6 Kinds of Infographics to Use in Real Estate Marketing
The real estate business is competitive. Marketers are competing for attention in the same arenas for similar audience profiles. With the digital sphere clogged with information, it is becoming harder for marketers to get their content noticed. While content marketing efforts make a difference in the amount of engagement real estate agencies receive, the best way to captivate an audience is by using strong visuals, like high quality images, charts, and infographics. But not all marketers have access to graphic designers nor the time or ability to start learning graphic design software to make such visuals. Fortunately, there are online resources now available to real estate marketers that offer stunning infographic templates, all of which are customizable and shareable. Today we will be looking at the six kinds of infographics you can use as a real estate marketer.

Is It Time to Modernize YOUR Brand?
Let's face it: many of the most well-respected companies in real estate have not spent a lot of time on their logo in a LONG TIME! The industry is besieged with new players with huge marketing budgets and very contemporary branding. While a logo is not everything, it can certainly set the tone and tell others you're evolving and that your brand is still relevant today. Let's look at a few great examples of brand/logo overhauls:

3 Ways to Refresh Your Tired Real Estate Website
How long has the anchor content on your website been up on the web? Take a trip through your real estate website with an eye on how many images and how much text could be updated for a fresh new look and better usability. As you look through the site, keep one question top-of-mind: If I am a regular visitor, would I be bored having seen this content over and over? Here are some tips and ideas for refreshing your site that will make it more interesting, especially for repeat visitors. You could also generate more leads.

5 Tips to Finding Images for Your Website
Images communicate, draw attention and create interest. Images can keep people on your website if chosen correctly or lead people to leave your website. When choosing images for your website, it is important to choose images that are high quality, relevant, aligned with your brand, aesthetically pleasing and attention grabbing. So where can you get great images? Here are five ways we get images for our own site.

Real Estate Iconography
When it comes to crafting a strong brand for a real estate company, never underestimate the power of being able to express a name without directly spelling it out. And there's no better way to do this than with iconography. I've already discussed how much I love typography here. Its power is in its subtlety, as it gives form to your voice and shapes your brand. And it's a popular tool. Take a look at logos from some of the biggest real estate brands in the world: They all use typography as the dominant element forming their logos, and almost all of them exclusively use text. Century 21 is the only one here that references the shape of a house. In real estate, names give you strength and make these logos iconic. Icons are less subtle. The beauty in them is a bit more apparent, in that a singular icon has the ability to express many words, even sentences, at times. At TRIBUS, we've championed a strong icon in our logo (along with typography that we developed extensively), which you can read all about here. Zillow is another real estate company featuring a prominent icon in their logo. Nike and Apple serve as some of the best examples outside the industry.

How to Be Successful Posting on Pinterest: The Infographic
Want to have your pins re-pinned like crazy on Pinterest? Create an infographic. A few years ago I created this infographic about How to Ensure Your Success as a Real Estate Blogger. After publishing it on my website, I pinned it to Pinterest. I had at times noticed that it was repinned quite a bit, but never paid much mind to it. Then yesterday I looked at the stats and saw that it has been re-pinned over 3,100 times. Holy cow! I looked at the stats on all my other pins and saw that of nearly 300 pins, my second highest pinned image is 66 times (and the third highest is just 33 pins). That's almost 50 times the amount of pinning! The thing is, creating that infographic took me 50 times longer than any of the images I posted on Pinterest. So you could say I got out of it what I put in. I haven't created another infographic since then because of the time it took to do that first one (a few hours). That is, until today! Turns out making infographics is no longer the massive chore it was just a few years ago. Using a tool Canva.com, you can create a great looking, super-shareable infographic in about 30 mins. If the results are anything like my first infographic, I plan on doing a lot more of these. How to Make a Successful Infographic The above infographic was designed to be easily noticed and digested. On the next page is a little more insight on the included eight points.

How One Broker Leverages His Public Records/Tax Solution for Sphere Marketing
CRS Data is among the leading tax systems in America, known for their outstanding system design, great customer service, and excellent county record tax collection. If you use CRS today, you are probably a fan. Today, I want to talk about a CRS feature that is making a profound impact on the effectiveness of direct marketing for Murney Associates, Realtors. Murney Associates is a six office brokerage located around Springfield, MO. They are locally known for their excellence in marketing and a strong believer in sphere/farm marketing. Last week, I had a chance to connect with Kyle Drenon, Director of Marketing for Murney, who shared some information with us about how they are training sales associates in their firm to leverage CRS label export with outstanding results. CRS has the ability for sales associates to perform subdivision searches in prospecting. Agents can quickly pull a mailing list of a subdivision and create a farm. Murney provides a service to develop Jumbo, or oversized postcards to mail to that farm. The company manages this marketing communication at a localized level. For example, adding a very localized primary photo from the community on one side of the postcard and adding very localized market data for the neighborhood along with recent listings, sold listings, etc. Mr. Drenon indicates that agents are getting great response rates from these mailings because the consumer is getting information that is highly relevant to them.

Four Tips for Better Banner Ads
The current wisdom surrounding content marketing suggests that it's important to focus on helping—create content that provides value to readers. The world of advertising should be the same. If you've noticed a decline in your banner ad clicks, or are considering using banner ads to bring more visitors to your website, here are four things you should implement in your advertising. Provide Value Your banner ads, like the rest of your content, should provide some kind of value to readers. If they don't, readers won't click them because there's no motivation to do so. Instead of a "buy now" type of ad, offer a free eBook or other downloadable resource. Find what your ideal clients are searching for, and fulfill that need. Be Relevant Going hand-in-hand with providing value, your banner ads should be relevant. It's important to determine who you're trying to connect with and what they want. Even if your ad has a great value proposition, it won't be beneficial if it isn't reaching people who will find it interesting. When you're running a targeted campaign, use any data you've collected on your webpage to determine who is visiting the site you're advertising on and why they're there.

Canva: A Simple, Beautiful Way to Create Great Marketing Content
As a real estate professional, you need to wear a lot hats. You have to be a jack of all trades, and it is up to you to be proficient at each one. However, a lot of Realtors® seem to stumble when it comes down to design. You know your market or properties inside and out and you can tell people about them until the cows come home, but putting those details into a professional looking marketing piece can sometimes be problematic. Canva to the rescue! The hardest part about designing something is getting the project started. Most of us don't have the creative insight and vision to see the final result we want. Canva has 20 different templates and countless design options to get you moving, to spark that imagination and make it your own. Here is a list of some of the pre-sized design templates currently available to create: Facebook covers Posts Posters Business cards Social media graphics Twitter banners Real estate flyers (133 templates just in this category) Facebook ads Pinterest Collages and so much more!

Infographic: How to Sell a Home
Our crew at BoomTown recently came across an informative Infographic on How To Sell A Home created by our friends at Mint.com. This would be a helpful addition to any real estate agent’s content marketing library and makes explaining the process a lot more fun. Enjoy!