Thoughts on Real Estate Marketing…

… pants on fire! If I was more ambitious, I’d send that childhood chant to a few websites I visited today. But I’d better begin at the beginning… This morning at 6:23 a.m. my telephone started ringing. It took me a few seconds to wake up and realize what that noise was, so the answering [...]

Trying to be all things to all people never works – not even in real estate. The more you try, the more scattered you become and the more your work suffers. Instead, decide which customers and which properties interest you most, and concentrate your efforts on serving them well. You might prefer first time buyers, [...]

One of the first things a copywriter learns is that people buy from emotion and justify the purchase with logic. And… there’s nothing new about that, for here’s what Benjamin Franklin said: “If you would persuade, you must appeal to interest rather than intellect. Before you start to write your next business letter, or any [...]

You already know how important it is to write about your reader, not about yourself. Every letter you write should either begin with “you” or with a statement or question that speaks directly to the reader. Starting with “I,”  “we,”  “my,” or “our” is a sure way to get your letter tossed or deleted … [...]

Let your email signature act as a silent salesman, traveling the world, promoting your services.

Sometimes advertisers forget that we consumers can read – and think. So… they make statements that contradict, or are just untrue. For instance, tonight I was doing dishes and started reading the labels on the bottle of dishwashing detergent. At the top of the bottle there was a sticker that read “New! Now gets more [...]

Last night I wrote an Active Rain post about foreign investors buying residential real estate in the U.S. In the year ending in April 2010, their purchases had accounted for 7% of the sales – and predictions are that this year that number will be higher. Thus, real estate agents in the communities they prefer [...]

You’d think that cash would be fine any old time… but it just isn’t so. When a buyer comes into a purchase with a wad of cash as down payment funds, or if that buyer deposits a large sum of cash into his or her bank account just prior to closing, his or her lender [...]

Do you ever think about the emotional effect your words carry? Some are obvious – like love, hate, anger, etc. But some are not so obvious. Sometimes words that seem to convey your meaning actually cause an emotional effect on others that you don’t intend or want. For instance, consider the word “anxious.” You might [...]

Because so many real estate agents set their listings to expire on December 31, right now is prime time to go after expired listings. But what should you say? That seems to be a question that is uppermost on many agents’ minds right now. But first let’s talk about what you should NOT say. You [...]