Are you paying to generate leads? New solution to simplify your life.

Do you opt-in to programs to generate additional leads (Zillow, Trulia, Realtor.com)?  Recently I spoke with a top agent who needed a solution to make these leads to flow automatically into her Virtual Office’s contact management system.  Our developers have now created a handy tool so you can better manage your personal leads and requests.

Why is this cool?

• No more manual entry of leads into your Virtual Office’s contact management system (Virtual Office is simultaneous with backdoor of your website).
• Each contact will be saved showing where it came from (the source field). 
• Each contact will be saved with any forms or additional information the client supplied so you can keep all your client notes in one place. 
• You can set up automatic email campaigns to go out to these clients to make your life more low-maintenance. 

How does it work?  

• Log into your Virtual Office 
• Choose the ‘Contacts’ tab
• Choose the ‘Lead Parser’ sub-tab
• You’ll see a ‘Lead Email’ address (highlighted in the screen shot below).  This is the address you want to give to your lead generation company instead of your email address.  However, make sure you put your personal email address in the ‘Send copies to’ section. 

 

Prudential Select Properties Introduces Premier Agent Services

Prudential Select Properties is rolling out a new program, Premier Agent Services, to assist our agents in developing a personal brand.

Personal branding – the art of packaging and presenting yourself – is vital to your business development.   After speaking with a few of our top agents, we realized the biggest item on your ‘wish list’ is support with building a concept, strategy and materials for this brand.

The Prudential Select Properties marketing department is happy to introduce you to Maxwell Havens, who will be heading up our new Premier Agent Services program.  Max, a St. Louis native, grew up in West County and now lives in Dogtown.    Max graduated from Mizzou in 2009 with a bachelors in English and then went on to secure his masters in Strategic Communication from Maryville. For the last two years he has worked with Upper End Properties in Clayton as their marketing coordinator.   Max has brought some much needed testosterone to the marketing department, although we tend to give him blank stares when he starts discussing sports.

Max will be scheduling appointments with agents in our Leading Edge, President’s Circle and Chairman’s Circle to consult about their personal brand and assist with logo creation and custom pieces. Appointments will begin as early as April 1st so look for your invite from Max soon!

We’ve also partnered with Home Security of America’s Burke Smith to offer social media consultation.  As the Chief Communication Officer for HSA our agents couldn’t have a better resource for developing their social media strategy.  Contact your HSA representative to set up an appointment.

Benefits Provided by Premier Agent Services Based on Level

Honor Society

• Social Media Expert Consultation

Leading Edge

• Personal Brand Consultation
• Social Media Expert Consultation
• Logo or One Custom Piece

President’s Circle

• Personal Brand Consultation
• Social Media Expert Consultation
• Logo
• One Custom Piece

Chairman’s Circle

• Personal Brand Consultation
• Social Media Expert Consultation
• Logo
• Two Custom Pieces

Custom Marketing Options

• Website Banner
• Facebook Banner
• Flyer Template
• Postcard Template
• Personal Brochure Design
• Listing Presentation Sidebar
• Business Card Design

Introducing our new brand . . .

Although the release of our new brand, Berkshire Hathaway Homeservices, is still a few months away we got a sneak peek at the Convention. The color is called ‘Cabernet’

Quick Update on Our Site Conversion

Wanted to pass along this quick note about where we are in our conversion process.

Contact Data
We’re in the process of mapping data.  Our new website provider, Real Estate Web Solutions, has the contact data from your website and is currently in the process of integrating it.  We won’t go live until this is mapped and I’m comfortable that everything is perfect.  I’ll update you before we do. 

Website Home Page Message
I updated your website’s home page this morning to display a ‘welcome’ message and a note about your new technology.

Website Content
Nancy (god bless her heart) has been endlessly copying over the general content from all your website’s and setting it up on your new site.

Instructional Videos & Documents
Jana’s been putting together training videos and ‘how-to’ documents.  These will be up on YouTube and our Resource Center by tomorrow.

Training Session
Our Client Management Training Session is TOMORROW at the St. Louis Board of Realtors.  After we discuss the basic skills for managing your clients we’ll begin a hands-on workshop to transfer any custom pages you have.  If you have custom pages and want assistance PLEASE BRING YOUR COMPUTER WITH BATTERY. 

Stacey Sanders has announced that the morning session is now full.  There is still room in the afternoon session.  Please register on the Resource Center.

If you have questions just email us at HelpDesk@DiscoverStL.com.

New Technology Launches February 7th

(For those of you that were not able to attend at our annual Kick-Off Meeting earlier this week, here’s a copy of the information presented about our technology enhancements). 

Two years ago at the Prudential Convention I made a promise to you to begin blogging about the changes we make in regards to marketing and technology and why.  I wanted to make sure you guys knew were involved and updated.

This year I’m making a new resolution – to become a better listener.  I want to hear from you.  I want to know your needs and your wishlist in regards to your business.  Throughout 2012 the marketing department will be hosting Roundtables where you are invited to be involved and share your opinions.

My second resolution is to search for ways to streamline our systems.  As you know, you have dozens of sites you need to visit, learn, and manage to control your business.  I’d like to find ways to make this simpler for you.

As a first step in this direction, we are switching data and website providers to Real Estate Web Solutions. It’s a local company where we have a bit more input over the direction our system takes.  We’ve been with Reliance Network for almost eight years and while I have liked many aspects of their system I often felt we were at their mercy when it came to changes.  The changes they dictated were not always the changes we needed.   It felt like a product instead of a partnership.

On February 7, 2012 we will begin running both the current system and our new system side by side and transferring your contacts and the data associated with it over.  Below is our launch calendar:

• February 7, 2012: New Site Preview
  Your new site will be available for you to preview and access but will not yet be live.  This will give you time to adjust your site options and upload content.  You should be able to simply copy and paste custom pages and SEO from one site to the other since they will be running side by side.
• February 13, 2012: New Sites Go Live
  New sites go ‘live’ to your customers.  We’ll confirm lead logic is working correctly.  Old sites remain available in the background.
• February 14, 2012:  Contacts Added
  We will do a data dump of all your contacts and their information to your new site.
• February 20, 2012: Old sites taken down

On launch, we’re going to be delivering you all the same features your current sites have as well as quite a few exciting enhancements.

Core Features 

• Property Search of all MLS Listings
  Listing data still downloads to your website from MARIS – this includes all listing details, all photos and open houses.
• Multiple Search Options
  Search by map, address, zip code, city, mls# or subdivision.
• Ability to Edit Listing Options
  Ability to edit listings and add documents, floorplans, etc.
• Featured Property Control
  You can adjust your featured properties to whatever listings you want to showcase.
• Site Customization Options
  You can still change site options such as template, color and header as well as add unlimited custom pages and unlimited images.
• eCard and Campaign System
  We’re bringing over our entire eCard system and we’ll create a local campaign you can turn on for your clients.
• Seller’s Reports
  Daily or weekly reports showing the activity on our website system.
• Local and Updated Website Content
  Website content including local content such as wineries, attractions, and events will transfer.
• Community Info
  School data and demographic data will still appear on each listing.
• QR Codes
  QR Codes will still be available for every listing.
• Leads to Mobile Phone
  Leads will still go to your mobile phone for instant acceptance.

What’s New? 

• Geolocation Mobile Search
  Your clients can now browse homes and opens nearby them.
• Agent Branding on Mobile Search
  Your mobile search will now be branded with your name, photo and information.
• Time Stamp on Contact Notes
  Now there’s an automated user stamp and time stamp on every contact note or system change for better client tracking.
• Header Slideshow Option
  Set up a custom Flash slideshow on your site.
• Auto-Updated Marketing Message
  Promoting company marketing such as a Magic House events or Letters from Santa?  Now you don’t have to manually add the graphic to your website and link it out – we’ll be able to do it for you!
• Flyer On Demand
  Print flyers with just one click and skip the manual process of Publisher.
• Social Media Options
  Link your social media sites to your website AND share to Facebook and Twitter with ease.
• Campaigns by Source
  Now send email campaigns based on client’s source (Zillow, Trulia, etc.) and personalize their online experience.
• QR Codes for any Page
  Create QR Codes for any page, not just your listing detail pages! Link to your home page or any custom page.
• Marketing Tracking & Google Analytics
  Track your marketing efforts.  See details on what visitors are coming from QR codes, Facebook, search engines, etc.
• Unsubscribe by Email Type
  Before any unsubscribe by a client removed them from the system.  Now client’s can choose to unsubscribe from marketing campaigns, unsubscribe from new listing updates or unsubscribe from seller reports.
• Improved Auto-Prospecting
  When you set up Property Watch (a saved search of new listings) for your clients the system will email the listings matching the criteria to the client immediately and then email updates as needed.
• Redesigned Search, Listing Results & Listing Detail Page
  We’ve redesigned to bring you a cleaner, simpler search and listing result & details pages with more calls to action.
• Walkscore
  Each listing detail page now shows the property’s Walkscore with a list of nearby restaurants, grocery stores, attractions and more.
• Trip Map
  Clients can now easily map a tour of homes they would like to see.

In the first quarter we’ll be adding the following features:

• Listing Banners
• Gatekeeper Option
• Sellers Edge Enhancement
• Additional Flyer Options
• Craigslist Design with Calls to Action
• CC a Lender Option
• Do Not Call List Integration
• Email Trip Map Feature

In 2012 we’re going to be addressing forms management, contact management and even mobile and iPad applications to manage your business.  I’ll let you know about upcoming roundtables as we get further in the process – hope to see you there!

Santa Read Your Wish List. . .

Prudential Select Properties is premiering a new home search in January 2012.

The changes just keep coming. . .

This is supposed to be the season when you’re tucked in bed as visions of sugar plums dance in your head. However, my 3:00 a.m.’s are full of visions about how to enhance and streamline our systems.

We are internally making a huge change as we transfer providers of our lead system, agent websites, company website, contact management, virtual office and mobile systems.  In 2012 we’ll be introducing new enhancements every quarter – – from mobile and iPad applications to manage your business, to video enhancement services, to a more robust client management system. Despite the workload I cannot begin to tell you how excited I am about these changes.

And in the midst of all this Brookfield has acquired Prudential Real Estate! Oh the timing!  In trying to push these systems out to you in the next 30 – 60 days I’ve hardly taken a moment to think about Brookfield and decided I should gather my thoughts before the day’s in full swing.

The obvious questions is – how will this affect us? We simply don’t have all the details yet, but I’m personally excited that Brookfield is a real estate focused company.  Mother Prudential was primarily focused on financial.  Without question, Brookfield should be able to strengthen our existing relocation relationships, present us with new opportunities and reboot our energy.

Regardless of what happens in regards to branding, the important thing to remember is we’re still locally owned and operated.  Our ownership and management group remains the same as well as the team at home office.  We will continue to operate as the local choice for St. Louis real estate. . . just like we always have.

And now back to work! Talk to you all soon.

Sarah Grobe, Director of Marketing and eBusiness
Prudential Select Properties

On the second day of Christmas

“On the second day of Christmas my true love gave to me . . ”  Ok, you definitely don’t want to hear me sing but I needed a (somewhat) clever way to present to you the second enhancement in our 2012 roll-out.

I hope you have all seen a glimpse of our new Mobile Search that debuts in late January.  I was recently asked to define what makes this enhancement so significant. In one word: geolocation.

If you’re shopping for a home from your mobile phone it usually means you’re . . . . well, mobile.  Geolocation doesn’t just allow buyers to search homes through a mobile friendly site, it allows them to search homes around them at the moment.  Instant access to opens in the area, homes for sale in the neighborhood, even directions. . .  simplifying the home search and most important branding it all to you.  Your photo, your name, your contact information, your leads.

And yes, it works on iPhones. It works on the Android platform.  It works on any smart phone.

The below gallery shows samples of materials to support your new mobile search.

Which brings me around to our next enhancement.

A few months ago I asked the manager’s to send a representative or two from their offices to a roundtable discussion of the search on our website system.   The overwhelming feedback boiled down to one request:

Simplify the search.  Make it clean. Make it easy.

So that’s exactly what we’re doing.

Debuting in late January 2012 we’ll be rolling out a new search, listing results page and listing detail page as shown below.  Click on any of the images to enlarge them to full size.

Search highlights include:

• Ability to search by  county, city, zip, address, school, subdivision and mls#
• (New!) Auto-fill fields to make searching easy
• (New!) Search by price or monthly payment
• (New!) Easy point-and-click features to narrow your search by amenities
• (New!) Search by ‘newly listed within’ to view the newest homes
• View as list or on a map

Search results page includes:

• (New!) Ability to refine the search directly on the results page
• Ability to save favorites and searches
• (New!) Ability to share listings to Facebook and Twitter
• Call to actions include ‘Set Appointment’ and ‘More Info’ forms.
• (New!) Trip Map

Listing detail page includes:

• (New!)  Two embedded contact forms. Studies show these open forms can increase the number of leads by almost 500%.
• Calculator with charted mortgage breakdown
• (New!) Walkscore community information
• School information (not shown)
• Directional map, birds-eye view map and street view map
• QR code link
• Price change and sold information
• Printable flyers

Two of my favorite new features are the Walk Score and Trip Map which you can see enlarged shots of below.

Walk Score gives each property a score between 0 – 100.  0 represents you need a car to get everywhere and 100 represents you can walk to everything you need.  It’s a great way to discover your community.

The Trip Map is a wonderful buyer’s tool.  The client can select properties they would like to view (up to 7) and enter their starting and ending location.  The system generates the best route to see all the homes!  Just print (or email) and they are off!

Expect more surprises by the end of the year.  We’re working hard to bring you a wonderful line-up of features and tools for 2012.

Sarah Grobe, Director of Marketing & eBusiness
Prudential Select Properties
sarah@discoverstl.com | DiscoverStL.com

Who’s behind the curtain

Stuck for an idea the other night I asked my 8-year old daughter what I should blog about.  (By the way, I find most of life’s questions can be answered by asking my 8-year old). 

“Just blog about what you do, “she responded.

Which was just the reminder I needed.  The reason I started this blog in the first place was to pass along to you what we are doing and why we are doing it. And then I wondered if you knew who ‘we‘ were? I thought I might want to write at least one post about who we are in the marketing department.  The team is made up of myself, Jana Rice and newcomer, Nancy Logan. 

Nancy joined us just a few months ago. She’s learning the ropes right now which for her includes putting together the St. Louis Post Open House ads and Your Next Home ads, updating the Resource Center, adding agents to our systems and assisting in general Help Desk and marketing duties. She is responsible for nasty things like deadlines and numbers in excel sheets. . . and she does an exquisite job of keeping things timely and orderly.

Jana really needs no introduction.  She’s definitely a familiar name and face to you.  If you don’t know her from your office meetings or company training sessions than you probably know her as the person who always answers the phone with a smile on her face. Jana joined us back in 2004, in the same month we introduced our current website system.  She’s evolved with the system from aid, to trainer, to the authority on what the system can do and how to do it.  I even go to Jana with questions. She’s been involved every step of the way on creating eBusiness policies and web-marketing strategies. 

And I’m Sarah. I introduced myself last year, promised you blog updates and disappeared for another year into obscurity.  Anyway, I joined Prudential Select Properties in 2003 just 11 months after they opened their doors. I had worked at a St. Louis RE/MAX office while working towards my Graduate Degree in Digital Media at Lindenwood.  After graduation it seemed an easy step to combine the marketing principles I’d been learning in class to the field of real estate I was already in.  So here I am, 8.5 years later. And goodness we’ve come a long way. Back in 2003 I stepped into a department that didn’t exist and needed to be built from the ground up.   There was no Resource Center, no website system, no marketing materials or tools.  And while I’m thrilled with the progress we’ve made in putting together the tools and technology you use today I still feel like there’s so much I still want to do for you. The rest of the year these projects are near and dear to my heart: 

• Evaluating and updating the tools and marketing materials we offer you
• Seeking out the best ways to distribute your listings online and push more leads to you
• Positioning Prudential Select Properties as the local choice for St. Louis real estate

As always your ideas are welcome; email me anytime at Sarah@DiscoverStL.com.

Talk to you soon,  

Sarah

P.S. Jana’s been working on a list of events in and around St. Louis this summer.  An eCard is in the system that links to this list and is available to send to your clients.  She’ll be sending out step-by-step instructions today in her Tuesday Tech Tip. I’ll be sending out a complete marketing update next week with new materials! 

 

 

 

 

Creating an event with you in mind; the PSP Awards Gala

In the Prudential Select Properties marketing department there are five seasons – Spring, Summer, Autumn, Winter and Awards season. Every year about mid-January we begin thinking about our annual awards banquet.  As we approach mid-April I sometimes wish we could shut down the department for a week. I actually tried that a few years back by sending a “The Marketing Department is Closed. We’ll return after the Awards” message out to the admin and mangers. . . .  no one found it quite as funny as we did. 🙂

I took a stroll down memory lane this morning and got out all the Awards Programs from years past.  The work that goes into these little books is surprising.  Over the years we’ve picked out special papers, troubleshot printing issues, collated, folded, stapled, hole punched, bradded, gold leafed, and more.  

In 2006 the booklet was designed to look like a picture frame and after ironing gold metallic on vellum and x-acto kniving each cover individually, Kinko’s botched the job and ruined all the meticulous work.  Kinko’s and PSP Marketing have had a few issues over the years. . . another year they cut they books in half instead of folding them.  Nowadays we don’t leave the store before threatening the manager. . . I’m sure we’re intimidating. 

In 2007 we were printing the books in the evening so we wouldn’t interrupt the agent’s printer usage during the day.  Some faulty designer (cough, Joe Cordeal) decided to create a black background for every page. . . . which caused the printers to overheat and the pages to melt together.   I think we were there half the night printing a few pages at a time then waiting for the printer to cool. Thank goodness for Matt Muren, one of our sales associates, who jumped in to help Sara Fedele and I with refreshments of pizza and bud select. 

See the full gallery on Posterous

And here’s 2008, one of my favorites.  We had the event at Mad Art Gallery, once a jail, which corresponded perfectly to our Monopoly theme. Alex Cota, our designer at the time, carried the theme meticulously through the event.    From customized PSP Monopoly board table covers to burlap money sacks filled with gold coins –  it really was outstanding.  Sara Fedele spent serious time hunting eBay for spare Monopoly houses while Jana Rice remembers cutting burlap circles for the favor bags until her hands were raw. 

The picture above is from earlier this month.  I had just finished cutting out the playing cards which were personalized with award winner names.  The cards were spread out on the floor of my office in an attempt to organize them by award winner order.  I’m sure I got strange looks from visitors passing by who probably thought I was playing a rather overzealous game of solitaire. 

Despite the work and occasional mishaps, each awards event is well worth the effort because we get a chance to celebrate YOU at one of my favorite parties of the year. This year’s Gala took place at the Nightclub of Ameristar Casino in St. Charles.  George Bruns and Maryann Vitale acted as MCs for the night and started the event off by giving away cash if you could answer their trivia questions. 

Our winners at a glance:

• Top Team in GCI: Diane Denny Team, Des Peres 
• Top Team in Units: Leslie Cheek Team, Jefferson County
• Top Individual in GCI: Cindy Baker, Town & Country
• Top Individual in Units: Theresa Curtis, Troy
• Rookie of the Year: Mark Warren, St. Charles
• Administrator of the Year: Julie Morrow, St. Charles
• Top Sunshine Kids Listing Agents: Linda & Kelly Boehmer Team, St. Charles
• Top Sunshine Kids Pledge Agent: Cindy Baker, Town & Country

After the awards presentation we mixed and mingled in the ‘Lounge’ with hors d’oeurves and cocktails aptly named the ‘Citrix Meltdown’ and ‘Tuesday Morning Meeting.’   This year’s addition of a photo booth provided a lot of entertainment and some great shots.  Take a look at a few select moments here:

See the full gallery on Posterous

For more pictures from the Awards Gala visit our Facebook page here.

To view and download your shots from the Photobooth, visit www.ciphotobooth.com. Click ‘View Your Event” and select ‘Prudential Select Properties.’  Enter passcode 040711 to enter the gallery. 

A big thanks to Jana Rice, Nancy Logan, Susan Cardwell, Susan Dempsey, Stacey Folk and Maureen Adler for helping to make the event a success.  George and Maryann, wonderful job, as always.