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Architecture Guide
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Young Professionals
REALTOR® Emeritus | Marketing your brokerage Coordinating Company and Salesperson Marketing | | |||
|  Setting Marketing Strategies Analyzing the Business Climate Creating Your Market Identity Planning Your Advertising Coordinating Company and Salesperson Marketing Developing Public Relations Strategies Enhancing Customer Service | Advanced: Creating Synergy With Sales Associates’ Web Sites With the expansion of Internet marketing, a broker may find that the company Web site and individual sales associates’ Web sites are competing for the same visitors. Stephen J. Canale, a licensed broker, speaker, and expert in technology, explains how a broker can avoid such problems by building a company Web site that supports individual salespeople's sites and creates synergy among them. Q: How can a broker build a company Web site that doesn’t compete with individual salespeople's sites? Canale: The key lies in recognizing that the broker has resources—such as money and access to experts—that individual salespeople may lack. A well-constructed company site can add value to the individual associate's sites and help in recruiting and retaining salespeople. Q: How can the company site add value to individual associate’s sites? Canale: The company Web site should furnish all the information, forms, maps, and personal and promotional materials salespeople need to build an effective individual Web site. The most successful company Web sites help salespeople by providing all the content they might otherwise have to purchase from a Web site developer or other outside provider. If they have access to a good company Web site, associates can spend less time on creating and maintaining their Web sites and more time with their clients and customers. For example, salespeople can choose the content their visitors can access by providing links to the company site. The links are seamless, so the visitors never realize that they are on the company site. And the links never lead visitors away from the salesperson’s site. Q: What kinds of content does the company site provide? Canale: The content should be based on the needs of the sales associates and the community. The variety should be broad so that each salesperson can find the perfect materials for his or her personal site. Among the possibilities are:
TIP: To help ensure that your ads are legal, limit descriptions to the actual physical property itself—for example, “1,500-square-foot corner lot.” In other words, describe the property and not the potential buyers. —Adapted from “Can Your Ad Trigger a Discrimination Lawsuit?” in Sacramento REALTOR® News,October 1996 Developing Public Relations Strategies > | |