Leading Real Estate Companies of the World kicks off workshop series

Delta Media Group will be at the Leading Real Estate Companies of the World™ Fall Workshop, which starts today at the Chicago Marriott Downtown Magnificent Mile.

The Chicago workshop will last today and tomorrow, and will be followed by workshops in Atlanta, Providence and San Diego in subsequent weeks. Delta Media Group will have a representative at all four conferences.

Delta Media Group will be on site to demo their renowned real estate Web site and lead management system, which helps several top real estate brokerages and members of LeadingRE around the country make more money online.

If you will be at the conference, stop by Delta Media Group’s table to speak with a representative. If you won’t be able to attend the conference, click here for more information on how Delta Media Group can help improve your real estate brokerage’s online business.

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Drive More Web Site Traffic - Your Voice Mail Greeting

Here is a quick thought: What if your voice mail also pointed customers to your web site?

Maybe you are getting a customer call from a yard sign, or a referral and you aren’t able to answer your call. Why not incorporate your web site address into your voice mail greeting and also point customers to your web site? Here are a few examples you can use to get started:

...visit my web site at MikeMinard.com to view all local listings...

...check out my web site at DeltaGroup.com to search thousands of local property listings...

...see more listings and more photos at MikeMinard.com...

If you haven't already, check out my previous post about driving more traffic to your web site titled Drive More Web Site Traffic - Through Print.

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Delta Media Group to host tele-seminar tomorrow

Delta Media Group and LanTrax are jointly hosting a free tele-seminar with real estate coach Kim Ades, scheduled for Friday, September 26 at 12pm Eastern.

The topic, "How to Come Back from the Dead: Achieving your Potential," will focus on improving attitude, enthusiasm and results in life and business.

Kim Ades is the founder and president of Opening Doors and Frame of Mind Coaching, and a contributor to several real estate publications. She has helped several real estate agents and brokers to better their business and outlook on life through her coaching.

The tele-seminar is free and open to the public. Please click here to register.

Delta Media Group will be hosting additional tele-seminars in the future. Watch the Delta Media Group blog for further details.

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Delta Media Group launches new ERA Kaufmann Associates Web system

ERA Kaufmann Associates' new real estate Web site and lead management system just went live, and can be found at www.k-krealty.com.


Delta Media Group built the Web system, which features the latest in real estate technology, including: Atlas Search interactive property search mapping, national property search, advanced agent Web sites, and Delta Media Group's renowned back-end lead and contact management system.

ERA Kaufmann is located in Bella Vista, Arkansas and services Benton and Washington counties. ERA Kaufmann lists and sells real estate in Bella Vista, Bentonville, Rogers, Springdale, Lowell, Fayetteville and Pea Ridge according to their Web site.

ERA Kaufmann joins more than 20 other ERA brokerages using Delta Media Group's Web systems, including:

-ERA Henley Real Estate
-ERA Napier Realtors
-ERA Class.com
-ERA Oxford Realty Company
-ERA John Hausam
-ERA Top Producers
-ERA Crown Realty
-ERA American Realty of Northwest Florida
and many more.

For more information on how your brokerage might be able to utilize the Delta Media Group system to improve your online sales and gross commission income, please click here.

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Russell Real Estate Services selects Delta Media Group as Web technology provider

Russell Real Estate Services, a member of Leading Real Estate Companies of the World, has partnered with Delta Media Group as their online technology provider.

With seven offices and over 400 real estate agents, Russell Real Estate is one of the oldest, largest and most successful real estate brokerages in Ohio.

Delta Media Group is in the process of building a custom-designed Web site for Russell, incorporated with Delta Media Group’s renowned lead management system. The system is built to increase leads, the speed at which agents respond to the customer, lead management efficiency, lead conversion and more.

“We’re proud to work with an industry leader like Russell,” Delta Media Group vice president Jonathan Blood said. “Our Web systems often become the go-to site in the market, and Russell is a great company with a great tradition to carry that label.”

Russell joins a list of other successful members of Leading Real Estate Companies of the World from Ohio to rely on Delta Media Group as their Web technology provider, including Cutler Real Estate, Burgan Real Estate and Mayo & Associates Realtors.

Several other members of Leading Real Estate Companies of the World have recently partnered with Delta Media Group, including Patterson Realtors, Ridge Real Estate Enterprises, The Home Team and Weidel Realtors.

Delta Media Group is a preferred partner of Leading Real Estate Companies of the World. For more information, please click here.

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Drive More Website Traffic - Through Print

There are three keys to driving more traffic to your web site. They are simple and easily implemented as long as you pay attention to them. This article focuses on one of the three keys, driving more traffic to your web site through marketing. Many people assume that SEO (Search Engine Optimization or SEM (Search Engine Marketing) are the answers. They are important, but nowhere near as important as other things you could be doing today to drive more traffic. So let’s talk about driving more traffic to your web site.

Over the next few weeks, I will be sharing seven methods of driving more traffic that will not cost a single penny! You heard it right. These are five ideas where you do not have to spend any money. But you may need to make some changes.

Today I want to focus on your print marketing. Before we dig into specific print marketing points, I want to build the case for driving traffic to your personal web site on the Delta System.

Every aspect of your print marketing needs to drive Customers to your personal web site. This is important for many reasons. If you are a Delta Customer, any Customer lead from your web site will go directly to you, which will have captured this Customer on your site. This would mean that any Customer, once they have registered under your web site, could come back to the company web, submit a request and our system will know to send that request directly to you, even though it wasn’t sent from your web site. The Delta System is a pretty smart system ;-)

Second, once a Customer is on your web site they are able to search the full inventory of homes in the market. You are not only showing your listings, but all of the other IDX listings in the marketplace as well. This helps make your web site a "go-to" web site for Customers.

Third, in nearly all markets, Delta Web Sites show listings from all around the country. This allows Customers to search listings outside of your market place. You may be asking why this is really important. One word: Referrals! There are referral opportunities within the Delta Network every day. The Customer leads that are on listings outside of your marketplace is an excellent opportunity for you to capture referral fees. The fact that you have listings from all around the country on your site also helps to define your site as more authoritative then other sites in your marketplace.

Now that I have established the case for driving Customers to your web site, let's talk about actually driving the Customers to your site through print.

Business Cards
Business Cards are critical for your day-to-day business. If you are like me, when you find yourself without business cards you almost feel lost or embarrassed. I have a challenge for you: How many of you have your personal web site address on your business card? I know this sounds like a silly question, but from my experience and my unscientific polling, I have found that in some meetings I have attended over 20% of the Agents in the room did not have their personal web site address on their Business Card. I recommend that you add your personal address such as http://www.mikeminard.com or your company provided address such as http://mikeminard.propertypursuit.com on your business card. It is critical!

Flyers
Flyers could be anything from Property Briefs, Property Flyers, Personal Marketing Flyers, Market Guides, Relocation Packets, ...well, you get the idea! All these items must have your personal web site address. I will take this thought a step further: Your web site address must be on every page in the Flyer. I like to see the address either on the bottom, in the footer area, or at the top in the header area.

Your Email Signature
Simply put, your Email Signature should have your personal web site address on it!

Example:
Mike Minard
President
Delta Media Group, Inc.
phone: 330-491-1487
fax: 330-493-0363
web: http://www.mikeminard.com

Post Cards
For years I have received post cards from a few Realtors® where I live. Would you believe that 3 of the 4 Realtors® do not put their web site address on their post cards! Maybe they don’t have web sites. I would be shocked. But the moral of the story is to put your web site address on your post cards. I will take this thought a step further as well, since many of these cards are farming cards that are specific to a neighborhood. Why not create a special page for that neighborhood on your web site. Direct Customers to that page from the Post Card.

Newspapers & Home Guides
Ok. We have seen a huge cut in print marketing budgets. Depending on your market, I believe newspaper and home guide ads are still necessary. However, they must be used wisely. Did you know that with the Delta System, every one of your listings has its own web site address? Here is an example listing on my site: http://www.mikeminard.com/mls=6284. This address takes Customers directly to the detail sheet for that listing. I could also use http://mikeminard.propertypursuit.com/mls=6284 so even if you don’t have your own domain name yet you can immediately drive Customers to the full set of information on that listing from the print ads you are doing. Once Customers are on your web site they also have access to search all the listings in the market!

Listing Web Sites
Every one of your listings has its own web site address on our system as mentioned above while discussing Newspapers & Home Guides. I want you to understand the real power of this and what can be done with it. With the Delta System you no longer have to direct Customers to a search form to type in the MLS Number of the listing or to the property search form to find the listing. You can give Customers a web address that takes them directly to the listing. This is huge for the ego’s (a good thing) of the home sellers. The home sellers have an easy address to use to find their listing or to even share their listing with their friends. (There will be more on this in future articles!)

I hope you have found this article challenging! Review the print marketing you are currently doing and see if you could be doing a better job. What a great opportunity to get your print marketing to reach its maximum potential.

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Delta Media Group keeps growing, adds ERA Lambrecht & Associates

Real estate technology developer Delta Media Group continues to grow, adding ERA Lambrecht & Associates to their family of real estate brokerages.

With Delta Media Group, ERA Lambrecht will soon have a state-of-the-art real estate Web site and lead management system complete with agent Web sites, unique listing Web sites, customer portfolio system, IDX home search, and a national property search marketing homes in St. Petersburg, Florida, listings throughout Florida, and properties in 49 states across the country. Several additional features will be announced soon.

Carl Lambrecht established ERA Lambrecht & Associates in 1977, following 12 years of real estate experience at his father's company, which opened in 1943.

ERA Lambrecht & Associates serves the St. Petersburg, Florida real estate market, and joins more than 20 ERA brokerages using Delta Media Group as their real estate website and lead management partner. Other ERA brokerages in Florida using Delta Media Group as their real estate technology provider include ERA American Realty of Northwest Florida, ERA Chipola, ERA Old South Properties, Inc., ERA South Dade Realty and ERA Tom Grizzard.

Delta Media Group serves over 300 real estate brokerages and 30,000 real estate agents in 49 states. For more information, please click here.

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Good Communication - Meeting Customers Where They Are

Good communication skills are critical to your daily business. It doesn't do much good to work hard for leads only to turn Customers away with how you respond to them. Over the next few months you will read articles that deal directly with this issue: Effective Customer Communication! I have personally read nearly thousands of Customer lead responses in our system. From what I have read about 4 out of 1,000 responses are what I consider to be excellent, 95 of 1,000 are good, while 901 are terrible. This series of articles will focus on helping you do more good communication, with the focus on online communication with Customers!

For the first article I want to discuss meeting your Customer where they are through email lead responses. When Customers contact you today they have many options. The three primary methods I can come up with are: email you, call your office number, and call your cell phone. We could also add: send you a fax, send you a letter, etc. but those aren't very likely methods of contact.

Lets focus on the Customer email leads responses. To help illustrate my point I am going to use a couple real-world Customer lead response examples. Keep in mind that these are real responses from Agents to Customers within the past few months. (Some details have been replaced and omitted to protect the identity of Customers and Agents.)

Example 1:
Customer - I am interested in more information on the home at 123 Main Street. What are the taxes?
Agent - Call me.

Example 2:
Customer - (Showing request submitted) I want to see the property on 123 Main Street, Akron, Ohio at 3pm this Saturday.
Agent - I don't work the area. Good luck.

Now let’s talk about the above examples! In the first example the Customer is clearly communicating through email. In this example the Customer also had access to the Agent’s phone numbers on the listing detail page and the site. The Customer chose to contact the Agent through email and this should be honored. Some appropriate responses could have been:

Suggested Example 1 Response:
(If you don’t have access to the listing details immediately) [Customer Name], please let me do some research and get back with you shortly. If you have any other questions on this property or any other property please let me know through email or feel free to contact me at any time on my cell phone at 330-493-0350.

Suggested Example 1 Response:
[Customer Name], Thank you for using my web site (http://www.deltagroup.com) for your home searches! My name is [Your Name] and I am with the Main Street Office. I understand that you are interested in the house at 123 Main Street in Akron. The annual taxes on the property are $2,700. I would love to discuss this property, as well as any other property with you. Please contact me any time on my cell phone (330-493-0350) or through email.

Suggested Example 2 Response:
[Customer Name], Thank you for contacting me regarding the listing located at 123 Main Street in Akron, Ohio. This is not a market that I specialize in. However, I can put you in contact with an Agent that specializes in the Akron, Ohio market. Could I have your permission to forward your request to an Agent specializing in the Akron, Ohio market?

In the response examples I have suggested, notice that you have met the Customer where they are. You contacted them back through email and offered more assistance through email and through your cell phone but you gave the Customer the option! This leaves the Customer in control, which is what they want.

I want to also point out two other items in the suggested Customer responses above. I have used complete sentences. It is very important to keep a level of professionalism in your email communication. Use proper salutations, sentence and paragraph structure along with complete thoughts. The only time you should stray from this is if you personally know the Customer already.

Second, always look for the opportunities. If you get a request that is out of your market area turn that Customer request into a referral. I strongly suggest one thing before you do this: Respect the Customer and ask their permission first! But what a great opportunity for a referral!

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Delta Media Group launches new Weidel Realtors Web site

Delta Media Group has just launched www.weidel.com, the new Web site and lead management system for Weidel Realtors, a 500-agent real estate brokerage and member of Leading Real Estate Companies of the World.


Based out of New Jersey and also covering real estate in Delaware and Eastern Pennsylvania, Weidel is ranked among the top 100 independent real estate brokerages in the country.

Weidel joins dozens of top-ranked real estate brokerages using Delta Media Group as their Web developer. A press release on Weidel's new state-of-the-art real estate Web system will be released soon.

Delta Media Group is a preferred partner of Leading Real Estate Companies of the World. Click here for more information.

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Delta Media Group Presents: "How to Come Back From the Dead" with Kim Ades and Michael Combs

I am excited to announce another tele-seminar with Kim Ades and Michael Combs this Friday, September 26th, 12pm EST. When I saw Kim at the RISmedia conference 2 weeks ago we talked about the success of the previous tele-seminars, and the need in the marketplace to get motivated and get out there to create positive change - in both Business and personal lives. When Kim shared the story of Michael, I knew this tele-event would be perfect. If you are interested in participating, please CLICK HERE to register.

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"Best Practices For Sales" is the focus of this year's RealTrend's Conference

Best Practices and Focus on Results - what a great title for this year's annual RealTrend's Marketing and Technology Expo. We really believe that in this marketplace everyone is evaluating their own best practices and creating new ways to generate revenue.

Jonathan Blood, Delta Group's Vice President of Sales, will be speaking on Thursday, September 25th at the RealTrend's Conference on "Best Practices for Generating Website Sales" from 3:30pm to 5pm. If you are not traveling to Denver, CO next week, and would like more information on follow-up webinars and seminars, please click here.

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Open house version 3 selectable data groups

Customers on version 3 of the Delta Media Group Open House System now has the ability to set which type of data they would like to group the open houses by. Available options are as follows:

1) School district (default)
2) Neighborhood
3) City
4) Open date

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Open house version 3 interface update

The public interface to the open house section has been updated to better display the available information in a cleaner format. The interface also will fit better on a site that is narrow. Comments and directions (if available) have been hidden by default but the customer can hide and show comments and directions dynamically when needed so that they are not overwhelmed by the amount of information presented.

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