360Digest

I got a call today from a salesperson at ePERKS. He wanted me to sign up for a program to receive leads off their website. If I bought one zip code, the fee would be $129.95 a month, plus an 18% referral fee back to them for every closed transaction.

Here’s the pitch from ePERKS:

ePERKS is a combination of search directory and search engine for major services. As a result there are directory membership fees as well as referral fees for when a deal is closed. Pricing is uniform across the United States and there are 3 simple programs that encompass the service.

This program provides complete exclusivity to the real estate professional, as members of this program are made the sole representatives for their selected areas of coverage. No other program listings are displayed, as the Exclusive Ownership Listing supersedes and eliminates all other listings.

100% Ownership of Selected Zip Codes (no other listings)
Supersedes and Eliminates All Other Listings
$129.95 a Zip Monthly
$150 Setup Fee
19% Referral Fee (80% given back to consumer)
No Extended Contract
Month to Month Billing
Cancel Anytime
Backed by ePERKS Guarantee

They also had other programs available where I’d share the zip code with other agents, for lower fees of $59 to $89 a month. Another black hole designed to swallow your dough, but a shallower one, I guess.

I wasn’t particularly interested, but I thought I’d just look it up to see what some other bloggers were writing about the company.

The funny thing is, all I could find were “sponsored” posts. Posts that were bought or placed for payment in the attempt to jumpstart some viral marketing. Apparently, their PR department has been busy paying bloggers to “write” stories, most identifical to the other, culled from a press release to collect a quick $10 or $20.

Pay per Post

Paid review: ePERKS on RhythmsWithRight

Paid post: Real Estate Deals and Incentives at ePerks.com from Current World News

Paid Review on Shadowscope

Paid post: Rebate real estate brokers from Infektia

Does it work to pay bloggers to say nice things about your crappy lead-generation website? I would think a good PPC campaign would be a more effective way to reach customers, without losing credibility in the marketplace.

Disclosure: I wasn’t paid a dime for this glowing review.

Wed 23 May 2007

Craigslist Conundrum

Posted by Marlow Harris under Advertising , Real Estate
[6] Comments

I’ve gotten over a dozen calls and emails this morning about my beautiful view home rental advertised on Craigslist. Great, right? Except I have no rental listing available.

Someone, not in malice, erroneously put an ad from the CBBain website on Craigslist, with my contact information on it.

Obviously, we have seen ads places there with malicious intent, like that gal who placed the ad to come and take anything they wanted out of her aunt’s house. Or those who place rental ads, collect first, last and a deposit, on homes they don’t own, and do it a dozen times to a dozen different renters. Or the stupid and short-sighted landlords and agents who post fake, repetitive, or bait-and-switch adds over and over. This is tame and harmless compared to that. But annoying, nevertheless.

It serves as a reminder to check your links before posting anything online, don’t believe everything you read and “flag with care”.

Mon 30 Apr 2007

April Fools round-up

Posted by Marlow Harris under Advertising , Real Estate
[6] Comments

It’s the end of the month and I’m almost to the end of my Zillow experiment, where I bought a dozen or so zipcodes in the Seattle area, where my EZ ad would run thousands of times during the month. I have received 1 personal acknowledgment from a neighbor who was Zillowing his own house and saw my ad. And, so far, 208 click-through’s to my website www.SeattleDreamHomes.com.

Since I bought more than 1,000 page views for a few upper-end zips to pay about $200 for the month, it looks like I’m averaging about $1.00 a click, equal to what some key phrases on Google are charging. However, the difference is that with Zillow, people are still seeing my name and smiling face whether or not they actually click on my web link. It’s impressions or page views I’m paying for with Zillow, not just click throughs to my site.

Customers finding ones site through organic search is still the ideal, but, as pointed out by Dustin over at Rain City Guide, some search engines have been “confused” lately. Or are some sites being purposely penalized? Word on the real estate forums is that whole categories of websites are being removed from search engines, either for perceived industry-wide transgressions (such as exchanging too many links with other professionals) or as a ruse to sell more advertising. After all, if you don’t show up in organic search, you’re much more likely to purchase ads, right?

In another experiment (for both of us) Bradford Bohonus at VR Seattle placed a little Seattle Dream Homes tile on his site, and we’re monitoring clicks, just to see what happens. VR Seattle is Bradford’s virtual tour site specializing in 360 degree virtual reality photography. This imaging technology is utilized for creating interactive virtual tours and environments and is a perfect vehicle for marketing real estate.

Bernice Ross had a little post last week about agents who were too cheap to pay for video tours of homes. Granted, VRSeattle is not cheap. But when marketing upper-end properties, expenditures of several thousand dollars for advertising and promotion is not unusual.

Hurricane Ridge from VR Seattle

These are some of my favorite VR Tours. They are so cool:

Hurricane Ridge in the Olympic Forest (less than 100 miles from my house…..)
Skyline of Seattle
Metropolitan Museum of Art
Golden Gate Bridge

Also, as an experiment, I’m trying a different logo on his website.

I have my classic Seattle Dream Homes logo:

Seattle Dream Homes 1

And then I tried a different look, which I debuted on VR Seattle:

Seattle Dream Homes 2

If it works out well, I’ll move in that direction for the whole site. The old logo was all flowery, like Martha Stewart selling real estate, so I may be ready for a change.

In other interesting end-of-April (Fools) news, Redfin also redesigned their logo and website and opened a new office in Boston.

They made news on April Fools Day by launching the “real estate consumer’s bill of rights”. They stated “The premise of the bill is that consumers should have all the information the agent does about a house they’re trying to buy or sell, and about how the whole process works.”

Uhmmm…. my buyers and sellers already DO have all this information. But I digress….

Anyway, they sent out press releases to dozens of news organizations and got Inman News to trumpet it to their “hundreds of thousands of real estate subscribers”, requesting that Realtors, sales agents, brokers and buyers and sellers sign a petition that they would then send to the National Association of Realtors and all the MLS’s around the country.

So far, as of today, after 100’s of press releases, blog posts and newspaper articles and thousands of dollars of free publicity, they have a grand total of 70 signatures. Most signers appear to be Redfin employees or respected folks like “Daffy Duck”, “I.P. Daly” and “Heywood Jablowme”.

I’m so glad this April Fools month is finally over!

Sat 14 Apr 2007

With 2 you get eggroll…..

Posted by Marlow Harris under Advertising , Real Estate , Popular Culture
[2] Comments

Read 360digest

Matt Carter had a little post a while back he called “Confucius on mortgage fraud“, prompted by a gift of personalized fortune cookies he received from Interthinx, which offers an automated fraud detection system to mortgage lenders. I don’t know why I kept thinking about this, but Matt was somewhat offended by the “pidgin” English sayings on the fortune cookies.

Generally, I’d have to say I’m pretty sensitive to offending folks sensibilities in regards to race, religion, disabilities and the like, but I’m on the fence about this example. It’s not always so clear anymore, what is offensive or not. With the fortune cookie, it’s a Western construct, but the Chinese were the ones who adopted it here in the West and added the fortunes….

Anyway, the reason I noted this was that one of the best promotions I ever did was having custom fortune cookies made for a listing I had a few years ago that featured Asian-inspired architectural design. The fortunes read “You will buy this house today” and “Take time to ponder your future home purchase from Marlow”, “You will have good luck in your new home” and things like that. They were a hoot.

The local company I bought them from was from Short Order Fortunes, but there are plenty of other firms that will make and ship them around the country.

More Fortune Cookie sites:

Weird Fortune Cookie Collection

Fortune Cookie Generator

Tasteless Fortunes

Sun 5 Nov 2006

Doggie Style

Posted by Marlow Harris under Advertising , Real Estate , Popular Culture
[5] Comments

Doggie Style

There was lots of response after I received the title Real Estate Poodle and I was going to have new cards with that added after my name, but decided to be either Real Estate Curmudgeon or Real Estate Blog Goddess instead.

Doggies and real estate have always gone together….

Accidental real estate porn via Boing Boing

If I really do add “Real Estate Poodle” to my resume, would it be passe already? I hate be tired and redundant and there seems to be so many doggies already out there….

Hot Dog!