“Man, I like you”. Yes, that is a quote from Shrek. Remember? Donkey turns to Shrek and says “man I like you”. Well, I like you and I want your real estate business to succeed. I am a former title rep for a national title insurance company in Phoenix Arizona. I spent 10 years helping real estate professionals grow their business.
I spend a lot of my time as a “former” title rep, talking to real estate agents about marketing. About technology. About Consumer Behavior and how it’s changed. I hold classes around the Phoenix area talking about Inbound Marketing for REALTORS. I left the title industry in March of 2011 to co found PRO-Found Marketing. We help Professionals get “found” online – professionals like attorneys, psychiatrists, restaurants, title companies and of course – REALTORS. I talk a lot about putting yourself in the consumers position – their point of view – when creating content for your website/blog. Would they find more value in why you are an AMAZING REALTOR or why a Short Sale is a better option that a foreclosure? Which one do you think consumers are actually asking search engines for? Yep.
Anyway, so, like I said, I talk a lot about inbound marketing, AKA permission marketing. I started using a new product I think is awesome that I believe you will find value in as well for your real estate business. It is still in Beta, I was lucky enough to be on if the first 500 to give it a spin. It’s called Bre.ad. That is not a typo, it really is called Bre.ad.[pronounced Bread]. Bre.ad is a URL shortener like Bit.ly, Hoot.ly or Goo.gl but this one is more. First, lets talk about what a URL shortener is and the benefit of it in your real estate business. A URL shorter allows you to take a long link like http://www.mytitleguy.net/2011/06/renting-versus-buying-a-home-in-phoenix/ and shorten it to http://bit.ly/mkP4nN . Pretty cool huh. It also allows you to track the usage or number of clicks the shortened link receives. Have you ever wonder how many people click on your links on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn etc? Well if you shorten it with a URL shortener you can easily tell. Back to Bre.ad.
Bre.ad is a URL shortener like Bit.ly, Hoot.ly and Goo.gl but it does something else that is pretty cool. It syncs to facebook and twitter as well as promoting your interests [real estate]. “When your Twitter or Facebook followers click on your Bre.ad links, they see a full-page billboard that you have customized with a personal message. After 5 seconds, the page automatically redirects to the target link.” In plain English, that means that if you create a Bre.ad Link on Facebook for – oh -let’s say investors, – your link will have a billboard add that will be displayed for 5 seconds before the link re directs to the website destination. Like this: http://bre.ad/02uq21 Pretty neat huh.
OK, so now – how you can use this in your real estate marketing. Let’s say you created some content about Investing in Phoenix real estate. You can create a Bre’ad link that COULD [wink -wink] display a 5 second billboard that says “buy a home with XYZ agent and get $500 credit at closing or a FREE home warranty, appraisal” or well, you get the point. These Toasts (that’s what they are called by the way) can be used to promote anything from your YouTube channel to an open house or buyer clinic. Creating a Toast page is very easy, it just takes a message and 2 images. Now, one word of caution. It would be very easy for some real estate professionals [not you of course] to create toasts that are all about the agent with no VALUE for the consumer – this is an easy way for consumers not to click your links. It’s bad enough that some agents marketing is only about themselves, but when a potential client is forced to look at it for 5 seconds while the page loads, he/she probably won’t be very amused.
Bre.ad drops soon so keep checking the website for their announcement.
