April 2012 – Help-U-Sell® Connect

New Help-U-Sell Real Estate Corporate Site

If you have attended the past couple of weeks’ Tech Time Tuesdays, you’ve had a sneak peek at our new corporate website.

In case you didn’t get to see it yet, here’s a screenshot of the new homepage.

New Help-U-Sell Real Estate Corporate Website — The new Help-U-Sell corporate website has a sleek look that complements the new broker sites.

The new site is dynamic and more photo-rich than text-heavy. Images rotate automatically, encouraging site visitors to click deeper into the site to read about buying or selling a home, opening a franchise and to see how much they could save by listing with a Help-U-Sell Real Estate broker. Our new web-based mobile application is also featured in the carousel of images.

Links to our Facebook and Twitter accounts are prominently displayed at the top of the homepage to make it easier for potential clients and franchisees to connect with us.

The leather-like texture in the header and footer match the new broker websites and other marketing materials we’ve recently created, and the search bar acts the same as it does on the new broker sites.

The new corporate site will be ready to launch soon. As always, we welcome your feedback. Please post it here or contact us directly.

Broker Focus: Matt Kellam

Matt Kellam, broker/owner of Help-U-Sell Keystone Realty in Chambersburg, Penn.

Matt Kellam, broker/owner of Help-U-Sell Keystone Realty in Chambersburg, Penn., takes a two-pronged approach to serving his clients and marketing their homes: tried-and-true basics and modern technology.

He opened his office in May 2005 and has learned a lot in the years since. “The basic Help-U-Sell system works,” he says. “Don’t try to fix something that’s not broken.”

One exception: He prefers to host open houses himself in order to capture buyer leads.

Personal contact is important to Kellam. He makes a point of keeping in touch with clients, past, present and future and encourages new Help-U-Sell brokers to do the same. “Be sure to be accessible to buyers and sellers,” he says. One of the benefits of running small office is that people can reach him directly on any given day. He’s also planning to put more energy into staying connected to previous clients and centers of influence this year.

For Kellam, the personal touch leads the way in client relations, but the Internet rules when it comes to property marketing. When he started out, he followed everyone else into print advertising, soon realizing that online was where his office needed to focus. Now, he’s creating video tours to help his sellers attract buyers. Having spent 20 years in radio, he says, “multimedia doesn’t faze me.”

Kellam films each house with a Sony Cyber-shot camera and uses Windows Movie Maker to edit the video. He records the audio separately using a headset and then adds the audio track to the video. He uploads the videos on YouTube and links to them on his site under the Virtual Tours tab on the property pages. One of his recent property videos shows both the exterior and interior and gives information about recent remodeling, last year’s property taxes and room dimensions.

He’s planning to phase out static virtual tours in the near future.

How do you use video in your marketing mix?

Help-U-Sell Cookbook Update

At last year’s Broker Summit, the idea for a Help-U-Sell cookbook germinated. We have since collected recipes from offices throughout the country, from Pennsylvania to California and Minnesota to Texas. Thank you to everyone who submitted a favorite dish! The final cookbook contains almost 50 recipes in four categories: Appetizers and Side Dishes, Soups, Entrees, and Baked Goods and Desserts.

All the offices whose recipes appear in the book have their contact information in a directory toward the back of the cookbook.

It is now in the early stages of being designed. We plan to have a couple of hard copies to each office early next month. Each office will also receive an electronic version that you can have printed by a local vendor. The cover can be personalized for your office.

The cookbooks will make great housewarming gifts for buyers and sellers, thank-you gifts for testimonials or referrals, or holiday gifts for former clients. How will you use your cookbooks in your marketing plan?

Top Producers for March 2012

Our Winter Warm-up Contest really seems to be paying off in the form of closed sides. Our top producing offices for March 2012 closed a combined total of 52 sides. The competition was fierce, too. Quite a few offices just missed the list with eight and seven sides. Great job, everyone!

1) Help-U-Sell Select Services, in Fort Myers, Fla., closed an impressive 14 sides.

2) California’s Help-U-Sell Santa Maria finished second with 11 closed sides.

3) Help-U-Sell Detwiler Realty, out of Carlisle, Penn., is part of a three-way tie for third with nine closed sides.

3) Help-U-Sell Honolulu Properties closed seven seller sides and two buyer sides.

3) Last but not least, Help-U-Sell Keystone Realty in Chambersburg, Penn., also closed nine sides in March.

This is just the start of the spring selling season. We can’t wait to see what you all turn in for April!

[Figures as of April 3, 2012.]