Cutting Edge Online Advertising Tactics Part 11

This ad verges on being comical when in the next sentence there’s a spelling error (‘proces’).  There is absolutely nothing interesting (let alone compelling) about how this person has presented themselves so you can bet they’ll get few or no responses from this.

Here’s another dull as oatmeal ad:

Cutting Edge Online Advertising Tactics Part 10

Jobs > Real Estate – this is a great place to recruit new people to your team or brokerage.  It’s also a great place to see what other brokerages are offering nowadays to new or experienced reps.  You may find a brokerage here that fits your business better than your current one, saving you thousands of dollars per year.  It’s always a good sign when a broker is advertising for new reps online because it’s a good indication they’re more tech savvy than many other brokers.

Use Eye Catching Ad Headlines – it’s easy for your ad to get buried and not stand out on Craig’s List as 100 ads are shown on each page and there’s no option of paying them for boosting your ad’s prominence.  However, there are clever little things you can do to really make your ad stand out.  Here are some examples of ad titles on Craig’s List that got my attention and really stood out from the other ads:

Cutting Edge Online Advertising Tactics Part 9

Services > Legal – here’s where you can put your know-how about real estate law to good work.  First time buyers are often wondering what’s involved from a legal perspective in buying a home, securing financing, and so on.  They typically want to know under what circumstances they’ll need a real estate lawyer to buy a home and how much it will cost them.  Just be sure to state in your ad that you’re not a lawyer and so what you state there should not be considered legal advice per se.  This can be a good opportunity to mention a reputable real estate lawyer you’ve worked with and request they contact you for his/her contact info.  Offering a document that provides help with legal matters can be a great way of enticing people for signing up for your mailing list.  Be sure to have a real estate lawyer review this document before making it available.

Cutting Edge Online Advertising Tactics Part 8

Another thing you can do for building relationships with investors is emailing the ones advertising apartments for rent.  Tell them you have potential tenants for their apartment and ask them for a meeting.  If nothing else this allows you to builds relationships with investors who may become regular buyers.  These are the people most interested in your local real estate market expertise and you can offer to be their eyes and ears in searching for suitable properties for them.  They’ll definitely want that.  The more you learn about the types of properties they’re looking for, the more likely you’ll be able to recognize the right ones, and the more likely they’ll buy them from you when you can identify them.  

Cutting Edge Online Advertising Tactics Part 7

Community > Politics – is there something happening in your area that concerns the local residents?  Perhaps a business has made an application for constructing something in the area that residents might be concerned about.  Maybe a lot of the locals simply don’t want another Wal-Mart or Starbucks or other franchise store being built in their area and taking business away from all the unique mom and pop stores.  In this section you can advertise upcoming community forum events related to these new construction initiatives where the local mayor or other government officials will speak and let community members have their say in a public forum.  

Cutting Edge Online Advertising Tactics Part 6

Advertise In Other Classified Site Sections – most real estate professionals only advertise their listings in the Real Estate For Sale section on Craig’s List and nowhere else on the site.  Yet there are several other sections where you can advertise your services.  For instance, you can advertise under the Services > Real Estate section describing your niche.  You can also advertise your services in the following sections:

Cutting Edge Online Advertising Tactics Part 5

When posting in other cities try appealing to real estate investors.  While it’s true that many investors buy properties based on emotion or speculation, some investors will do it outside their own area and sometimes without even viewing the property in person. These sophisticated investors will buy outside their area because they know how to assess any property’s potential return on investment.

So to get an investor’s interest you need to speak an investor’s language.  You’ll appeal to these types by using hard facts, not emotion.  They want to understand what they can expect by investing in this property, and not just the projected monetary return.  They’ll especially want to understand any potential pitfalls of investing in your area and in your listing in particular, and this is where your local real estate market expertise will be invaluable to them.  These investors want to know how much down payment is required, what the expected appreciation is for the next 5-10 years, if the unit is pre-construction, new, or resale, if there are current tenants, and so on.  

Cutting Edge Online Advertising Tactics Part 4

Also be sure to check your ads once they’re made live to ensure your image is coming up properly.  If you mis-type the above code then all people will see in the ad is a link that leads them nowhere.

Don’t Post Image Only Ads – you can fool the Craig’s List screens by placing ads that only contain an image, but this limits your ad’s ability to get recognized by search engines.  Considering how hugely popular Craig’s List is this is a considerable factor, especially when you can keep renewing your ads and have them running indefinitely with the same link.  Whatever you write, always make sure you have at least a couple of instances of the phrase “real estate” and the names of all the neighborhoods in your farm area.  

Cutting Edge Online Advertising Tactics Part 3

Change Your Ad Wording When Renewing – one of the things search engines really like is web pages that are updated regularly.  This indicates to them that the page has fresh new information on a regular basis and is therefore most likely part of a superior site to one whose pages’ content change relatively infrequently.  So when you renew your ads change the wording around a bit.  Perhaps briefly mention your latest listings and provide links to them on your website.  If you don’t have any new listings then just shuffle the order of the ones you have mentioned in your ad.  Also make sure that your ads advertising your services have at least 300 words in them as Google will more likely index such ads.  For content you can include things like testimonials.

Cutting Edge Online Advertising Tactics Part 2

Renew Your Soon To Be Expired Ads – with both Craig’s List and Kijiji your ads will eventually expire and get removed from these sites unless you stop this from happening.  With Craig’s List your ads will last either 7 days or 45 days, depending on what city you’re posting in.  The busiest sites such as New York City and Los Angeles only allow ads for 7 days to the massive volume of ads being regularly posted (current about 4000 per day in the NYC Real Estate For Sale section!).  Fortunaltely, Kijiji will email you several days before your ad expires asking you if you want to renew it, but Craig’s List doesn’t, so you’ll have to regularly login to your Craig’s List account and do your housekeeping.