Hopefully, you have a good consumer-oriented Web site.  Hopefully, you have started using videos attached to your site and posted on YouTube. 

These two tools have worked for members of my CyberStars® for quite some time now.  With 87% of consumers going first to the Web for information on buying a home or selecting an agent to sell theirs, you must have a good, deep Web site today.  With over 800 million search inquires a month, you must have videos on YouTube.

So…you have a good site and you post videos (listing, area tours, neighborhood tours, your listing presentation, etc.).  How do push consumers to these two great marketing venues?  There are many ways, but I’d like to mention one easy one: your real estate magazines. 

Too many agents use real estate magazines for the purpose they were first intended: to make the phone ring.  (You would think that all agents would have figured out by now that consumers do not need to call an agent: they have the Internet.)  Almost all agents I see today still have a single photo for each of ten or so properties, scant descriptions of each property (“3 br, 2 ba, ww carp, dream home, hurry….won’t last!”) and the agent’s phone number or email address. 

There is a better way! 

Today’s purpose for your ads should be twofold:

• To get the reader to your Web site, where you can really show off the property, especially if you use a dynamite single property listing site from AgencyLogic.
• To get the reader to your YouTube videos, where they can really see the property or whatever service you are promoting. 

Helen South's RE Magazine Ad

I have been preaching the “1/3 – 2/3” rule for years: the top 1/3 of your magazine should promote your site or your videos, stressing a particular service you offer (free Senior packet, free info on buying a home in a distressed market, free info on selling your home in a down market, free short sale info packet, etc.).  This means that you select only 1-3 of your listings to promote in the bottom 2/3 of the page. 

Some examples of what my CyberStars®, top marketers in their areas, have done with this better way of marketing appear here.  You, too, can shift the focus of your print advertising to accomplish those two all-important goals: get the consumer to your Web site and to your YouTube videos. 

Mike Manosky

The 1/3 – 2/3 Rule, when applied to your print marketing will yield much better results for your business….I guarantee! 

It’s a great day here on the lake in Reston..hope it’s a great day wherever you are, too! 

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