What it Really Means to Market Listings Today

Regardless of real estate market conditions, our clients hire us to get their properties sold. Sorting through this week's news and numbers regarding how we market those listings, there still seems to be a huge disconnect between how most agents think there listings are marketed and the realty of the fastest growing resources that the consumers are getting their information from.

Just Being in the MLS Does not Cut it Anymore
It is all about turning your listing into a story now. The websites that are gaining most of our consumers attention are not depending on the information feeding from the MLS. They are looking for agents to contribute information on their listings. Our consumers are buyers, sellers and other Realtors. They are going in masses to sites like Zillow and Trulia, sites that take basic information from feeds but are looking to the listing agents for more pictures, open houses and additional descriptions about the property. Sites like these mix social networking and listing data. They offer free blogs and question and answer pages to engage professionals with consumers. The sites are doing a good job evolving as social media evolves.

Blockshopper.com is another example of MLSs loosing their relivance in marketing agents and listings. They pull their data from tax records. Owners can "claim" their homes. Agents who establish accounts can add notes to their listings and previous sales. It shows transaction history of the property. This site as well is a work in progress as every site needs to be.

Does Your Broker Do Your Showings?
Think of it this way: it is the agent, not the broker, who has viewed the property, evaluted the pricing, condition and sales potential. You now have platforms to communicate all of this information. The new generation of sites depend on broker feeds as a foundation and build upon that with agent participation. What prospective sellers see on this sites is your first interview and then the follow up in getting a listing. When buyers are searching for a property what they see online about your listing is the first showing and if there is any interest it is the third showing. The brokers provide agents with the tools but it is the agents that sell the properties. It works the same way in the virtual world.

These sites are growing at a faster pace than traditional sites because they are providing the transparency the consumers are looking for.

Agents: Stop Spamming Agents

According to latest reports, social media has became bigger than email. That got me to thinking about where we are as an industry. As usual, miles behind. I think many agents and some brokers missed the webinar that explained to effectively use email as a means of marketing you listings or as a recruiting tool it is called drip campaigns not spam campaigns.

I did an an informal survey on Twitter and Facebook. The majority of responses where no to reading the emails sent out about listings. Several said they unsubscribe, a few said they read them if based on the address and only one person said an unqualifying yes.

I have used emails on occasion. I try and follow the guidelines suggested by the pros. Don't send listing emails often and only if it is "newsworthy". Huge price reductions, something out of the ordinary new listing or a special brokers open event.


When I receive eflyers on listings I usually ignore them unless something catches my eye in the headline. If I see a sender email to much out then I unsubscribe. I am not sure what unsubscribe means because it stops for a while and then I start to get them again from the same agents. I think someone told these agents Tuesday is a good day to spam out other agents with all their listings. I kind of understand the Fridays for open houses. What I don't get that if your office is emailing out a list to the broker community, why you have send an individual one on each listing.

What I find interesting, is that the agents who are spamming listings are not engaged in the social networking community which has surpassed email as our means of communicating. This only goes to prove the point you spammers are still not effectively marketing yourself or your listings so you are probably not seeing this blog post!