Free marketing tips and tricks

E-mail postcard greetings: Maria Strong, with Century 21 H.T. Brown Real Estate Inc., Team One, in Waldorf, Md., uses free online e-greeting cards offered by her company to send open house, Just Listed, and Just Sold announcements to her farm. The cards, set to classical music, include a property photo and description, her contact information, and her URL. You can find dozens of e-card sites online. Cost: Free

Become a source to the media: To help build your credibility, develop relationships with local media and offer to be a source for them in housing market stories, suggests Sandra Sellani, author of “What’s Your Brand Quotient?” Cost: Free

Plug in to free social Web sites: Use Facebook and MySpace to reach your target market.

Free blogs: Get the word out on free blogs, such as the ActiveRain Real Estate Network. It’s a place where you can establish your  expertise with the site’s other real estate professionals. His blog entries will soon be carried by ActiveRain’s new sister consumer real estate site, www.localism.com. The marketing budget: Schiffer’s time and energy. The result: In one week alone, he received three phone calls and one e-mail from prospects who read his blog posts. His Facebook prospecting helped him land an exclusive agency contract with a buyer seeking investment properties.



SOURCE: REALTOR® Magazine Online, May 2007