Your agency’s website should be a point of constant interaction in your business.
If you don’t have dedicated staff to handle your online marketing, you should at least have an outside source to suggest and manage updates.
It’s also beneficial to consider a redesign every couple of years. The range of features and value being offered by today’s online creative providers and website companies is incredible.
I’ve been involved in real estate company web design since 2000. I’ve laughed out loud during product demos at the power companies hand over to clients these days.
The speed at which things have evolved is something I would have never imagined. Case in point: I used to travel across the country training commercial real estate agents on how to convert a Word-based listing flyer into a PDF.
Once uploaded to the server and approved by the company “tech guy,” the PDF could be published on the respective office’s web page within a few days.
Crazy, right?
That said, here are some updates in the online marketing arena to keep you in the loop.
New features at AgentImpress.Me
I reviewed this listing page design company at the beginning of the year. It offers slick IDX-powered pages, an easy CMS and proven SEO and social marketing tactics to get consumers to your listing pages.
Consider a website re-design every couple of years.
Since then, AgentImpress has been pushing to come up with more ways to provide value to agents.
In the coming weeks, AgentImpress will launch a number of new features to join a couple that have been recently rolled out, including:
- Full agency websites. Examples: rickfranz.com and curtiskproperties.com
- IDX relationships in Texas and 5 other states
An AgentImpress.Me full agency website homepage.
Now that the company is doing more than single-listing pages, companies at that two-year redesign window will have a new option.
Real Estate Webmasters
The popular agent and broker site design and marketing platform that has built sites for tons of agents, including everyone’s favorite #humblebrag celebrity endorsement, Barbara Corcoran, announced recently version 4.7 of its built-in CRM, which features:
- Automatic saved searches for site visitors
- Action Plans that help users automate lead follow-up tasks with email, texts, and calls
- Instant customer notifications of new listings
It’s becoming common for website developers to create added value with business tools like CRMs and transactional emails.
Real Estate Webmasters released version 4.7.
There is tremendous convenience to having your sales and marketing tools under a single interface, but it’s always smart to explore standalone options as well.
Canva
Canva is an easy, powerful way to make marketing collateral for your real estate office.
The easy DIY-graphic design service makes the creative process pretty foolproof and offers templates for virtually every type of content. A lot of new features have launched since my last review. For example:
- Team collaboration for up to 10 people
- New templates for online content include email headers, blog graphics, Tumblr graphics and Facebook app covers
- Print-ready templates include tri-fold brochures, magazine pages, real estate flyers and business cards.
- Your Brand module that saves company colors, fonts, logos and other assets
A Canva real estate design template example.
Canva users are now offered an entire catalog of artistic and intuitive ways to represent a brand. And the team collaboration feature allows brokers and office managers to work with vendors or marketing staff on the creation of new materials.
Any other marketing resources out there you like that we haven’t covered? Share some of your favorites.
Have a technology product you would like to discuss? Email Craig Rowe.
