Tag Archive for 'real estate marketing'

Pay to Play Until You Can Go Organic: Search Engine Marketing

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NDG
on March 1, 2010
in advertising, e-marketing, marketing, new home marketing and real estate marketing
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As new home sales expert Myers Barnes often says, “It’s Online or the Breadline.” According to the National Association of Realtors, more than 90% of new homebuyers are starting their research and selection process online, shopping by elimination to determine which communities they will visit in person.

Your goal is to have your website appear on the very first page of search engine results pages (or “SERPs”) when your prospects search under the keywords associated with your website and its content, and have it appear there “organically” — that is, without resorting to paid advertising to help maintain this first-page ranking. This is no easy and simple task, nor does it happen overnight, but with testing, vigilance, and perseverance, you can achieve this goal.

Search Engine Optimization (or “SEO”) refers to improving your search engine ranking via non-paid methods. This is different from Search Engine Marketing (or “SEM”), paid search engine advertising that can help you eventually achieve your search engine placement goals without any financial investment. The most prominent example of search engine advertising is Google AdWords.

Keyword research will help guide the ongoing development of your paid search engine advertising, so that you can allocate minimal funds to test your advertising first. Once you have positive results, roll out your complete, tested & proven paid advertising. Remember, your goal is to have your website appear on the first page of search engine results. With a combination of Search Engine Optimization and Search Engine Marketing, you can achieve this goal, and then eliminate the expense of paid search advertising once you achieve sustainable “organic” first-page ranking.

Next week, we’ll discuss the facts and myths of how “Social Media” such as Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter can help you distribute your content online to help achieve your search engine goals.

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NDG’s 2010 Online Marketing Fundamentals

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NDG
on February 3, 2010
in advertising, articles, e-marketing, new home sales marketing and real estate marketing
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Connect the Dot.com’s in Your Online Marketing

for Homebuilders, Developers, and Real Estate Brokerages

A Step-By-Step Process to Staying Focused and On-Track in Today’s Market

NDG is sharing a roadmap with our clients and friends this year. It’s a roadmap to achieving online advertising and marketing results in 2010. In seven steps—steps, which we admit, are complex, and which take time and dedication to achieve—NDG will show you how to lay the groundwork for online real estate marketing and sales success this year. We’ll share one step per post, starting this week with:

Follow the Content Path: The Fundamental Components Required for Integrating and Flowing Your Data

What to do, where to do it, and how to make it all work together: Revealed below is NDG’s online integration map for flowing data (content) throughout the fundamental online marketing components for Homebuilders, Developers, and Real Estate Brokerages.

dataflow3

1. Utilize a Branded, Adminable, and Content-Driven Website

What does “Adminable” mean?

This term simply means that your website is easily updated with new content by non-programmers via a Content Management System (CMS) that allows you to modify the content on your website without the help of a programmer.

What does “Content-Driven” mean?

We mean that fresh content is critical to your success, just as gasoline is required to make your car’s engine go: Community Listings, Inventory Homes List, Customizable Interactive Floorplans, Product Photography, Customizable Driving Directions to Sales Centers, Homeowner Testimonials, etc.

2. Utilize a Customer Relations Management System  (CRM)

What is a Customer Relations Management System?

Software that helps organize, manage, automate, and ensure the quality of your company’s interactions with both sales prospects and buyers.  Utilizing a CRM system will help you convert browsers into buyers.

3. Export XML Data Feeds from your CRM to 3rd-Party Referral Websites

What is an XML Feed?

This is the programming code that feeds YOUR HOME LISTINGS into third-party referral websites such as NewHomeSource.com, Trulia.com, or Move.com, etc., automatically, ensuring your listings on these websites are current and accurate—without having to manage the data manually.

4. Connect with Social Media Platforms

What are Social Media?

These are the online communities, websites, and platforms (such as Blogs, Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, etc) that allow people from any location on the planet to come together to share common interests. Social Media are today’s public relations.

5. Acquire and Analyze Website Analytic Performance Data

What are Website Analytics?

The hard numbers from your website and other online components that tell you who is interacting with you, or not, and why, where, when, and how. The proof is in the numbers, and the more you know and understand, the more you’ll be able to refine your approach and modify your outreach to create the greatest results.

By utilizing each of these fundamental components, and by properly flowing your content and data through them in the correct order, you can ensure that your online resources are structured for maximum efficiency, that no (or at least few) opportunities for exposure and connection with the right prospects are being missed, and that you are poised for the most return on your investment.

Next week we’ll discuss the fuel that makes this online engine run: CONTENT!

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CRITICAL HOUSING INDUSTRY NEWS

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NDG
on November 5, 2009
in articles, new home sales marketing and real estate marketing
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In service to our clients and partners in the real estate industry, NDG Communications often shares important news and research on our blog. Today the United States Senate announced that the homebuyer tax credit will be extended and expanded, and we present this exciting news here to keep you abreast of the facts as they develop.

Senate Acts to Extend Aid to Homebuyers; Passed $6,500 Tax Break; Headed for Quick Vote in House

Buyers who have owned their current homes at least five years would be eligible for tax credits of up to $6,500. First-time homebuyers—or anyone who hasn’t owned a home in the last three years—would still get up to $8,000.

To qualify, buyers have to sign a purchase agreement by April 30, 2010, and close by June 30. The credit would be extended an additional year, until June 30, 2011, for members of the military serving outside the United States for at least 90 days.

The bill is HR. 3548. “This is probably the last extension,” said Senator Johnny Isakson of Georgia, a former real estate executive who championed the credits. The new $6,500 credit for existing homeowners “is going to help us boost what is the problem in the U.S. housing market today and that is what is called the move-up market,” said Senator Isakson.

The credit is available for homes purchased at under $800,000. [The bill] doubles the income ceiling for qualification to $125,000 for individuals. The credit would be phased out for joint filers with incomes above $225,000.

The measure also strengthens the ability of the IRS to stop people who are not eligible for the program from filing fraudulent claims.

“Buyers right now have an incentive to hold off, not knowing whether the credit will be extended,” said Lucien Salvant, spokesman for the National Association of Realtors.

About 1.4 million first-time homebuyers have qualified for the credit through August. The National Association of Realtors estimates that 350,000 of them would not have purchased their homes without the credit.

ALL MATERIAL HERE EXCERPTED AND ADAPTED FROM ARTICLES by STEPHEN OHLEMACHER, Associated Press Writer, 8:53 a.m. EST, November 5, 2009, and by JIM ABRAMS, Associated Press Writer, 1:20 a.m. EST, November 5, 2009.

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NDG at GALA 2009

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NDG
on September 30, 2009
in Awards
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The mavericks and mavens of the D.C. region’s real estate industry gathered at the Ritz Carlton in Tysons Corner last night for the first Great American Living Awards show. Combining the best of MAME and MONUMENT award shows of the past, GALA 2009 celebrated excellence in real estate marketing, design, architecture, and sales.

It was a big night for NDG Communications, who received numerous industry accolades, including Best Marketing Campaign for Mid-Atlantic Builders at Beechtree in Upper Marlboro. Here are some highlights of NDG s haul at GALA 2009:

• Best Brochure for an Individual Community: Granite Hill (Steuart Kret Homes)
• Best Associate Website: www.NDGCommunications.com
• Best Marketing Campaign for an Individual Community: Beechtree Villas (Mid-Atlantic Builders)
• Interactive Campaign Award of Merit: Argent Condominiums (Perseus Realty)

In addition to the awards, NDG’s President Tom Nelson was also acknowledged for his personal contribution toward the success of the event. “Everyone at NDG deeply appreciates the praise received from our peers,” said Nelson, “and we’re very proud to share this recognition with our clients.”

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GUEST BLOG: Why Do We Need Email Marketing if We Have Social Media?

Published
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NDG
on September 4, 2009
in real estate marketing
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The following is a guest blog from our friend and colleague Mike Lyon over at DoYouConvert:

Many of you are squeezing social media so hard that you have forgotten about the old-fashioned email marketing campaign. Are you thinking, with all of these status updates, tweets, article postings, video sharing, and more—we just don’t need the email campaigns like we used to?

Lately, I have received an increase in requests to speak to homebuilders about using social media to generate new home sales. It’s the topic du jour. In my presentations, I always start with this thought:

Even though we are here to talk about social media and how you can leverage that network, the bottom line is, homebuyers are not going out to search for a home on Facebook. You must have a solid foundation and a bulletproof online sales program, before you invest all of your time and effort building a social media campaign.

One of the key Internet marketing tools in your Online Sales Program is your email marketing. If you aren’t sending out monthly campaigns to potential customers, realtors, and past customers, you are missing valuable opportunities.

But Mike, we have 1,000 followers on Twitter and 400 Facebook fans. They all see our stuff, is the response I get. But does your post stick around? No, which is why email campaigns are so great.

Let’s look at some of the benefits of this traditional form of marketing (funny that email campaigns are now considered traditional).

Email campaigns are targeted. Unlike a tweet, you can guarantee that email recipients almost always see the subject line. Your challenge is to make that subject line engaging enough for the recipient to want to open it.

Email campaigns are more permanent. When the email is in someone’s inbox, they have to delete it to get rid of it. A Facebook status update or an article will disappear on its own. So, in this case, an email lives until the recipient takes action.

Email campaigns have more real estate. Emails offer more space to talk about your message link to other information, and add enticing images, which is much more powerful than the 140 characters allowed by Twitter. You can track effectiveness with email campaigns. Tracking an email’s effectiveness is easier and less time-consuming than tracking the ROI of social media.

You can take action with email campaigns. With a targeted email message, you can actually see who opens and clicks through to the specific link. When you drill down into that data, you can then pick up the phone, call the prospect or realtor and talk about the subject immediately. Very powerful stuff!

If you really want to go old school, look at direct mail. When done correctly, it can still be very effective. Like a diverse portfolio, you must always keep your marketing program well rounded. Just because there is a great new technology or a new advertising medium, it doesn’t mean the old method is useless. You always have to look at the return on time and investment to determine its value for you or your company. What old school methods still work for you?

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Applications Going Up, Fed Pressure Moving Down

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NDG
on July 9, 2009
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The Washington Post reports that  loan applications “rose a seasonally adjusted 10.9 percent to 493.1 in the week ended July 3, after slumping the prior week to the lowest level since November.” Mortgage demand has now recovered from seven-month lows last week, easing pressure for more Federal Reserve intervention. Along with signs of home prices stabilizing, this rise in mortgage applications “suggests mortgage rates may not fall much lower.”

Read the entire article here.

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“5 Reasons a New Home Beats the Foreclosure Every Time”

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on June 18, 2009
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Widely regarded as the authority on new home sales, best-selling author Myers Barnes is the among the building industry’s most requested advisors and speakers. In this guest column, Myers gives us 5 smart reasons to opt for the new home instead of the foreclosure.

Foreclosure. In the new homes market, it’s the “F” word. The number of foreclosure filings in the U.S. rose by 81 percent in 2008 and by a whopping 225 percent from 2006. The housing market is flooded with the tsunami of perceived bargains. The key word here is “perceived.” There are several reasons that the “buyer beware” rule should be in effect when considering a foreclosed property:

1. Poor maintenance. If the owner wasn’t paying the mortgage, what makes you think he/she was investing in even the most basic upkeep?

2. As is. The “As Is” caveat could be costly for the buyer. A new home and its contents have warranties that protect the buyer. When buying a foreclosure, you get exactly what you pay for.

3. The angry owner. In the wake of a foreclosure, many former owners feel victimized by their situation. There are countless tales of homes being stripped of appliances, lighting fixtures, and even plumbing—all of which are removed in haste, and with no concern for the incoming dweller.

4. Hidden cost-cutters. If the foreclosed property is a new home, the builder was likely cutting many corners to avoid mounting more debt. What’s hidden under the drywall? “New” doesn’t necessarily mean a home is in excellent condition; it could mean that no one has yet discovered the creeping shortcuts.

5. Wasted time. Purchasing a foreclosure requires a mountain of paperwork and it can take months before you discover whether the bank accepts the deal. And what happens if your offer fails to make the cut? You begin the lengthy process again.

When your prospective buyer tosses down the “F” word like a gauntlet, pick it up and present the reasons why the foreclosed property is a questionable investment, at best. Then bestow upon them the many reasons that the new home you’re selling will deliver long-term value, satisfaction, comfort, and peace of mind.

Keep Selling,

Myers

Read more at the Myers Barnes Blog.

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First-Time Buyers to the Rescue

Published
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NDG
on June 11, 2009
in articles and real estate marketing
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With everyone wondering when we’ll “hit bottom,” and when inventory will begin to tighten, The Baltimore Sun published an article today that indicates buyers may be beginning to finally feel competition again:

“April Longest had a lot of reasons to move from an apartment in Hampden to a house of her own: low interest rates, a first-time-buyer credit and a monthly payment not much higher than her rent. But one of the biggest motivators of all for buying a semi-detached rancher in Medfield last month came from her competition - other buyers.”

“Stephanie Yungman, a real estate agent with Zip Realty, said business began picking up in mid-March. She said buyers appear to be more motivated than they have been in months, and it’s become more common for the more aggressively priced homes to get multiple offers. ‘There were even a couple of times I was saying I feel like we’re in the boom again,’ Yungman said.”

Read the entire article here.

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Introducing the New Fulton Research Website

Published
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NDG
on May 14, 2009
in e-marketing
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NDG Communications is proud to announce the launch of the new Fulton Research website www.FultonResearch.com, where you can:

•    Register to receive a free subscription to Residential Market Trends, which provides key market statistics and important indicators every month. With your free subscription, you will also gain access to the complete archive of past editions.

•    Stay up to date with ON TARGET, the Fulton Research blog, which comments on current market events, and gives you early notice of big news on the horizon that affects your business.

•    Learn more about Fulton Research’s project profiles and how their comprehensive services can give you the competitive edge you need to make smart, informed decisions about everything from marketing and sales to investing tactics and long-term business strategies.

We’re very proud of the work we’ve created for Fulton Research and encourage everyone in the builder, real estate, development, and housing industries to visit their new website for some of the most up-to-date insights and analysis available.

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