Should Agents Use Their Lead Routing Email Address in MLS?
Real estate agents have a crazy number of email addresses. They have their personal email address at aol.com, their vanity email at MyAgentWebsite.com, their corporate email address at MyBrokerEmail.com and, of course, that mysterious lead routing email address. Lead routing email addresses are pretty common in real estate. Perhaps the most common is the email address assigned to every agent member of the REALOGY franchise group. It reads something like 8789398976293578(at)leadrouter.com. The benefit of each agent's LeadRouter® email address is that it follows business rules and provides certain alerts. An example of business rules would be a use case whereby a team would all get the notification of the email. This is especially important in terms of response time. With LeadRouter, agents may receive a text message or other alert when an inquiry comes in. The is a particularly valuable alert in terms of managing responsiveness. Another key feature of using a lead routing email address is that inquiries are naturally added to an agent's CRM solution. From there, the agent can assign an appropriate response and track that response in either the lead routing system or assign tasks or drip campaigns, or whatever might be the right action. Surely, even inquiries from other agents or notifications from the MLS would be well served from an attention to rapid response or follow up plans.

Getting Started With Your ListHub Basic Account (8/7)
Thursday, August 10, 2016 at 8:00 AM PDT This short training webinar is for ListHub Basic users (free account) and is your first step in learning how to create and manage an effective online marketing strategy using ListHub. You will learn how to access over 80 national publishers through our easy to use platform. You will also learn how to manage yours leads, redirect traffic to your website, and much more, including how you can ensure the accuracy of your online data. Register now!

Getting Started With Your ListHub Basic Account (6/15)
Wednesday, June 15, 2016 at 8:00 AM PDT This short training webinar is for ListHub Basic users (free account) and is your first step in learning how to create and manage an effective online marketing strategy using ListHub. You will learn how to access over 80 national publishers through our easy to use platform. You will also learn how to manage yours leads, redirect traffic to your website, and much more, including how you can ensure the accuracy of your online data. Register now!

Getting Started With Your ListHub Basic Account (6/1)
Wednesday, June 1, 2016 at 8:00 AM PDT This short training webinar is for ListHub Basic users (free account) and is your first step in learning how to create and manage an effective online marketing strategy using ListHub. You will learn how to access over 80 national publishers through our easy to use platform. You will also learn how to manage yours leads, redirect traffic to your website, and much more, including how you can ensure the accuracy of your online data. Register now!

It’s Showtime! Real Estate Presentation Tips
Let's suppose that you are hired to speak to 250 people and make a strong presentation. There is no doubt that you would show up looking like $1 million, know exactly what you are going to say, and be well prepared in advance. You wouldn't even question the need to have all three of those components in place. You would be what I call "in presentation mode." Here's a great "AHA!" for you to consider—every time you are in front of a real estate prospect or a past client, you too are in presentation mode. Whether you're working with a buyer or making a listing presentation, you need to be at the top of your game. As Jim Carey said in the movie The Mask, "It's showtime!" You don't need an audience of 250 people to take on this mentality. Whether with you are meeting someone for the first time or whether you're negotiating an offer, you're always presenting. Your audience is always evaluating you and forming an opinion of you – personally and professionally. After in excess of 40+ years in sales and having conducted hundreds of live seminars, I have created my own formula for being prepared to do a great presentation... here it is. There are three parts: Six questions to ask yourself Additional preparation Traveling to the presentation

Friday Freebie: Home Zone Real Estate Marketing System
There are a lot of things you can do to market your listings online. The problem? Sometimes there's too much. Too many marketing tools to choose from, and none that work together in a way that simplifies your life. If you're overwhelmed by all the choices available to you, consider a single integrated marketing solution, like this week's Friday Freebie! Free 30-day trial of the Home Zone Real Estate Marketing System The Home Zone Real Estate Marketing System is an all-in-one marketing solution that lets you consolidate all your online marketing efforts in one place. The platform is fully mobile compatible and is available to agents, teams and offices. Here's a look at some of the features that work together to create cohesive marketing campaigns for your listings: Narrated tours and property videos Listing and mobile agent websites Text/QR code lead generation and capture Statistics and seller reports Social networking National syndication Print materials Social networking and more! To sign-up for a free 30-day trial, call Home Zone at (888) 882-1259.

Advertising is an Art, but Marketing is a Science
You may have recently read Rob Hahn's blog post, "The Need for More Effective Online Marketing by Real Estate Professionals... Nine Years Later," in which he revisits a white paper published by Cendant in 2004 about the need for more effective online marketing. What is interesting about the white paper is that it was published well before the Trulias and Zillows of the world ever launched, and provides considerable insight into what best practices for online marketing should include. Many of the ideas shared are still applicable in today's online marketplace. In Cendant's (the former parent company of Realogy) white paper they suggested that real estate agents ask themselves the following when thinking about online marketing: Do my listings distinguish me from the competition online, and do they positively reflect on the attention to detail and level of service I seek to provide my clients? Is this online presentation compelling to me as a home buyer? Does the listing description tell me anything special about the home or is it simply a laundry list of details that looks like any other MLS listing? Are the elements of this listing so complete that it would motivate me to contact the agent to schedule an appointment to visit the home in person? Almost ten years later, these questions are still relevant and important for brokers and agents to consider when presenting listings online. In recent articles, we've shared useful tips on how to maximize your online marketing and provide quality content online by simply re-thinking how you use the MLS. Since the information you enter in the MLS is the source of the marketing content that is ultimately displayed to consumers, shouldn't we invest time and thought into what we enter here? Of course!

Friday Freebie: Point2 Agent
30-day Free Trial of Point2 Agent Today, we're featuring web marketing suite Point2 Agent. Point2 is offering a free 30-day trial that includes: Customizable agent website 1 single property site Listing syndication to over 50 property search sites Targeted advertising to other real estate websites in your area 1 email account

Listing SIN-dication
Guest Contributor Bill Rovillo says: I believe the REALTOR'S® biggest blunder was welcoming listing syndication with open arms. This sad situation started shortly after the advent of the Internet. Big brokers watched this new medium with amazement and wondered how it would fit into their marketing and sales plans for the future. They imagined being able to have all their listings on the Web, with stats and tax data and all kinds of graphs and sales predictions; things that make you go "ooohhh."