[Note: To follow is an excerpt of a March 5, 2008 interview with Saul Klein, CEO of Point2 Technologies and President/CEO of the InternetCrusade. To listen to, or download the show archive MP3, go to IncomePropertyInvestmentTalk.com.]

Mosca: The news media today is abuzz with information, stories, and articles about the real estate market. The concern is if investors, Realtors® and consumers only relied on the national newspapers or television networks they might not get the correct message as to what is happening in the markets across our country and globally, for that matter.

Klein: What I tell people is the best real estate that you ever bought is the real estate you bought yesterday, and this is a great time to buy. Interest rates are low and there are great opportunities and deals. What a great time to be a real estate investor. I encourage everybody to look to add real estate to their investment portfolio.

Mosca: Saul, how were you able to get Realtors® to recognize the importance of technology?

Klein: As a broker, I networked my real estate company, and had all my agents using it in the office in the '80s. We were a little bit ahead of our time. The National Association of Realtors® knew this and they brought me in as a consultant to drive as many Realtors® to the Internet and to the World Wide Web as possible; to evangelize and socialize the concepts of using technology for the benefit of Realtors® and for the benefit of consumers. I had the great opportunity to go out and meet all of the people that ran all the MLSs, all of the volunteer leaders and organized real estate back in those years and talk to them about what a great benefit it would be to be able to expose listing information to the world and generate leads from it, all done on one Web site, Realtor.com.

Mosca: Do you agree that technology differentiates Realtors® from competitors and creates niches and specialties?

Klein: Seth Godin who wrote, "Purple Cow and Permission Marketing" said, "here's your choice be different or charge less." That is so profound. As a consumer, if you are looking for a product or a service and you've got it narrowed down to three and your perception is that all three are identical which one would you probably choose, the most expensive one? Price then becomes the differentiator. If you're in the real estate business, you have to be different. Technology is a great differentiator. It's going to help you list and sell more real estate and it's going to help you find more buyers. A simple way to be different is to get involved and integrate the technology into your real estate business.

Mosca: Is marketing one area where technology has an impact on differentiation?

Klein: If you are a REALTOR, you are in marketing. You market three things: yourself, your services, and your listings. Never forget that. Write it down. Look at it every day. Effective marketing requires four things. First, it needs to be frequent. Repetition is the mother of learning. It needs to be anticipated. If you're waiting for a marketing piece you're looking for it, if you're looking for it there's a better chance you're going to see it. Third, it needs to be relevant. The more relevant it is the more chance people are going to see it. This plays into something called predictive marketing. Fourth, marketing needs to be personal. Frequent, anticipated, relevant, and personal.

Mosca: Your four reasons also seem to resonate with social media and the Internet.

Klein: Kevin Kelly, one of the first editors of Wired magazine, said it best, "no one is as smart as everyone." People like to share and participate. We created Real Talk, for real estate people and real estate professionals; AE Talk for association executives; President Talk, for association presidents and MLS Talk, for people interested in the MLS. We have close to 100,000 people that participate with us in these online communities. To have thousands of other Realtors® across the country to share and to get input from is invaluable. In just about every field or subject you can think of today, there are online communities. You can social network in a professional environment or you can social network for pleasure. Realtors® have always social networked; they just didn't do it on the Internet.

Mosca: What technologies should Realtors® implement into their regular business practices?

Klein: First, they need to buy their own domain and use it as the address of their Web site and e-mail. Your e-mail address is an asset of your business. What you're saying is when you need my services send me an e-mail at this e-mail address. Your e-mail address is no different than your phone number. The more you market it the more valuable it is. The marketing you do today creates the business of tomorrow. You need a permanent e-mail address. I cannot stress this enough. There are so many Realtors® that still don't get this.

Mosca: I love the fact that you're just basically talking about the basics here with e-mail and phone numbers because sometimes we get so wrapped up with all the bells and whistles that are out there, we forget about the little things.

Saul: It's the little things that make a difference. There are more complex things but we've got to take advantage of the little things. Permanent phone number, permanent e-mail address and then we can look to a Web site. A lot of Realtors® have a Web site but Web sites are billboards in the middle of nowhere. For your Web site to be effective, you need to create a Web site strategy.

Mosca: What is a Web strategy and how do we go about applying it?

Klein: A Web site strategy requires four major areas. First, identify your audience. Who is your Web site for? Second, locate content that would be of value to your audience. Three, have a Web site platform that allows you to publish that information readily and easily. That might be a blog, or it might be a Web site template. Lastly, drive traffic.

Mosca: Saul, you mentioned earlier predictive marketing. What is predictive marketing and why is it important?

Klein: When I buy a book online, Amazon sends me an e-mail that says if you like this book you might like this book and sometimes they're absolutely right. Sometimes I'll buy another book that I had no intention of buying just because they let me know that it was available. Another example of predictive marketing is FTD, the florists. They know when I buy flowers so right before Valentine's Day and right before my wife's birthday and right before holidays I get e-mails from them. They know there's a good chance I'll buy more from them. If I had a REALTOR Web site, it would be valuable for me to know when people went to my Web site and where they were spending most of their time. If they were spending most of their time looking at the pictures of the swimming pool, I would know that they were probably interested in listings of houses with pools. If they're going to the mortgage calculator and now what are the values that they're putting in, we can use this if we're going to send them marketing pieces. If I know people are looking at $800,000 loans, I wouldn't send them a listing or information on a property that was a $400,000 property.

Mosca: Can you tell us about syndication and how it helps drive traffic to a Web site and how your relationship with Point2 Technologies fits in?

Klein: Syndication is the ability to have your listing information distributed to multiple sites by only entering it into a Web site or into a database once. You become your own lead generator. Point2 is one of the companies that do that. We have more syndication partners than anybody. When you're shopping for a Web site today you need to ask if they syndicate the content because that will get you wider distribution and more people driven back to you.

Published: April 3, 2008

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Peter L. Mosca is president and founder of BAK Communications, Inc. He has over 22 years of communications and media consulting experience, serving a variety of nonprofit organizations, including the CCIM Institute and the REALTOR Association on all three levels – national, state and local. He is the Spokesperson Trainer for the CCIM's Jay Levine Academy and trains hundreds of residential REALTORS nationwide to be effective industry spokespeople. He is consistently ranked as "excellent" by about 90% of those who attend his presentations. While his principal consulting focuses are public speaking and media relations development and content delivery and management, Peter is also the host of the Voice America Network's weekly radio program, "Income Property Investment Talk," a one-hour program that brings the powerhouses of commercial and residential real estate to property investors every Wednesday at 11 a.m. EST. Peter is married 17 years to his wife Barbara. They have two children: Ashley, 15 and Kelli, 12. Hence, the name BAK Communications, Inc.