The kids these days just don’t do things the same way their parents do — and that extends

to shopping for real estate.

That’s why RE/MAX Properties, Inc. has invested in an extensive array of technologies to

market its listings to today’s young adults, their parents and their grandparents.

“We are focused on generational marketing, in other words, we’re trying our best to expose

every one of our properties to all generations through different types of marketing,” says Joe

Clement, broker owner of RE/MAX Properties, Inc. “We also want our home buyers to have

options as to how and when they obtain information on homes for sale.”

In addition to the traditional print campaigns in newspapers and real estate publications,

the company has enhanced its website, created a mobile site, instituted

a text messaging system, and invested in a marketing program

for its agents to enhance the exposure given to each and

every listing.

Everyone and his dog has a website

nowadays, so companies that are serious

about their business must create

sites that stand out, get customers’

attention and provide information

and services they need.

In February, RE/MAX Properties,

Inc. launched an enhanced

website at www.homescolorado.

com, where buyers can search

all listings in the Pikes Peak Region

using advanced and intuitive

search technology. Visitors to the

site can also see blog posts, videos,

maps and access a wealth of helpful

information on Colorado Springs real

estate. All 230 of the company’s agents

have their own sites within homescolorado.

com, and each and every one of their listings

have sites, too.

“The websites are better,” Clement says. “We’re

delivering much better information quicker, the pictures

are awesome, we have a virtual tour on every house.”

Many of the agents are also using interactive floor plans, which allow buyers

browsing the Web to look at a home’s floor plan and click on different rooms to see photos of

that room.

“I love it,” says Clement, navigating the floor plan of a home in the high $300,000s. In effect,

the interactive floor plan gives the buyer a better sense of the layout and flow of the home.

It’s not all about putting lots of pretty information on your own website, though. Agents also

have to get that information out to all the popular real estate sites that aggregate real estate

listings. This can be a daunting task.

To help solve this problem, RE/MAX Properties recently partnered with Listings Magic to create

a custom one-stop shop for its agents to help them maximize their efforts through the use of a

Marketing Portal. Agents enter information about their listings, upload photos, press a button and

the listing is syndicated to all the major real estate websites, including REMAX.com, Realtor.com,

Zillow, Trulia, Google Base, Homes.com, Homefinder.com, Craigslist and more.

With the introduction of the new Marketing Portal, the company standard is now for the

agents to include 20-25 photos with every listing.

“Statistics show that online home shoppers prefer listings with multiple photos,” says Clement.

“When a buyer searches for homes and sorts by the number of photos, our listings are

pushed to the top of the search results creating greater exposure for the properties.”

A video created from the first 15 photos is also uploaded to RE/MAX Properties’ YouTube

channel and agents can post information on their listings to Facebook and Twitter.

“A marketing e-mail is then sent to the seller, summarizing all of these things, and they have

an opportunity to look at their virtual tour and their video on YouTube,” Clement says. Sellers

also receive regular updates on their homes’ statistics, including the number of visitors who

have viewed their homes online.

Investing in a useful, informative website is great, but sites can be clunky and impossible

to navigate on the smart phones that currently fill the pockets and purses of people across

the country.

To make their website more accessible to the technophiles

and iPhone enthusiasts of the

world, RE/MAX Properties now has a mobile version of its site that allows potential

buyers to immediately look up information online. A buyer can now pull

up in front of a home, look up the listing at homescolorado.com

and view photos, see basic information on the property,

calculate the estimated mortgage payment and see

the 10 nearest available properties.

For those fast-fingered phone users

who

prefer texting as their favorite

method of communication, RE/

MAX Properties has just added a

text messaging portal to its vast

arsenal of marketing tools.

Potential buyers who spot an

interesting home can now text

the listing’s unique code to RE/

MAX Properties’ text messaging

system at 85377 for more

information. The system immediately

replies with two texts

that give basic information on the

home

and how to contact the listing

agent.

If they have a smart phone, they

can click a

link in the message to go to the

mobile website and see the listing online.

“It’s unbelievable,” Clement says. “It’s magic,

as far as I’m concerned.”

Listing agents also get text messages, alerting them that

someone has inquired about the home and allowing them to follow

up with potential buyers.

But maybe you don’t have a smart phone and you really hate texting.

That’s OK, because there’s also VoicePad Mobile IDX, a phone system that pulls listing data

from the MLS and translates it into an audible voice recording.

“They can drive by any home, call 719-576-8888 and get current information via a voice

recording about that home, including price and other important features,” Clement says. “And

I mean current. If there’s a price change at 8 o’clock and someone drives by at 8:15, they’ve

got it.”

The potential buyer just enters the number of the home’s street address and gets basic information

— plus an offer to send a text message with additional information to their phone.

Of course, while all this technology is exciting and interesting, it really boils down to this: RE/

MAX Properties has invested in customer service.

Part of providing that service lies in giving its agents the tools and education to serve their

clients well, and that effort has shown results in numerous satisfied customers. For the past

two years, RE/MAX Properties has received the QE award from Quality Service Certification, an

independent company that issues customer satisfaction surveys. The QE award goes to the top

10 real estate companies in the nation that receive the highest customer satisfaction results.

In the customer surveys, RE/MAX Properties has received an average score of 4.7 out of five,

Clement says.

Sunday, November 21, 2010

All real estate advertisements in this newspaper for the sale, rental, financing, appraisal and insurance of residential properties are subject to the Fair Housing Act, which generally makes it unlawful to make or publish any advertisement that indicates any preference, limitation or discrimination

based on race, color, religion, handicap or family status. This newspaper will not knowingly accept any advertising for real estate which is in violation of the law. Our readers are hereby informed that all dwellings advertised in this newspaper are available on an equal opportunity basis.

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