When was the last time that you sent an e-mail to a realty-related web site or one of your local community info sites and praised the publisher for something that you liked?

Or, when was the last time that you wrote a brief "how to" article on a subject that you know a lot about (Buying horse property, Top 10 mistakes home sellers make, How to work best with a Realtor®, etc.,) and sent it to a community web site publisher to add to his helpful content for consumers? Well, when you do such things, you stand out from other Realtors® in your area! You get noticed! Even favored.

That’s your goal on the web - to get noticed; to distinguish yourself from other Realtors® who generally all look the same. And you can further this end by using good publicity and PR techniques that sway both media and public opinion towards you.

Public? Actually, in PR efforts you have many distinct layers of "publics." You can define "publics" as various audiences that you seek to influence. If you write a helpful article concerning some aspect of real estate and send it to your local city web site, your first public will be the original recipient there of your e-mail with the article attached.

Say he’s the site owner. Your e-mail "cover letter" note is critical. It needs to swiftly and clearly tell him why the attached article will help him as owner of a local web site.

Dear Web Site Publisher:

Your already excellent service to your many (City Name) site visitors might gain if you were to include, in the Realty section of your site, one or both of these two brief and free articles that I wrote for you.

If you like, later I could give you similar consumer-helpful free columns every month to quickly build up a realty "info" section. And this might even encourage other Realtors® to make similar free article submissions to you, also building your content.

Naturally, in return it would help me if you placed below each of my articles, a discrete link from my name to my site’s URL.

Agent Name

Notice how many times the word "you" or derivatives are used above in good Public Relations writing? Notice how the whole slant is towards the recipient’ s interests, not yours? Notice how that same approach is taken even with the article that you’re reading now?

Why did we suggest that other Realtors® might submit articles, too? Because most won’t, thus we have little to fear from them. And even if one or two do, likely they won’t persist. The suggestion about other Realtors® was made mostly to cause the publisher to see how he could start a stream of free content by publishing these articles first.

In the example of the article submission, your next layer of publics (audiences) will be the consumers who visit the publisher’s web site. So, once again, your publicity writing has to pique their interests, not further your own. Thus, you make your article jam packed with "yous" and INTERESTING, HELPFUL stuff most consumers would never guess about your topic. Don’t tell stupid stuff everybody knows like, "remove all clutter," and "vacuum the floors." Instead, include less known tips like, "Bake a loaf of bread in the morning so the aroma permeates the house all day," and "Tighten any loose knobs or faucets."

Your article and any writing you do for publics are a representation of your skills as a realty professional. So never take your writing for granted. Hone it well.

Above all, approach those who handle media with the attitude that you are helping them succeed in their endeavors. And if you always do that, they, in turn, will appreciate you.

They will see you as a resource, not an annoyance. They will judge you as being a cut above your competitors. Service the media. Put their needs first, just as you do with your clients! And that’s how you get publicity.

Also See:

Published: August 13, 1999

Use of this article without permission is a violation of federal copyright laws.

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Bill Koelzer is a Web marketing consultant to web-proficient agents nationwide. He is co-author, with Barbara Cox, Ph.D., of the Prentice-Hall books, Internet Marketing in Real Estate and Internet Marketing. Bill is also webmaster of Orange County Real Estate, among the most-awarded known Realtor® sites. Visit his website, Koelzer.com or e-mail him at .

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