As a real estate agency the challenge your business most likely faces is how to grapple with the process of placing a large number of ads into the local paper or papers each week, update all open for inspection times, get copy for new listings written, designs completed, ads approved by agents or vendors, as well as new sign boards erected, brochures designed and printed, mail cards mailed or door dropped, internet sites updated, phew!
… all this without feeling like the marketing side of your business is taking over your main focus and core business – sales!
You may or may not be aware but real estate marketing in Australasian markets is extremely sophisticated compared to other international markets. By sophisticated we mean that a lot of different marketing elements are used in a vendor’s campaign to effectively promote their property.
Marketing tools will most likely include a sign board, sometimes as large as 8 foot high by 4 foot wide, placed outside the property with a huge image of the nicest looking aspects inside the property. It needs to be large to be visible from the road, so that as many passers by as possible are enticed to find out more or attend an open home showing. In other countries a stake with a core flute (plastic) board saying For Sale is all they use – as long distant cousins Australian’s and Kiwi’s are far more imaginative!
Open for inspections are run like military operations at regular mid week and weekend time slots. Properties are cleaned to pristine standard before the doors are opened to visitors so that homes are made as stylish as a magazine ”show home“.
Sometimes stylists are employed to remove a large proportion of the owner’s belongings or ”junk“ which increases the illusion of space. Stylists may even convince you to hire special pieces of furniture or artwork to really showcase the property and give buyers the sensation of a place being ”their“ ideal home.
Some agents go as far as baking cookies in the oven or scented oil burners in the living room so that fragrant smells waft through the air setting a relaxing ambience for visitors and making them feel welcome and homely.
Often agencies will employ professional photographers that use lighting techniques that illuminate the inside of the room whilst still fetching natural light in through windows. Try doing this with your own digital camera, its virtually impossible. This technique and the use of fish eye lenses and 360 degree virtual tours give the impression a room is large and bright and airy.
Clouds are added to blue skies as believe it or not blue skies can make a building look lifeless. Fire places are lit and images are placed on TV screens to make them look switched on – all these tricks of the trade aim to give each room a feeling of coziness.
So how do you streamline your business so that the marketing needs of all of your agents are met without having to employ additional admin or marketing staff to deal with all these specialists? What do you do to keep the whole process under control as your business grows? After all, staff is the most expensive overhead.
The answer is CampaignTRACK.
Workstream Solutions as a technology company was born from one of the longest standing real estate marketing agencies in Australia, Williams Design Associates. Supporting over 80% of the real estate agencies in their local market, Sydney, the ad agency decided to build an ecommerce platform that would enable agents and admin staff to interact with designers, media booking reps, newspapers, magazine printers, photographers, sign companies, printing houses and websites all through the one single interface, CampaignTRACK.
Therefore whether you are a small independent or large franchise agency you should consider the benefits of CampaignTRACK and Workstreams’ many other solutions in order to bring cost savings and potential for business growth to your agency and enhance the overall marketing prowess of your business.
For more information on our real estate marketing solutions, please contact us.
For more information on products relevant to real estate read about:
CampaignTRACK, Enhance Photo and ePreview Flash Book.
To read more real estate success stories read how First National Real Estate employed our solutions to rollout across more than 500 member offices and how Barfoot & Thompson, the largest independent agency in Auckland New Zealand, used CampaignTRACK to consolidate all marketing activity under one system.
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