6th
July
2008
Having an open house today at …
posted in Tweet |
Having an open house today at 318-2320 W40th Ave, Vancouver from 1-4pm. If you haven’t seen the listing: http://snipr.com/2u86t
| | This entry was posted
on Sunday, July 6th, 2008 at 10:48 am and is filed under Tweet.
You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
Vancouver, BC 
Tsk Tsk Will. Your Blog was so cool until you posted the open house.
Reason? http://marketingrealtors.wordpress.com/2008/05/15/quick-rant-a-blog-is-not-a-place-for-open-houses-or-new-listings/
Thanks for backhanded compliment. I hope you will still find it cool. and I completely disagree wit that rant there. You see, this “blog” really isn’t a blog at all. Yes, it uses a popular blogging platform for its framework but I think you’ll see digging through the site that I have approached it more as a CMS tool and one which can enable quick and easy communication with the world. Sometimes opinionated, sometimes a little off topic or something I find interesting, sometimes just chronciling a building.
Ultimately, though, this is a commercial site that is the face of my business on the web. Posting a new listing and getting the word out to as many people as possible is a focus of this site. Always will be. That open house posting you’re commenting on was a tweet (using twitter) from my phone as I ran to my open. It’s part of my business and my life. There are lots of stories on here of what it’s like to a be a realtor.
Sorry if you disagree. (though I agree with you if you’re talking about that one certain company out there whose “blog” posts are “I just uploaded this listing…”, “I’m having an open house at…”, “I just sold…” zzzzzz….with nothing added to the story but a automatic machine post.)
Sorry, but I guess we agree to disagree. Semantics. I believe if you’re going to market, target your efforts for the best response.
My point was very simple; a Realtor’s blog is not the ‘most effective’ place to post open houses. Your blog stands out from (in that it’s good) the thousands of other realtors who shamelessly plug open houses. It’s content is excellent, timely, and for the most part is very relevant for the industry. On that level I applaud you.
And you’re currently the only realtor I list as having a great blog.
Open House marketing has it’s place. I’m not a realtor myself, but I have been marketing online for the better part of 15 years. Let me give you my reasoning:
1.) Your usual active or investment clients will likely be contacted by direct means. This being by phone, email, or from your open house listing on your web site. It’s unlikely they use RSS feeds as well. (this being based on Forresters research, and our experience)
2.) Reaching a larger audience, you’ll likely use Craigs List - very effective for open houses.
In both these cases, the information is timely, and is gone within a specific time frame. More importantly - the same amount of effort on your part reaches a larger audience, plus your blog retains it’s friendly appeal without being seen as an over sales tool.
Just a thought.