By: Brad Horner

Though new technologies may have emerged, external e-newsletters are still one of the strongest marketing channels that businesses have in their arsenal.  The intimacy of e-newsletters foster personal relationships better than other communication vehicles.

Your network is used to sharing things via e-mail and checking e-mail multiple times throughout the day.  A visitor’s inbox is their trusted zone, and when you appear there on a regular basis – providing good content – you increase your company’s awareness and position the company as an industry thought leader.  Epsilon’s February 2009 branding survey found that 57% of consumers feel they have a more positive impression of companies when they receive e-mail from them.  And the Direct Marketing Association found that e-mail’s ROI in 2009 was $43.52 for every dollar spent on it.

NRT Development Advisors regularly sends its newsletter, Developing News, to inform our network of clients, prospects, brokers and more about industry news, helpful tips and our clients’ successes.  And I’m proud to say that we have a much higher than average open rate for the real estate industry.  How?  We follow the below five rules:

1. Get input on useful content. Deciding to write an e-newsletter is easy.  Deciding what to write about is much more difficult.  Visit the websites and forums that your audience typically frequents to learn what topics seem to generate the most interest and coverage.  Blog search engines can also help you identify relevant themes and topics.  And don’t forget to take advantage of opportunities to personally ask your potential readership what they’re most interested in.  Your sales teams and others who deal with customers on a daily basis are great sources of such information.
2. Send only when you have something interesting to say. There is no set rule about how often you should send an e-newsletter, but it should be often enough that your readers don’t forget that they subscribed to your list, but not so often that they are annoyed when they hear from you.  And, your readers want substance, not self-promotional messages.  Establish your e-newsletter as a thought leader with relevant industry topics, as editorial copy is a better read than advertising.
3. Make it aesthetically pleasing. You only have once chance to make a first impression, and with e-newsletters that first impression comes in the form of good looking content.  Ensure that the e-newsletter’s template matches your corporate branding.  Put the most interesting, relevant information on topic (where it can be seen in an e-mail preview window).  And, use graphics strategically.  Photos can break up cluttered text; bullets and highlights make e-newsletters easy to skim.
4. Build trust and credibility. To build trust when asking people to sign up for your e-newsletter, you must be able to clearly answer if you will share their e-mail address and how difficult it will be to unsubscribe.  Consumers are, understandably, leery of companies asking for e-mail addresses because they don’t want to be spammed in the future.  Provide an obvious and painless way that people can unsubscribe.
5. Consider each e-newsletter a test. Carefully analyze the distribution results that e-newsletter programs offer to determine what makes your audience respond.  Do e-newsletters that are sent on Mondays receive a higher open rate than those sent on Tuesdays?  Are more people opening it in the mornings or afternoons?  And what subject lines prompt the quickest action (those with a question or a statement)?  Did particular article topics cause readers to click for more information?

If you’d like to be added to our e-newsletter list, you can sign-up here.

By: Brad Horner

500 million people.  Let me repeat: 500 million people.  That is how many people are actively using Facebook, as the company announced this week.  If Facebook were its own country, it would be the third most populous nation in the world (following China and India)!

According to Facebook, 50% of active users log on to Facebook in any given day (in total, spending more than 500 billion minutes per month on Facebook), so it’s no wonder why marketers are increasingly realizing the large number of leads that Facebook can provide.  It’s an excellent platform to build lasting relationships and “remarket” (Facebook’s term) to customers.

NRT Development Advisors has had great success with Facebook ads on behalf of developer clients.  In fact, the Facebook ads placed to promote clients’ new home communities actually increased referrals to their websites by 30%!

Today’s Friday Five includes tips for marketing real estate via Facebook ads:

1. Set goals. What do you want to accomplish with the ad?  Are you simply hoping to increase the number of new fans for your company’s Facebook page or do you have more traditional goals such as direct sales?  Think through these goals first, as they will impact all future decisions (ad copy, images, links, reach, etc.).
2. Create eye-catching, relevant ads. Include questions, testimonials and calls to action in ad copy, as they make for compelling content.  And include an image in the ad, as the click-through rate is much higher for ads with pictures than those that are text-only.  Consider creating tailored ads for different demographics.  You don’t speak to a potential homebuyer and a Realtor the same way when selling homes, so why would you in an ad?
3. Identify target demographic. One of the best features of Facebook advertising is the robust targeting options; target factors include location, age, birthday, sex, keywords, education, workplace, relationship, interests, language and connections.  Some of the factor selections may be obvious based upon your product (such as location and age), but you can be a little more creative when selecting other factors.  For instance, target people who are already fans of your competitors, as it shows that they are interested in similar product.
4. 4. Frequently rotate ads. Even the best ads can become tiresome after multiple views.
5. Analyze ad performance and adjust accordingly. Just like traditional advertising, it’s important to regularly monitor ad performance and make tweaks based upon results.  Facebook makes it easy to do so by offering reports about each campaign, including responder demographics, responder profiles and conversion data.

Have you had success marketing homes with Facebook ads?  If so, please share your story by leaving a comment.

By: Brad Horner

As we mentioned earlier this week, NRT Development Advisors recently released its Q2 2010 Development Advisor, a quarterly view of metro-Atlanta’s real estate market (including absorption, current inventory, sales price, distressed sales, consumer sentiment and more).

In that blog post, we teased you with an overview of the findings.  But in today’s Friday Five I wanted to take the opportunity to highlight five specific stats that demonstrate the largest adjustments in the metro-Atlanta market from Q2 2009 to Q2 2010.

So, without further ado, below is today’s Friday Five:

1. Inventory: Inventory of new construction condominiums/townhomes fell 31.1%; inventory of resale single-family homes increased 62.7%.
2. Absorption: Absorption of resale single-family homes increased 27.6%, but absorption of new construction single-family homes decreased 16%.
3. Sales price: The average sales price of new construction single-family homes dropped 11.6%, while the average sales price of resale single-family homes increased 12.4%.
4. Distressed Sales: Absorption (closed units) of distressed* new construction single-family homes dropped 16.9%, however absorption (closed units) of distressed* resale single-family homes increased 14.4%.
5. Distressed Sales: Absorption (closed units) of distressed* resale single-family homes increased 14.4%, while absorption (closed units) of distressed* resale condominiums/townhomes decreased 9%.

* Distressed sales include foreclosures, corporate-owned, lender-owned, and short sale pre-approved listings.

By: Brad Horner

I was recently interviewed by a reporter from Urban Land magazine about the future of Atlanta’s real estate market.  I told him that national and international companies continue to look to the city when considering relocation, therefore Atlanta and its surrounding areas still have a promising long-term growth outlook. NRT Development Advisors foresees that this ongoing trend will continue to bring single professionals and families to the city, which will fill the intown multi-family developments as well as the suburban single-family communities.

So today’s Friday Five is a two for one – we listed a few of Atlanta’s, as well as Georgia’s, top accolades that tout reasons transplants love living and doing business in Atlanta.

Atlanta:

1. No. 1 City for Recent College Graduates (based on housing, job prospects, culture and lifestyle) Sources: CareerRookie.com and Apartments.com, May 2010
2. No. 2 Least Expensive City to Live In (of U.S. Cities with population of more than 2 million) Source: KPMG’s Competitive Alternative Study, March 2010
3. No. 2 America’s Most Wired City Source: Forbes Magazine, 2010
4. No. 4 City with Most Fortune 500 Companies (tie with 14 companies) Source: Forbes Magazine, 2010
5. No. 7 Best Start-Up City Source: Entrepreneur Magazine, 2009

Georgia:

1. No. 1 State for Entrepreneurial Activity Source: Kauffman Foundation, 2009
2. No. 1 Best Managed State in the Southeast (overall Grade B+) Source: Pew Center in the States and Governing Magazine
3. No. 3 State with the Best Business Climate Source: Development Counselors International
4. No. 7 State for Job and Business Growth Source: Chief Executive Magazine, 2010
5. No. 9 State with the Best Economic Outlook in the U.S. Source: American Legislative Exhcnage Council, June 2010