Marketing Ideas – Page 5 – Help-U-Sell® Connect

New Marketing Tools for Brand Recognition

As the weather gets warmer in most of the country and you hold more open houses and sell more homes, how will you ensure that you’ll stay top of mind after you close the door or the transaction?

Following up via a drip email campaign, phone calls and requests for testimonials, where appropriate, are a few ways. You can also give out useful items that will remind your open house visitors and clients of Help-U-Sell Real Estate every time they need to jot a few notes or have morning coffee.

Our print-on-demand vendor, Alexander’s Print Advantage, has just added a line of promotional items. The Help-U-Sell Real Estate logo can be placed on all of the items, and magnets can be personalized with your contact information. Notepads will also be available for personalization soon.

Help-U-Sell Real Estate travel mug — Help-U-Sell Real Estate promotional marketing tools include a travel mug.

Some ideas for recipient-item pairings:

Buyers – tape measures.

Clients who are closing – wine glasses.

Agents – travel mugs.

Open house visitors – pens.

Alexander’s also offers an array of golf ball brands, tote bags, key chains and bottle openers. If there any other items you would like to put the Help-U-Sell logo on, contact us or speak with Alexander’s directly. You can view the entire selection by going to Alexander’s Help-U-Sell site and clicking on Promotions.

While you’re there, take a look at the Holiday Cards, too. We now have cards for seven holidays available, including Memorial Day.

What is your favorite item to give away?

March Madness Sale on Marketing Folders

All this month, our on-demand print vendor, Alexander’s Print Advantage, is offering our beautiful, full-color presentation folders at a great discount. Save 10 percent on your order, which can be as few as 25 and as many as 250.

The professional-looking folders are perfect for leave-behinds after listing presentations or other paperwork for your buyers or sellers.

Help-U-Sell Real Estate folder — The Help-U-Sell Real Estate presentation folders are on sale this month.

You can order the folders on Alexander’s dedicated Help-U-Sell website. The promotion ends March 31, 2013.

P.S. Alexander’s also has Easter cards ready for you. You can choose from two different messages. These are great to send out to your past and current clients and your vendors. Order them here.

New Marketing Materials: Holiday Cards and Postcards

We have been keeping our two print vendors busy so far this year creating new marketing pieces for you.

At the request of members of our marketing focus group, we have designed holiday cards for Valentine’s Day, Easter, Independence Day and Thanksgiving. Each card has at least two different messages from which to choose. You will be able to order these cards from Alexander’s Print Advantage in the next few weeks. A winter holidays card is already available on the site. Twenty-five cards and envelopes are $41.50. We recommend sending these new cards out to your current and past clients as a way to stay top of mind. Consider buying them far ahead of each holiday and addressing the envelopes on a rolling basis to avoid a mad rush and to ensure you remember everyone.

One of the Help-U-Sell Real Estate holiday cards available for use as a marketing tool

Excel Printing & Mailing has created two jumbo postcards to be used as ETMs. The cards are 70 percent customizable. Each option, the Easy Way and the Smart Way, can be ordered in a black color scheme or red color scheme. Excel has put together a co-op on these postcards to be able to offer us an incredibly low rate. Offices need to place their orders by the end of the day on Feb. 27 to take advantage of the co-op. Excel handles the mailing of the postcards, and you can schedule the mailings months in advance. Nearly everything on the postcards can be altered, including images, testimonials, headlines, and contact information.

Help-U-Sell Real Estate jumbo postcard marketing mailer — Franchisees can customize 70 percent of the new jumbo postcards, offered by Excel Printing & Mailing.

The jumbo postcards are priced at $0.27 each, including postage, and there is a one-time $35 setup fee. We suggest ordering enough to last through the spring market.

Which of these will you add to your marketing tools? Also let us know if you have any other requests for marketing materials.

7 Tips to Creating Successful Real Estate Videos

Video has been growing in importance as a marketing tool for the past few years, and 2013 promises to make the medium even more vital especially for real estate marketing. How can you take advantage of this trend?

We’ve compiled seven tips on what to do (and what not to do, especially regarding mobile optimization of videos) to create a successful video.

Avoid tiny text.
Use clear audio.
Put links to your website and related sites, such as your blog or a property listing, in the description.
Include keywords in the description.
Use close-up shots of interesting property features, neighborhood sites or interviewees.
Test the video on mobile devices.
Keep it no longer than 3 or 4 minutes, ideally 1 to 2 minutes.

Matt Kellam of Help-U-Sell Keystone Realty does a great job with the length, audio and keywords. Watch one of his recent videos of a property tour.

Not sure what to film? Try out this suggested content:

Property tours: If possible, record the sellers’ story of the home and focus on unique details of the property.
Neighborhood overviews: Give viewers a feel for the area and speak with local proprietors and residents about why they love the neighborhood.
Tips for buyers and sellers: Answer your most frequently asked questions (one per video).
Market updates: Share the most recent sales figures or give the latest interest rate information. Use graphs or other visuals to help explain the changes.
Client testimonials: Record your happy sellers’ and buyers’ praising you and your staff.

Do you have any other ideas for video content or tips for successful videos? If so, please share them with us.

[Special thanks to Inman News‘ Mobile Marketing Essentials webinar for a few of these tips.]

New Help-U-Sell Marketing Materials

We have created new print marketing materials for you to use to build brand awareness and enhance your work with sellers.

Many of you already know about the updated seller brochure, which is a great tool for listing presentations. It features a blank Seller Savings Comparison chart that you fill out with the seller’s estimated home value and your office’s fees to demonstrate the seller’s potential savings. The brochure is available to order from Alexander’s Print Advantage, and it can be customized with your office’s name and contact information. View the brochure and order it here.

New folders with the current branding will be available on Alexander’s Print Advantage within the next couple of weeks also. A preview of the back and front of the folder is below. There will not be contact information on the back as shown. Customization proved too costly. The folders will have slots for your business card in an inner flap. Pricing has yet to be determined.

The new Help-U-Sell Real Estate folders will be available to order soon.

Let us know what you think of the new materials and if you have requests for other items.