and take videos of your farm area. Make sure that you talk about the subdivision name, what kinds of housing there is (single family, condos, villas), and what amenities are offered. Here are two great Realtor Videos of their farm areas:

What you will notice about each of these is that they are not perfect BUT you get a flavor of the area, you get to see the neighborhood AND you get to “meet” the Realtor! These realtor marketing videos were placed on YouTube and then embedded on the agent’s blog!

Realtor Videos Of Your Listings

What if you could show how great your new listing is? Well you can! Follow Deborah Ward of Deborah Ward and Associates around her Placido Bayou home for sale in St. Petersburg, FL.

What you will notice about this is that she is not pumping up herself, she is simply showing you around a property, BUT by SEOing the YouTube Video and the blog post, we can help her rank higher for the search term “St. Petersburg Waterfront Pool Home”!

Some other Realtor Video Marketing Ideas

Get testimonials from your past clients – hit them at the closing table when they are happiest!
Introduce yourself or your team members
Show off area attractions, making sure to include real estate related keywords
Make videos to send to buyer prospects and post them on YouTube

Basically there is ABSOLUTELY no down side to making your own Realtor Videos, just grab a Flip Camera or your iPhone and start shooting!

Realtor Marketing – Realtor Newsletter Ideas

Tara Jacobsen — Fri, 13 Aug 2010 12:56:56 +0000

Because I help so many Realtors with their marketing efforts, I KNOW that generating a monthly newsletter can seem like an overwhelming task. Here are my best Realtor Newsletter Ideas, in no particular order.

Realtor Newsletter Ideas

Your Real Estate Newsletter should be a tool to talk with current, past and potential real estate clients. It is actually amazing that we can send an email or two a month and let everyone know we care and are thinking about them or to mail a newsletter into an entire neighborhood and in one fell swoop let everyone know you are a neighborhood expert.

Your Realtor Newsletter should contain:

Market statistics – If you are doing a market area it is fine to use MLS wide statistics. If you are farming a neighborhood, it would be best to chunk it down to just that area. You should also be sure to explain confusing terms like “absorption rate” in easy to understand english. A 10% absorption rate means that only 1 out of 10 homes are selling each month.
Listings – You should have listing ads in your newsletter. These should be listings be similar in price to the area you are mailing to OR a good move up price OR show that you are a luxury lister. If you do not have your own types of these listings, ask someone in your office if you can “borrow” theirs. Few listings agents will say that you cannot help to market one of their properties.
An informative article – This is a big one in addition to statistics for making your readers feel they got a value for their time. It can be about current local market trends, national real estate news, home related items like preparing for winter, what hurricane season means to your insurance needs or even house care tips.
A picture of the agent – I am way happier with agents using a logo to represent their business, BUT this is one place that you can have something like a “Lori’s Corner” and get your face out there.
An article or ads from an outside vendor – Per RESPA you cannot charge for space in your newsletter BUT you can get compensated for the exact amount of space they use on a print document. So you could feature a mortgage lender on one panel of a three panel piece and charge him one-sixth of the total cost of the mailing. Make sure you take into account all the costs of the newsletter including labor time to put it together, time to copy and prepare it, copier costs, postage, cost of the list if you have to buy it, etc. To make it even more on the up and up, I had him make the check out to USPS to purchase postage, rather than having it made out to me. Covered us both business wise!

A database of clients is an invaluable tool for printing labels or sending emails. If you are using Top Producer or My Red Tools then you have the ability to generate lists of physical or email addresses. Not only did I email my newsletter to my database, at least 4 times a year I would mail them a hard copy version. Over 5 years after leaving the business, I would bet that some of them are still floating around in desk drawers!

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Realtor Marketing Logos – Does It Have To Have A House?

Tara Jacobsen — Fri, 25 Jun 2010 12:45:57 +0000

Realtor marketing logos are a big deal in my world! I work with many Realtors and generally we start the branding process with a logo for the agent. The first question I get is…does it have to be a house?

Starting out as a Realtor or even re-branding yourself in this new real estate market is always a challenge. When you are setting up your marketing plan, the most important thing you need to have in place is your logo. It determines the colors and theme of the rest of your materials. With that in mind, I thought I would show you some of our realtor clients’ logos and what the thinking was behind the design.

Does it have to be house?

I truly believe you should say EXACTLY what you are selling! It is all well and good to set up an elaborate branding campaign if you are a multi-million dollar company blowing into a new area, but for most small business owners, those marketing numbers are out of reach. For realtor marketing I am divided between two schools of thought…

If you are going to be doing a lot of realtor marketing and have a plan for how that is going to be implemented, you can make your logo any old thing you want!
If you are going to be using your logo on letterhead and maybe on a sign, then it would be best to stick to something that is recognizable as a house so that people who see it can immediately associate it with real estate.

Realtor Marketing Non House Logo Examples

One of my personal realtor logo favorites is Lori Crawford, Trinity FL Real Estate Agent. Lori came to us knowing that she liked sand dollars and that this was the icon that she would like to have for her logo. She has ROCKED the marketing using her logo on everything from wine bottles to yard signs. The classic fonts and colors that we used for Lori make this a traditional logo that will serve her well in the upscale farm area that she works!

Another neat realtor logo was done for Garrett Grimes, of the Grimes Home Team. Garrett is very active in his kids sports, especial baseball. We played off of that look with a Grimes Home Team logo. This double entendre lets people know that Garret is a Realtor AND supports the home team. The teal color with white and black were favorites of this busy agent.

Come To Clearwater was the name of my website when I was a Realtor in Clearwater, FL. OF COURSE this is my favorite real estate logo of all times. I liked the combination of a road to represent the “come” part paired with the beach and sunshine of Florida. The blue and gold combo is a popular color choice which is contemporary and up-to-date.

Realtor Marketing House Logo Examples

The Donna Hastings Team was looking for a logo which would be simple but still show her real estate roots PLUS a tropical look and feel. Notice how the gold color paired with black instead of blue makes a tremendous difference in the feeling of the logo. Donna wanted a clean look which would go well with her high end marketing materials.

This is one of my favorites! Palm Harbor Waterfront Specialist, Julia Fishel, was looking for something with a house AND an immediate visual that showed her commitment to selling beach and waterfront properties. The fresh sunshiney colors are a great combination and one that we have used in many of her marketing pieces!

Realtor Marketing Text Only Logo Examples

Finally, you can have a Realtor Marketing logo which only is text. Denver Realtor, Tena D. wanted to use her company name as her logo. Denver Realty and Rentals is a great example of simplicity and fun, with the classic color combination of black and red which works well with the black and white photography that we use in her marketing pieces.

Realtor Marketing Funny Realtor Postcards

Tara Jacobsen — Fri, 14 May 2010 21:03:49 +0000

Realtor marketing is generally a serious thing. That having been said, if you have the right personality, funny realtor postcards can be a great advertising tool!

When I was Realtor, I frequently used humor to make connections with my clients, prospects, sphere and farms. While I did not use comical sales verbiage often, when I did I got an overwhelmingly positive response! While this is primarily about postcards, the ideas that are here will work for door hangers, popby cards and even t-shirts or notecards.

When do funny realtor postcards work?

I have known some really serious realtors who would not dream of leaving their homes without their power suites, pumps and hairspray firmly in place. They fly through the day, decreeing things and are generally not all that fun-loving. Funny realtor postcards are probably not even on their radar.

Now me, I am the self proclaimed queen of corn and find any and all puns funny. The picture above with the saying “it is fang-tastic” always makes me smile – fang-tastic, get it?!?!?! Okay, back to serious realtor marketing then. So, long story short, if you are funny in real life then marketing based on puns, plays on words or funny pictures could work for you.

A side note, in the current market sellers are not all that happy and will probably not be as amused by a funny punny card, stick to the serious for them right now.

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What types of headlines work?

There are numerous sales channels that you can use for funny realtor postcards including buyers, farming, holidays and more. Here are some ideas to get you started. If you have some more that I missed, please leave them in the comments!

Buyers – Looking for a new pad – pair with a frog picture
Buyers – Why the long face – Having trouble finding a great house? – pair with a horse face
Sphere – Help me CLEAN UP in real estate and enjoy this soap from Sister Agnes – we used this one to when we commissioned little soaps to give as popbys at Christmas time
Sphere – I will SPRING into action as soon as I get your referral…if you know anybody that is looking to buy or sell a home, please let me know!
Sphere – Don’t fall for any old agent, get the best – with pictures of leaves
Farm – Would you be my, could you be my, won’t you be my neighbor! – let them know you work their neighborhood
Farm – Isn’t it time to find out what your home is worth? – with a clock picture
Investors – Jump into the real estate market – with a diving picture
Fall – Real estate is kicking off the third quarter in sales, there is no better time to get back in the game. Winning interest rates, wide open inventory all add up to a touchdown for the “home” team!

Additional Funny Realtor Postcard Resources

Please visit our Realtor Marketing Resources page to find out what companies we recommend for Realtor Marketing services!