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How to Make Your Real-Estate Web Site a Marketing Tool
Some things you can do to make your World Wide Web site an effective part of your agency's marketing mix.
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 Train Your Staff
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Have a meeting of your entire office where you tell everyone about your Web site and how it works. Show it to them by connecting to the Internet and visiting your site. Show them everything that's at your site, including how you navigate the site by pointing and clicking. Tell them how you are able to enter and edit listings in just a few minutes, and why that's an important plus to stress in their listing presentations. Point out to them the superior quality of the listing photos, too. And be sure to explain how the HouseHunter's HotLine works, and how to use your HotLine subscriber list
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Explain to your staff what your Web address is. Tell them that some people refer to the address as your agency's "URL", and, for the curious, that URL is stands for "Uniform Resource Locator".
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Have cards or stickers prepared that say
"Our Web site address ("URL") is http://www.yourname.com" and make sure that one is permanently installed next to every phone in the office. Why? Because people will call and ask for your URL or Web address, and there is no surer sign that an office is unprepared for Web presence than when the person answering the phone doesn't know what the caller is talking about.
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Make sure there are some on the staff who know how to retrieve email, read it, and respond to it often during the day. Your email in-box must be checked for incoming messages at least a few times each day. Email will be one of the most-used ways that visitors to your Web site will contact you. Email users expect rapid responses to their messages, in part because it is so easy to respond quickly. And once you've learned how to use email, you'll be hooked. It's the easy, no-cost way to correspond with friends, family, and business associates world-wide. Email not answered promptly is a real turn-off!
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Encourage staff members who do not use the Web to learn how to do so. Identify local classes that teach Web basics and encourage participation. Provide a Web-enabled computer in the office for Web browsing by the staff; the same computer can be used to show buyers and clients your Web site
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Consider acquiring a laptop computer so that an on-line visit to your Web site can be worked into your listing presentations.
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Promote Your Web Site
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Feature your HouseHunter's HotLine in your advertising. Remember: it sets you apart from most other real estate professionals!
Urge buyers to"Be among the first to know about newly-listed properties! Visit our Web site at http://www.yourname.com and sign up for our free HouseHunter's HotLine!"
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Display your URL (Web site address) in the following places:
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Everyone's business cards
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Your stationery
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Your feature sheets
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Your listing presentations, with an explanation as to how important "your listings presence on our Web site in minutes" is for the seller
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In newspaper, magazine, and yellow-pages ads, and in all press releases and TV and radio ads, in this style: "See all our properties for sale at http://www.yourname.com"
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On the sign on your office building
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On every For Sale sign, so that drive-bys can contact you easily on the Web
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On everything that you display to the public and is identified with you (like promotional pens, refrigerator-magnet items, calendars, etc.)
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Learn about Web search engines and "register" your site with new ones you think might help your exposure (Penrose registers your site with the top six search engines when the Web site is first activated, but you will need to check that your registration remains intact, as search engines will often drop your site from their records with no warning).
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Encourage your staff to come up with other ways to promote your Web site. The more visitors you have, the more contacts you'll make!
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Home Page
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| Approved
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| Web Pro
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Web Designers:
Add QuikList listings & HouseHunter's HotLine to your clients' sites.
Email us.
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