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Autoresponders (8X8s) for Realtors – Buyers and Sellers

Tara Jacobsen — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 16:49:48 +0000

Using Auto-responders to Grow Your Real Estate Business

Auto-responders are one of the most innovative tools a Realtor can use to growÂ theirÂ real estate business. However, most Realtors fail to utilize them to their full business potential.Â

The ease of use of auto-responders is astounding once you have them set up! If you have signed up for our email newsletter, you have gotten our auto-responders. They are a series of emails that go out on a periodic basis determined by you. If you are using them in an 8X8 program, that means that you are sending out eight in eight weeks, which I think is a really good frequency!

If you are using a database program, it is very easy to set up an auto-responder (or action plan). Â If you are not able to use your database program for this or if you use outlook or another email program, I HIGHLY recommend that you use an email newsletter service like AWeberÂ or Constant Contact which give you all of that functionality, a great look and both of which cost about $20/month!

We have been getting a bumch of requests for Autoresponders for Realtors – we have answered! Thus far we have developed two versions – one for sellers and one for buyers. In the coming weeks we will be adding Autoresponders for FSBOs, Expireds and Short Sales. We are offering $10 off until Tax Day (April, 15th 2009) so that everyone who want to get going right away can afford to!!!

Â	Â	Autoresponders (8X8s) For Realtors – Sellers Edition Auto-responders are email or 8X8 campaigns that you can set up to auto-generate emails for your prospects and leads. Basically they are a â€œset it and forget itâ€ kind of system that will allow you to contact your prospects and suspects on a consistent basis when you first enter them into your database. Price $19.97 - Use coupon code AUTOS-TAXDAY for $10.00 off until April 15, 2009!Â Â Â Â Â Â Find out more about Autoresponders (8X8s) For Realtors – Sellers Edition	Â
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Â	Â	Autoresponders (8X8s) For Realtors – Buyers Edition Auto-responders are email or 8X8 campaigns that you can set up to auto-generate emails for your prospects and leads. Basically they are a â€œset it and forget itâ€ kind of system that will allow you to contact your prospects and suspects on a consistent basis when you first enter them into your database. Price $19.97 - Use coupon code AUTOS-TAXDAY for $10.00 off until April 15, 2009!Â Â Â Â Â Â Find out more about Autoresponders (8X8s) For Realtors – Buyers Edition	Â
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What is database marketing? Solving small business marketing problems!

Tara Jacobsen — Sat, 07 Mar 2009 17:20:06 +0000

According to Wikipedia, database marketing is “a form of direct marketing using databases of customers or potential customers to generate personalized communications in order to promote a product or service for marketing purposes”.

Wow is that not helpful! My definition of database marketing is to have all your clients, potential clients, prospects, vendors, friends and family all in one place that you can use to send out direct mail, email marketing and generate call lists. Currently on my “marketing TV tray” I have a post-it note with a name of someone who I need to add to my database, two business cards and a sign in sheet from a class that I taught. If I do not add them to my database today I will

lose their name entirely
find them in three months and forget why I had their card
find them in six months and be too embarrassed to send anything because they won’t remember me (I KNOW I won’t remember them!)

So how do you use your database for marketing?

Send out emails to your database – This is FREE! You can start a bi-monthly newsletter and send your marketing message out WITH a nice piece of information that will be of value to your readers. For home service people that might be tips on how to winterize their home, ways to clean their grout or even a list of associated vendors they recommend. For real estate professionals it might be market stats, information about first time homebuyers or how to prepare their home for staging. Whatever you send, make sure that you think – “would I be interested in reading this”. If not – write something better! (if you are stuck on what to send, check out our Small Business Marketing Solution – Â Thrive Client Contact System)

Make phone calls – Each month pick a couple of letters (A-C, S and T) and print out your database people whose last name starts with that letter. Carry your list around and when you have a couple of extra minutes call your people!

Send direct mail marketing pieces to your database – You can mail your clients a monthly piece of newsletter marketing, marketing postcards or even your personal brochure. Please note – if you are going to judge the effectiveness of your direct mail campaign by 1 sent message don’t bother. You need to send out your direct mail message for at least 3 months in order to be able to find out if will work! If you can’t afford to send out to your entire database, cut it in half and send half of your people a letter, newsletter or postcard each month, rotating the names so EVERYONE gets something at least every other month!

Some other things you can do with your database:

Collect Birthdays and send a nice card out a couple of days before (I am BAD at this – you WILL NOT get a card!)
Make notes about what you talked about – your people will think you are brilliant when they realize you remember all their personal info! Just pop in and take a peek at their notes BEFORE you call them!
Upload relevant documentation and attach it to their record. You can attach their invoice, sales receipts, contracts etc. by scanning them into a PDF and then uploading them to your database.

If you will commit to using your database, adding EVERYONE you meet the day you meet them, you WILL get more business and make more money!!!

Your Database – A How-To!

Tara Jacobsen — Sat, 01 Nov 2008 10:16:36 +0000

Okay, so this week two people in one day sent me an email and said, “All you teach is great BUT how do I get a database and work it?” So here goes….small business database help!

What is a database?

A database is a collection of you clients, prospects and business partners. It can be a full blown database like Act, Goldmine, Access, The Wise Agent, or Top Producer. It can also be an Excel spreadsheet or even a Word document with a list of the people you want to be in contact with.

The reason it is nice to have a database database is that you can attach notes, schedule appointments and followup calls and generally organize all your information together. The reason NOT to have a database database to start is that you spend SO much time working ON it that you don’t have anyone to put IN it!

How To Use Your Database

So you have a database, what next. You need to set it up so that you can easily find people in it! The MOST important thing is to put people in catagories. You might have a number of different ones – here are a few to consider:

Lead – Current or “A Lead” – These are the most important people to your business since they are potential business and income for you. Make sure you have a designation so you can find these people easily to write, call or email.
Advocate – These are the people who are the next most important to your business. They are the ones that think that you and your company are great AND tell everyone they know to use you! They are the ones to take to lunch or send flowers on their birthday!
Past Client – They have proved that they will work with you and purchase your services. It is SO much easier to sell to these people than to try and find new people in the marketplace.
Lead – Prospect – They are not ready to buy right now but they are willing to hear your pitch and you want to make sure not to lose them before they make a buying decision.
Lead – Suspect – They have answered an ad or come in off your website. They say they want to do business with you but they are not ready or able to make a commitment at this point to use you. Spend the LEAST amount of time and money on these people!

DO NOT think that you cannot have people in more than one catagory! A lead that hasn’t even bought from you yet could refer a ton of business to you as an advocate.

How To Work Your Database

To start, you need to set up some system to prompt you talk to your Leads and your Advocates. If you are using a database, schedule an appointment to talk to EVERYONE in you database once at least on the phone. After that you can schedule periodic calls and augment that with emails and mailings.

You could also put important dates in your database, giving you the opportunity to contact your clients periodically throughout the year. This could be birthday, anniversary, date that they adopted their pet or bought their house.

I will talk soon about ways to manage the contact part of the process. For right now, get a database, get it set up the way you would like and start calling your people. Make sure that their name, email, address and phone numbers are all correct!

More Help!

Your Database – How To Use It For Emails

Small Businesses – Doing What You Believe In!

Tara Jacobsen — Fri, 24 Oct 2008 09:50:11 +0000

So I have been able to talk to a BUNCH of new people lately (Hi Emily of Mind and Body Enrichment and Jacksonville Realtors!!!) lately. I have heard that small business owners are getting ready for a GREAT new year. I have heard that they are PASSIONATE about servicing their customers well AND they are ready to take care of their clients EVEN better. I have heard that they are EXCITED about growing their business and helping even more people have great lives!

Every small business owner feels that they are not doing enough for their customers. They have missed following up on a lead. They have not done every single thing that they could ever possibly do for their clients. They have missed a call or an email. They have not prospected enough, they have not done enough trade shows, open houses, seminars, emails, postcards, etc.

What they have done is BELIEVE in their businesses and their customers! They have tried very hard to do a GREAT job in a market that tells them EVERY day that the sky is falling!

If you are a small business owner you are doing a good job (I know – no one ever tells you that, so I am telling you right now!) You are doing the best that you can, with what you know how to do, with the time that you have.Â

Keep it up and continue to do what you believe in! I realized lately that I believe in a lot of things that I am proud of:

You SHOULD buy American (when possible)
I like mom and pop stores
I respect businesses that have customer service centers in America (I grew up in Western Pennsylvania – I buy American cars, I try not to shop at Walmart, I think we should encourage Entrepreneurs and Small Business Owners)
I AM proud that I am working with people who are excited about their small businesses

The Power of Your Lists – List Building for Businesses

Relevancy and Niches

Tara Jacobsen — Tue, 20 May 2008 09:50:22 +0000

I got an email last night from a lady who runs the ABC School of Polish. She seemed VERY polite and offered to put a link to my site on her site if I put link to her site on mine.

On the face of it, this seems like a good idea, you can never have too many links right? Also, I did attend the Polish National Alliance College in Cambridge Springs, PA for a couple of years so I like the whole Polish concept (subsequently the college was shut down and turned into a women’s prison, guess I got out of there just in time!)

BUT, here’s the kicker. What is in for me OR them to have a link to each other’s sites. I do not think that people who are looking for great Polish holidays are going to come from my marketing website. I also do not think that people who are thinking about taking Polish classes or going on holiday are going to suddenly have a yearning to learn more about niche marketing.

This practice is called link building and is designed to trick the search engines into thinking that you are VERY popular world wide, with links from all over the globe. The search engines can figure this trick out easily, but more important, people visiting my site can figure out that I have a huge links page with nothing relevant to marketing and leave (I hate when people leave!)

If you are going to exchange links with people, make sure they are a complimentary site. I could link to mail houses, printing companies, articles about advertising, niche marketing tips and tricks, realtor websites, internet marketing sites, etc. which would INCREASE my relevancy in the search engines…rather than just adding another anonymous link.

So Anna, thank you for your kind offer but count me out. I would rather have one good link than 100 mediocre links diluting my brand!

Your Favorite Medium

Tara Jacobsen — Sat, 10 May 2008 23:53:02 +0000

No this is NOT about psychics or charlatans! This is about what YOU think works and how that affects what you DO.

Now to give you some background on where I am coming from, before returning to marketing, I built my highly successful real estate business in Clearwater by using direct mail marketing pieces and networking. I am more than willing to drive across town to visit someone in person rather than call them on the phone and I hardly ever send marketing or informational emails to my clients.

I was sitting in a meeting this week with a realtor who ONLY sends email, no direct mail and who also networks very well. She is adamant that direct mail does not work, she has tried it before and got nothing for her effort. I told her that I had tried email before and it didn’t work AT ALL. Come to find out that both of us had sent ONEÂ or TWO pieces, MONTHS apart and then decided that it didn’t work.

I hate to talk on the phone so I assume that everyone hates to talk on the phone. She LOVES email, the internet and all things technology related and so she thinks she has the best chance of getting her message across by doing what makes the most sense to her.

What we found out is that one way doesn’t provide a whole message. Some people who you communicate with will get the most from your emails, some from direct mail and you can never go wrong talking with someone on the phone or face to face. The key is to talk to them EVERY month in EVERY medium to remind them that you are still in business and still want to serve them!