It’s pretty epic.

Seriously. I love the honesty. The attitude. And the tongue in cheek humor puts it over the top.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q-RLqLx1iYI[/youtube]

Besides, any guy who can take a crescent wrench to the face 5 times will win my business ever time.

Looking for a mobile home? Check out Cullman Liquidation.

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A guest post from Tim Fagan, CEO of HomeFinder.com

Things were simpler then, more familiar. You knew who to call, what to do and what to expect.

I’m talking about the good old days of real estate advertising.

Back then, you dealt with the sales rep for the local paper over a cup of coffee. Maybe you sponsored a little league team or bought a spot on the back of the church bulletin. And your audience? You could count on them to be in just a few places, at the same times, week in and week out.

Those days are long gone, a fact that has been amply documented. I won’t belabor that point.

The more important question is this: Now that the game has changed, how can we make it simpler for real estate advertisers?

Think about it: The average agent, broker or brokerage marketing director is faced with a panoply of media, formats and creative challenges these days.

On the table are:

• SEM/pay-per-click
• Brand display ads
• Direct response display ads
• Syndication
• Video
• Mobile
• Print

And this, mind you, is a growing list. Video wasn’t there three years ago; mobile wasn’t there just one year ago. Next year you may need to consider your strategy for Tweet ads, or feel pressure to get into the “augmented reality” game.

I know, it’s a little scary. And most brokers, and darn near all agents, don’t have the in-house talent to master all these platforms. Nor do they have the budget needed to hire a digital agency that does.

What to do?

Here are a few recommendations, from both the advertiser and publisher side of the business.

For advertisers (brokers and agents)

When Google launched Adwords back in 2002, thousands of brokers and agents jumped on the opportunity. After all, who wouldn’t explore performance-based advertising?

The problem was few practitioners had the time or skill necessary to optimize an SEM campaign. Results for many were disappointing.

My point: Pick media you are confident you can execute well in. If your marketing department has a good designer, you may want to focus on display ads. If you have a great headline/call to action writer on your team, SEM may be a good choice. If you or your broker performs well in front of the camera, start syndicating video.

Stick to that which you are capable executing well.

Secondly, for digital media, make sure you think beyond the click. By this I mean where the user is taken when they click on your ad. Whether this is a property detail page or a more conventional landing page, you have to make certain you present the user with something that is clear, consistent in message and look with the ad that got them to click, and loaded with a strong call to action.

If you can’t execute beyond the click, don’t bother.

For publishers

We as publishers – those site owners or media channels that sell advertising to brokers and agents – can also do our share to simplify the advertising ecosystem.

For one, we can offer cross-platform buys. At HomeFinder, we offer national exposure through HomeFinder.com combined with local placement on individual newspaper sites. Brokers and agents like this because it allows them to kill two birds with one stone.

Adwords now has a mobile offering. Several companies are marrying listings syndication with distribution to YouTube.

We are getting there. But we need to move more quickly to offer integrated packages that streamline the process for our advertisers.

Second, publishers should do more to share best practices with their advertisers. Many sales people take a consultative approach with broker and agent clients as far as structuring an ad buy, but I’m talking about something more.

For example, a strong case can be made that any large publisher would do well to hire an in-house marketing specialist available to help clients evaluate creative, craft messaging and optimize landing pages. If that sounds over the top, consider that newspapers sometimes create ads for smaller clients.

Moving forward

We will never again see a world where advertising is straightforward and audiences are concentrated. Our time is one of multiple, often blended, media channels and atomized audiences.

Our aim should be to make that reality more manageable.

If you’d like to have your writing featured on FOREM blog, please email us at futureofrealestate@gmail.com

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I know that some companies strive very hard to be creative with their advertising. And yet most in the real estate space, despite their best intentions (and big budgets), fail miserably (see Coldwell and Banker Back At Helm). 

And while this may have been forgivable during the height of the bubble; now, when the market is at it’s most vulnerable, and folks crying out for some guidance and clarity, we’re really seeing some doozies. 

Like this ad from national homebuilder DR Horton. (h/t Hot Property)

Or this gem from RE/Max (I’m not picking on them I swear…)

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aSTdelX3_gU[/youtube]

Problem is, it’s not a funny time. 

These ads are pandering and an insult to our intelligence. It’s about dumbing it down to the lowest common denominator. It’s advertising 1.0 thinking… that we’re more clever than you are, so listen to what we’re trying to sell you.

I don’t know, is it just me? Am I the only one who would like to see advertisers promote an honest discussion about where we are in the market and why there’s some hope of a rebound building out there (that the first time buyers credit seems to be stimulating some activity in certain areas). Folks I talk to want to hear about this, but nobody’s out there telling them.

Instead we get stupid gimmicks like this. Seems like a wasted opportunity to me.

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The situation for the local real estate section looks grim. AdAge is reporting newspaper ad revenue fell nearly $2 billion in Q3 of 2008.

Even online ad sales are looking miserable.

Newspapers’ online ad sales, where everyone is hoping some part of the future business model resides, accelerated their decline with a 3% drop. Online ad sales slipped 2.4% in the second quarter.

No question that once we’re through this recession (now official) the advertising marketplace will be radically different. And the shakeout won’t be pretty. I don’t believe a business model solely reliant on advertising can survive (see Storms Ahead for Real Estate Sites).

So it’s more pressing than ever for the big publishers and online media sites to start thinking about how they can help the industry.

Over a year ago I wrote about three things newspapers could do to help their bottom lines and also help real estate professionals make the transition online (see 3 Ps – The Future for Real Estate Newspaper Advertising)- it’s more urgent than ever to start thinking about some of them.

Reprinted below:

Providing the Platform

Leverage existing publishing infrastructure to provide agents/brokers with a web presence, but free the database from the design so it is totally customizable (Ubertor) and retain a unique top level URL and easily create single property web sites (RealBird). Agents have complete control of their presentation of these sites but traffic can easily be fed both directions. Make the data exportable so if the agent wants/needs to leave they can.

With control of the source of the listing data, it can then be pulled back to enhance the mothership’s search results. There is an opportunity to up-sell featured listings (Trulia) or even premium placement for the agent’s sites on search results (Zillow). Don’t get greedy either – help agents get these listings elsewhere on the ‘Net too (Point2NLS, vFlyer).

Give the agents a blogging platform (Move.com, ActiveRain) and allow the content to be rolled up into a hyperlocal information source (Outside.In, Localism, YourStreet). Bonus – you can use this approach to find talented writers that can build out into group blogs (RainCityGuide, BloodhoundBlog), e.g. the PI’s Seattle Real Estate Professionals.

Packaging the Right Tools

Give agents the tools they want to get video tours of their properties and connect the agents with the producers (RealEstateShows, WellcomeMat) but don’t confine the distribution to your site – following the listing model, help the agents syndicate those videos out across the web (TubeMogul).

Promoting the Brand

The package should include various levels of self-service advertising network (with CPM, CPC advertising options) – with options to centralize ad buys on other sites as well. The package could also include placement inside an enhanced local service provider directory (MerchantCircle) in the real estate section. And it should give the Realtor the tools they need to manage their online reputations on other local directory destinations (CitySearch, Yelp, etc.) as well.

With this approach, brokers and agents ultimately would benefit from the one-stop-shop for all their marketing needs as well as playing off the paper’s still resilient brand with local real estate consumers.

If they can see this opportunity, the papers are the only ones that (for now) have the local market penetration to pull something like this off. And at each of the step, there are clear and obvious ways that the newspapers could monetize this – far beyond selling simple classifieds ads.

advertising, real estate marketing, real estate 2.0, online media

Flickr photo by eob.

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A big thanks to Real Pro Systems for supporting FOREM this month.

Real Pro specializes in web sites and marketing solutions for the real estate industry and have a pretty comprehensive internet marketing solution for Realtors. Their Gold3 package includes a web site, blog and all kinds of integrated lead cultivation and drip marketing tools designed by agents for agents.

And the best thing is they have graciously set up an exclusive offer for FOREM readers this month…

If your looking to retire your old website, you can trade it in today and get up to a $400 credit towards a new set up from Real Pro Systems. Add any of the add-ons and you’ll get an additional $100 off. Not a bad deal.

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Over the last couple of weeks we’ve seen a handful of companies launch real estate search tools for the iPhone, but Canadian company Utopria is the first out of the gates to take the listing flyer and single property web site and bring it onto the mobile platform.

I gotta say. I love this thing.

Here’s how it works. Punch in a single property website URL found on sign rider (e.g. www.262mapleview.com) using Safari on your iPhone. MediaPod (Utopria’s platform) then delivers a specially formatted version of the listing page to your phone.

The Mediapod flyer incorporates all the expected marketing elements, like a company logo and phone number but the first sign that this is something different is that rather than a static head shot, Mediapod gives agents the ability to embed a video that introduces themselves. Very slick.

(Another clever touch is that the agent’s contact information includes email and phone links that dump you directly into the respective application on your iPhone.)

Still pushing the multimedia angle, inside the property information section of the flyer, in addition to the standard information (price, square footage etc.) prospective buyers can listen to a pre-recorded audio introduction by the agent about the specific property.

Another slick touch is that buyers can also choose to view surrounding schools, restaurants, parks and shopping outlets from a drop down menu and then have those instantly mapped into the Google Maps application on the iPhone. (To which you could then get directions, using iPhone’s location awareness.)

If you don’t have an iPhone, you can see how it works watching this video.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BADS5uwuC-o[/youtube]

A few downsides however. The implementation of the property photos seems a little weak. I would love to be able to pull up the photos full-screen and be able to scroll through them using the beautiful touch screen interface of the iPhone. Though I suspect this may be due to the limitations of the iPhone SDK rather than the Mediapod platform.

Also, any existing virtual tours of the property are disabled – but this again is due to a limitation in the iPhone OS which has put the kibosh on Flash. Presumably though, if the home has a video tour associated with it, that could play through.

Finally – the basic design of the page could use a bit of a face lift… it didn’t knock me off my seat. But I guess that’s something that could be customized for each agent anyway.

All in all, Utopria’s offering is a fantastic demonstration of what makes the iPhone such a powerful consumer tool – and I suspect it is the first shot in a coming fusillade of iPhone-based property marketing tools.

I’d say it’s well worth exploring as part of your marketing tool set, especially for any agent who’s looking to establish a differentiating wow factor for their sellers or one who works in a tech heavy (Silicon Valley, Seattle, New York) area.

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Frontdoor.com, the upstart real estate search portal from media giant Scripps Network Interactive, continues to move forward. From their most recent press release:

Just six months after opening, FrontDoor.com, the real estate Web site powered by HGTV, continues to unlock home ownership information for users – now offering more than 3 million listings of homes for sale across the country.

So is 3 million the magic number?

Zillow’s Real Estate Search Results claim to have close to that (2,626,271 to be exact). REALTOR.com says you can “search over 3 million new, existing and rental properties”.

Young buck Roost.com has about half that… but then they’re only live in a handful of markets.

Roost.com now provides consumers access to homes for sale in 26 major markets, over 12,000 cities and nearly 1.5 million listings in total.

Nothing from Trulia on how many listings they have but I’m going to take a wild guess here and say that they have… oh I don’t know… approximately 3 million listings?

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So HD video might not be in your gameplan yet (see The Power of HD Video) – but video surely is coming.

I’ve been talking to Realtors and Brokers all over the country this year who are using video successfully in meeting and servicing buyers’ need and helping sellers market their homes (see Century 21 Puts Open Houses in Youtube).

And it seems large brokers are catching on and building video into their marketing plans too; just this week I saw a press release that East Coast brokerage Weichert, Realtors had announced a deal with Turnhere to add online video home tours to their website.

I wanted to probe a little deeper so I asked Morgan Brown, fellow Blogger and newly minted Marketing Director at Turnhere to answer a few questions about video.

How can real estate professionals use video in their marketing?

With such a large percentage of home owners starting their search for property online, using video in online listings is the first thing that comes to mind. Pictures are nice and descriptions are helpful, but there is no substitute to video for giving a user a firsthand experience of the property with a well-done video home tour. In addition to using video to highlight listings it can also be used to showcase neighborhood attributes and provide a profile of your business and team.

For example if you are a Realtor in the East Bay of California you can use video to highlight the quaint neighborhood of Rockridge and its beloved walking streets lined with local restaurants and shops. This content is ‘evergreen’ and helps people evaluating your listings get a true sense of the surrounding area.

Is appropriate for every listing?

I can’t think of a listing where it isn’t appropriate. Even properties that don’t have the most curb appeal can benefit from a video by capturing the attention of just the right buyer. Listings that are moving fast already and perhaps properties that rely less on online research for sales are exceptions to that statement.

Videos too expensive for most Realtors, right?

Professional video production is totally affordable for nearly all marketing budgets. Compared to traditional marketing channels it’s a bargain. It’s much cheaper than print materials, flyers, radio, TV, outdoor (bench and billboard) and other marketing vehicles.

What makes a good web video?

I think there is a big misconception out there that it is easy to make a good video. The fact is making good video that is compelling, authentic and relevant to the viewer is difficult. To wit, of the millions of videos watched on YouTube each day the average view time is less than 10 seconds. This is a direct result of most video not meeting the needs of the viewer.

When the viewer gives you permission to talk to them by clicking play you have to deliver, and deliver right away. To make good video for the Web (which is much different than traditional broadcast video advertising i.e. a :30 second TV spot) it needs to focus on three key things: authenticity, delivering a compelling message, production quality which makes it enjoyable to watch and drives action.

Bottom line is that web viewers have near-infinite choice for their attention and are typically skeptical. This means that your message has to be compelling, relevant and real. Over-produced sales pitches or videos that don’t meet the viewer needs are big turn-offs online.

What are some ways you can leverage the video content you create?

The nice part about video is that it’s a highly portable piece of content so you should look to get it out on the Web to get as many eyeballs to it as possible. Using a smart distribution strategy can put you in front of the right people at the right time. Whether it’s putting your video up on YouTube, Facebook, Active Rain or making it shareable via email and embeddable in a widget the idea is to get your video out there to where the viewers are.

Can you give us some examples of some of your favorite videos on the web? (Not those kind of videos…)

My favorite videos are ones that are compelling and interesting. They take a piece of everyday life and show it to you in a different way. I love to see the stuff that you don’t get every day in mainstream media. Show me the true character of a city by doing a tour of all the BBQ joints in town or show me the kitchen of the hotel that cranks out 1,000 four-star meals a day. Give me a clip of the author talking about why they wrote their new book. One of my favorite videos is the author David McCollough talking about how Washington escaped from the Red Coats at the site of the Brooklyn bridge – amazing insight that I would never get. I also love the videos of Mentos and Diet Coke so it goes both ways. Videos that give me a unique, authentic perspective on life are the ones that I love.

(Full Disclosure: Turnhere is owned by Inman News Publisher Bradley Inman)

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photo credit: woodleywonderworks

Since Zillow launched its Zillow Mortgage Marketplace it has received over 28,000 loan requests (see Zillow Mortgage Marketplace Borrowers Have Spoken). Pretty good showing for a service that is only a little over a month old.

But it seems like Zillow is not the only online player who’s eyeing this market as an opportunity… word from SearchEngineLand that Google UK has launched Google Merchant Search – a way for consumers to compare and shop for loans from various originators (see FAQ).

No word whether this service will make it to US shores and how Google may end up integrating the service into its search results, though I could see them implementing the service into a Google Search for mortgage loans – much like how they integrate property listings from Google Base into real estate searches (see Another Hint at Google Real Estate?).

If they did, it could be a real blow to the services provided by Zillow and LendingTree and others.

(h/t screenwerk.com)

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photo credit: LWY

Estately.com has long been one of my favorite real estate search experiences on the web (see 10 Kick Ass Real Estate Search Sites). And today it just got much better (well, for me at least, anyway).

This morning they announced that they have expanded in to Oregon by adding over 35,000+ Portland single family homes and condos into their search results. Listings are being pulled from the RMLS™ Regional Multiple Listing Service.

A couple of things really set Estately apart from the competition and certainly any of the local broker sites. First, the neighborhood search tool is fantastic. Say you want to do a search for a home in one of Portland’s hot neighborhoods; Mississippi, Sellwood or the Pearl, for example. Estately plots the neighborhood boundaries on to its map and confines the search to those boundaries – making it really easy to streamline your search.

(One weird bug I found was that when I did a search in my neighborhood it kept telling me I lived in North Bend – Estately founder Galen Ward confirmed this was a known issue and that they were working hard to fix it).

The second new feature in Estately, and one I think Rose City residents are going to love, is a revamped ability to confine your search results their proximity to mass transit routes like the MAX Light Rail Service.

An example search:

• Homes under $400,000 within walking distance of light rail in Portland

I suspect this type of information, along with services like WalkScore (see Measuring Walkability with Walk Score), are increasingly going to be factors that people build in to their home searches (especially as more and more stare down $4+ gas)

Brokers, I’d follow Estately’s lead and start building this type of functionality into your web sites. It’s could be a great point of differentiation in your marketing vis a vis your local competition.

Portland-based Realtors, Estately offers you a way to connect with and offer your services to local home buyers and sellers through its Agent Match program. Estately screens and vets all Realtors in the program to ensure an excellent level of service but if you’re looking to Connect with tech-savvy and tech-sophicasted buyers – this may be an excellent way to do so.

The downside to the new site is that — apparently due to the RMLS rules — Estately is not able to display the addresses of the properties displayed on the map. Apparently, according to Ward, they are able to share those via email – so the site will heavily encourage you to send those listings you’re interested in either to yourself or a partner in order to see the street address. A kludgey workaround but forced on them by the arcane rules of the local MLS.

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