When you get a new listing, how are you promoting it to agents in your area? Hopefully, you're not still depending solely on the MLS, a few phone calls and perhaps a flyer to publicize it. Today's technology allows you to do a lot more to "get the word out," particularly via email. Using email, you can attach a color photo of the home or, better yet, a PhotoShare multimedia presentation or a Picture Works Net Card featuring the home to really draw the agent's attention to your listing.

Ramon and Hazel Burke of RE/MAX Professionals Realty in Tallahassee, FL have been using email to publicize their listings to other agents and offer this tip:

"I just did another bulk-email to all the agents in our board regarding a new listing of ours, and I received back at least 15 returned e-mails due to incorrect and changed addresses. Each time I do an email update on my listings (bi-weekly), I get a similar number of returned mails. It seems that some agents tend to use their "100 free hours" on a particular internet service and then go get a new account, or they are continually changing services to go with whomever has the best price that month. If email is to be used effectively (and I've seen sellers and buyers demanding this to be the case), your e-mail address will need to become a permanent fixture!"

Let's expand on what the Burkes pointed out. First, you're right on target regarding the need to have your email address as a permanent fixture of your total marketing effort. If you're switching ISP's (the Internet Service Provider company that connects you to the Web) in order to save money, you might want to rethink your strategy. Email is the core of your marketing effort today, and you need an address that doesn't change. Some tips in this regard:

• You should have your own domain (iselltheworld.com, etc.). If you do change ISP's, your address doesn't change, since your domain name is always a part of your email address.
• Think before you have your company name as your email address (bob@abcrealty.com). If you change companies, you've got to change everything that has your email address on it.
• Remember what I've said many times: AOL is not a businessperson's email, in that it is too limited in what it can do from a marketing standpoint (signatures, filters, separate mailboxes, etc.). You need an ISP, not AOL, for your email.
• If you do change email addresses, let everyone in your address book know what your new address is and what your old one was. As a case in point, we get a number of returned emails every time I send out Real Estate Technology News & Views, since people have changed addresses. We have no way of contacting those people to make sure they continue to receive their newsletter.

A final comment on marketing your listings to local agents: identify the top 10 percent of the agents in your area and focus your email marketing efforts on them! In most associations, the top 10 percent now sell about 90 percent of the homes. You want to target these sales associates especially. Get their email addresses, either off of their ads or in conversations with them. These are the people you want to send that PhotoShare multimedia presentation of your new listing to. You want them to see a complete tour of the property while listening to your voice giving them background on each picture they see. These are the people you want to send a Picture Works Net Card to that contains a photo of the listing, your voice explaining the highlights of the home and a direct link to the Web page you've created for the home.

Keeping a constant email address and focusing your email marketing on the top 10 percent of the agents in your area will pay big dividends!

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Published: June 3, 1999

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