TECH@WORK: E-marketing

By Stephen M. Canale

PDF tips and tricks

Squeeze marketing mileage from Acrobat files.

The real estate industry continues to embrace Adobe Acrobat’s PDF file format as a convenient way to share information with other real estate professionals, customers, and clients. And why not? The format compresses files to a small enough size for almost any e-mail program to download rapidly. And since most antivirus programs don’t screen out PDFs, your multipage marketing brochure won’t be rejected as a dangerous virus.

Even better, since the Adobe Reader program needed to access files is free from Adobe
(www.adobe.com), many of your recipients will already have it. To ensure they do, simply include a link to the download in your e-mail.

Although creating and sharing documents and marketing materials in PDF format is a great time-saver in itself, you may not be taking full advantage of all the productivity-enhancing tools that come with the full-function, standard version of Acrobat 6.0 ($299)—the version you need to create PDFs. Here are a few tricks to try.

1. Create electronic forms. You can easily create an interactive, fill-in-the-blank PDF of a listing agreement or other form. Not only will the program let you add text areas that customers and clients can complete on-screen, but you can also insert drop-down lists, check boxes, and other handy data-entry points that will make your forms easier for customers to complete. Recipients only need the free Reader to complete these forms.

How to do it: Start by scanning in a printed form as a base. Then access the Forms tool from the menu bar. Next use your mouse to drag data-entry areas onto your document. Or you can use the same tools to build a form from scratch.

2. Integrate materials into customized marketing packages. Rather than creating an entire PDF marketing package as one file, consider keeping single-page PDFs of documents you frequently use. That way, you can create personalized information packages with just the materials you want. For instance, keep PDF versions of listing highlight sheets, a summary of current interest rates, a lead-based paint disclosure, a seller’s property condition disclosure form, your agency disclosure form, and a copy of your personal credentials—all in separate PDF files. Then, when consumers inquire, you can easily merge just the documents they request into a single PDF that can be e-mailed or copied to disk.

How to do it: Access the Document menu. Then choose “Insert Pages” from the drop-down list to build custom PDF packages quickly.

3. Use PDF files to drive viewers to your Web site. By adding embedded hyperlinks to a PDF of a listing highlight sheet, for example, you can make it easy for an interested customer to view your virtual tour of the property, look at a copy of your buyer’s agency agreement, or see all your current listings. You can even provide links to other Web sites for information about local weather, schools, malls, and so on.

How to do it: Access the Link tool on the program’s menu bar to create hyperlinks within your PDF documents.

4. Keep your PDFs secure. Prevent a customer from editing a contract or a competitor from copying your marketing materials without permission by adding security settings to your documents.

How to do it: From the program’s File menu, choose Document Security. You can change settings to prevent printing, editing, and copying of your PDF. Exact options vary according to the version of Acrobat you use and the level of encryption you apply.

With such a wide variety of options available to you, it’s easy to see that if you’re using Acrobat only to create standard PDF documents, you’re barely scratching the surface of the business applications this program has to offer.

In addition to instructing GRI programs, Canale has spoken at hundreds of seminars in 42 states over the past several years, covering a variety of subjects relating to real estate sales and technology. For information about his products, newsletter, and seminars, visit www.canale.com.

MORE ONLINE

For more about electronic marketing, click here .

FACTOID

Of REALTORS® who have Internet availability, 82 percent use high-speed connections to access the Internet.
—2003 REALTOR® Magazine Survey, MRI, Custom Division