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Showing posts from January, 2018

Should a successful agency consider a brand update?

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You have been in the game for years and people in the areas you operate in know your name - so does it matter if you are still using the branding you had when you started 10 years ago? Two sides of the logo Perception matters and in our visual driven society an outdated logo or branding can hurt your chances of scoring business from the younger generation entering the property market. It is not just clients you might lose - you might be missing out on hiring the next big real estate rockstar because they don’t like the image you project with your outdated branding. However, there is something to be said about staying consistent throughout the years. Take a look at Coca-Cola, McDonalds and Nike as examples. You know exactly how their branding looks because it has stayed consistent throughout the years. So what are you supposed to do? Rebrand or stay the same? Meeting in the middle In most cases you don’t need to rebrand completely - all you really need is to refresh your c

Get your lead generation right in 2018

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If you are looking to increase your business profile and by extension, your revenue, a large part of your marketing strategy should focus on healthy lead generation. Before you even start to generate leads, you’ll want to organize the ones you have. Leads should be segmented based on behaviour — one-size doesn’t fit all in 2018. Make sure that whatever lead nurturing techniques you are using resonate with the correct audience. Setting up a paid social campaign is a great way to get visitors to your site, and an easy-to-navigate listing page with a one-click form is an excellent way to capture a lead, but what’s next? If you don’t follow up with the lead, all the effort you put into securing it will be for nought. Segment your leads, provide them with customized content, connect with them on social and maintain an appropriate level of interaction with them. By doing this, you’ll be well on your way to achieving your goals. If the new year snuck up on you and you haven’t had

Matterport now captures 3D home tours in half the time

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A recent firmware upgrade to Matterport 's existing technology has reduced the amount of time it takes to capture footage when creating an immersive 3D listing tour. The firmware update increases the speed at which the camera rotates, allowing more square footage to be scanned in less time. The company published a comparison video that shows a new Matterport scan finishing 50 percent faster than it did prior to the upgrade. Matterport vice president, Mark Tepper, told Inman in an email that "real estate agents who own a camera and choose to do their own scanning can now save time, getting in and out of a property listing in a fraction of the time it would have taken previously.” He added that customers using Matterport Pro2 and an iPad Pro should also be able to capture a space in half the time it previously took. Customers wanting to try the update can register on Matterport’s website. The update is free for current customers and requires no new equipment. Tepper

OMS API update version 1.10 - Get contacts enhancements

An update has been made for the  OMS API ,  version 1.10. It is documented in our  OMS API documentation . Retrieve landlord type contacts  We now indicate 'landlord' contact types as part of the " category_system" response. You can furthermore also filter specifically for landlord contact types only.  https://omsflow.docs.apiary.io/#reference/contact/contacts-collection/view-contacts Module 4 access is required to retrieve contacts. New Property ID field A new field 'property_id' is returned as part of the View Contacts response. This allows you to identify the listings this contact is linked to (if any), e.g.  {         "id": 142508,         "first_name": "John",         "last_name": "Doe",         "title": "Mr",         "mobile_number": "0829998888",         "office_number": "",         "email": "johnd@entegral.net",         &quo

Three tips to gear your real estate website for voice search

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Voice search is here to stay - because it is easier to speak to a digital assistant than typing - so we take a look at three ways you can gear your real estate website towards voice search. To prove that voice search is the way of the future, take a look at these statistics: Voice labs found that there were a total of 33 million voice-first devices in circulation. In a survey of SEO trends for 2017 and beyond , voice search stood at the third spot. In his keynote, Google CEO Sundar Pichai announced that one-fifth of the queries on Google are voice searches. REA Group's move into AI with Amazon's Alexa With the increase in the use of digital assistants, optimising for voice search is critical to your SEO success. We take a look at three SEO strategies to help you optimise your website - it is easier than you think! 1. Claim your Google My Business Listing Probably the easiest thing to do is to simply claim your Google My Business listing! The reason why this is im

Facebook’s news feed is changing - here is what you need to know

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Mark Zuckerberg, the founder of Facebook, has announced that the company will overhaul the algorithm for the social media platform’s news feed. This is an effort to gear the platform towards more “meaningful social interaction” and away from what it deems “relevant content.” So what does this mean for you? As a real estate agent and born salesperson, Facebook has become one of the greatest marketing tools. However, this won’t be what Facebook would deem as a “meaningful social interaction.” As marketers, real estate agents have to adjust and step up their game if they want continued success with Facebook as a business tool. Build relationships You are already a great networker - that is what makes you a great real estate agent - and you should be using that natural instinct to build relationships with your followers on Facebook. An agent’s social media strategy should be an overall experience for the consumer — and a transparent, honest and clear picture of what you are about.

5 Tips to increase your social media engagement

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Social media is a powerful marketing tool and with these tips and tricks, you will be able to improve your social media engagement this year. Marketing yourself or your agency on social media in 2018 should no longer just be about reaching a large audience, rather about having people reacting to your posts with not just likes but with much more valuable comments and shares. We take a look at how you can improve your social media engagement here. Share valuable content This goes hand-in-hand with our usual advice of writing fresh content for your website, at least once a week. Not only is it good for your search engine optimisation (SEO) it is also good for your social media engagement. These are the five marks your content should hit to make it valuable (and perfect for social media): Is it helpful to your audience? Are you actually solving their real estate problems or answering their property related questions? Is it saving time? Are you ensuring that your readers can

Spicing up your real estate blog in 2018

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Finding worthy topics to write about can be a difficult task, especially if you are already managing a very busy day. But it doesn’t have to be - all it takes is a bit of planning! Before get to the actual blog writing part, we have to mention that for most people browsing social media from their phones, a responsive site is a must. If you are writing compelling articles, why wouldn’t you want to make it accessible to anyone no matter on what mobile device they are? You can find out more about our responsive packages by visiting www.entegral.net/flex and more about the importance of responsive design here: Mobile-First Indexing Plan ahead To ensure you have some copy ready for the year, plan ahead. Think seasonally and around holidays. Provide gardening tips, or winter home maintenance guide. Home safety around the holidays is another seasonal topic that is always welcomed. Write these articles now, that way you have them ready to publish when the time comes around. Weekl

In 2018 relationship building beats lead generation

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When marketing your real estate listings and agency, often times real estate agents focus on generating as many leads as possible - but is that the best approach? Once you have generated all your leads, you have to spend more money and time to convert the leads you already paid for. You are just going round and round the cycle and spending money to hopefully create more business for yourself. Can we not break this cycle in 2018? Even the leads you are marketing are tired of being marketed at. So what is the solution? The answer is relationship building. Real estate is a relationship business, and maintaining that relationship is not only going to be way more cost-effective it is also going to ensure that your social proof will increase. Why? Because you are investing in people, adding value to their lives and adding value to your business relationships. You already have interested leads from your property alerts , social media pages and even previous clients. In 2018, buildin

Refresh your real estate digital marketing strategy in 2018

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The digital landscape is fast moving and ever changing, and a stale digital marketing strategy won’t cut it anymore. We take a look at a few things you can do now to spruce up your strategy to ensure you don’t fall behind and miss out on valuable website traffic in 2018. Stop stuffing content with keywords This might have worked in the past, but search engines have changed dramatically and this won’t help you at all. You might even end up hurting your business as search engines might flag your page as spam. Keywords are still important but search engines (and humans) prefer long tail keywords. Long tail keywords are those three and four keyword phrases which are very, very specific to what you are selling. This means content with the phrase ‘Lonehill property for sale’ will fare better than simply ‘property for sale’ when you want to ensure you are getting better ranking in personalised search results. Step-up your social game Everyone is on some form of social media