Jason Bramell | Realty World Northern CA & NV

Companies will integrate offerings in upcoming quarters, company says

BY INMAN NEWS, THURSDAY, DECEMBER 15, 2011.

Inman News™

VerticalResponse, a provider of Web-based self-service marketing tools for small businesses, hasacquired social network marketing technology company Roost, the companies announced today.

Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed. Both companies are based in San Francisco, which helped the two “get to know each other” and realize they had similar audiences, Roost said in an announcement to users.

Roost was founded in 2007 as a property search portal. In September 2010, the company changed its business model to focus on helping real estate agents and brokers gain referral business through social networking on Facebook.

In late March 2011, Roost unveiled its social marketing platform and simultaneously expanded its business model beyond real estate professionals to other small-business owners, such as lawyers, accountants and restaurateurs.

VerticalResponse’s offerings include email marketing, online surveys, event marketing, and direct-mail marketing. This is the company’s first acquisition in the nearly 11 years it’s been in business, said Janine Popick, the company’s CEO, in a statement.

“The number of our customers who share their email marketing campaigns with their social networks has increased over 1,400 percent since the beginning of 2011, so it’s clear that small businesses understand the power of social media. Now with Roost’s social media marketing tools, they can take their customer engagement efforts to the next level,” Popick said.

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You may have seen lately on some of your favorite consumer products a strange looking UPC code that doesn’t quite look right.

This type of marketing is a great way to remain relevant to consumers with a lot of the data you would normally need to print. Many consumers today use smart phones on the fly to access information as they need it. QR coding will help you to deliver that information from your property listing yard sign, marking flyers, postcard mailers, and/or email campaigns in a conducive format for today’s smart phone users.

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In the wake of attending the Inman Real Estate Connect conference in San Francisco this month, I have digested the wealth of discussions concerning the latest technologies, and the future expectation of the real estate industry.

The overall theme of the event focus was based on innovation, hyper-localism, and market recovery. With the newest buzz being placed on the infamous Developers Challenge boasting “geo-mapping” tools for mobile devices, one click data to video, and dynamic call routing provided by new comers like RealtyVoyager.com, and Stupeflix.com. They are never short of originality in naming their companies that’s for certain.

The common theme in every session I attended was certainly focused around the ability of an agent to leverage their knowledge within the community using all of these “viral” tools, and social media platforms to position the agent as the utmost local real estate expert. Encouraging today’s agents to focus their marketing efforts on the communities in which they live and work every day, as opposed to trying to capture a much larger audience.  With the advancement of the internet and the mass popularity of social media, there is still one thing that will always prevail…personal touch, professionalism, and knowing your community. There is no substitute for the personal interface you can have with clients to win their future business, and the referrals that will follow. Mastering the advantages of online marketing and social media is definitely a must in today’s market place. However, is entirely meant to compliment your best practices as a real estate professional.

There is a digital cornucopia of cool web tools, and widgets to convey an instant sense of credibility to your audience through your web presence. Although you must be able to put your media where your mouth is and provide the excellent customer service that you advertise through all of this great technology. The internet continues to provide a phenomenal vehicle to drive your message home,  and be the expert consumers all hope you are when you meet face to face.

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With nearly 89% of all Americans using the Internet to manage their personal and professional needs & wants;  their expectations are rapidly changing as each new convenience becomes available to the masses. The moral of the story is that no one is going to be interested in old technology.  More importantly your use of outdated technology will in turn label your methods as outdated resulting in a detrimental impact to your production.

Abandoning your marketing plan is not the answer here folks, rather it will be a matter of complimenting your previously successful techniques with updated tools.

Implementing current & highly effective tools into your marketing strategy does not have to be overly complicated,nor exorbitantly expensive. Realty World Northern CA has developed the most comprehensive and technologically advanced real estate platform available in the industry today (http://www.realtyworldnca.com/agent-careers/marketing/). Incorporating such tools as video listings and bios, interactive agent websites, and social media into your repertoire can be a simple, and effective transition.

Contact me today to learn how you can modify your marketing strategy with a few simple changes that will acheive significant results.

“Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe”

-Abraham Lincoln

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Hello All,

How many times have you been in the car with your wife, and driven past a property with a for sale sign in the yard, and no flyer in the box? Frustrating to say the least. I jumped in the car the other day and took the flyer challenge! After first driving to a local real estate office for a current list of active properties, I set out to find at least one current flyer in the box, and stopped at any property with a sign in the yard along the way.

Initially, I was fairly optimistic considering I had spent so much time over the course of my career as a Senior Mortgage Loan Consultant creating marketing pieces for open houses, and other agent’s new listings as a courtesy. I was assuming that I was sure to find at least a few flyers, whether they were good or bad quality was arbitrary. Being that in this case, if you were simply making an effort to provide information about the property in the box, you were already more proactive that your competitors. Out of the 25 properties I had wasted my precious fuel driving to, can you guess how many flyers I was able to find? Anyone? Absolutely zero!! That’s right, zero for 25.

In effect, if I was actually an interested buyer looking for information on the property (i.e. room count, square footage, etc…), I was left with no other option than to call the number on the sign. Although wait a minute the number on the sign rings to the real estate office? Not the listing agent. Do I really want to talk to track the agent down right now to get the information, or would I rather prefer to just be able to show my wife the amenities of the property so we can discuss it on our way to the next home for sale? Perhaps if the agent had posted their website address on the sign, I can write down the information and check it out online when we get home…IF I remember to do it.

If you are trying to differentiate yourself as a professional in your community, the one sure fire way would be to have flyers available at all your listings. Sure the neighbors are going to take most of them, but a few buyers too. Who is to say that the neighbors might not be looking to sell soon as well?

After all of my efforts, I once again had to drive by another real estate office to request a flyer for a property, and what I was handed just blew me away. The black and white layout of the flyer left a lot to be desired, and had just one photo…of the front of the house! I had already seen this view of the property, when I was standing in front of it. The paper it was printed on was stock printer paper as well. You might as well print at the top of the page “here, you throw this away”.

Which brings me to my next point. What does the quality of your flyer say about you as an Agent? Does it represent you as a true industry professional? Does it bode well for your experience, and expertise? Take a look at the picure below, and tell me which flyer you would prefer to show a potential buyer or seller. If you are going to provide a first impression of your listing, which do you think is going to be more powerful? The flyer on the left took just 8 minutes to create, and is printed on quality high gloss paper. Feel free to give me a call and I’ll show you how easily it was done!