The life of a real estate professional is bombarded with new tools and marketing options, and the ability to consolidate your efforts to deliver a consistent message is vital, but sometimes difficult. Let's discuss some straightforward steps you can take to streamline your marketing efforts - some of which you likely already have in place.

Start With Your Web Site

An online presence for today's real estate professional is essential. An effective web presence is the starting point for your online brand. While your web site is not (and should not) be your only public presence, it should be at the center. Starting with your web site, you should carefully craft your online presence in a way that targets your audience and establishes your online brand.

Because the Internet provides such broad reach and 24/7 access, it affords you the ability to place almost unlimited information online at a very low cost. You cannot achieve this efficiency through traditional marketing media such as postcards, flyers, brochures, etc. Using your website as a starting point, build your message and then point to that message in everything else you do.

Tell The World With A Newsletter

Agents with successful web sites know that they must provide fresh, compelling content to their web site visitors in order to develop online relationships -- the ones that build trust over time and eventually lead to a client relationship and a closed deal. Developing and maintaining content has been the challenge of every web site owner's existence since the beginning of time (at least Internet time, circa mid-1980's). Using the Real Estate Update e-newsletter offered by Realty Times is a smart way to provide fresh instant content. When you sign up for the newsletter, you'll also receive a daily news and advice link that includes four new consumer articles each business day and all of Realty Times archived articles. This is content that people want to return to your site to read and will send to their friends.

A very effective tool for reaching your targets through e-mail is a program called Constant Contact. It provides a very powerful opt-in mailing list maintenance engine you can place on your web site easily. It allows you to offer various interest categories and to collect additional information such as name, address, phone number, etc. at your option. Additionally, you receive professionally designed templates to deliver your message in a compelling format with lots of flexibility to use your own branding so that clients who receive your message in their inbox know immediately it is from you, the local real estate professional. Each message from Constant Contact is personalized and appears to have been sent to each person individually.

A Little Bit Of Design Goes A Long Way

If you use the Real Estate Update from Realty Times, you have fresh, in depth content each month. Now, you must make sure that content reaches your Web visitors and your e-mail newsletter recipients in a way that is consistent with your message. To further streamline your online brand, a web designer can put together images for the header and footer of your newsletter to create a Real Estate Update that carries out your branding. These files can be created with little difficulty and the Realty Times staff will replace the default images with the new ones at no extra charge. For an example of a customized Real Estate Update, click here.

To really rev up your online marketing, you may use the design associated with your customized Real Estate Update page to create a customized monthly mailing using Constant Contact. Now, your brand shows through your entire online presence, from your web site through your email communications and back to your web site.

A competent online identity is essential to fostering the professionalism and trust that is so essential to introducing yourself to new clients and maintaining relationships with returning clients. Using your existing brand and marketing tools, you can create a seamless online package that clearly sets you apart as an industry professional.

Brian McGuire provides consultation and training for real estate professionals who wish to establish or revamp their online presence. Formally trained in engineering and computer technology, he has provided applied technologies to sales and marketing efforts of large companies in the chemical industry as e-Business Manager. His firm, F.O.D. Designs provides custom web development primarily for real estate professionals with a focus on matching an agent's business goals with the web functionality required to achieve those goals. For questions on customizing Real Estate Update or other web design projects, contact Brian at brian@foddesigns.com.

Published: October 11, 2002

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