Property ManagementBuild Your Business Through Personal Marketing
What is personal marketing? It is the means by which you get your name, your specialties and your reputation known. It is how you become the go-to expert in your particular sphere of influence.
But how do you become known? Which comes first? Reputation or Marketing?
One company offers an answer. Best Image is a personal marketing company that can help you become more widely known. The twenty-year-old plus company specializes in two unique niches - newspaper advertorials and Web site building, the two areas that generate the most leads for agents other than referrals, according to the company.
The two promotional strategies have one theme in common - both provide exclusive exposure. When your editorial columns are picked up by a local paper, you are the only one in the market with that particular exposure. When you join the advertising co-op, America"s #1 Real Estate Experts(tm,) you are the only "expert" in your area to participate.
Best Image has placed top agents into newspaper columns in over 700 newspapers throughout North America, putting them among the leading authorities on real estate in their markets. In exchange for exclusive rights to the editorials in the area, Best Image will negotiate with the newspaper to have your column included on a continuing basis, as long as you wish to continue. And you don"t have to write a thing. Editorial services are included in the package.
Best Image"s success rate with the advertorial program is high by advertising standards. The company maintains that over 70% of its first-year clients renew, and many have been running a column for as long as a decade.
The company"s other service, Web site design and advertising placement, is rooted in delivering as much traffic as possible to the agent or broker site. The company cautions that just listing the site with search engines isn"t enough - everybody does that including your competitors. The site also warns that nobody can make your site emerge at the top of search engines" lists.
Because Internet advertising is expensive, the company offers a solution in which agents can co-op costs to gain more exposure, an exclusive arrangement called America"s #1 Real Estate Experts(tm.) Best Image purchases advertising positions for you and the group of Realtors who are also "experts."
How does it work? When someone goes to a search engine, Best Image has placed banner ads that invite the searcher to click through. "These ads have a phenomenal click-through rate of about 25% to 30%, depending on the search engine. The standard for the industry is only 1%," says Lawrence Schoeffler, vice president and director of the Internet division of Best Image. "The ads send people right to the experts in the area they are seeking."
Why is Best Image"s approach different from other Web site designers/planners? "The more REALTORS we sign up, the more money we have to buy ads, and those get results. If an agent asks other Web site designers how they plan to get traffic to the site, the answer is always vague."
"We give them exclusivity, and direct exposure on the search engines. We say "Find the real estate expert in your town." The customer can click on that and the ad connects them to the website. If you rely on search engine results alone, you are competing with thousands of other agents. We have also positioned the agent in a unique way - as an expert."
"On the web, you can get all kinds of information from school reports to homes. What is lacking is a way of connecting people with people. The real estate transaction is so complex that eventually, the customer will have to rely on someone who knows their way around the industry. By positioning our REALTORS as experts, it has been successful."
"The number one question we are asked by agents is "How are people going to find me?" We have a real answer for them," asserts Schoeffler
Best Image is in the process of adding a directory of Top REALTORS which will locate agents by area and by specialty. The directory will also feature fun facts and editorials by participating agents.