Real Estate Marketing Plans

Do you have your real estate marketing plans for 2012 ready?

With SO MANY alternatives for real estate marketing plans, are you confused on what to do in 2012?

So as you develop your 2012 real estate marketing plans, here is some great food for thought:

ActiveRain, the largest blogging platform and professional social network in real estate, conducted a survey of 1,910 real estate professionals asking the simple question of "what is the most effective real estate marketing or advertising that you do?" 

The results:

1. Referrals (including word of mouth and sphere of influence) were overwhelming the most preferred marketing with 26% of responses.
2. Blogging was #2 with 13% of responses.  (Keep in mind that the survey was conducted on ActiveRain, so these results may naturally be skewed to blogging).
3. Direct Mail continues to be incredibly popular.  Direct Mail includes post cards, mailers, and newsletters.  Direct Mail also received 13% of responses.
4. Internet Marketing as a general category received 12% of responses.  Our assumption is that Internet marketing is generally speaking pay per click marketing on Google, Yahoo or Bing or lead generation from a number of different sources.
5. Networking Networking includes partner referrals and face-to-face meetings. Face-to-face networking received 8% of the responses.
   
   

 (Share these stats - link to this article: http://activerain.com/blogsview/2641172/real-estate-marketing-plans-most-effective-marketing-of-2011)

 As you can see based on 2011 real estate marketing plans, real estate professionals continue to favor more traditional offline, "tried & true" hand to hand real estate marketing techniques.  Though the general bucket of Internet marketing & blogging are equivalent to direct mail, the top marketing techniques tend to be more offline - referrals, direct mail, networking, working with past clients, open houses, door knocking and cold calling.   Hard to know if ActiveRain is the same as blogging and if Zillow or Google are the same as Internet marketing, but interesting to see that from a response perspective, that Open Houses are more popular than any one web site AND Door Knocking is more preferred than CraigsList and FaceBook.

When real estate professionals were asked, "What is the most effective real estate marketing or advertising that you do?" only a small number of real estate web sites were mentioned in reasonable frequency: ActiveRain, CraigsList, FaceBook, Zillow and Google.  Of course, blogging and Internet marketing are large categories with a lot of different companies.  But there were very few mentions of Wordpress or other ways to market online.  Noticeably absent were Trulia and Realtor.com   Though we believe ActiveRain is a very powerful blogging platform, fans of ActiveRain are likely over-represented in the survey.  Kudos to Zillow to have name recognition equivalent to Google in the real estate industry.

For 2012, here are the key questions to ask:

1. How important is developing your REFERRAL BASE?  How are you going to do it?
2. Are Blogging and SEO part of your 2012?  If so, what to do - ActiveRain, Wordpress, Blogger, or other?
3. Direct Mail continues to be an important part of the real estate professional's marketing mix.  It is amazing, but true.  Direct Mail allow neighborhood targeting unlike online marketing.  What kinds of direct mail campaigns will you be using?
4. Internet Marketing needs to be part of your 2012 marketing mix, but there are a lot of options from pay-per-click advertising to lead generation to Zillow, Trulia and Realtor.com 

ActiveRain is great place to start the learning process to figure out the best Internet marketing strategies to achieve your personal and financial goals in 2012! 

Share this blog post!  Either blog about it or share on your social networks.  Link to and reference this blog if you use this content: http://activerain.com/blogsview/2641172/real-estate-marketing-plans-most-effective-marketing-of-2011

The following archived articles are from a series I began a while back entitled "Blog Tips for Rain Drips" and were designed to provide needed instruction in the finer points of blogging/social media, and to help our members derive the most benefits/value from their involvement here on ActiveRain.

"The Road to Remarkable"

"Rants, Rights, and Reputations - Lessons in Online Behavior"

"Embracing Change in the Rain"

"Jing adds Bling to Your Digital Conversations"

"Roost Media Toolkit for Facebook"

"Referrals in the Rain"

"Conquesting Creative Constipation" or "Overcoming Blogger's Block"

"Social Media Sushi - Developing a Social Media Strategy, Part IV"

"Taking AIM - Developing a Social Media Strategy Part III"

"The 'Why' of Social Media - Developing a Social Media Strategy Part II"

"New Series: Developing a Social Media Strategy"

"Hello? McFly! It's called 'Social' Media for a Reason!"

"Learning the Balancing Act of Social Media"

"Perception vs. Reality"

"Don't Waste Your Time on ActiveRain!"

"Attracting Great Clients thru Blogging"

"Overwhelmed by the Technology Learning Curve?"

"Your Blog Stimulus Package"

"Taking the Hype out of Hyper-Local Blogging"

"And the Password is!".....

"When I Search My Name, Nothing Comes Up!"

"Don't Turn Your Blog into a Refrigerator Magnet!"

"Would You like a Side of SPAM with those Comments?"

"How to Balance Your Blog"

"When in Doubt, Read the Instructions!"

"Rain-Vitations: Your Ticket to a Higher Score"

"Bring Back that Loving Feeling: Building Community"

"How to Kreate Kwality Kontent"

"How to Engage Your Blog Readers"

"Forgive me, Father, it's been 3 weeks since my last blog post!"

"Is Your Blog a Brick Wall?"

"When is Your Blog like a Toxic Waste Dump?"

"The 3 Powerful 'P's' of Posting"

"What is Comment Junk Mail SPAM?"

"How to Sabotage Your Own Blog"

"But I did stay at a Holiday Inn Express"

"Roxanne, Glamor Shots, and Casper the Ghost"

"Is it possible to be TOO Transparent?"

"Monsters in the Blogosphere"

"What is a Straffing Run Blogger?"

"Playing Fair in the Blogging SandBox"

"Are You Feeling a 'Draft' in Here?"

"How to Write Good Hyper Local Content"

~     o     ~     o     ~     o     ~     o     ~     o     ~

Rich Jacobson is a licensed professional real estate broker providing Relentless Representation and Knowledgeable Empowerment for his clients of residential properties and vacant land throughout all of Kitsap County WA and portions of Pierce, Mason, and Jefferson Counties. You can also find him at KitsapLife.com, HomesByHarbors.com, SoundBiteBlog, Everyday CK, @KitsapAgent and Crabbing in the Hood, or e-mail:  kitsapagent@gmail.com

From everyone here at ActiveRain and the folks at Kodak, we would like to congratulate Glenn for his winning entry in the Kodak Moments contest.

There were so many great entries that it was agonizing to even select the top ten. The reality is, every post was worthy of the same accolades. But when you are giving away prizes, there has to be a winner. So this time we put it to you, the community, for a vote and you selected Glenn's moving memories of his friend Mike and the image that allowed his family to remember their fallen soldier over 30 years later.

Everyone has different emotional triggers. It was clear from the voting that different people connect with different stories and images. It's also clear that heroes, friendship and family are something all of us treasure.

Congratulations Glenn!

Glenn will be receiving a KODAK EASYSHARE M580 Digital Camera, a 7 inch PULSE Digital Frame and a few extra ActiveRain points. Our second place winner Karen Kruschka will receive a 7 inch PULSE Digital Frame and her own share of ActiveRain points for her fantastic entry about her son 'aiming high' in life.

The rest of us? We got to enjoy sharing these amazing images with each other (a few of which brought more than one tear to my eyes.....)

How many times have you tried to link your ActiveRain post on Twitter or another site only to get the response that the url is too long?  Well Happy Holidays, ActiveRain has a gift for you.

Once you have written and posted a blog post you now have the option of generating a shorter url. 

Simply go back into your post and click Generate short URL.  Take a look at the screen shot below:

I hope many of you find this useful and take advantage of the new url. Here is what Lenn's shortened URL looks like once we generate the shorter URL for the post in the screen shot above.

The shortened URL for this post is http://actvra.in/45. As you can see, the shorter structure uses the actvra.in domain.

In order to see how many times someone has clicked on that shortened URL, you can go to the 'statistics' area of your 'my home' page in order to track performance. It will show you how many times each shortened URL has been clicked.

And an added bonus to deal with the continual onslaught of spam......

Let's call it a stocking stuffer.  To help with the spam you may see occassionally, we've now made it so only logged in members can leave links in comments.  Our hope is that it cuts the spam down drastically.  Fingers crossed!

Happy Holidays!!!

Kerrie Greenhalgh

ActiveRain has done it again!  We've added yet another feature to enhance the AR Community.  Members now have the option of posting Listings! 

Here's how:

1.  Go to http://activerain.com/action/listings and click New Listing
2.  Upload photos, enter the address, description and stats
3.  Click Save Listing
4.  Click Activate

I'm sure you're thinking to yourself, "It can't be that easy can it?"  Yes, my friends it is. 

A few clarifications:

You may have up to 20 listings at any time.  Each listing will be active for 30 days.  This is to keep any stale information from being displayed.  If you make any changes to the listing, update the price, add a picture etc. the 30 days will reactivate from that day.

Each listing may have up to 20 photos.  Photos must be 960x440 at a minimum.  We encourage you to take the pictures from your digital camera to optimize clarity.

One of the following browsers must be used to post listings:  Firefox, Safari, Google Chrome or Internet Explorer 8.

Listings will appear on the new Community Pages and as an added bonus of RainMaker status your listings will appear on the sidebar of your blog.

I hope everyone takes advantage of this new feature!

Let it Rain!

Kerrie Greenhalgh

The ActiveRain Featured Blog Post -

I get asked everyday about the ActiveRain Featured Blog post.  The wide variety of questions range from "Who Is Featuring The Posts" to "Why Are The Same Members Featured over and over again?"  Well, it's taken me 2 1/2 years working here to finally write a post about the infamous "Featured Blog Post!" 

Now some of you will agree, and some may disagree, (I wouldn't have it any other way) but at the end of the day, what really matters most is that you understand the process, the system, and have some compassion for the thankless position of those responsible for keeping that feature board going day in and day out.

So who, what, when, where, why, and how does this all work?

 The ActiveRain Feature Board

Are you kidding?  You really thought I was going to give up the secret?  Share the coveted recipe to KFC's Chicken?  Unveil the ancient Chinese secret that all proverbs were built upon?  Are you nuts?  You really thought it would be that easy to just come along and read a post and all of a sudden be the "all knowing" understander of the ActiveRain Featured Blog Post?  Sorry folks, I've held back this long, I'm not about to lay it all out there now and take the fun, the mystery, and all the guess work out of it.  Haha, had ya goin there for a sec eh?

The ActiveRain Feature Board is a living, breathing, ever-changing, powerful, and exciting AR feature.  It could possibly be one of the most important and exciting things about the entire ActiveRain RE Network.  Acquiring that sought after gold star and having your picture on the main AR page has been compared by some to being as exciting as having your picture on the cover of the "Rolling Stone!" 

Why is the "Feature" such a coveted "CRAZE" here on ActiveRain?  For those with an ego, it's the recognition, for others it's the potential traffic, and the added exposure.  The opportunities a featured post can create are unbelievable.  The thought and potential of getting a featured post has created some pretty crazy frenzy's.  It's also stirred up some pretty wild and crazy far-fetched ideas and posts from some of our more "voicy" ActiveRain members. One thing is for sure, this will always be a sensative and even contraversial topic.

So how do we feature posts and are the same people getting featured too often?

First off, I want to thank you (the community) for helping us refine this delicate process of selecting posts for featured status. Since the inception of the feature board, we continually strive to refine the process in which featured posts are selected. The recent addition of the 'suggest' button is our second shot at trying to put the feature board in the hands of our members.

The first shot was over two years ago and it failed as we were unable to control it from being manipulated by folks banding together and suggesting each other for features. We believe that the newest incarnation will be more successful as the shear numbers of people suggesting posts for feature has grown significantly and the ease with which someone can manipulate it has diminished.

Add in a few additional administrative controls, now we can determine who may be trying to manipulate the system, and we believe we are getting much closer to a true community decision of what merits a feature worthy post on ActiveRain.  That being said, we still have the ultimate decision on what gets featured and all posts that are suggested for feature are reviewed by our staff prior to being featured. 

(The AR Staff Moderators names will not be disclosed in this post for obvious reasons)

This sentiment has been echoed in the past, and I believe it still holds true today. There are certain members that are excellent writers. For whatever reason, and it's not because they have overtly recruited people to suggest their posts for feature, their posts get suggested for feature at a higher rate than others.  Much of it has to do with the large followings they have amassed because of the balance they have achieved in writing to consumers and also focusing on writing posts that help the community.

We have a hard time justifying penalizing these folks by keeping them off the feature board or restricting the amount of features they can have. However, I am in agreement with all members that having the same person on the feature board more than once at the same time is not the best representation of the depth of writing talent here on ActiveRain.  For this reason, we have asked our staff to be mindful of who is already on the feature board as they review the posts that have been suggested for feature.

We have also asked that they look deeper in the pool of suggested posts for members that have had very few (or no) featured posts in the past. This will help us develop the new talent on the site and allow them to amass followings that can benefit from their writing skills. We truly appreciate all our members for taking the time to voice their concerns to us, it's because of these members that ActiveRain will continue to grow and get better.

My personal ancient secret recipe for finding features

The ActiveRain Featured Blog post, just one more great example of how ActiveRain has and will continue to evolve.

I reblogged this post to give some additional exposure to the new ActiveRain Leaderboard.  This in my opinion is a nice supplement to the City/State pages that use to feature the ability to find specific individuals in various States under a selected category. Great job on the post Kerrie, thanks and kudos!  :-)

This Friday, our very own Bob Stewart and the lovely Christa Caulk will be joining hands for eternity in marriage!  Yup, a couple of my very best friends in the World are getting hitched and permanently tying the knot.  Since I am unable (along with so many other friends and family) to make it to their wedding out in Michigan this year, we are putting together this "LIVE" streaming video to share with everyone.

And Two Become One...

On Behalf of the entire ActiveRain Team, We request the honor of your presence at the marriage of Christa Noelle to Robert Eugene Stewart Jr. this Friday, the Ninth of July, Two Thousand and Ten at Half Past Six in the Evening.
(That's 12:30pm Hawaiian time, 3:30pm Pacific, 5:30pm Central, 6:30pm Eastern)

Gather all your friends and family, calling all ActiveRain Members, Get the Rice Ready....  This Is It!! 

Come join us for the "First Ever" Virtual wedding right here in the Rain. May these two be blessed with great fortune and all the amazing things this earth and universe have to offer them. We wish them peace, happiness, and an abundance of Joy and great health in their new adventure, Journey, and life together as Bob and Christa Stewart. 

Register Here Friday at 6:00pm EST, and Watch The Wedding "LIVE" With Us

We love you both and wish you all the very best.

CONGRATULATIONS and Thank You for sharing this very special day and time with all of us.

BTW - Bob will also be celebrating his Birthday during this momentous occasion.