Real Estate Foreclosure Marketing Secrets

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Mark Bradley of Real Estate Web 2.0 Secrets has looked high and low for the Top 10 Real Estate Web 2.0 Sites.  From his research here is the Top 10 Real Estate Web 2.0 Sites.

There is no question that there are more Real Estate Web 2.0 sites than 10.  I have listed the top ten real estate Web 2.0 sites by Alexa Rank . These sites are truly amazing in their design, function, and tremendous amount of detailed information you can get with the click of your mouse.

Zillow.com: This Top 10 Real Estate Web 2.0 sites has a database consisting of tons of residential nationwide properties along with maps that the buyers can easily browse Real estate professionals and investors can get estimates of a property compared with nearby properties, a loan calculator, and advice on Real estate loans.. Real Estate Sellers can get an estimate of their home and can set it as private or public. Comparison of profiles of nearby properties can be easily done. Homeowners who are not planning to buy or sell can get have estimate of their home prices and can also compare it to other nearby properties. Alexa Rank 983

Trulia: This is a USA-based real estate search engine which can provide specifications of price range, property type, number of bedrooms and bathrooms, and square footage in your search. You get to specify the region by zip code or city, and a search produces just a list of properties along with a link to the legitimate seller. It also produces a Google map of the region with icons marking each property. Price trends can be judged by the interactive heat maps this site has to offer. For all those who are interested in investing in one or more properties, Trulia lends a bird’s eye view of what’s available in the market that fits your criteria. Trulia Publisher Platform, or TPP was announced by Trulia in January 2008. This enables, publishers and media companies to customize Trulia’s real estate search capability as per their specific needs, and publishers can host their own ads at zero cost on the search page of the sites . Alexa Rank 1,874

RealtyTrac: You will find dozens of Internet sites with foreclosure listing, but this site is by far the closest to being a representative of the Web 2.0. RealtyTrac is a search engine that allows Real Estate agents and buyers to locate foreclosure properties throughout the nation. Three types of bargain-buying opportunities are offered: the pre-foreclosure, the purchase of bank-owned properties, and public auction which are represented on RealtyTrac by six property statuses. Buyers need to pay a fee, just like it is for any other foreclosure site for viewing entire detailed information regarding the foreclosed property.  Alexa Rank 6,291

Move.com: The Top 10 Real Estate Web 2.0 sites Move was launched in May 2006. It is a powerful and comprehensive real estate search engine which has an exclusive access to listings offered by REALTOR.com’s®, plus useful content on new home and rental properties available on the net. The innovative “move” aspect of this site covers in a magazine-like format articles. It also offers great tips and advice on everything related to moving: be it renovation, actual moving process and other additional services. Its search and sort features give you instant access to homes for rent and buying in and around your location. Alexa rank 9,045

BiggerPockets: This is our site. It underwent a brilliant Web 2.0-guided transformation and came up with the Premiere Real Estate Social Networking site. With prime focus on networking, education, and deal making the site has a professional approach to the business of real estate for both customers and professionals. You can even join the community and build your very own real estate network!  Alexa Rank 24,260

Apartment Finder: This user-friendly site offers a search engine with access to apartments nationwide. Apartments can be found listed near colleges, schools and military bases, or directly by a certain address. You also can find rental properties with their map-based and keyword searches. This site lets you create an account of your own where you can save your future apartment prospects for a later review. The only drawback of the site is its design. It sure made us want to send the webmaster back to web design school. Alexa Rank 24,300

Real Estate ABC They have just come up with their beta version of property evaluation tool to compete with Zillow. The use of Google Maps in their technology mashup allows you to do many innovative things like readjust values of properties under certain given certain market conditions which Zillow doesn’t have yet. It seems they have successfully beaten Zillow in their own arena. Alexa Rank 59,866

Eppraisal is a free service using which users can easily and quickly initiate buying, refinancing, or selling a home by providing instant services like property valuations, real estate professional’s appraisals for your property, and many additional services. It also brings together almost public record data information from 70 million homes. This site, quickly and effortlessly provide its users with estimated value range for their properties. Additional information regarding the neighborhood like schools, employment, local professionals, and lifestyle are provided alongside the buying information. Alexa Rank 78,403

Retrove: Retrove is a national level vertical search engine specifically developed for real estate professionals that allows buyers to look for relevant real estate listings. MLS listings, foreclosures, classifieds FSBO and many other properties up for sale across the nation can be found using this search engine. Once users type in the parameters, Retrove provides all the listings in a user-friendly list. This search engine is advantageous as it saves time for Real Estate buyers looking to buy homes in a specific region. Users can search by state as well.  Alexa Rank 608,585

ChoiceA: A Top 10 Real Estate Web 2.0 sites Here the users can list their property for sale for free, and then they can cross-post the ChoiceA listings to Craigslist or Backpage. Real Estate buyers can browse the available listings with smart technologies like drag-n-drop favorites, compare listings with data, and endless scroll searches for pictures or maps. Free and easily downloadable real estate transaction forms are provided. Functional from November 2007, this site has done really well. So keep track of this site while browsing other FSBO sites. Also keep track of their blog as you’ll realize the aim of the site. The very simple and refreshing interfaces them apart from the rest.  Alexa Rank 1,451,939

Please explore these sites again and again. They are a treasure of information for buyers, sellers, and real estate professionals of all types.

Many of these sites have widgets and links that you can put on your own blog to add value to your customers. The more value you add to your website the better relationship you build with them.

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Ah!  Now we’ve come to a vital concept in your direct-mail postcard campaign.  In order to write the most effective copy for your real estate investing firm, you must know your customer.

Oh, I could tell you in general terms about his desires . . . his needs . . . and even his motivations.  Or you can sit back in your chair, staring at your computer screen and idly construct your typical customer.  But in the long run neither of these helps you much.

Oh, sure with enough trial and error you may end up getting pretty close to targeting him.  But what I’m about to suggest is a little . . . well . . . unconventional.

If you’ve already sent several mailings out and have received some interest, perhaps you’ve already met with some potential customers face to face.  And no doubt discussed business.

But the next time that telephone rings with a potential client on the phone, don’t visit him with the intention of making a sale.  Knock on his door with the intent of learning what he really wants.  That’s right!

Toss the sales script out of the car window on the way over to his home.  Sit down with him one on one and discuss why he wants to sell . . .also discuss why he resists selling. Get to know this one customer as a person.

Yes, perhaps this is a revolutionary approach.  And perhaps you won’t make a sale in this particular instance.  But that doesn’t mean that your time hasn’t been invested wisely. Because as you’re about to discover, it has.

When you return to your office after finding out everything you can from this indivdiual – including how he found himself in this position, what he intends to do after the sale and, if he’s willing to share, how this situation is affecting his life and that of his family – write it all down. (And don’t worry, the odds are great he’ll share this information with you.  Especially if you express a sincere interest in him.  He’s probably been waiting for someone to talk to.)

You see, you’ve just discovered “his problem.”  Your job is to offer him a solution.  And that should be the major focus of your next postcard campaign.  Write your copy to solve this person’s problems.  Don’t worry that your card isn’t going to just him.  Rest assured that his concerns, emotions and intentions are echoed throughout your territory by many others.

Take a good look at the mailing list you’re intending to use for this mailing.  It’s not a list of names.  It’s a list of people.  People whose lives are in transition.  What can your firm offer them that will eventually not only take the burden of the house off their backs, but start them on a new road to success?

If you can write copy that conveys this message, then you’ll have people ringing your phone like crazy.  And isn’t that the bottom line of your postcard campaign after all?

By Mark Bradley

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Is there anything more stifling to a good real estate postcard mailing than a blank computer screen?

Consider this scenario (not an uncommon one for many a direct marketer in any area):  Your mailing list has been carefully chosen.  Your printer is waiting for your postcard copy.  And there you sit staring at a blank screen.  You haven’t written a single sentence yet.

Your first instinct is to panic.  (At least that would be mine!)  But don’t. Because you’re about to learn how to turn your competitors ideas and words to inspire you.  And in the process learn the one of the reasons crafting a sales letter is often called “copy” writing.

No doubt you’ve got a stack of postcards that you’ve sent out in the past or from your competitors’ mailings.  Now’s the time to go through them.  Go, ahead.  Gather them in one place and start reading through these.  This, you’re about to learn, is more than an exercise in idle reading.

Pick out the words, phrases, ideas that strike you as particularly good. Use these as your inspiration.  Recreate a headline idea.  Grab a good idea for a lead paragraph.  What you don’t want to do, though, is to plagiarize.  Don’t grab any sentence, paragraph or all the copy from another mailing wholesale and try to pass it off as your own.

But you can – and should – get some really good ideas for your own mailing.  Soon, you’ll discover that blank computer screen you’re staring at is taking shape as a sure-fire direct-mail campaign.

I learned this trick many years ago when I first started working for a direct mail firm.  The owner told me about his very first mailing.  It was several pages long.  He had never written copy before, but he didn’t have the money to hire a professional copywriter.  He wasn’t about to let the lack of funds stop him.

He gathered up all the direct sales material he had been collecting, pulled out his trusty portable typewriter (yes, it was that long ago!) and started assimilating ideas, phrases and other inspirational copy from these various other sources.

It took him several hours to write a couple pages, but finally he had a sales letter that had his distinct imprint.  And original document to call his own.  And he mailed it.

And do you know what?  It produced very good results for him.  And some 30 years later, he’s still enjoying outstanding success in the business.

And just for your information, he still has a hand in writing all his copy.  And he still gets some of his best inspiration from the advertising material that lands in his mail box.

So the next time you’re sitting at the computer screen wishing that a form of direct-marketing inspiration would strike you, gather up all the marketing material you can find.  It’s time to kick start that inspiration into high gear with a little help from your . . . uh, competitors.
By Mark Bradley

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Want to power up your next postcard mailing?

Then go one step beyond merely telling your audience what your real investment business has done for others in the past – have your customers tell them.

No you don’t have to enlist your former customers to telephone prospects.  Instead use the powerful direct-marketing tool called the testimonial.  If you’ve been in business long enough, it’s easy enough to ask a satisfied customer to write a couple sentences (it really doesn’t need to be any long than this) about how they benefited from your services.

A true, honest and compelling testimonial from a satisfied customer is much like a picture – it’s worth a thousand words.

You can try to convince  your audience till your pen runs out of ink that your service is well worth their time and energy.  But, face it, you’ve got a vested interested in telling people that – you want to make money.

On the other hand, a person who is volunteering their very positive experience is much more persuasive.  I’ve seen some direct-mail for products that is nothing but two page or more of testimonials.

You can give this testimonial a clever headline. “Let our customers speak for us.”  “Our customers say it much better than we can ever!”

The point is that your message will have a more powerful impact when you add a testimonial that praises your services.

Your next question, no doubt, is just where do you place these testimonials.  You may truly believe that one area of your postcard is simply better than another.  Well, as far as direct marketers can tell right now from research, no single area is really any more effective than another.

If you feel you don’t have space on the message side of your postcard, look to the front.  That’s right the area that’s reserved for the address.  Why not put a short testimonial or two on the front.

When I worked as a copywriter for a nutritional supplement company, we routinely placed to testimonials on the front side of any postcard mailing we’d create.  And I must tell you that our postcards received an absolutely outstanding response rate!
Of course, if you can place them any where on the other side as well it only increases the potency of your marketing campaign.

Testimonials tell your audience that you’ve already done business in a professional manner.  More than that, they show your audience that you’re just not generating hype. Anyone can send a postcard telling you they can buy your house in 48 hours.  But not everyone can actually do that.  If you have a customer – or two or three – you can tell them for you, then you’ve overcome their initial, innate hesitancy.

So, be sure to include one or more testimonials in your next postcard mailing.  If you’ve never used them before, just be prepared for an increased response in your real estate investment campaign.
By Mark Bradley

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Every good sales pitch contains several vital ingredients.  And your postcard mailing for your real investing venture is no different.  Every successful marketer uses a very simple – but highly effective — formula for keeping him headed in the proper direction in his copy.

As you progress in your direct-marketing career, you’ll instantly know it by its acronym alone:  AIDS.  It stands for Attention, Interest, Desire and Action. It’s very self explanatory. You need to get the attention of your reader . . . keep his interest . . .build his desire for wanting to sell to you . . . and then actually encourage him to act.

Unfortunately, even the best of us who write for a living sometimes neglect to emphasize the last component of a good sales letter . . . the call to action.  Too often, we simply assume that we know what the consumer will do.  The truth of the matter is that sometimes (most of the time, actually) we have to lead the reader to the final steps of our sales pitch:  the call to action.

And if you’re new to the writing of marketing materials, you may even feel a bit shy about actually writing a call to action.  It may remind you of those commercials on television. “And if you’re the first 200 callers you’ll also receive at . . . “

But do you know why just about every commercial on TV is written like that?  Because they work.  Direct marketers will stick with a style, a wording, an entire ad campaign as long as it’s pulling in the sales for them.  They take the phrase “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” to a whole new level.

For your postcard mailing to be effective, you must rise above any hesitancy about asking people to call you.  You can do every other portion of your mailing absolutely correctly.  But if you don’t remind people to act it’s doubtful if your mailing will ever be successful.

But more than asking them to act, you need to write your call to action so they feel it’s absolutely necessary that they act today.  In fact, they need to act while they have that postcard in hand.  Far too often with direct mailing the old adage of “out of sight, out of mind” applies.

If you can generate enough interest in your sales pitch to get people excited about the prospect of your service, then you need to capitalize on that while the individual reader has that postcard in hand.  Don’t be afraid to urge him to pick up the phone right now.

Give them a reason – even an obvious reason – to act RIGHT NOW!

Remember, there are reasons why the television commercials continue to urge viewers to call within the next 10 minutes.  They are reasons why incentives are given to those “first 200 callers.”

Create that kind of interest and excitement in your real estate investment service and your postcard mailing will generate you some substantial profits – guaranteed!

By Mark Bradley

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