Mixed reports are cropping up everywhere on whether the stress test on the country’s 19 largest banks really indicate a stronger industry. TheBigMoney.com reported a “placebo effect” and said that the reports have sparked a “new round of confidence in the sector,” but still won’t lead banks to make credit available more readily.

Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke was out defending the stress test on Monday saying the public and investors should take “considerable comfort” now that the nation’s largest banks have been evaluated and shortfalls have been identified.

Whatever the case, the boost in confidence in the health in banks may get consumers and businesses out there spending on small and big-ticket items.

Now is the time to get your name out there and work with the boost in confidence. Drop a note to past clients, expedite your direct mail campaign or consider a second mailer if there is room in your budget. This is a great time, to market, market, market!

When custom designing a Web site, there are eight elements you should decide upon before you start:

1. Site Purpose - There are four main reasons why business’ have Web sites: to inform, to sell, to enable or to bind. So ask yourself, why would visitors come to my site? Is it to know something, to have something, to do something, or to feel something?
2. Audience - Who is the primary audience? Are there any secondary audiences?
3. Function - What is the functionality of your site? What can visitors do on the site? Register for something, sign up for a newsletter?
4. Content - what information, product or services are available? Does the content serve the strategic intent?
5. Navigation - Is there a consistent navigation across all pages or does it change with interior pages?
6. Interactivity - How do you want the visitor to interact with you using the site?  
7. Design - Not only aesthetics and tone, but structure and allocation of space.
8. Site Marketing - Since you’re starting from scratch, think of site marketing as how you promote your features or if the homepage encourages deeper site exploration. Also, think about the keywords users would use to find your site and make sure you integrate those into site content.

Good Luck!

We understand today’s economic climate, so in an effort to help real estate agents and brokers get a professional Web site up and running, Realty Impressions is offering 50% off the base set-up fee for for any of our template sites. Learn more now!

1. Desire to own a home was buyers primary motivation for wanting to buy (34 percent), followed by job relocation (11 percent) and wanting a larger house (11 percent). Among the least cited reasons to buy were for financial security, tax benefits, and because of greater choice of homes on the market.

2.  Buyers overwhelmingly (62 percent) ranked quality of neighborhood the most important factor in finding the right neighborhood. Quality was defined as level of upkeep and overall appeal. Buyers also ranked convenience to their jobs and affordability of the homes as factors in choosing the right neighborhood.

3. The benefit most buyers say they receive from their real estate agent is guidance about the home buying process. Seventy-nine percent of first-time home buyers said they really benefited from a real estate agent walking them through the process. Other major benefits where agents who pointed out unnoticed features, negotiated better sales contract terms and improved their knowledge of search areas.

4. A little more than half of sellers say they use no incentives to attract buyers to their home. However, 42 percent of sellers reported they did offer some type of incentive, like assistance with closing costs and offering a home warranty policy. The longer a home was on the market, the more likely sellers offered incentives to lure prospective buyers.

5. The 25-34 age group represents the largest segment of buyers, followed by 35 to 44 years, then 45-54 age group. The average age of the U.S. home buyer is 39 years old and has an average median income of $74,900.

6. The top four compromises buyers make when buying a home are in the price of the home, followed by the size of the home, the home’s condition, and lastly, the distance to work.

7. One-third of buyers start the home-buying process by searching the Internet for properties. Others say they start the process by contacting a real estate agent or research online about the home buying process.

8. Buyers overwhelmingly rated photos on a real estate Web site as “very useful” to their search. Other top-ranking features were finding information about properties for sale and virtual tours. Details about upcoming open houses and information about recently sold properties were the least useful features to buyers.

9. Fixed-rate mortgages were by far the most popular type of load first-time home buyers and repeat buyers use.

10. The most common reason sellers put their house on the market was because of a job-related move. A close second was because the home was too small—the top reason among sellers aged 44 years or younger.

I am an avid user of craigslist.com for buying and selling anything. I really feel that the creators of this community went to great lengths to make honesty an implicit attribute to participation. I think one of the biggest reasons I feel that way is because of this statement that appears on every listing:

• it’s NOT ok to contact this poster with services or other commercial interests

Recently, I decided to list my home for rent on craigslist.com and wouldn’t you know it, I was contacted by two different leasing agents promoting their business. Whoa! How could they break the code and contact me with a service? I actually felt violated. I was completely annoyed.

I implore all leasing agents out there to NEVER employ this tactic. You will ruin your brand simply because you are breaking the cardinal rule of craigslist.com.

Also, just because other leasing agents are doing it does not it mean it’s good advertising. In fact, there’s a name for it in the marketing world, it’s called “me too” advertising, and it is widely accepted as a bad idea.

The better thing to do, if your budget allows, is to buy advertising on Web sites whose market is landlords.

If you are looking for something that won’t put a dent your pocketbook, join an online discussion group for landlords and become the resident expert on how to lease properties. You will build your brand and the word-of-mouth you’ll generate is priceless!

Public relations is a tricky thing. I am actually not an expert on PR so I won’t pretend to be, but what I do know is that if you belong to the National Association of Realtors—which any real estate agent or broker should—you have an exceptional opportunity right now to capitalize on the money the NAR is throwing into their big public awareness campaign.

Here are three easy things you can do to capitalize on the campaign:

1. As NAR grows the REALTOR brand through its advertisements, you should wear the REALTOR logo proud and display it on your Web site and on all of your materials. You can download the logo from NAR’s Web site at http://www.realtor.org/about_nar/nar_graphics/introduction. Use the REALTOR logo in conjunction with your branding to demonstrate you are an expert in your field.
2. Encourage your local association to run a parallel public awareness campaign in your local market. The NAR has campaign materials ready for your local association to use, so the design investment is already made, all the local association needs to do is fund the local campaign. You can find all the materials here: http://www.realtor.org/pac.nsf/pages/pachome.
3. The campaign has a microsite called Housing Market Facts. Why reinvent the wheel? Link to this site to from your Web site to provide valuable information to your site visitors. It’s a great site and reinforces the REALTOR brand.

The NAR is already spending the money to make you look good, why not incorporate it into your branding strategy?

Research from the National Association of Realtors shows that in 2008 “highly motivated” home buyers and sellers used the Web as their main source of information and research. The NAR’s 2008 Profile of Home Buyers and Sellers showed that most buyers started their searches online.

• 87% said they used the Web to search for a home, and the same percentage ended up using a real-estate agent to make their purchase.
• 60% of buyers said local metropolitan multiple-listing websites were their most common web resource.

This is really great news when you consider how cheap online marketing—compared to direct mail—and maintaining a Web site really is.

Most “out of the box” Web sites have lead generation tools built in, so capturing prospect information is turnkey. Futhermore, these sites are built so that any non-technical genius can maintain the site all by him or herself. Throw in the added benefit of personal branding and having a Web site suddenly becomes a no-brainer.

Finding an online Web design company that specializes in real estate agent and broker sites is as simple as a search, but picking the right one will take a little digging because they each offer different features. If you are clear on your marketing plan, and how online marketing fits into the plan, finding a vendor to meet your needs shouldn’t be too cumbersome.

Good luck and I hope this little bit of information is helpful!

Does it annoy you as much as it annoys me that your cable company or phone company lures you into changing services with attractive offers, then once they have you hooked they forget all about you—never say thank you or give you a discount for being so loyal? They spend so much money and time attracting new customers and they take their existing customers from granted. Bad company, bad!

Now think about your business. How often do you thank your clients with a handwritten note or another token of gratitude? At the very least you should thank them verbally, send a note or send an e-card.

Like any etiquette teacher or Web site will tell you, be specific and personal. “Thank you for referring your friend, Mr. SoandSo, to me. It means a lot to me to know that you were happy with my service.”

Go a step further and log the referrals and date of referral into your client database so that you can do more relationship marketing to them. What do I mean? During the holidays, pull the list of people who gave you a referral throughout the year and send them special gift. The note accompanying your gift can reiterate your gratitude, “Thanks again for referring Mr. SoandSo. I think he’s really happy in his new home.” Have fun with it—send along a dog bone for the family pooch!

Don’t fail to thank your loyal clients for what they have done for you lately. If you do, you will continue to see the referrals coming.

I hope this post helps. Thanks for reading!

Online marketing can be one of the most effective ways to find and cultivate leads. It’s inexpensive and fluid, and when done right, it will build your reputation as your community’s expert for buying or selling a home-otherwise known as your personal brand.

So why is building your brand so important? Because nearly 60 percent of sellers reported that an agent’s reputation, or brand, was the most important factor in their selection process.* Furthermore, you are competing for a finite number of clients and standing out from the crowd is crucial. Building your personal brand is simple, and the key to building a strong brand is consistency.

First, define who you are and what you stand for and then translate that into a few sentences. Do you have 20 years experience in the local community? Are you the top seller in your office? Do you have any accreditations? Do you use a unique way of marketing listings that has proved successful? This becomes your unique proposition that sets you apart from your competition. You absolutely want this to be unique so that you don’t look or sound like the other guys.

Now condense your unique proposition into a four to six word sentence. This is your tagline. A good tagline will inform all of your messaging. It will help you create consistent, focused text for your literature, Web site and advertising because it will help set the tone and form the basis of the message.

Remember consistency is the key to building your personal brand, therefore it is essential to have a personal Web site where you have control of the image and the message. If you are like most agents, you have a page on your company’s Web site. That is still a good idea because your company is marketing too, BUT if you are committed to building your personal brand it is invaluable to have your own Web site.

Here are a few tips when developing your personal Web site:

• Have your Web site professionally designed. A professionally designed site doesn’t necessarily mean a completely custom site; a well-built, great looking template Web site is a cost-effective way to create a personal Web site that still enhances your brand.
• Choose a domain name that is easy to remember and is a natural extension of your brand.
• Place testimonies and feature listings on your home page.
• MAINTAIN YOUR WEB SITE! Outdated information or broken links leave a bad impression on visitors. Also, adding new information to your site improves your site rankings, but more about that later.

Now that you have a personal Web site, you have created an image. The design of your Web ads, e-newsletters, e-mail campaigns, printed flyers and postcards should be consistent with the design of your Web site. In each medium, you will reinforce your personal brand with either a few sentences or using your tagline.

By combining consistent messaging with a cohesive image, you are on your way to creating a lasting memorable marketing impression on your prospects. This impression-aka your personal brand-will give you a competitive edge over your competition because your prospects will see you as the expert for buying or selling a home in your community.

* Source: The 2007 NAR Profile of Home Buyers and Sellers

Welcome to the Realty Impressions’ Blog!

No one business creates a blog without some goals in mind and with that, I present to you the goals for this blog:

• To foster an ongoing discussion with Realty Impressions’ customers, and other real estate agents and brokers.
• To encourage testimonials from customers who have achieved success from their Realty Impressions Web site and services.
• To learn, through the discussion on this blog, how we can more effectively meet the needs of our market through our products and services.
• To create high economic value relationships with a select few individuals that can benefit the most from a deeper relationship with us or us with them.

On behalf of the Realty Impressions Team, I welcome your comments, posts, and participation in this blog.