Delta Media Group Blog

System changes week of February 5th, 2012

2012-02-17T10:07:00.003-05:00

I sent out an email update last week on some various changes we made to our system. Here is a copy of that email. If you would like to get on the email list please email support@deltagroup.com and let them know you would like added to the weekly update email list.

Everyone,

Hopefully you've had a good week! In this email I'm outlining a few system changes that we've made in the past week. As always, if you have any questions please email support@deltagroup.com and the team will help you.

The Best New Listing Notification Email System Got Better

We've updated the format of the New Listing Notification Emails. The subject of the emails has been updated to be in the format of [Company/Agent Name] listing updates for mm/dd/yyyy: x new, y open houses, z back on market, a sales(s) pending, b sales(s). Here is a good example from an email I just got a couple days ago: Donna Aber listing updates for 2/8/2012: 6 new, 9 open houses, 1 update, 1 sale pending. As always, the agents can override this default subject format if they choose under the preferences section of the DeltaNet.

Blogging Updates that Make Sense for ALL Agents

We've posted an update to our blogging system that makes our integrated blog system work more like popular blogging systems such as Blogger. We've removed the Title section so we now have a Subject and the Blog Post itself. We've also re-arranged some things on the public side to clean-up the format some and make it look cleaner. This feature has been very popular and is available to all companies and all agents that are on the upgraded and standard systems. Agents can access the blog features under the Marketing Tab. Administrators can access this feature for their company under the Admin Side under the Marketing Tab as well. If you aren't using this feature you really should consider doing so unless you have a specific SEO strategy for not using an integrated blog.

Easily Add Customers While Doing an Email Blast in DeltaNet 4.0

For customers using the new DeltaNet 4.0 we've updated the email blast feature in the Customer Center. We've added the ability to quickly add customers and the ability to easily add attachments. A "hidden" feature is the ability to also drag and drop attachments to the email blast. Did I mention that I'm sending these updates out with this tool now ;)

Agents Can Easily Email All Customers now in DeltaNet 4.0

Another feature we've just added to the new email blast feature in the Customer Center is the ability to email all customers. We're trying to make it very easy for your agents to communicate with their customers!

Agents Can Personalize Email Blasts Easily in DeltaNet 4.0

One last feature added in the past week on the email blast feature in the Customer Center is the ability to personalize email blasts that are going out to all customers. We've added a button in the toolbar that is titled "var" where agents can insert Customer Database variables. So far we have added "Client Full Name" and "Client First Name". This works just like a mail-merge. If these variables are used we will address each email recipient with their appropriate name in the email that the agent sends out.

YouTube Video Control for Agents

Videos are really big and agents are adding more and more videos. With these videos it is becoming necessary for us to add some options to allow the agents to filter out other agent videos from properties that are displayed on the agent sites. We've given agents the ability to hide videos uploaded by other agents. We've heard of some agents that didn't want branded videos from other agents showing on their site so we added this control. Agents can access this under Listing Display controls of the Website section.

More Reporting to Administrators

We've updated the Agent Roster Report and added an option that will allow administrators to see which agents have been removed from the lead broadcast list. This helps Administrators quickly see what agents are in the broadcast pool and which ones are not.

Better HTML Editor

First, let me apologize for not pre-announcing this feature release. I'm sorry! With that said, it was necessary to push out an immediate update to the HTML Editor within our system. The editor we were using starting showing errors with the latest Internet Explorer updates and the editor is no longer supported. We were planning a move to this new edit but, we had to rush the release out.

The new HTML edit is the same editor that Facebook, Apple, Joomla, Wordpress, Microsoft, etc. use. It's good and it produces really good, clean HTML code. We're excited about it.

Also, we have an updated HTML Editor Manual that we've created that we will have live by Monday within the DeltaNet.

Agents Can Hide Office Name on Their Sites Now

We've added the ability for agents to hide the office name from their sites. By default, we show the office name that the agent is in on their websites. Some agents have requested that we hide their office name for various reasons. The ability to disable this is on the last step of customizing the website. There is a checkbox for "Show office name on website". Our default is checked.

Sincerely,
Mike Minard
President
Delta Media Group, Inc.

FInding feasibility in the foreclosure fiasco

2012-02-17T09:22:00.000-05:00

More real estate news this week.

Foreclosures could increase in 2012. In fact, some sources say they could hit an all-time high. And as we know, with news these days comes questions. Especially when that news concerns the economy.

You find yourself sitting in your office, yet again, pondering the possibilities. This has gotten old over the past four or five years, depending on which market you’re in.

What would an increase in foreclosures do to the housing market? How would home prices be impacted? How will home buyers and sellers respond? Would an increase in foreclosed homes prompt more home sales or fewer?

While such questions burn in your mind, your buyers and sellers are, for the most part, clueless. They can’t easily find foreclosed homes. Foreclosure websites often don’t display all foreclosed listings, and many require a registration just to search. And what about short sales?

More than 8 million people used Google to search for foreclosed homes in January. That was only using the top dozen search phrases, and only on Google. That number doesn’t include searches for state, city and township foreclosures, detailed searches for foreclosures, foreclosure searches on real estate websites, or foreclosure searches on Bing, Yahoo or AOL.

Let this number sink in for a moment: Eight million searches in one month. If each search were a lead, that would be enough to give eight foreclosure leads per month to each REALTOR in the nation, and that’s before looking at all the other tens of thousands of ways people searched for homes.

And therein lies the problem. Your real estate company can’t receive any of those leads because you don’t have foreclosure listings. And that’s assuming you have good enough search engine optimization to show up high in Google rankings for other property searches.

Well, you didn’t have foreclosure listings. But now you can, so long as your MLS has a data feed for it. That is, if you’re using Delta Media Group.

The data feed means your real estate website will automatically show all area foreclosures, updated daily. Visitors can use your website to search all listings or only foreclosures. Visitors can also distinguish between short sale and foreclosure listings, in order to better differentiate what kind of purchasing process they may face.

And those searching for foreclosures shouldn’t even have to go to your website to find them. With Delta Media Group’s search engine optimization services, they can find your website and its foreclosed listings when searching on Google, so you can start bringing your brokerage a share of that eight-million piece pie.

Visitor takes to Google to search foreclosed homes in their region. He finds your website. He searches foreclosed homes on it. He submits a request for more information. Your site automatically distributes the request to eligible agents, one of which contacts the visitor within minutes. The visitor gets the information he desires and your agent signs him up to automatically receive detailed market updates of other foreclosed and for-sale homes in the region he’s searching. This all happens within minutes.

Doesn’t that process seem a heck of a lot easier than trying to make sense of the foreclosure implications you heard about on the news today?

Contact Delta Media Group for more information on how to display foreclosed homes on your real estate website, and how to improve your real estate search engine optimization.

The new-age marketing of real estate market news

2012-02-10T08:13:00.000-05:00

The news in real estate can be pretty confusing for you, let alone your buyers.

Just yesterday, news broke of a federal mortgage settlement plan.

“How will that affect those currently interested in buying or selling,” you thought to yourself while watching the news.

It’s a valid question. With the government stepping into the real estate market in different ways, it’s bound to affect your business.

“I need to communicate this message,” you think, knowing the trends you’re seeing in the local market is of the utmost importance.

In the past you had little control over the news. What was said or written was said or written. Real estate ultimately operated at the hands of the local and national news, and you were essentially helpless in that plight. Many other agents have fallen victim to this way of doing things. They wait for the phone to ring and play fire control anytime a negative story on the economy hits. They aren’t sure how to communicate their side until they get that phone call from an already worried customer.

But not you. You have technology at your side. So you take to your blog, which you set up through your Delta Media Group agent website. You begin typing away, explaining what the government is looking to do and what it means to the local market. You explain the amount of foreclosed homes, how long the average home stays on the market and how much inventory your market currently has. You compare that to past markets, and prior “roller coaster” real estate trends. The market hasn’t always been stable. It hasn’t always been bad or good. It has always been consistently inconsistent, and good times often follow bad, and sometimes vice versa.

The current trend is just that—a trend. It’s not expected to last forever, and the homes that have quickly gone down in value should come back up, just like the homes that quickly went up in value have come down. There are many markets where the roller coaster has higher hills and steeper falls. You explain that these often make the headlines, but rarely represent your market and its exact trends. Each market it unique, and yours has its own nuances.

You explain the market, in your brief manifesto, and push to publish. “I need to share this story now,” you think. And you go about doing so. You post a link it to your Facebook account. You tweet it on Twitter. Your blog subscribers already received it, but your other customers haven’t. You email it to them via an email blast you quickly set up in the DeltaNet. You just as quickly post a link on your website home page.

In a short amount of time, your story about your market has legs. Those who were curious can see how the news relates, not from a national level but close to home, directly from someone who works in it daily and knows the market they live in.

With any luck, your Twitter followers retweet it. Your Facebook fans like it, share it and comment on it. Their fans and followers see what they’re doing, and others begin going to your blog, which is linked to your website via the DeltaNet, and reading the news you spread.

Pretty confusing indeed. But now your story is out. Your customers thank you for it. You were proactive in your communications rather than reactive, waiting to field the phone calls of worried and dissenting real estate clients alike. New people were even exposed to your message, shared with them by some of your clients who spread the news you posted.

“Thank you,” one of them writes to you on Facebook. “I’ve seen this discussed quite a bit on CNN, but I haven’t seen anyone talk about how that affects our neighborhood. I’m glad to see what’s really going on and how it relates to me.”

You quickly had your say, and you didn’t have to stand on a park bench with a megaphone to say it. Besides, you didn’t want to step on that vinyl advertisement of another agent who might not have had the means to spread the news so quickly...

My, how far real estate technology has come...

2012-02-06T09:55:00.000-05:00

There’s a good chance you don’t remember the last time you couldn’t run an errand because you were waiting for a phone call.

Think back for a moment.

You were trying to schedule a check-up at the doctor’s office. You knew if you waited to speak with them for another day, your appointment could be pushed back another week. You really needed to run to the store to return that videotape so you could get home and start dinner, but you just needed to get that phone call first.

Isn’t it amazing how far things have come?

Now that call will reach you on your cell phone. All you’ll have to do is pull it out of your pocket or purse. When you schedule that appointment, you can immediately add it to the calendar on your phone, which will remind you the day before that it’s coming, and what time you scheduled it for. And all this can be done before you have the chance to put that Blu-ray in the RedBox return slot.

On the other hand, maybe things haven’t changed so much. You still work out of a real estate office. You still drive to that office. You may communicate with your clients through email and social networks, but you still speak with them on the phone—often at your desk in your cubicle where the phone wire ties you to the wall, just as it always has.

Now you use the computer for business. You can get on the Internet, find homes and easily tell your clients about them without filing through mounds of papers. Now your clients reach you online, even if you have never met them before. Now you take your business logs home with you.

You walk in your house, get on the Internet, log into the DeltaNet and your entire real estate business is in front of you. All your clients, all your communications with them, what they’re interested in, when you need to follow up with them, how you last followed up with them and even their birthdays and anniversaries are all there on your screen. That made things easy.

You can follow up with them there, remind yourself to do so at a particular time tomorrow, or just see the communications you’ve had with them automatically, since the DeltaNet has profiled them for you and automatically sent them follow-up information from you, all relating to their real estate inquiries.

How much easier was it to work from home after you attained that technology? How much more secure did you feel knowing it was all there, with you at all times, and all you had to do was log into the Internet to access it? No more forgetting. No more apologizing for not following up. And don’t even scoff if you lose your notepad. Heck, even if your computer stopped working a new one will hook back into the Internet, right where you left off. No more getting sick and not being able to take care of that one client you needed to touch base with that day, only to find out a day later that he was taken care of because he spoke with another agent already.

Now envision that technology, and how much easier it made your life. Envision how much more difficult it was before you had access to it. Envision that period before you had a cell phone, and how much different it was then; how unbearable that would seem to you now.

Now envision that same cell phone with all the information and capabilities the DeltaNet has provided your business by computer.

Hold that thought for a few more business days...

Using education to hone in on home sales

2012-01-27T12:55:00.001-05:00

The worry overcame Carol as she read from CNNMoney.com this morning.

“New-home sales hit a record low,” the headline read. And immediately, Carol could see the look in the eyes of her agents.

“How am I going to keep motivating them with news like this,” she thought to herself.

Carol knew the news wasn’t as bad as the article made it out. In fact, it didn’t even pertain to existing home sales. Plus, home sales rose in December in the county her real estate office was located in, and sales were up over 2010 levels.

But the national media tends to have a lot of pull in public perception, and public perception tends to have a lot of pull in the morale of Carol’s agents. And any negative news story involving real estate can come into play.

“I know things are better here, but my buyers are apprehensive because of what they keep hearing every time they turn on the news,” she remembers an agent telling her just a few months back. “They keep hearing these things, and they grow weary of buying that home they were set on. They’re afraid they won’t sell their own house.”

At the time, Carol wasn’t able to give the agent a good answer. The company had a lackluster website, her agents received few, if any, leads, and her agents seemed to be fighting an up-hill battle against the negative press.

The economy hasn’t been the best, home sales aren’t what they were in 2006 and 2012 is an election year. Gas prices are up, as is the unemployment rate, and worry has been running high since the infamous real estate crash of 2007.

Carol knew then that she had to make changes. She invested in a new website, pitched the news to her agents and knew that the future looked brighter. But the negative press kept coming.

“How do I energize my agents in a market like this,” Carol wondered.

And then the answer hit her: Education.

Carol had recently asked around the office to learn that many of her agents weren’t aware of several of the tools their website provided them. They had all been offered training on the site, but most just looked to set up their own agent websites so their presence was online. They weren't aware the site actually had tools built in.

Her agents had recently asked around to find that many of their clients weren’t aware of their market conditions, and were hesitant to talk real estate as result. They weren't aware that much of the news didn't pertain to their area, and that trends showed it was a great time to purchase.

The DeltaNet could help address both problems.

Carol started planning training sessions. She knew she could efficiently manage all the leads and traffic the brokerage’s real estate website had drawn in the short time since it launched. She could have leads automatically dispersed to her agents, and follow up to assure agents were receiving more leads more quickly, and could answer their clients instantly.

Agents could send their clients not just information on homes for sale, but entire market reports. Clients could see what homes were listed in their neighborhood, pricing trends for local listings, what listings went back on the market, how many listings were on the market, and how much listings sold for.

Agents could create a true picture of what was happening in the market around them, rather than forming their opinions from the national news. They could communicate that to their clients, educating them on the market and its up-to-date trends, so they would be the most informed when it came to making their decisions.

Carol saw how to educate her agents, and she saw how to help her agents educate their clients. She immediately logged into the DeltaNet, scheduled a training session for the next morning, and sent a notification to all her agents.

Carol was already using her new real estate website, and the education process was already beginning.

Contact Delta Media Group at 866-233-9833 to find out how you can more efficiently educate your agents, and give your agents the tools to better educate their clients.

Paula's dream home, back on the market

2012-01-20T13:41:00.001-05:00

Paula couldn’t help but fall in love with the house on Main Street.

She drove past it several times over the years, constantly imagining how she would decorate it if it could one day be hers.

So you could picture her excitement the day she noticed the “For Sale” sign in the front yard. She stopped at the store on the way home from the office, turned on to Main Street on the way back from the store and there was the sign, propped in the front lawn like a trophy with her name on it.

She barged through her door almost as soon as she pulled into her driveway.

“We have to schedule a showing! Are you good this weekend?” she emphatically asked her husband. He was, and Paula took to the Web, quickly Googled the house, clicked on the first real estate website she saw and requested a showing.

She heard back the same day...but the news wasn’t good.

“I’m sorry,” the real estate agent said on the phone. “There’s already an offer on the table for the listing you requested to see. But we can help you find another house.”

Paula was devastated. There were no other homes of her dreams. The one on Main Street—that she had waited to see go up for sale for so many years—had. And she was too late.

Paula might have known earlier had she more actively been in the market. She would have probably been notified had she previously set up a My Home Finder account on the real estate website. But questioning the “what ifs” didn’t help anything. Frustrated from getting her hopes up only to feel them crashing down, Paula forgot about real estate for a while.

That’s why it was such a surprise the morning she found the listing was back on the market. She discovered as much not by driving past it—the “For Sale” was still in the yard from the last time it was listed—but from an early morning email from the real estate company.

“Listings Back on the Market,” the email read, and Paula was stunned to see that very home right underneath the title. She immediately called the real estate agent.

“I just got your email,” she exclaimed. “It’s back on the market??”

“It is,” the agent responded. “We were just notified this morning. I was going to call you shortly, but wasn’t sure if you’d be up this early.”

The agent quickly logged into the DeltaNet, found Paula’s profile and scheduled a showing with her—for that night. Paula showed up early, saw what she wanted to see—mainly that there were no significant issues and that her husband approved—and made an offer on the spot.

“I don’t want to lose this one again,” she said, standing in the home’s kitchen with the agent.

And she might have, had it not been for the notification email. Paula received it, but she didn’t understand how it got to her. She didn’t realize how bad the agent felt for her. She didn’t see when the agent set up her online profile. She wasn’t aware that the agent customized it to specifically follow that house and others like it in the area, and notify Paula if it or others became available.

Paula didn’t know much about the process that brought the home of her dreams back to her. To her, it felt like fate—it all worked out somehow, and it all felt out of her hands in the meantime.

But the agent knew. And Paula had her dream house as a result.

Contact Delta Media Group at 866-233-9833 to find out how you can more efficiently help your customers fulfill their dreams.

Replacing real estate apprehension with insight

2012-01-13T10:57:00.000-05:00

At the time Tim bought his last house, he had no insight to what was going on in the market.

He knew real estate was supposed to be a good investment because the newspapers reported as much.

He knew he could get a loan with nothing down because his friend did.

He knew his real estate agent at the time could help him buy any house on the market because she told him so.

Tim didn’t know much about real estate at all, which scares him today. He wants to sell his current house, wants to know he won’t lose his butt on the transaction, wants to find a nicer house, and wants to know his investment won’t get him in trouble a few years down the road, like his current house did over the past few years.

Tim has found this difficult, though. The newspapers are only reporting negative news. He keeps hearing about foreclosures on TV. And his real estate agent, who he thought he could trust, never contacted him again after his last purchase. In fact, when Tim called her brokerage he discovered she had left the real estate industry altogether.

You can’t blame Tim for having a negative taste in his mouth toward real estate. You can’t fault him for being tainted by those in the industry who might have oversold on false expectations just five years earlier, but were nowhere to be found when Tim faced real problems.

So Tim ventures again into a sea that now seems even more vast and mysterious than it did the first time Tim navigated it. He needs someone to help advise him, and he’s going to make darn sure he vets that person’s expertise a lot more than he did his prior agent’s.

Tim asks a real estate question on a handful of local brokerage websites. He doesn’t know what to expect, but wants to know a real person will actually respond to him, first and foremost.

“If and when someone does respond, I’m going to make sure they can answer my questions, instead of immediately trying to sell me something,” Tim thinks to himself.

He doesn’t have high hopes, which is why he’s surprised when his phone rings within a couple minutes of submitting his question.

“I’m Lori,” the voice on the other end of the phone says. “I wanted to thank you for visiting our website, and had an answer to your question, if you have a moment to speak.”

Tim is dumbfounded. He received auto-responder emails from most of the sites he submitted his question to, but had never received a call back so quickly on something he inquired about. In fact, Tim’s last experience with a company was waiting on hold with his cell phone provider for 18 minutes. He finally hung up.

Lori answers Tim’s questions, which concerned the neighborhood he currently lives in, and what he might be able to sell his house for.

“Why don’t I set you up with an account on my website?” Lori asks. “That way you’ll get a weekly email detailing your neighborhood report.”

The next day, Tim finds a market report in his inbox. It shows other listings on the market that are similar to his own. Tim sees those for sale, those pending a sale and those that recently sold. He sees their address, square footage, number of bedrooms and bathrooms, the year they were built, list price and list date. For those that have sold, he sees their closing price and date, as well as the difference between what the seller originally asked and what the home sold for.

“This is pretty in-depth,” Tim thinks to himself, as he starts summing up where his house stacks against those he’s analyzing.

He looks at the report’s overview. It includes the total number of listings on the market in his neighborhood, both weekly and monthly. He sees the recent trends of what is happening around him, and where his transaction might fit in the process. Just then, another thought starts entering Tim’s mind.

“This is a better view of the market than I’ve gotten from the media. This can actually help me list my house, and when, and for how much. It’s far more in-depth than the info I got from my previous agent.”

Little does Tim know, Lori set the report up to be auto-generated. Tim will receive an updated report each week, and Lori can log into the DeltaNet to track Tim's interaction on her website.

Tim isn't so worried anymore. His collective apprehension is replaced by the reassurance his new insight provides him.

Contact Delta Media Group at 866-233-9833 for more information on how to arm your customers with the insight they need to use your brokerage to make their next transaction.

Navigating your New Year's resolutions

2012-01-10T07:31:00.000-05:00

Did you buy that gym membership yet?

Are you eating healthier? Getting to bed earlier?

If you’re anything like most people, you’ve probably spent a portion of the past week thinking about your New Year’s resolutions.

If you’re anything like most real estate agents, many of those resolutions also have to do with improving your business.

“I want to do a better job following up with my clients.”

“I want to ask for more referrals.”

“I want to be more efficient in my business.”

“I want to grow my online presence and gain more business from the Web.”

Those are all lofty goals, and ones that you’d probably like to permanently apply to your daily business. But New Year’s provides a great reason to buckle down now, and holds you accountable to carry on with your resolutions throughout the year.

There are two tough parts to every New Year’s resolution. The first is how to start. The second is how to continue. And, as you’ve likely found, the more you delay it, the less likely you are of ever fulfilling the resolution you vowed to see through.

So you hop on your laptop. You look at your calendar, which is up to date on the DeltaNet. You have four events in the next week, including two listing presentations and a showing. There are a few opportunities for new business.

You check and see if you have any new leads that you haven’t processed yet. There’s one—you forgot about it, but your office manager mentioned it when you chatted with her on your drive home from that meeting. Another opportunity.

You glance at who has recently been active on your real estate website. Seven people. You check what they were looking at and ask yourself if you’ve recently sent any new listing information to them. You see that you have. Each has received a New Listing Notification email from you this week with listings for sale in the areas they’re looking for. Two of those emails even show listings in the area that just went back on the market. You view those listings and remind yourself to call them tomorrow and see if they have interest in any of them. Added to your “To-Do” list.

That has you thinking…isn’t one of your clients’ birthdays coming up? Or was it his anniversary? Oh yeah. Birthday. Tomorrow. And three other clients have birthdays next week. You’ll have to remember to shoot them an email. You go ahead and schedule that now. It’s been a couple years since you helped them buy their house, but maybe they have a friend or relative who’s starting to look.

Any new news from your brokerage? It looks like they scheduled an office training for next week. You add that to your calendar as well.

Five minutes and the work that used to take you hours is already finished for the day. Not only have you not left your laptop, but you haven’t even left the welcome screen of the new DeltaNet.

Follow-up? Ask about referrals? Efficiency? New business opportunities? Check, check, check and check.

As a matter of fact, you have enough time left over to add a few more New Year’s resolutions to your list.

Now about that gym membership…

Contact Delta Media Group at 866-233-9833 for more information on how to enhance your real estate business in 2012.

DeltaNet version 4 ready for launch on February 7th

2012-01-09T11:20:00.000-05:00

The new DeltaNet is officially available for launch on Tuesday, February 7th. In preparation for the launch I'm creating some videos. Here are just a few so far...

For agents the new DeltaNet...

Saves them time because it's more user friendly
Helps them stay engaged with customers through the new customer center and the automated customer relationship platform
Makes communication with customers easier through automated communication and easier to use tools
Let's them process leads faster through auto login and fewer clicks
Enables them to convert leads into relationships through the new email marketing platform and customer relationship platform

Check out these videos...

New DeltaNet Screen Recording

2012-01-03T09:56:00.000-05:00

See what's in store for Delta customers in 2012...

A quick, new approach for slow, old leads

2011-12-30T22:49:00.000-05:00

Remember that day three months back?

A lot has happened since then, but it will come to you when you start reviewing the details.

It started as a casual conversation. You were waiting in line at the grocery store, or maybe a coffee shop. For whatever reason, things took unusually long that day. You made a quip, the person in line next to you laughed. A brief conversation ensued.

You needed to be somewhere for work. She did too. It was mentioned you’re in real estate. She mentioned she might need your services early next year.

“With the kids going back to school and fall coming and the holidays toward the end of the year, we’re not even thinking about that right now,” she said. “But touch base with me around the end of the year. I’d like to chat with you and see what we need to do to get our house listed and find a larger place.”

Yeah, that conversation. It was one of a handful you had over the course of a few months. Now what was her name again? What were the names of those other three people you spoke with? Or was it four? Do you still even have the notebook where you wrote all this down?

Then you remember where those names are. You saved them in your online office—the one with the CRM and the customer notes. They’re a few of the several hundred names in there, recorded over the past few years. How do you even start searching through them?

Then you remember you don’t just have that online office with the pseudo-CRM and customer notes any longer. This year you switched to Delta Media Group. Your back office is the DeltaNet, and your capabilities are infinitely greater, and infinitely easier to use.

Example: Search for customer "stephen"

You have a Quick Search built into the DeltaNet, right at the top of the screen, where you’d expect it to be. You start typing a name, or just a word. It suggests the answers for you. You click on one and you’re there.

Don’t remember the name? You type in a time frame. Or keyword. You remember writing “grocery store” on the Mystery Lead. You start typing in “grocery” and by the time your finger hits the “O,” it and all other leads you met at any grocery store over your career are in front of you. With one click you have her file, notes and contact info in front of you. Her name’s Margaret. You met her September 19 at Sam’s Club. Her husband’s name is Greg, she has two children, her house is 1,100 square feet and she’s looking for one with four bedrooms.

That was quick.

DeltaNet Intranet home screen

Now you can start carrying on with what you aimed to do—find the names of the other people you collected over the past few months who wanted to talk at the beginning of the year, and start following up with them.

“Margaret!” you say when she answers the phone. “I hope you had a nice Christmas.” You proceed to ask about her family, her job and if she’s still interested in looking for a larger place.

“We’re so ready to get out of this house,” she vents. “It just seems like we’re outgrowing it every day. But we need to sell our house before we can move into something else.”

You nod in agreement, knowing you can help. She can’t see you through the phone, but you reassure her, nonetheless. You’ll soon do the same for the others.

Your Delta Media Group Quick Search has its name for a reason—and you now see why. Maybe you can run to the grocery store with all that time you saved…and start looking for more leads.

Contact Delta Media Group at 866-233-9833 for more information on new ways to quicken your business in the new year.

Looking to increase visitors and leads in 2012?

2011-12-30T07:30:00.000-05:00

Every December I like to look back on the year and look at what was done right and things that could have been done differently. I usually do this on the 30th or 31st of the month but I’ve been thinking about it a little bit early this year and thought I should write down some of my thoughts.

So, what did we do right?

While there are quite a few small things that I could talk about I think we did three specific things right in 2011 that increased visitors and leads. I’m using information from one client web site we host. I picked this site because it has a good amount of traffic and leads and because this site has been doing well for years. I could have used examples that were obnoxious showing new customers that increased their traffic by over 3000% but those examples would have been skewed because what they were doing prior to using Delta was really bad.

1,786,437 website visits in 2011

So, I believe we did three things in 2011 to increase visitors by 60% and leads by 24% on this site. To help clarify these numbers, unique visitors were up from 480,976 in 2010 to 770,233 in 2011 and leads were up from 9,880 in 2010 to 12,215 in 2011. These are some good increases that I’m sure any real estate brokerage would appreciate having!

1.14 million visits from 505,553 different keywords

The first thing we did was targeted Long Tail search engine results. Now, unless you are a tech geek (like me) you may not understand this so let me explain it with a quick example: Long Tail searches for real estate are search phrases such as a property address. We felt that we could compete for more traffic and better traffic by focusing on people that “Google” for a home address. (We also believe these people are more serious about shopping for property and will probably make a buying decision soon but have no proof.) We did this in 2011 and did it really well. So well in fact that we found ourselves competing with the national portals for traffic, not other local brokerage sites. This was good...really good. This one change helped tremendously in getting 83% growth in search engine traffic on this site in 2011. The best part is that we were stealing this traffic from the national portals.

The second things we did was created Market Specific Landing Pages. If you’ve gone to any real estate conference in the past two years you heard the phrase “hyper local”. I have my thoughts on this (and what companies are pushing at conferences) but one specific thought I have is that in going hyper local you need to understand the basics of what people are looking for: information on real estate that is local. So, we created specific landing pages that contained information that was targeted to the local market. Information like featured properties, average prices, uniquely written content, subdivisions, lakes, etc. Really, these are very specific on a per market basis. Let me also say that the verbiage used in one landing page may not work on another landing page on the same web site that is targeting a different market. On this site, some of these landing pages account for over 1,000 visits themselves each month. Why? Because Google finds them relevant and customers do to.

Analytics showing link clicks

The third thing we did was paid attention to the tools Google gives us. Google gives us access to these tools for a reason. Specific tools we use are Google’s Analytics, In Page Analytics, Webmaster Tools, and Visitors Flow. Using these we know exactly what customers interact with on each page. So, when we go to make changes on the page we can do so intelligently. In some cases we are surprised what customers do and don’t interact with. Using these we also know exactly what Google is seeing whenever they crawl our sites and they even tell us what they think of our sites if we just pay attention and know what to look at! This has been critical in understanding what impact each site change had on our overall goals in increasing traffic and increasing leads.

So, does your real estate website target long tail search results on Google and Yahoo? Do you have landing pages? How about landing pages with content that was specifically created for that exact market on a per-landing page basis? Do you, or someone for you monitor Google Analytics at least monthly for you?

Regardless of who you use to do your real estate website you have a choice when it comes to your site and what you expect from it. Doing these things are critical in today’s market. The companies that are doing this are taking market share from the companies that fail to do it.

Helpful links:

Customers Prefer Using the Quick Property Search on Agent Sites

2011-12-28T14:58:00.001-05:00

Last week we released the Quick Property Search on thousands of Realtor® web sites. Based on the activity we are seeing it is clear that customers prefer to use the Quick Property Search about 2 to 1. This means that for every 2 people using the Quick Property Search 1 person prefers to fill out a standard search form coming from the home page of the web sites.

This is really important to understand and realize. The Quick Property Search that we've created at Delta is a Google type quick search that auto completes as customers type. See the screen shot below showing it on an agent web site.

Since Delta's Quick Property Search form accepts City, County, State, Zip Code, School District, Neighborhood, Subdivision and Address as parameters it's interesting to see what information Customers are typing in. Below is a chart from a Google Analytics account where we track one brokerage web site and what customers are doing. This chart shows that at least 75% of customers are typing either City, Zip Code or Property MLS ID. What it also shows is that the flexibility we offer is important to the other 25%.

So, while we give the ability to Delta Customers to choose to use the Quick Property Search or not we urge our customers to use it. If your site doesn't have it...well...hopefully you aren't competing in your local market with a web site that does because customers are choosing to use sites that have this Quick Property Search feature.

Updated DeltaNet Screen Shots

2011-12-28T14:43:00.002-05:00

I have a few updated DeltaNet screen shots since last week to share. Here are a couple of the updates...

The calendar has been cleaned up. From the calendar view Agents can quickly and easily Add and Edit Events with Month, Week and Day views.

We're working on the lead processing screen. We've made it much easier to process leads from the Desktop Version of the DeltaNet. This screen is still evolving for it's release next week. From login, we've cut down the clicks to process a lead by 50% and there is only one page to load instead of 3 pages.

More screen shots to come this week...

The most wonderful time of the year?

2011-12-24T10:00:00.000-05:00

Some would say it's the most wonderful time of the year.

Others might say it's the busiest.

The kids are off of school, the days are getting shorter, the weather's growing colder--and those are just the beginning of your worries.

Are you traveling? Are the in-laws coming to your place this year? Do you have enough food, beds, sheets and towels to accommodate them all?

These are a myriad of the thoughts that flood our minds during the second and third weeks of each December. No matter how early we start getting ready and how many times we tell ourselves, "I'm going to be more prepared for this next year," it just never seems to work out that way.

Amongst all the hustle and bustle of holiday cheer is what's important--your job--and what's really important--your family. Your job shouldn't be ignored. Your family can't be. But all too often we reverse those priorities, overloading ourselves with what we need to do so we can buy what we want to buy and have the Christmas we hoped to have.

So Merry Christmas! It will be this weekend, and we'll soon be bringing a gift to you for the occasion.

Delta Media Group is pleased to announce the new DeltaNet will be released the first week of the year. If you’re not familiar with it, you may soon find out it’s your best Christmas present (no offense, significant others).

Remember the Christmas when you were wrapping up work, while you should have been wrapping presents?

Remember the Christmas your clients and coworkers felt like your family, but your family didn’t?

Remember the Christmas you were married to work, but not to your spouse?

Your family members remember those years, and they'd prefer to spend their holidays with you, rather than the shell that shows up who's mind is elsewhere.

You’ve worked hard, you’ve made it where you are today and your family is appreciative of what you’ve provided them. Now it’s time to start appreciating yourself and your free time a little more. Imagine relaxing Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, during Christmas shopping, knowing your business is taken care of while you enjoy your family.

With a quick log-in to the DeltaNet, you can see what clients your website has touched base with recently on your behalf, because while you were busy spending Christmas with your family, the DeltaNet was busy following up with those who are looking for their first home, other homes for sale in the area, and recently visiting your real estate website to search properties online. The new DeltaNet shows you those clients, their most recent actions, and what they’ve done on your website—whether it be setting up a MyHomeFinder account to receive new listings by email, saving property searches of areas and home specs they like, or saving properties they have interest in.

At quick glance, the new DeltaNet also displays your to-do list. No need to try and remember the Christmas presents you need to buy AND the clients you need to call. The DeltaNet has you covered.

What’s going on this week? What's happening during the days you’re off for Christmas? How about when you return to the office after the holiday weekend--how busy will that be? Your calendar will fill you in on those meetings, showings and other follow-up items.

Christmas is a special day. So are birthdays and anniversaries. Are any of your clients celebrating them this or next month? Those give you a reason to reach out to your clients, and your clients a reason to remember, appreciate and refer you to others. And the new DeltaNet remembers these days from your clients’ profiles, and will remind you of them as well.

Every bit of this will occur on your home screen, without you having to navigate through pages of confusing links and tabs that may take up more of your time than it's worth.

The new DeltaNet does quite a bit more for you. And you can do quite a bit more when you’re using the new DeltaNet. So celebrate Christmas. Spend it with your family. Delta Media Group has your gift, and it has the rest of your schedule covered.

For more information on how Delta Media Group’s new DeltaNet can help make holidays your most wonderful time of the year, contact us at 866-233-9833.

Easier to Use, More Powerful DeltaNet being released next month

2011-12-24T09:17:00.000-05:00

In January 2012 Delta Media Group will be releasing a new DeltaNet that is easier to use and quite a bit more powerful, especially in the area of working with customers. More information will be released in the coming weeks but here are a few screen shots...

Christmas Shopping Made Easier

2011-12-15T23:59:00.005-05:00

Have you ever sat back and wondered just how it is you ever make it through Christmas shopping?

You’re busier than ever, the new year is almost here, your family seems to grow each holiday season and just remembering who to buy for is a chore, let alone remembering what gifts they do (and don’t) want.

But man (or woman) is innovative. He/she invented lists. And lists became chores. And chores became reminders. And somewhere along the line, reminders went from refrigerator notes and rolodexes to cell phone notes and notifications.

How much easier is life now? The one thing you carry with you at all times has all your friends, all your family members, the items they want for Christmas and their contact information, for when you inevitably find yourself picking between two shirts and wondering if he’ll fit in a large because it’s the last one of that particular style left in this store. And it’s easy to use. A few swipes of the finger and everything’s in front of you, right where you left it.

Perhaps technology can be most appreciated under these circumstances, when we find ourselves dealing with painstaking annual tasks and, suddenly, we discover an easier way. Perhaps it takes looking back, cringing at the thought of how we used to do things, to truly appreciate how far technology has come, and how much easier life is as a result.

Many real estate agents might be thinking that way this Christmas. While they’re texting relatives to confirm a Christmas item, their DeltaNet is texting them lead notifications the moment their website receives a new lead.

While they’re scanning a QR code on an ad to view a sale, a potential customer is scanning a QR code on one of their signs or fliers in front of one of their listings, and the agent is getting notified (again) instantly by text message.

And as satisfying as it is when they find the present they’re looking for in the place they’re looking at the price they’re assuming, it’s just as satisfying when they log into a system that works—a system that’s designed with an agent in mind, with a fresh interface laid out to accomplish three goals: to drive more business, to make life easier and to be more efficient.

Username. Password. Enter.

And there it is—your entire office in front of you. You see your active customers and their most recent activity online, your to-do list for the day and week, your calendar, upcoming special days, and company news. It’s all on your welcome page, because you laid it out that way with easy-to-use widgets. Straight from there you add that new customer you met, make a note to call her next week and add her birthday to your calendar, so you can send her a card in two months.

Of course, you can do much more, whether it be reviewing your leads, updating your website, adding a few pictures and comments to a listing, or seeing how your site is performing online. But you just logged in quickly this time to see your customer activity and schedule. Besides, you have a little more shopping to do.

Now if only the DeltaNet could wrap presents, it just might be the perfect holiday companion.

The new DeltaNet is rolling out in the coming weeks.Contact Delta Media Group to learn more at 866-233-9833.

'Tis the season for company Christmas parties

2011-12-09T00:03:00.003-05:00

Your husband’s work’s Christmas party is an interesting one, to say the least.

You’re seated at a table of people you don't know, you feel like you’re only one there who doesn't know anyone else, and your husband's boss, a few beers deep, keeps pulling him away to talk football.

You've had a couple glasses of wine yourself. Not enough that you really feel it, but something to take the edge away from the island you feel like you've been left stranded on.

You finally lean in to start a conversation with the friendly but quiet couple seated across from you. You've judged by their uncertain faces that they're about as comfortable there as you are.

Small talk turns to chitchat, which soon evolves to substance. You’re getting to know your husband’s co-worker, Jim, and his wife Nancy, who he hardly knows.

As occupation makes its way into the conversation, you mention you’re a real estate agent.

“Oh really? With which agency,” Nancy replies, and you sense you’re not speaking a foreign language.

“Jim and I have actually been talking about looking for a bigger home, but, you know, you hear so much bad on the news about home prices, and in this economy…we just don’t know.”

Normally you were born for this. But these aren’t the best conditions. You’re here for your husband, not to network. Besides, you’re getting tired and they don’t have a business card.

“I hear that a lot from clients I work with,” you respond. “This economy has certainly caused some fear. But there are actually a lot of great real estate opportunities our there right now.”

You didn’t bring much with you tonight, but you do have your phone, which can get you logged into the DeltaNet.

“Would you be interested in some of the reports I have?” you ask. “Great. I’ll just jot down some of your information in my notes.”

Within seconds you’re logged into your mobile office. You access your CRM and enter your new friends’ names and contact info. You add a note that you met them at your husband’s work party. You add them to the campaign you set up for the other customers you’ve worked with similar to this couple—those who know it may be time to make a move, but have been discouraged from doing so because of what they’ve heard reported in the media. That campaign includes a weekly email that discusses the amount of buyers in the market, the low prices available, and the record low interest rates that may not last much longer. All emails from the campaign will come directly from you.

You schedule yourself a follow-up reminder to touch base after the holidays, when Jim and Nancy mentioned they’d like to sit down with you and review what’s available and what might fit their price range.

“We’re just really kind of new to this whole real estate thing,” Jim says.

You nod in agreement, assuring them you understand and can help make the process easier. Besides, you’ve already done the next two weeks’ work.

For more information on how the DeltaNet can help do your work for you, contact Delta Media Group at 866-233-9833.

Real Estate: A walk in the park

2011-12-01T23:57:00.001-05:00

Tim grabbed the leash and headed toward the door. Molly, his golden retriever of the past five years, followed close behind, knowing what this meant.

As he did each Saturday morning, Tim snapped the leash on the collar of his trusty sidekick, grabbed the newspaper on his way down the driveway, and turned the corner toward the neighborhood park, only two blocks away.

During the course of that morning Tim, who had an itch of a small thought toward a big move in life, would be exposed to real estate. He passed a house for sale on his way to the park. He sat on a park bench graced with the vinyl of a local real estate agent’s smiling face. He opened the newspaper, where he could read about some of the hundreds of local homes for sale.

Fifteen years ago, when Tim bought his first house, these advertisements connected with him. After all, he had nowhere else to turn to find information about real estate then.

But this morning, when Tim got that inkling, he pulled out his mobile phone, opened a Web browser and searched for homes for sale nearby. Planning on spending only a few moments on the task before Molly was ready to drag him back home, Tim found three homes he thought were nice. He wanted more information, so he used the button on the website to ask a question. He wasn’t optimistic it would get answered soon, but he figured it was worth a try.

Tim called Molly, gathered up his quarter-read newspaper and started out of the park. Before he made it to the gate, his phone rang. It was a local real estate agent, introducing himself and letting Tim know he just emailed him a list of the homes Tim had inquired about and could schedule a showing for any of the three this week. He also mentioned that Tim would receive another email later in week, complete with additional listings in the area—all similar to those Tim liked. Other emails with more similar listings were to come, if Tim liked.

Tim is a lead. He doesn't want to view himself as such because he wants his questions answered without being oversold or spammed.

Tim--typically somewhat of a skeptic--doesn't need to know how this process worked, just that it did. And it worked to his benefit.

The agent isn't quite sure about the nuances of how the process worked for him either. But he's happy. His website just showed up well in the search engines, he received a detailed lead instantly, and he used his online tools to quickly email listing information to Tim, schedule another email with similar listings, and schedule a reminder for himself of when to follow up with Tim.

The agent might have just earned Tim's business. Tim's inkling toward a new home might have grown legs.

By the time Tim returned home and poured a cup of water in Molly's dish, his mind had gone from the park bench, sale sign and discarded newspaper to the coffee pot. But it would return to real estate soon, when Tim would check his email to find more details on the homes he found online. He would show them to his wife, and likely look to schedule a showing for later in the week.

What a walk in the park that process became.

To learn how to make your real estate process a walk in the park, contact Delta Media Group at 866-233-9833 or visit us at DeltaGroup.com.

Quick Search Updates

2011-11-30T11:03:00.003-05:00

In a continual effort to create the best customer experience possible we have upgraded the Quick Property Search System again. The Quick Property Search now auto-highlights the top matching result based on the total number of matching listings. See the attached screen shot example below showing how we searched for "Can" on a local site and it automatically fills in and selects "Canton, OH" since it is the top matching result.

Try it out yourself: Go to the DeHoff Realtors® web site and type in Can.

This change has been made live on all sites using the Quick Property Search Feature.

Earlier this month we also released the following features:

If you did a search for a zip code by typing the zip code and pressing enter, we would only search in the company's default search state. Now the script will figure out that its a zip code and will search for only that zip code with no state restriction
The results in the autocomplete drop down are now ordered by listing counts, grouped by state

Forget Real Estate. Be Thankful.

2011-11-23T18:32:00.001-05:00

This is likely one of the few weeks of the year when real estate isn’t the first thing on your mind.

You have a growing grocery list, your in-laws are coming to town, the spare bedroom looks like a unit in an episode of “Storage Wars,” and the kids might be less hyper had they just eaten a dozen Pixy Stix rather than picked up on their impending break from school.

You owe it to your family to put them first, if just for this week. But can your business, in a tight economy and less-than-stellar housing market, afford to lose your focus?

TRUST

It’s a simple word, yet one that so often gets overlooked.

When you get up each morning, your trust your car will run. Maybe it has problems from time to time, but you don’t have to check on it every 15 minutes to make sure it didn’t break down on you.

When you come home from work, you trust your house protected your belongings and loved ones from the elements. You didn’t have to run home during lunch to make sure your roof was still functional and your windows were still intact.

Trust is the root of every daily ritual. It’s the fundamental element of peace of mind. Without it, chaos would conquer.

PEACE OF MIND

Systems are built to create streamline processes. Streamlining helps create peace of mind. It’s the satisfaction of knowing that what you have just works, even when you might struggle to find the time or energy to dedicate to it.

The DeltaNet was built to provide peace of mind. It was designed to think how a real estate agent thinks, which allows it to work the way a real estate agent works. Unlike you, it doesn’t celebrate holidays. Instead, it allows you to.

While you’re grocery shopping this Thanksgiving, the DeltaNet will be growing the lead and prospect lists of tens of thousands of real estate agents. While you’re entertaining in-laws, its CRM will be updating your customer files. While you open your house to your family, it will be informing thousands of other families of the upcoming open houses they might have interest in. When you go to sleep at night, it will allow you to rest, knowing you can log in and pick up right where you left off before that trip to the grocery and all the madness that followed.

Be thankful for your family and loved ones this Thanksgiving. Be thankful of the time you get to spend with them, the food you get to eat and the country you get to do it in. And just know that, while your heart and mind align in the right place, everything will be just fine without you worrying about it.

For more information on how the DeltaNet works even when you’re not, contact Delta Media Group at 866-233-9833.

Answer the phone or just go home?

2011-11-18T12:50:00.000-05:00

It’s 5:45pm and you’re on your way out of the office. The laptop is in your briefcase, you already called your wife to tell her you’ll be home soon, and your jacket is half-way on. Meanwhile, you’re half-way out the door and your mind’s halfway home.

This is one of the last moments you want the phone to ring.

But why not? How could you turn down another opportunity for more business? Besides, people usually leave work around 5pm, and 30-45 minutes later is right around that time where the serious ones might look to inquire about that house for sale—the one they’ve passed every day over the past two weeks, admiring it more each time. They finally got home from a day on the job and remembered what it was they keep telling themselves they need to remember when they get home. Call about that house.

“It might be out of our range, but it has been on the market for a few weeks. It’s bigger, and a lot closer to work. It’s at least worth checking out.”

You don’t want to miss this phone call. Even if you arm gets tangled in your coat, your brief case is forgotten at the office and your wife waits an extra 15 minutes, the last thing you want to do is ignore a potential client.

But your phone makes a different sound this time. It’s shorter, and stops after one chime. It’s the sound of a text, telling you there’s a new lead waiting for you on the DeltaNet, your Web-based back-office, only seconds after your new potential client submitted a showing request on your website. Make sure your coat’s on before deciding to glance at the lead right from your phone. Once you do, you’ll see the exact house your next potential client wants to know about.

“I’ll give him a call on my way home to confirm the showing he requested,” you think. “Or maybe I’ll shoot him back a quick email and call him when I get home.”

Either way, the DeltaNet has already sent him an email back, direct from you with your picture on it. When he receives your call, he’ll feel like you’ve already spoken. Once you do, he’ll feel even more like he knows you.

Touch base with the client, confirm the showing, and shoot him a follow-up email tonight with the other comparable listings for sale in that price range in the same neighborhood. Shoot him another email next week with new listings in the market, and others nearby that he also might be interested in checking out. Even if he makes an offer on the house he contacted you about, he’ll at least know what else is available around him, and for what price.

What he won’t know is you didn’t make those emails, the DeltaNet did. It searched the new listings for you, gathering those that matched some of the characteristics he was looking for. It even threw in a few houses you wouldn’t have thought of—ones nearby that could prove to be a better fit, now that he knows about them.

Your new client is pretty happy with how much you’ve helped him. You’re happy with how little it took to do it.

And just think—it’s all because you didn’t get that phone call.

For more information on how the DeltaNet works even when you’re not, contact Delta Media Group at 866-233-9833.

Frozen Pizza and Free Time

2011-11-10T13:13:00.002-05:00

It was a long day in the office.

You’re happy to be home, but your attention is immediately divided between what to fix for dinner and whether the kids have finished their homework.

Somewhere between “grilled cheese” and “frozen pizza,” you find your mind wandering back to the office, where you left that note with the info of the person who called for you today. You meant to get back to him ASAP, but your title agency lost a file, sending you scurrying through your emails, and the water cooler conversation about who got kicked off “Dancing with the Stars” was too tempting an escape to try and escape from.

No worries. The note is on your desk. You know exactly where, too…You think, at least. And you can call and apologize about the delay once you get in the office in the morning. Oh shoot. You have a showing in the morning. Well, you can call him by 11am. Early afternoon, at latest.

And that’s the way you used to do business. “Used to,” because it dawned on you the phone number that might have previously made its way to your cluttered desk on another post-it note was actually this time sent to you online. And that gentlemen’s name—which you forgot somewhere between the drive home and the bitter taste put in your mouth by the thought of frozen pizza—is actually saved in your CRM. So is the time he called, who he spoke with, what he was interested in, how soon he was interested in it and his email address, since you just realized it may be too late to call him right now.

The oven is on, the frozen pizza is in it, you have 15 minutes before indulging, and you turn on the computer, log into the DeltaNet and find Dave (you knew his name started with a “D”!) in your CRM. While you’re there you shoot him a quick email explaining a little of your day, promise you’ll call him mid-day tomorrow, and program the system to alert you, reminding you to call.

While you’re at it you recognize Dave has a particular interest in a nearby neighborhood, and mentioned to your administrator he’s looking for a home with at least three bedrooms and two bathrooms, and would prefer it sits on at least ½ an acre and has a deck so he can entertain friends and family.

You set Dave up with a MyHomeFinder account, detailing those notes so Dave receives only the qualifying houses in the neighborhood, delivered to his email every few days direct from you. When Dave opens those emails he’ll see info, pictures and links to view those houses direct on your real estate website. He’ll also see the options to schedule a showing for the house or ask a question about it. In addition, he’ll see upcoming local open houses, local homes pending sales, listings with reduced prices and listings that are now back on the market. Dave just became much more informed and you breathed a sigh of relief, knowing the customer you might have lost will likely instead become a raving fan.

Now what should you do with those extra 10 minutes before the pizza’s done cooking? Maybe it’s time to see if the kids really have done their homework. Besides, you just did yours.

For more information on how Delta Media Group’s CRM and MyHomeFinder systems can help make your life easier and your business better, contact us at 866-233-9833.

Pushing Past Post-it Notes: Lead Distribution Done Right

2011-11-03T11:54:00.001-04:00

Leads are often the enigma of the real estate agency. You don’t have enough. You can’t track the ones you have. You have too many to distribute properly.

The economy is down and real estate has suffered. You’ve heard it all before. But there are good, qualified buyers out there searching for the right price on the right home, and looking to work with a brokerage and agent that will help them find it in a reasonable time with the right amount of knowledge and “hold the overselling, please.”

You need leads coming to your company. Not just new people you “friended” on Facebook, but a legitimate person interested in finding more information online and looking to you to provide that information.

You need those leads to be distributed properly to your agents, not by untrackable emails or post-it notes left at the desks of agents who may or may not stop by the office this afternoon. You need to have the satisfaction to know the leads are being sent to the right people on the right rotation, and being dealt with even if the receiver is busy at the moment.

You need to know when you lay your head down for the night—one of the busiest times people search for real estate online—that any leads coming in are still being distributed, and not just piling up in your inbox, where in the morning you’ll have a surplus of nine-hour old emails from prospects who may have stopped by another real estate website after visiting yours.

Rest assured tonight. Your system, from Delta Media Group, does all these things. Your company’s leads went out as notifications to the applicable agents whose turn it was and who were qualified to work with the customer based on the areas they serve. Those leads went to multiple agents, so the one who first responds will capture the customer as her own, but another agent will be informed of the lead if the first round of receivers don’t respond. And best of all, those leads are fully trackable. When you get in the office and log into the DeltaNet, you’ll see what leads came in over night, who they were distributed to, who first responded to “capture” them, how soon he or she responded, how they responded and the next scheduled action with that prospect, who may have just become a customer.

Your prospects should become leads. Your leads should become customers. And your website should help them convert, all while you work to monitor that functional, well-oiled machine, rather than try and run it all yourself.

For more information on how Delta Media Group’s Lead Management system can help your brokerage generate more, efficient business, contact us at 866-233-9833.

Home Buyers are Looking for More Information

2011-10-28T11:44:00.001-04:00

Home buyers today are looking for the most information possible when searching for properties. This is why our MyHomeFinder System is getting an upgrade on Monday and will now feature matching listings that have an upcoming Open House, listings that have been reduced in price and listings that have come back on the market but aren't necessarily re-listed.

The Open House check occurs on emails that are sent out on Thursdays and Fridays each week.

Please see the example email below...

Communication with Property Sellers is Important

2011-10-26T11:25:00.001-04:00

Example Seller Report

We all know that communication in anything we do is important. I would go as far as saying that communication is a huge key to unlocking success.

One of the tools that we have in the Delta Platform is something we call Seller Reports.

Seller Reports automatically sends weekly email updates for Realtors® to their sellers. For years this email has provided traffic information on the properties for sale and it was just upgraded to also include current competing similar properties on the market and similar properties that have gone pending.

Understanding that some Realtors® may not want to email out the competing properties or the pending properties we have also given the ability to disable these sections of the report.

From all the feedback we have received over the years sellers love this type of communication from their Realtor®.

Also built into Seller Reports is the ability to choose the day of the week the report goes out, the ability to send multiple emails to multiple recipients and the ability for the Realtor® to be copied on the emails as well. The Realtor® also has the ability to customize the greeting message.

If you aren’t using these reports with your sellers you should seriously consider starting!

Delta Media Group Introduces QR Code Signs

2011-03-04T18:21:00.002-05:00

Listing signs are no longer enough. Consumers drive by them, often not noticing or remembering the listing agent’s website, E-mail address or phone number.

But there is a new way to capture more traffic and generate more leads direct from listing signs. By use of QR Codes.

Delta Media Group recently released integrated QR Code signs, which can link to the listing detail page on your Delta Media Group-built website, encouraging customers to contact an agent directly for more information on a listing they scan, and tracking all QR scans from consumers.

QR, or “Quick Response,” Codes are easy-to-use bar codes that are scan-able by apps available on smartphones. When scanned, Delta Media Group’s QR Code signs send consumers to a website associated with the Code, complete with lead capture options and integrated tracking. Delta Media Group's Lead Management system has been programmed to track every scan of the code, allowing agents and brokerages using the QR Code signs to better record market penetration and ROI.

Though most agents and brokerages are using the codes on listing signs to send interested consumers to the listing’s website, codes can be reassigned, allowing brokerages and agents to point them toward future listing websites, direct pages on a website, or even an agent recruiting website.

For those agents and brokerages using Delta Media Group’s Mobile real estate websites, the QR Codes will send consumers to a listing detail page specially built specific for mobile phones.

Delta Media Group is already displaying QR Codes on printable fliers generated from listing detail pages on real estate websites we build. The QR Code signs are the next step in our line of QR Code integration.

QR Codes are quickly being integrated worldwide as a quick and easy call-to-action to push walk-by traffic and print advertising to a website associated with a company or product. This convergence gives companies better capabilities to “capture” customers by way of them submitting an online lead. Once an online request has been submitted, Delta Media Group’s Lead Management system immediately notifies the real estate agent of their new lead opportunity and tracks the agent’s interaction with their customer and the customer’s actions on the real estate website.

For more information and educational videos on Delta Media Group’s QR Code signs, visit our QR Code sign page.

Update to Mortgage Lead System

2010-10-08T12:09:00.000-04:00

Today a change was posted in the Delta System for the Mortgage Lead System. If a customer completes a contact form and indicates they are interested in a mortgage the system automatically creates a mortgage request. This change reduces the steps required by customers and helps streamline new mortgage leads.

If you are a customer of Delta Media Group and you are not yet using the Mortgage Lead System please contact support@deltagroup.com to learn more about this system and how you can increase your business opportunities for mortgages.

2010-10-07T09:56:00.008-04:00

Is your website compliant?

When was the last time your brokerage reviewed your website to review liability, compliance, and risk avoidance? If you answered anything above a twelve-month timeframe, it is most likely time for another review. There is a wide ranging and ever-changing set of important review topics that your website needs to be in compliance with in order to avoid future issues and potential problems so a website review is something your brokerage cannot take lightly. You can contact an attorney knowledgeable in this area to have them review your website for possible legal concerns. Another approach would be to do most or all of the review in-house. Regardless of the approach your brokerage takes, to assist you, we have developed a step-by-step guide to help you begin the review process for those that are new or who have struggled to achieve this goal in the past.

In-House Approach

Tip One(1): Utilizing Free Key Resources:
To help reduce the cost of these types of important and preventative risk avoidance activities, many State Association of REALTORS® provide member assistance and many offer free legal hotlines or online assistance for you to use in your website review. In addition, many MLS’s have MLS rules coordinators who generally are willing and happy to assist your brokerage with your MLS rules questions and compliancy reviews. Utilizing these resources before and after your website review (gathering information on what to look for prior to and then following up with these resources after your website review has been completed) seems to be the key toward a detailed, cost effective and efficient website review.

Also, many of your REALTORS® may already sit on or participate in one or more REALTOR® committees such as Fair Housing, MLS, Legislative, and/or Professional Standards. These agents and brokers would be another excellent free resource and they should be asked to either advise or join your review of your website (see the assembling of a review team section below). Note: Even if you do not have any active REALTORS® participating on committees currently that may assist you, it is never too late to help them start participating for future reviews. Most associations are desperate for reliable volunteers and often it is as easy as simply asking the right person (board executive or President).

Step One(1): Assembling a Review Team:
Setting up a plan for who will examine your website is the first step toward a successful review and better brokerage piece of mind. It seems most efficient if you are doing this in-house, to implement a review team approach to analyze your website. However, before you assemble your review team, it helps to know some common review areas, which include but are not limited to the following: NAR Code of Ethics, MLS Rules and Local/State/Federal real estate advertising regulations and property disclosure laws. Also, areas such as Fair Housing (HUD), copyright/content right infringements (including photos (graphics)), written content, links, Metatags, and consumer related disclosures/ disclaimers are also important areas to have reviewed.

An ideal review team would consist of three(3)-to-eight(8) members, depending on the size of your brokerage. The larger the brokerage is (number of agents), the more individuals should participate as the general rule of thumb (more content will most likely need to be reviewed as a result of more agents). Ideally, there will be a team leader appointed for your review group, which typically is the broker, office manager or equivalent. Before the meeting, a team leader should organize, assemble and familiarize themselves with any regulations, laws or guidelines available that relate to the review areas identified. During the meeting, the team leader should keep the meeting on track and moving toward identifying areas that will need to be reviewed with the various resources identified in Tip One(1).

Good News and Bad News About Website Reviews
The good news is that after you complete your first website review, future reviews should be far less time consuming. Now the bad news, plan for a minimum of three(3) to four(4) hours of time per person for your website review team for the first review. Additionally, the team leader should plan for twice that amount (a minimum of usually six(6) to eight(8) hours of preparation time) for the first meeting and then another two(2) - four(4) hours of additional time to further research and/or resolve any issues found.

Step Two(2): Setting Up a Review Meeting
Before you panic by the sheer number of potential review topics to be covered during your review, one of the best review strategies we have heard about is the use of a simple two-prong website review strategy, to effectively get things accomplished.

Number One(1) : Ask each review team member to spend a minimum of two(2) hours on your brokerage website a day or two(2) prior to your review meeting looking at specific areas where they have good knowledge or experience with. Example: A REALTOR® who belongs to a MLS committee, would be great at reviewing your website disclaimers, property search results screens, IDX logos and full listing display search results to see if they follow MLS rules and regulations. An agent with your brokerage that is a member of the professional standards committee may be a good person to look at your website for any potential Code of Ethics or Fair Housing issues. Finally, we think it is important to make sure you clearly delegate and let everyone know what his or her area of responsibility are ahead of your meeting.
Hint: Schedule a review meeting in writing (email is a great tool) and give team members ideally a week (no more than ten(10) days) notice prior to the time of the meeting.

Number Two(2): After the team has had time to complete their individual reviews, the review meeting should follow which is usually a two-hour meeting where the team can all be assembled together in a room (ideally using a computer which is connected to a projector or large monitor) that will allow your team to review and discuss any issues that the team has found. Then once your meeting is over, assemble all feedback received, review them with the appropriate resource authority (please be sure to use the proper resources to review any concerns) and then contact Delta Media Group Support (support@deltagroup.com) with any website changes that require design or programming modifications that cannot be addressed through the Deltanet.

Attorney Review Approach

As you know, time is money and definitely, that applies to legal issues and reviews. Therefore, the more information you can gather before approaching an attorney to review your website, the better and then logically the less you should expect to pay. In preparation of a meeting with an attorney to discuss this review, we recommend that you first find any internal types of documents not easily accessible by the average person. Example: Contact your MLS (MLS’s if your brokerage has more than one IDX data feed available) to obtain a copy of their MLS IDX/VOW Rules and Regulations and a copy of the NAR Code of Ethics to take with you to the meeting. The next step would be to re-familiarize yourself with your website, reviewing and then correcting easy to fix areas like old copyright dates so your legal dollars can be spent wisely on areas you cannot easily find and correct yourself. Also, it is a good idea to make sure factual information about your brokerage (addresses, phone numbers, affiliations etc) are all correct and up-to-date prior to your meeting.

In addition, it is a good idea to locate and bring with you proof of ownership of the URL’s associated with your website and proof of ownership/permissions that you have, granting use of web content including any copyrighted information or materials that you have applied for or purchased like photos. Also, it is important to locate and make copies (take the original and at least one additional copy) to take with you of any contracts or agreements signed relating to your website. Finally it is a good idea (thinking about saving time and money) to make a list ahead of time of key people the attorney can contact in case he/she has any questions about your website content. It is recommended to include a list of contact information (names, phone numbers and email addresses) from your Local Board of REALTORS®, MLS’s that you belong to, as well as your State Association and National Association of REALTORS®. Once your legal review has been completed, please contact Delta Media Group Support (support@deltagroup.com) with any website changes that require design or programming changes that cannot be addressed through the Deltanet. It would also help that you include any written information provided to you by the attorney explaining the changes requested.

Tip Two(2): Making Future Website Reviews Easier
Another tip is to look for opportunities to hear or review website related topics. If you attend NAR meetings or State Association meetings, you will often find good speakers or meetings that deal with website and related topics. Also, look for meetings with the State Division of Real Estate, MLS issues, HUD (Fair Housing) and legal/legislative briefings that can help you keep up to speed and be aware of changes that your website needs to address.

Tip Three(3): Don’t Forget to Review Agent Pages
A common area that is often missed by brokerage website reviews, is to overlook agent website pages that are an integral part of the broker website. It is important to review each agent page to make sure an agent has not used content or phrases on their individual pages, which may put your brokerage in non-compliance or legal jeopardy. One area to look at is the term “MLS” as many MLS’s are strictly monitoring the use of this word. Example: Some MLS’s are prohibiting the phrase “Search the MLS” as they feel that this term may be misleading to the user of the website.

Craigslist Listing Posting Tool Updated

2010-10-06T08:43:00.001-04:00

New features have been added to the CraigsList listing posting tool in Delta Media Group's System. Agents can now post their listings to the Apartments and Housing for Rent Section of CraigsList.

The CraigsList posting tool is one of the most useful tools in Delta Media Group's System and I encourage that every listing get posted on CraigsList. Delta Media Group clients that post all their listings on CraigsList see over 10% of their referral traffic coming from CraigsList. This is one of the most powerful marketing tool for real estate listings.

Custom Pages Feature Upgrade for Agents

2010-10-05T07:26:00.000-04:00

Delta Media Group has updated the custom pages system for all agents on the upgraded system giving them more tools for Search Engine Optimization for their custom pages. These new features allow agents to specify the actual URL for the page they are creating. For agents that are using multiple domain names, they can also "lock down" pages to a specific domain name. Below is a screen shot showing the new fields that have been added to the system.

New Mortgage Lead System

2010-09-09T13:51:00.000-04:00

Next week, Delta Media Group will release a new Mortgage Lead System that works in conjunction with the Delta Lead Management System. This system enables real estate companies take a proactive approach to capture mortgage leads from their websites. Through this system, mortgage related offers are made to the users of the company website. From the public side, this system will aid buyer users of the company website get pre-approved for a mortgage.

The Delta Mortgage Lead System is very flexible. Like the Delta Lead Management System, it can be configured in a variety of ways. The company can implement the system according to business rules they create. Our test companies are creating leads for their Mortgage Counselors in numbers not seen before. While the system can be unique to the company, in general what most are doing is to create a mortgage offer to website users that initiate a request for information or a showing on a property viewed on the website. The system automatically, (according to business rules designed by the company) distributes mortgage leads to the appropriate Mortgage Counselor. As with the Delta Lead Management System, leads are tracked within the system.

The Delta Mortgage Lead System is being released in response to requests from a number of our Delta customers. As the real estate business struggles with the current business climate, many companies are surviving because of the business generated by their affiliated businesses. The Mortgage Lead System will assist those companies, choosing to adopt it, to increase their mortgage capture rate. We encourage you to project the affect an increase in your mortgage capture rate would mean to your company.

For more information on the Delta Mortgage Lead System please contact support@deltagroup.com.

Stats System Upgrades (update)

2010-08-31T15:15:00.000-04:00

(Update to previous article: Stats System Upgrades)

The new stats server is now live and running well. The Delta Team is now working on migrating the statistical data that we collected on the temporary server back into the new server so that we don't lose data from the last 2 days. Once this migration is complete all the stats reports will go back online.

Agent statistics reporting change

2010-08-31T15:12:00.000-04:00

The team just made some changes to the domain logging in the Delta Media Group System. These changes have not gone live yet, they won't go live until the stats server is back up and running later this week. Once they do go live we will put out a system notice explaining what has changed.

These changes will affect the following stats box on the "Stats - Your Traffic Report tab" which is on the agent side of the DeltaNet (What Domains Customers Come From):

Previously, if an agent had multiple domains such as the example above, and they were redirecting one domain to the other, we would only log the domain that was redirected to. In this example, testagent4.dmg redirects to testagent3.dmg. So when a public user would go to testagent4.dmg, they would be redirected to testagent3.dmg and we would only show/log that the public user went to testagent3.dmg. Now we will show/log the visitor as going to testagent4.dmg.

Also, we used to log every time a search engine bot hit a domain. These "bot hits" have now been removed. Because of this, the domain stats should drastically reduce. Please keep this in mind when looking at your stats and wondering why your domain stats have gone down so much. This will actually give you a better picture of the actual human traffic on your site.

Lastly, we are now storing the referrer in the domain_logging table. Although we currently do not utilize this field we will be able to incorporate which page a user came from before going to an agent domain. Please contact us at support@deltagroup.com with any questions or comments on this, I know it can get kind of confusing.

Update to MyPortfolio v3

2010-08-31T14:38:00.002-04:00

As most of you are aware some companies have gone live with the new My Portfolio widget based system. The team has updated the saved listings widget, changing numerous things. One major change is the ability to check all listings in the current view and move them to another folder or delete them. This greatly reduces the number of steps needed to perform repetitive actions on multiple listings.

Another change that was put live is the team copied all the navigation buttons to the bottom of all widgets that have pagination, so the previous and next links are now at the top and bottom of the widgets.

If you have any questions or see anything not working correctly please let us know at support@deltagroup.com.

Stats System Upgrades

2010-08-26T11:55:00.001-04:00

Update 1 Posted August 31, 2010

Delta Media Group will be performing system upgrades from 9am EDT Monday, August 30, 2010 until 5pm EDT Thursday, September 2, 2010 to all statistical functions of the DeltaNet System. During this time “stat reports” will not be available and reports based on stats, such as “Seller Reports” will not be sent. Replacing the standard “Seller Report” during this period will be an email explaining the situation and thanking them for their patience. (See sample below)

Why do this upgrade?

We have been collecting billions of statistical records from listing and user activity for many years. There is a wealth of valuable information that we can use to enhance the reports that we provide our Broker/Agent customers and their customers but in order to accomplish this we need upgrade the servers we use for this process.

What features are being planned?

We are planning and working on upgrades to current key systems on the Delta Platform including the Lead System, My Portfolio System, and Seller Reports. Additionally, new systems are planned that require additional capacity to serve the 35,000 web sites we manage.

Is any data going to be missing when the system returns to normal?

Statistical data will continue to be collected during this upgrade period and all data, including data collected during the upgrade, will be available once the system is back online.

What is the notice going out in my Seller Reports?

Here is a copy of what is going out in the Seller Reports while the system is disabled:

“Upgrades are being performed on the system this week and I am unable to send your Seller Report today. During this ‘down time” statistics are being collected and your report will return to normal next week. Thank you for your patience. I look forward to sending your enhanced report next week.”

I have questions.

If you have any questions please contact customer service at support@deltagroup.com.

NEOREX MLS Translation Update

2010-08-26T09:46:00.000-04:00

The NEOREX MLS translation has been updated. We have upgraded some of the special features for listings and changed the way we are translating "water front" type properties.

Customer Quality Assurance System

2010-08-25T15:28:00.000-04:00

Delta Media Group has released a new system that provides Quality Assurance follow-up with client leads. The new system was put live on a brokerage website last week and since that time the brokerage has received at least two listings as a direct result of the Quality Assurance System.

More information will be posted on this system in the next week. If you would like immediate information on this system please contact support@deltagroup.com today.

Update to Agent Pages System

2010-08-25T14:04:00.000-04:00

Delta has released a new feature within our agent system that allows agents to create their own custom URL's for each custom page they have. This feature will be available to all agents soon, that are on an upgraded website on the Delta Platform. The benefits of this new feature are primarily for Search Engine Optimization on the agent websites.

For any questions regarding this new feature please contact support@deltagroup.com.

While home sale reports, economists point to the worst, our data suggests differently

2010-08-24T14:58:00.012-04:00

Typically, we use the Delta Media Group Blog (blog.deltagroup.com) for product updates, system advancements, new features, etc., while using the Delta Media Group News blog (news.deltagroup.com) for real estate news and marketing purposes.

But we want to cross paths a little today to let you know about a new blog entry on the DMG News blog. You might have heard this morning's breaking news by now, that existing home sales decreased by 27.2 percent in July.

Only hours after the release of the home sales report, economists have already warned "that a double-dip in housing prices is just around the corner, threatening to further slow the overall recovery" (CNNMoney.com).

But there's another side to the story, and one that we feel is important. When analyzing the data among many of the more than 30,000 real estate websites we build, we found that those brokerages using Delta Media Group's new Search Engine Optimization services actually saw online lead and portfolio increases in July and continuing improvements through August, while home sales dropped nationwide at record paces (Read the full report at Delta Media Group's News blog).

Online lead and portfolio trends tend to be a prelude to home sales trends for obvious reasons. While it's not an exact science (a 25 percent bump in leads this month does not necessarily equate to a 25 percent bump in sales in one or two months), it is a good determinant to the direction things will eventually go (a 25 percent bump in leads this month tends to lead to a decent increase in home sales in the next one or two months, and rarely leads to a drop-off in sales). We certainly don't want to predict direct conclusions from this data, but it is promising, to say the least.

While the stock market has dropped and economic forecasts have already taken very bad turns today, our reports show hope for the real estate market, particularly for those companies taking part in our Search Engine Optimization services, where their real estate websites aim to gain market share and improve their online presence.

Learn more about Delta Media Group
Learn more about Delta Media Group's Search Engine Optimization services

New 'My Home Finder' widget-based system released this week

2010-08-23T15:27:00.009-04:00

Last week, Delta Media Group released a new layout to our Open Houses page.

Now, we're launching a new interface for the 'My Home Finder' portfolio system on real estate websites this week.

The new 'My Home Finder' is a widget-based system designed to be customizable and easier to use for visitors who create portfolios on your real estate website. While the new 'My Home Finder' interface does not change the system's current functionality, it opens the door for several new features we plan to release in the future.

Website visitors logging into their 'My Home Finder' accounts will see a more user-friendly layout that offers saved listings, homes they have viewed, saved searches, messages and the ability to modify a profile, all on the same page. The layout is customizable, allowing visitors to drag-and-drop their portfolio widgets to arrange the page to their liking, and add and delete widgets as they become available.

When the visitor places their cursor over each widget, icons in the top-right corner of the widget allow them to refresh the information in the widget, customize settings for the widget's fields or delete the widget. Widgets can be added and removed from the "Add/Remove Widgets" link in the top-right of the page, and each widget allows users to update and view additional information directly from there.

To view the new 'My Home Finder' system, create a portfolio on your website and log in as a visitor. The system will be rolled out on real estate company websites and real estate agent websites in fazes, so if you don't see the updates on your site yet, check back later this week.

Delta Media Group releases new Open Houses layout

2010-08-18T09:39:00.007-04:00

You may notice a slightly different lay-out on your Open Houses page.

The open house search options that used to fill the top of the page are now hidden behind a collapsed "Show Search Criteria" button, which opens the search criteria when clicked. The button allows website visitors to immediately view open houses, but also narrow their open house search results at will.

There's a delicate balance Web designers deal with in real estate between displaying listings and displaying property search features.

Statistics show listing results tend to produce a lower bounce rate and longer time on site, whereas property search features are necessary for website visitors to view a select category of listings.

With the previous open house search criteria at the top of the page, listings were pushed "below the fold," meaning website visitors were forced to scroll down to view listings.

The new interface was designed to keep visitors on the page and encourage them to view listings and interact within the Open Houses page, thus keeping them on your website longer, and searching through more properties.

View more information on Delta Media Group's real estate website and lead management systems.

'Fan' us on Facebook more easily!

2010-07-15T12:03:00.004-04:00

We've now made it easier to 'Fan' Delta Media Group on Facebook.

To directly access Delta Media Group's Facebook page, type in www.facebook.com/deltamediagroup. You can do the same with the Property Pursuit Facebook page, now located at www.facebook.com/propertypursuit.

Once you've begun following us on Facebook, make sure to engage in the conversation! We keep our Facebook and Twitter accounts updated with new developments, new programming, product releases, real estate website tips, success stories, our appearances, conferences, real estate news and more!

If you have questions or suggestions, or just want to say "hi," you can always find us online at facebook.com/deltamediagroup or twitter.com/deltamediagroup.

Add content pages to your lead management system with new 'Agent Resources' system

2010-06-18T11:08:00.002-04:00

Earlier this week, Delta Media Group released our new 'Events' system.

Now, we've built an easier way for you to pass along valuable information and files to your agents.

With the new 'Agent Resources' system, added this week, brokerages using Delta Media Group's real estate website and lead management systems can add internal content pages to their DeltaNet, allowing agents to easily access important company and industry information.

Brokerage website administrators can access the Agent Resources system by logging in as an admin and clicking the 'Resources' tab. From there, admins can add new pages just like they would through the existing brokerage admin CMS (content management system, labeled in the DeltaNet as 'Pages').

Agents can access the Agent Resources system by clicking the 'Resources' tab and 'Agent Resources' sub-tab. This will give agents access to all internal pages their brokerage created for DeltaNet use.

Is your real estate website and lead management system opening doors to better streamline communication within your brokerage? If not, contact Delta Media Group for more information on how our Broker Portal™ can start improving your efficiency and ROI.

New to the DeltaNet: 'Events' system

2010-06-16T14:21:00.009-04:00

Looking to more effectively communicate event information to your real estate agents and offices?

Delta Media Group just released a new system that gives your real estate brokerage the ability to create events for your agents to access and register for.

Upon logging into the DeltaNet lead management system, real estate agents will see an "Events" section on their home page. The section will display the date, time and details of upcoming events, and available space and registration information when applicable.

Agents can register for the event by clicking the "Register" button to the right of the event, and confirm if they are bringing guests with them to the event. For events with a registration limit, the Events system will automatically track how many available spots remain for registration.

Real estate website administrators can edit and add events on the admin side of the DeltaNet. To add a new event, log in as an admin and click the "News" tab, then the "Events" sub-tab. The new Events page allows admins to edit the event date, starting and ending times, title, description, attendee limit and offices the event is open to. Currently scheduled events can be edited, printed or removed. Events automatically remove from agent display upon completion.

Delta Media Group will post an Events manual to the Administrator Guides on the "Admin Home" page of the DeltaNet.

Is your real estate website and lead management system opening doors to better streamline communication within your brokerage? If not, contact Delta Media Group for more information on how our Broker Portal™ can start helping improve your efficiency and ROI.

Delta Media Group adds social networking links to all listing detail pages

2010-04-15T14:26:00.006-04:00

Looking for ways to broadcast your listings? Delta Media Group has added social networking listing syndication links to all real estate listing detail pages.

Now, consumers and agents can post listings detail links to Facebook, Twitter and more with the click of a mouse.

We've added the social networking links to the top right of every listing detail page of our real estate websites. Social networking site links include StumbleUpon, Del.icio.us, Digg, Reddit, Google Buzz and Google Bookmarks, as well as the two most popular social networks, the aforementioned Facebook and Twitter.

Upon clicking one of the social networking links, a new window opens with an automated message, allowing a consumer to post it to whichever social networking account he or she clicks. If the user is already logged in to the account, she will only need to click to post the message (most social media sites require consumer log-in to post).

Social networking websites have grown to play a powerful role in consumers' decision-making, particularly among Generation Y consumers, which make up a growing percentage of first-time home buyers. With Delta Media Group's new links, consumers can easily share listings with their sphere of influence, both promoting feedback from peers and, in turn, promoting your real estate website as the go-to site to search homes for sale.

Delta Media Group's new social networking links are the latest in a line of new features Delta Media Group offers. Contact Delta Media Group to learn how you can begin broadcasting your listings to increase website exposure.

Delta Media Group introduces new 'Orphaned Leads' system

2010-04-05T13:42:00.007-04:00

One of the realities of real estate is on occasion agents leave a company or the business, presenting the ongoing problem of what to do with the leads the company previously referred to those agents.

Delta Media Group has taken steps to make this easy on real estate brokerages, adding a new 'Orphaned Leads' tab for brokerage admins to more easily facilitate remaining leads from since-gone agents.

For your convenience, Delta Media Group has posted a system notice on the DeltaNet for all real estate website administrators. The notice details the orphaned lead system, where to find it and how it works. Log in to the DeltaNet from your brokerage website to view the notice.

Questions? Comments? Please contact Delta Media Group here.

Mobile Broker Advantage™ now interlinked with standard listing pages

2010-03-24T09:43:00.004-04:00

Think your consumers want more info on a listing they found on a mobile website?

Delta Media Group has now added a link on each listing integrating your Mobile Broker Advantage™ mobile real estate website with your standard real estate website.

By nature, mobile websites offer more compact listing information to better display in mobile browsers. Upon finding a listing a home searcher might be interested in, that searcher may want to view all listing details on the standard version of the website. The new link, near the bottom of every listing page, easily displays the listing in the standard version of the website.

With the growth of mobile Web usage and mobile searches, a growing number of consumers spot a listing during a commute, search for it with a mobile search engine browser by address, MLS number or street name, and visit the first few search engine results offering the listing website. Mobile Broker Advantage™ provides brokers a mobile website to best display the listing in a mobile browser, and the link for interested consumers to view the listing's full details on the standard real estate website.

Delta Media Group's Mobile Broker Advantage system is a mobile real estate website that works on all mobile platforms. Though designed to look like an app, Mobile Broker Advantage provides advantages apps don't, like the ability to be viewed on all mobile Web browsers, shared URL and branding with the standard real estate website, no required downloading, and the added SEO benefits of direct listing links from search engine results. All leads submitted in a Mobile Broker Advantage™ website are automatically filtered through Delta Media Group's real estate lead management systems.

Mobile Broker Advantage™ is a mobile website built by Delta Media Group. It is available as a new product for existing Delta Media Group customers, but is also available to those companies not yet using Delta Media Group as their real estate technology partner.

Take advantage of your mobile real estate potential by clicking here.

Mobile Broker Advantage™ now links straight to mobile site

2010-03-22T09:11:00.006-04:00

Visitors to your Mobile Broker Advantage™ website will now immediately view the mobile website rather than being prompted if they would prefer to see the mobile or standard website.

Previously, visitors to a Mobile Broker Advantage™ website were asked if they would prefer to view a brokerage's mobile website or full website. Delta Media Group recently added a link to every mobile and standard website page, allowing visitors to easily switch between the mobile and standard websites for those brokerages that have both.

The change also provides a benefit to the usability of real estate websites with good search engine optimization. Upon finding a listing on a search engine from a mobile Web browser in the past, visitors were prompted to choose between viewing the mobile or standard website. This added an unnecessary step to the visitor's process, which has now been removed to make the Mobile Broker Advantage™ site more usable.

An increasing number of consumers pass a home for sale, Google the address from their mobile phone and view the listing website from there. This is one of the many advantages mobile real estate websites provide over apps, which do not appear in, or link from search results.

In the nature of mobile websites, Mobile Broker Advantage™ offers a more direct real estate property search with less detailed results to better fit a mobile browser. While this is more convenient and easy to view from a mobile browser, interested consumers may choose to see full details on a standard real estate website. The link at the bottom of every page of a Mobile Broker Advantage™ easily allows them to do so.

Mobile Broker Advantage™ is a full mobile real estate website platform that works on all mobile Web browsers. Though designed to look like an app, Mobile Broker Advantage™ is a mobile website that shares your company's URL, promoting more cohesive branding. All leads from Mobile Broker Advantage™ are filtered through Delta Media Group's renowned real estate lead management system.

If your real estate brokerage has not gone mobile, you may be losing valuable sales to those that have. Check out Mobile Broker Advantage™ today, and start building your mobile real estate business.

Now view stats for recently inactive listings

2010-03-19T14:26:00.007-04:00

Having trouble keeping up with listings once they go inactive? Now you can view stats for recently inactive listings if you're using Delta Media Group's real estate website and lead management systems.

Delta Media Group recently added a tab to the lead management system allowing agents to view recently inactive listings and their stats.

To access your recently inactive listings, log in to the DeltaNet, click the "Listings" tab, and you'll find a new sub-tab called "Recent Inactives." This tab displays all inactive listings as if they were active, complete with MLS ID number, listing agent, co-listing agent (where applicable), address, city, price, days since the listing went on the market and days since the listing was last updated.

There is also a "View Stats" column, from which agents can click to see all listing statistics for a respective listing, including a week-by-week breakdown of the total amount of times that listing was viewed, how many times it was viewed on your brokerage's website, how many times it was viewed on other Delta Media Group sites, and how many times it was viewed by search engine crawlers.

The accessibility of listing stats for recently inactive listings gives agents a tool to communicate stats to sellers to effectively help them decide if it's best to continue to keep their home on the market, and make recommendations as to how to best sell their listing. In the case of a listing that was viewed several times each week, yet received few showing requests, maybe a price change will help it move. If the listing was viewed very little, maybe the seller should consider a different price point, listing photo, or hold an open house.

Recently inactive listing stats are one of the many recent functions added to Delta Media Group's real estate lead management system to help agents better sell listings and work more efficiently.

Receive more information, or further details on Delta Media Group's renowned real estate website and lead management systems.

Improving your real estate lead sorting options

2010-02-25T14:30:00.004-05:00

Having trouble finding reassigned real estate leads?

Delta Media Group has added a new column in the DeltaNet showing the assigned date of all real estate website leads to help ease your search.

The 'Assigned Date' column can be found by logging into the DeltaNet, clicking the 'Leads & Contacts' tab, then the 'Processed Leads & Contacts' sub-tab.

The column is located to the right of the 'Last Activity Date' column, just before the lead 'Actions' column for agents.

The 'Assigned Date' column allows real estate agents to filter their leads by date they were assigned for easier sorting and follow-up. Real estate website admins can reassign leads when necessary, and the 'Assigned Date' column will help agents more quickly search their contacts database to find the lead they received a lead notification for.

Agents and admins using Delta Media Group's real estate lead management systems can sort their leads and contacts by when they were last logged in or when they created their lead or account, or by name, E-mail address or lead type.

The 'Assigned Date' column is the newest addition to Delta Media Group's renowned real estate lead management system, which can be set up to automatically distribute real estate leads, and allow real estate agents to sort those leads, view their customer's real estate preferences, and follow up with that customer to give him a more thorough real estate experience.

Looking to improve your online lead tracking and management? Contact Delta Media Group to see how we can help.

Delta Media Group adds Open House price to CSV export

2010-02-22T17:37:00.007-05:00

You can now sort your open house exports by price.

Delta Media Group created a price column in the open house CSV export, allowing exported open houses from the DeltaNet to be sorted by price, among other categories.

The new functionality adds the price column to an open house export that already included MLS ID, open house dates, open house start time, open house end time, open house/listing agent, agent contact information, open house comments, open house directions and office name of the real estate agent.

The open house export is one of several CSV exports built into the DeltaNet, allowing real estate brokers and admins to export real estate information into a spreadsheet to enter it into another real estate technology platform.

CSV exports allow for more convenient data communication between technology platforms that otherwise don't correspond. By exporting listing data via CSV, real estate brokers and agents can easily import that data into another real estate platform without having to re-submit the data manually.

To export open houses, log into the admin side of the DeltaNet, click the 'Open Houses' tab, then click the 'View Open Houses' sub-tab. The top-right button will export open houses into a CSV file.

Looking for a more efficient real estate website and lead management solution? Delta Media Group can help. Click here for more information on our real estate website and lead management systems.

Open houses now being fed to RELOHomeSearch.com

2010-02-16T09:51:00.006-05:00

Now, your consumers can find your open houses on RELOHomeSearch.com!

Delta Media Group has begun pushing open houses through their data feed to RELOHomeSearch.com for all members of Leading Real Estate Companies of the World™.

Leading Real Estate Companies of the World™ members using Delta Media Group as their real estate website developers already have their listings syndicated to RELOHomeSearch.com free of charge as an added benefit of Delta Media Group working with LeadingRE. Delta Media Group's updates now add open houses to the data feed being syndicated.

Delta Media Group also offers data syndication to PropertyPursuit.com, Trulia, Zillow, Google Base, Yahoo! and FrontDoor, available for all real estate brokerages using Delta Media Group's real estate websites.

RELOHomeSearch.com is a worldwide real estate search portal exclusive to Leading Real Estate Companies of the World™ members, built to help improve its members' listing exposure.

Delta Media Group is a preferred vendor Associate of Leading Real Estate Solutions™.

Leading Real Estate Companies of the World™ is hosting its annual conference in Las Vegas March 9-11. Delta Media Group will be in attendance to demonstrate our Broker Portal, real estate agent websites, and new real estate search engine optimization packages, Mobile Broker Advantage™ mobile websites, and PropertyPursuit.com portal. Visit events.leadingre.com for more details.

New interactive Open House search on Mobile Broker Advantage™

2010-02-12T09:10:00.007-05:00

Delta Media Group has released another update to its Mobile Broker Advantage™ mobile real estate website system.

New to the system is an interactive mobile Open House search. Mobile Broker Advantage™ previously displayed area open houses, but listing results were displayed in the form of lists, and not interactive.

Delta Media Group's update to the system allows those searching open houses on their cell phones to click on listings and view more details of the listing and its open house.

Mobile Broker Advantage™ is a full mobile real estate website platform built for real estate brokerages. It incorporates a full IDX property search with an Open House search and real estate agent search, and brands it to the respective brokerage.

Mobile Broker Advantage™ is unique in that it shares the same URL as a company's brokerage website, helping to improve branding. It is also accessible on all mobile Web browsers, and is integrated with Delta Media Group's renowned lead management system.

If your brokerage is losing sales from consumers searching for homes from their mobile devices, learn how Mobile Broker Advantage™ can help.

Now Needed: Facebook and Twitter followers

2010-02-02T10:12:00.003-05:00

We're trying to grow our Facebook and Twitter outreach, and we need your help!

Delta Media Group is actively building social networking communication channels through Facebook and Twitter to best serve our customers. We currently have 293 'Fans' of our Facebook page, and 309 followers on our Twitter account.

While some in the real estate industry are actively promoting the use of Facebook and Twitter as helpful online mediums, others remain skeptical. So we've assembled a few questions and answers below to best spell out our social networking intentions, and help some of the tens of thousands of agents using our real estate websites to best implement these methods if they choose.

Why Social Networks?
Social networks are quickly growing to become great resources for real estate brokerages and agents. Social networks allow brokerages to increase their brand exposure, and allow agents to build online networks of friends, family, community members and potential clients. In addition, they provide convenient communication channels, and around-the-clock access for prospects to see your profile, your business updates, and get to better know you as a person.

How will Delta Media Group improve communication through social networks?
Facebook and Twitter are excellent passive communication channels. While we don't expect agents to have time every day to check our website, read our blog, and contact our support team, most active Facebook and Twitter users check those accounts daily, and often, several times a day.

Upon checking those accounts, you might find in your time line recent news updates Delta Media Group will communicate through those channels. If you have time to read further into those updates, you can click on the corresponding link. If not, at least you're aware of the update or notice, and you can always go back to it later.

By applying similar news updates to your accounts, you can effectively keep your name and real estate website in front of prospective clients.

Can I communicate with Delta Media Group through social networks?
Please! We encourage active correspondence with our social networking accounts and blog! Have a success story? Please let us know. Have an idea on something we could develop or improve for you? We'd love to hear it! Have questions on our systems? We can help point you in the right direction.

How do I find Delta Media Group on Facebook and Twitter?
For your convenience, we've provided the easy links below:

'Fan' Delta Media Group on Facebook
Follow Delta Media Group on Twitter

Easily view a standard real estate website from your mobile site, vice versa

2010-01-27T15:49:00.005-05:00

Looking for a more seamless way to transfer between viewing mobile and standard real estate websites?

Delta Media Group has added links for its standard and Mobile Broker Advantage™ real estate website customers to view the sites in their alternate variations.

Delta Media Group's Mobile Broker Advantage™ is a full mobile real estate website solution, offering customers one of the easiest property searches available, directly from any Web-enabled mobile device. But, while quicker and more convenient to use, mobile websites, by design, have less information and photos.

The new link allows consumers to easily search homes through the ease of the mobile property search, and switch over the the full version of the website with a click of a button. The option gives mobile consumers the best of both worlds--the convenience of a mobile site combined with the robust information and property details of a full website.

In contrast, consumers utilizing a standard real estate website can click to view the mobile version if they prefer the ease of a mobile property search and convenience of mobile listing results pages, or if brokers or agents would just like to see how the Mobile Broker Advantage™ system is displayed without accessing a mobile browser.

The link to the alternate website is located at the bottom of each standard and mobile real estate website page, just above Delta Media Group's disclaimer.

Is your brokerage losing sales from consumers searching on mobile devices? Learn how Mobile Broker Advantage™ can help.

Now search Open Houses from your cell phone!

2010-01-26T17:18:00.001-05:00

Now your clients can search all local open houses from their mobile browser.

Delta Media Group has added an Open House Search to its Mobile Broker Advantage™ platform, allowing consumers to search open houses from their cell phones. Mobile Broker Advantage™ previously incorporated open houses, but they were listed and not searchable.

The Open House Search is a convenient feature for all consumers utilizing mobile browsers to find open houses. Due to the convenience of mobile phones, it's a growing trend for consumers to search open houses while perusing neighborhoods. Mobile Broker Advantage™ now makes this easier than ever before.

Mobile Broker Advantage™ is a mobile real estate website platform Delta Media Group released late 2009. It provides subscribing brokerages a fully functional mobile real estate website that works on all mobile platforms, and is integrated with Delta Media Group's renowned lead management system.

Contact Delta Media Group for more information on Mobile Broker Advantage™.

National real estate search engine PropertyPursuit.com surpasses 1 million listings

2010-01-13T09:34:00.004-05:00

In just two short months, PropertyPursuit.com has surpassed 1 million real estate listings, placing it among the fastest growing independent real estate portals ever created.

PropertyPursuit.com released a press release on the landmark achievement, which we've attached below:

PROPERTYPURSUIT.COM™ SURPASSES 1 MILLION LISTINGS

CANTON, Ohio, January 6, 2010
PropertyPursuit.com surpassed 1.1 million listings today, making it one of the fastest growing real estate search engines in the nation.

PropertyPursuit.com is a national real estate portal that displays listing data of real estate companies, agents and syndication partners across the United States.
Consumers can easily search PropertyPursuit.com for homes, real estate agents, brokers and more.

PropertyPursuit.com officially re-launched at the 2009 NAR Conference & Expo in San Diego, and has since grown quickly across the nation. Powered by real estate technology developer Delta Media Group, PropertyPursuit.com offers profiles for real estate agents and brokerages, featured listings, and advanced consumer interaction that includes unique IP address search incorporation, the ability to write agent and broker recommendations, and more.

“We’re proud of the speed at which we have been able to grow PropertyPursuit.com,” said Jonathan Blood, Executive Vice President of Property Pursuit. “Our goal is to create the best national property search site for consumers, and improve broker, agent and listing exposure.”

PropertyPursuit.com is unique in that it was built by real estate brokers, for real estate brokers. Upon searching for homes, consumers are driven to the website of the respective broker or agent to receive additional information or submit a lead. Those brokers and agents using the system can partake in packages that help improve exposure for themselves, their brokerage, or their listings.

For more information, visit www.PropertyPursuit.com.

About PropertyPursuit.com
Property Pursuit, powered by Delta Media Group, is a national real estate portal that features more than one million listings. Property Pursuit offers consumers an easy-to-use property search and robust national listing details, and offers brokerages and agents unique online profiles, and customizable accounts, bios, logos, social networking tools and more. Visit www.propertypursuit.com for more information. PropertyPursuit.com is a division of Delta Media Group (online at www.deltagroup.com).

About Delta Media Group
Canton, Ohio-based Delta Media Group is a national real estate technology developer. Serving more than 32,000 broker and agent real estate professionals and managing more than 4 million listings daily, Delta Media Group builds one of the most profitable tools for major brokers in the real estate industry. Delta Media Group has been in business since 1994, and works with independent and franchise brokerages across the country. Delta Media Group specializes in real estate Web sites, real estate lead management, mobile applications, IDX property search, and real estate search engine optimization (SEO). Visit www.DeltaGroup.com for more info.

New CRM group names allow for personalized exporting

2010-01-11T15:28:00.002-05:00

Delta Media Group has added group names to the CRM/drip marketing system, allowing companies and agents to filter exported CSV spreadsheet files by individual groups.

The CRM allows users to import contacts and create groups to set on automatic drip E-mail campaigns. These contacts could previously be exported by way of CSV file to import into additional lead and contact management and marketing systems, but only as one entity.

With the new feature, agents and companies have a "Groups" column in their CSV export, allowing them to utilize only particular groups to filter into additional external lead and contact management and marketing systems.

To export a group from your CRM, log into the DeltaNet, click "Leads & Contacts," then click "CRM." On the left column in the "Contacts" box, there is a tab that reads "Export Contacts." This option automatically creates a CSV file out of your contacts and their information stored in the DeltaNet lead management system.

The first column in that spreadsheet will now read "group_name," and identify which, if any, groups your contacts are in. Only those real estate agents using the Delta Media Group Upgrade agent website have access to the CRM/drip marketing system.

Receive more information on Delta Media Group's real estate website and lead management systems.

Delta Media Group builds ability to add franchise agent IDs

2010-01-11T10:14:00.000-05:00

Now, you can add franchise IDs to your agents' profiles.

Delta Media Group recently added the ability for companies to put franchise associate IDs on their agent profiles, allowing for better future communication between franchise systems and Delta Media Group's real estate websites.

The DeltaNet system formerly saved MLS agent IDs as well as Delta Media Group-associated agent IDs. But with the ability to add franchise agent IDs, the DeltaNet can better correspond with franchise-driven imports and exports.

Some franchises encourage brokerages to filter company leads through their provided lead and contact management systems, and have available franchise information that can be automatically imported into real estate websites with the necessary franchise agent ID.

Delta Media Group's added franchise ID ability gives franchised real estate brokerages the ability to best utilize and integrate Delta Media Group's resources with those provided by their franchise.

Receive more information on Delta Media Group's real estate website and lead management systems.

Delta Media Group creates more options for Google Analytics tracking

2010-01-08T12:15:00.008-05:00

Now, when using Google Analytics, you can choose to follow statistics for just your brokerage website, or that of your entire brokerage and all affiliated agent websites.

Google Analytics codes previously tracked only the statistics of the brokerage website. But since agent websites are attached to the brokerage real estate website, Delta Media Group has added the ability to track agent and brokerage websites as a combined Web entity. This helps prevent the skewing of brokerage data like time on site, which may look significantly lower if a visitor uses the brokerage website to find an agent website, from which he conducts his property search.

Delta Media Group has a Google Analytics option built into the brokerage DeltaNet so you can easily enter Google Analytics to better follow the statistics of your real estate website. Google Analytics is a free Google service that allows you to better track more detailed elements of your website. Combined with Delta Media Group's website Reports, Google Analytics helps brokers get a full overview of their website traffic, activity, search engine traction, and more.

Receive more information on Delta Media Group's real estate website and lead management systems.

Delta Media Group adds admin zip code setting for franchise systems

2010-01-06T10:39:00.002-05:00

For franchises with offices and listings in multiple areas, Delta Media Group has recently added the ability to lock the zip code settings to prevent them from being tampered with.

While franchises allow offices to control their own lead settings, many franchises want to pre-set zip code settings. The new functionality allows franchises to be certain their offices are receiving leads only from those zip codes which they service in order to prevent market overlap.

The office zip code setting can be adjusted on the DeltaNet by logging in as a root admin, clicking "Leads & Contacts," then clicking "Settings." This option is only accessible by root administrators on the DeltaNet, and can not be overridden by office administrators.

Receive more information on Delta Media Group's real estate website and lead management systems.

Search filter added to view all IDX open houses, only brokerage's

2010-01-05T09:49:00.001-05:00

Visitors to your real estate website can now choose to view only your company open houses, or those of the entire IDX.

For brokerages with an IDX open house feed, Delta Media Group has added a public option for consumers to choose if they'd like to view all IDX open houses, or only those of your brokerage.

Some real estate website visitors like to search all open houses in a given market, while others prefer to narrow those results to the respective brokerage they are working with.

The open house option is part of Delta Media Group's new Open House system, which was initially released in 2008, but was updated and launched for all brokers on Delta Media Group's real estate websites six months ago.

The Open House V3 system provides brokers and agents a new interface and an easier format to submit open houses through. Some MLSs have an open house IDX feed, which brokerages can utilize to prevent from having to submit open house information to both the MLS and the DeltaNet. IDX open house feeds are not yet available from all MLSs, but can be integrated to your website should your MLS provide one.

Receive more information on Delta Media Group's real estate website and lead management systems.

Visit Delta Media Group at the Triple Play REALTORS Conference

2009-12-08T09:13:00.003-05:00

Attending the Triple Play REALTOR Convention and Trade Show this week? Make sure to stop by Delta Media Group's booth #318.

The Triple Play conference will be held today through Thursday, December 8-10. Networking hours began this morning at 8am Eastern, and the Trade Expo officially opens at noon.

Delta Media Group will be demoing new products, including Mobile Broker Advantage™, PropertyPursuit.com and the Agent Positioning Package™, as well as our real estate company websites, real estate search engine optimization services, and more.

View more information on the Triple Play conference schedule, or contact Delta Media Group for more details on Mobile Broker Advantage™, PropertyPursuit.com, or the Agent Positioning Package™.

Delta Media Group launches new national real estate portal site PropertyPursuit.com

2009-11-13T19:57:00.003-05:00

Your listing exposure is about to drastically increase.

Delta Media Group just set live the newest national real estate portal site, PropertyPursuit.com!

Property Pursuit is a unique broker and agent-centric portal, designed specifically to send all leads directly to the respective real estate broker or agent, and drive consumers to their real estate websites. It was launched to coordinate with the start of this year's NAR Conference & Expo, and can be found online at www.PropertyPursuit.com.

Please see the official PropertyPursuit.com press release below:

CANTON, Ohio – (November 13, 2009)
Delta Media Group, a leading real estate Web site and lead management developer of more than 32,000 broker and agent sites, today announced the launch of PropertyPursuit.com, a broker and agent-centric national real estate portal.

PropertyPursuit.com is unique in that it drives all leads from the site directly to the respective broker or agent. With easy-to-search tools and more than one million listings at the time of debut, PropertyPursuit.com will provide home buyers a highly user-friendly experience in finding their next home.

“It’s extremely gratifying that a company of the caliber of Delta Media Group has decided to launch a broker and agent-centric global portal that is so easy to use for today’s buyers and sellers,” said Chad Ochsner, president of RE/MAX Alliance in Denver. “It is refreshing to see a company like Delta Media Group build this national portal. The organization is comprised of extremely well-known, highly qualified experts in the real estate Web site, lead management, SEO and SEM industries, and we are confident that PropertyPursuit.com will quickly become the REALTOR™ site of choice in the real estate industry.”

PropertyPursuit.com provides home searchers with the most comprehensive online real estate search tools available. Beginning with a unique Internet Protocol (IP) address look-up that displays the visitor’s city at log-in, the site offers distinct search functions including an easy search, advanced search and search map, as well as the abilities to search by address, zip code, listing features and more.

“PropertyPursuit.com will enable Web site visitors to experience single-click access to local listings and in-depth search options for specific criteria for desired real estate properties and features,” said Mike Minard, president of Delta Media Group. “Visitors additionally have access to an abundant amount of the most up-to-date property listings on the market. PropertyPursuit.com provides the users with the options they desire and accommodates all the various methods consumers prefer to use when searching for real estate.”

PropertyPursuit.com gives buyers the ability to narrow their search results in their effort to find their dream home, and its smart technology displays similarly priced properties in the area they are searching. Homebuyers can access convenient graphical links to property features and details from each listing detail page, and can also contact the listing agent directly for more information or to schedule a showing. The site also displays available open houses and current price reductions, and gives users the ability to print a listing flier, pinpoint their chosen location, view large photo galleries, videos and slide shows, calculate mortgage payments and review community and school information. Buyers can save their search criteria and schedule to receive updates when properties become available that match their requirements.

Visit www.PropertyPursuit.com for more details, or contact Mike Minard at mike@deltagroup.com.

About Delta Media Group:
Canton, Ohio-based Delta Media Group is a national real estate technology developer. Serving more than 32,000 broker and agent real estate professionals and managing more than four million listings daily, Delta Media Group builds one of the most profitable tools for major brokers in the real estate industry. Delta Media Group has been in business since 1994, and works with independent and franchise brokerages across the country. Delta Media Group specializes in real estate Web sites, real estate lead management, mobile applications, IDX property search, and real estate search engine optimization (SEO). Visit www.DeltaGroup.com for more info.

Major announcement planned for today

2009-11-13T13:39:00.004-05:00

Delta Media Group will make a very exciting announcement today to coincide with the start of the NAR REALTORS Conference & Expo, beginning this afternoon in San Diego.

Delta Media Group will release a system notice notifying all real estate brokers, admins and agents of the announcement, and will distribute the details through many real estate news platforms.

Check back to Delta Media Group's blog for more details.

If you're attending the NAR Conference, make sure to stop by booth #1948 to visit with a Delta Media Group representative.

Google positiong itself to take advantage of the mobile push...are you?

2009-11-09T16:31:00.006-05:00

Google announced today its plans to purchase AdMob, a mobile Internet ad provider.

The price tag? $750 million in stocks.

While it seems unrelated to real estate, the move signifies the growing importance of mobile Web usage, and the opportunity available for those who get in the mobile game early.

Delta Media Group realized this opportunity, and this summer released Mobile Broker Advantage™, a real estate brokerage website built specifically for mobile Internet browsers.

Google plans to use AdMob to "help the company's advertising partners improve how they target mobile Web users," according to a CNNMoney.com article.

Mobile Broker Advantage™ was built for the purpose of targeting mobile Web users. Mobile search keeps growing, and more and more consumers look to their cell phones to quickly and easily find homes online. Yet most real estate companies have no presence on the mobile side, other than possibly a convoluted real estate website that displays incorrectly in some browsers, forbids a simple property search in others, and even crashes some.

Mobile Broker Advantage™ not only is void of those issues, but gives real estate brokerages the ability to be one of only a handful of mobile-specific broker websites in a market. In many markets, it is the first and only mobile real estate website.

More benefits to Mobile Broker Advantage™ are: 1/ It's not an app, which restricts consumer usage since apps are only usable on certain phones, and 2/ Unlike other mobile sites, it requires no log-in to use, which turns many consumers away before ever seeing the resources available.

Mobile Broker Advantage™ gives users the easiest tools available to search all real estate listings, open houses and agents in a given market, and encourages them to easily request showings, ask questions, or even quick-call a real estate agent directly. All leads are filtered through Delta Media Group's real estate lead management system for easy, Web-based lead and contact tracking.

Click here for more information on Mobile Broker Advantage™.

Delta Media Group attending NAR Conference & Expo

2009-11-04T14:44:00.006-05:00

Delta Media Group will again be at the National Association of Realtors Conference and Expo, scheduled to be held November 13-16 at the San Diego Convention Center.

Delta Media Group's booth number is 1948. We have a large booth again this year, and will be unveiling several new products, in addition to the recent release of our Mobile Broker Advantage™ solution. And, as always, we'll be demoing our popular real estate website and lead management systems.

We'll release more details on the NAR Conference soon. Meanwhile, we'd love to know if you plan on attending the conference. If so, please let us know and make sure to stop by the booth to see us!

Mobile Broker Advantage™ providing brokers a big advantage

2009-10-26T17:14:00.000-04:00

The response since our recent launch of Mobile Broker Advantage™ has been overwhelming, and we appreciate everyone's interest!

Recent companies to go live on the mobile real estate website solution include: Advance Realty, Coldwell Banker Wardley, Cutler Real Estate, Gateway Realtors GMAC Real Estate, Old Dominion Realty, Park Company Realtors, Prudential Homesale Services Group, Realty Executives Mid-America, RE/MAX Alliance, RE/MAX Best Choice, RE/MAX DFW, RE/MAX Equity Group, and more.

We've also heard quite a few success stories of companies gaining clients and sales from Mobile Broker Advantage™ due to the mobile real estate website's ease of use, and quick accessibility to contact an agent directly.

Mobile Broker Advantage™ is a stand-alone mobile real estate website designed specifically to make it easy to search homes for sale, open houses and real estate agents via a cell phone or other mobile-enabled browser. As mobile phones allow for better Internet searching, more people interested in buying or selling real estate use their mobile phones to search for homes, or a real estate agent to work with.

Contact Delta Media Group more information on Mobile Broker Advantage™, or Delta Media Group's real estate website and lead management systems.

Delta Media Group releases customizable real estate agent website template

2009-10-19T15:36:00.000-04:00

Delta Media Group has released new functionality to our real estate agent websites.

Agents using our Upgrade system can now customize website headers, theme colors and more.

Last week, we released the ability for real estate agents to use a custom header on their Upgrade real estate website. (Delta Media Group has packages available to build a custom header, if you don't have one - for more info call 866.233.9833 x408).

Along with a custom header, agents using the new website template can customize whether their website should be centered or based to the left of a viewer's Internet browser, and customize the colors of the left and top navigation background, My Portfolio background, navigation text, content background and primary background.

Delta Media Group's Upgrade agent website already offers more than 200 templates agents can choose from and change as often as they want. But the new template allows agents to brand themselves or their team with a custom-created, brand-specific design.

The template allows each agent website to look truly unique, and avoids the potential of other agents using the same website template.

Click here to contact Delta Media Group for a custom website header quote, or call 866.233.9833 x408 for more information.

Link your real estate website to your Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube profiles

2009-10-13T11:42:00.002-04:00

Have an account on a social networking site you want to market? Looking to interlink your real estate website with your Facebook profile, Twitter account and other social networking platforms?

Delta Media Group has released a new field on the DeltaNet allowing agents to easily display visible links to their social networking accounts.

To customize your links, log into the DeltaNet and click the "Website" tab. About halfway down the page is a new section titled "Social Networking URLs," from which you can add the direct URLs to your Facebook profile, Twitter account, LinkedIn profile and YouTube page.

Upon updating the URLs to these accounts, click-able icons will appear in the "Contact Information" box on your real estate website.

Make sure to add links from your social networking sites back to your real estate website to improve search engine optimization and provide a channel for your visitors to search properties and other real estate information.

Don't forget that Delta Media Group can be found on Facebook and Twitter as well!

Click to become a Facebook Fan of Delta Media Group
Click to follow Delta Media Group on Twitter

Boosting the Search Engine Optimization of your Real Estate Website

2009-10-06T12:20:00.008-04:00

We've had some questions recently about boosting the search engine optimization of your real estate website. Unfortunately, SEO can not be automated, and does require continuous work. Fortunately, Delta Media Group's real estate websites are built to cater to SEO when that work is performed.

Delta Media Group recently released a service built specifically for SEO, and we now offer packages that can help with your website SEO (click here to request information, and enter 'SEO' in the comments field). In addition, we've offered Webinars built to help real estate website admins and agents better understand this, and how they can use their Delta Media Group Web systems to cater to SEO.

As part of our free on-going training service for Delta Media Group customers, we'll be offering a Webinar tomorrow, October 7, on real estate search engine optimization:

Getting Started with Search Engine Optimization – Home Page & Custom Pages
Wednesday, October 7, 2009 3:00 PM - 3:45 PM EDT
Click here to register for the Webinar

We've also held past Webinars about key things to do to improve real estate website SEO. Please take a look at our Webinar library:

Blog your Way to the Top in 2009
Click here to view 'Blog your way to the top in 2009'

Attracting Visitors With Website Content and Blogging
Click here to view 'Attracting Visitors with your Website Content and Blogging'

Adding Content To Your Website (Overview)
Click here to view 'Adding Content to your Website'

Find Delta Media Group on Twitter, Facebook...from the DeltaNet!

2009-09-21T12:31:00.005-04:00

As you might have already noticed, Delta Media Group has added links to our Twitter and Facebook accounts in the DeltaNet.

The links are across the top left of the DeltaNet, and give real estate agents and brokers using Delta Media Group's real estate website and lead management systems easy access to follow our social media platforms for the latest updates at Delta Media Group, as well as the latest in real estate news and innovation.

Delta Media Group has created a Twitter account and Facebook Fan page to help open communication channels with our customers and potential customers.

We seek active feedback on our products and developments, and encourage conversation about the real estate industry, real estate marketing, and how to best use the Web to improve your real estate business. We also utilize these accounts to help promote our customers and create a network of Delta Media Group users in order to promote better referral and networking services.

We encourage you to take advantage of the same FREE social media platforms, and engage with us as we utilize technology to improve the real estate industry.

Follow Delta Media Group on Twitter!

2009-09-15T17:16:00.005-04:00

Delta Media Group is on Twitter! Follow us at www.Twitter.com/DeltaMediaGroup for Delta Media Group's latest news and updates from the real estate industry.

Have a Facebook account? Become a Delta Media Group Facebook Fan here.

Becoming a Delta Media Group Facebook Fan

2009-09-10T00:03:00.007-04:00

Have you become a Delta Media Group Facebook Fan yet? If not, click the link to the left, just below our company logo...

Delta Media Group Facebook Fans find out about all our company happenings first.
The Delta Media Group Facebook page is frequently updated with our new Training Webinars, new product releases, business conferences we're attending, company news, real estate marketing pointers, technology tips and more!

All you need to become a Delta Media Group Facebook Fan is a Facebook account. Upon becoming a fan, you'll see our latest links, events and news updates in your Facebook news feed. Or you can visit the Delta Media Group Facebook Fan page to network with other DMG Facebook Fans, read past news updates, view photos of our headquarters and events, and more!

Visit Delta Media Group at the RISMedia Conference

2009-09-09T23:37:00.003-04:00

Delta Media Group is currently at the RISMedia & the Top 5 in Real Estate Network Leadership Conference, held at the Roosevelt Hotel in New York City September 9-10.

The RISMedia Leadership Conference is an annual conference loaded with speakers and educational sessions designed to discuss the on-going and upcoming trends in the real estate industry.

Delta Media Group will be at booth #135, where we will officially introduce our new Mobile Broker Advantage™ platform. Mobile Broker Advantage™ is the first stand-alone mobile real estate brokerage website, designed to deliver the easiest local mobile property search available. Read more on Mobile Broker Advantage™ here.

If you are attending the RISMedia Leadership Conference, make sure to speak with a Delta Media Group rep at booth #135. If not, contact Delta Media Group for more information on Mobile Broker Advantage™, or our real estate website, lead management and search engine optimization platforms.

Benefits of Mobile Broker Advantage™

2009-09-03T16:47:00.004-04:00

Announced today, Delta Media Group has released Mobile Broker Advantage™, an advanced mobile real estate website built to help your brokerage capture your market's mobile real estate search traffic.

Mobile Broker Advantage™ is built specifically for cell phone and other mobile browsers. It allows consumers to search all real estate listings from the IDX, in addition to the company's real estate agents and open houses. Mobile Broker Advantage™ also has a link so consumers can easily contact the real estate company with a question or listing request directly from their cell phone, even if they don't have mobile E-mail.

All leads from Mobile Broker Advantage™ are filtered through Delta Media Group's real estate lead management system, thus empowering the real estate company to apply its lead routing principles, and allowing agents to more easily follow up with and incubate consumers.

Mobile Broker Advantage™ allows consumers to view all listing data directly from their cell phone, making it easy to find listings when driving through a neighborhood, or find open houses to view when home shopping.

Real estate agents even get their own bios on Mobile Broker Advantage™, so consumers can easily search agents, read their information, submit a system-driven lead to them, or call the agent at that moment.

Mobile Broker Advantage™ is the first stand-alone mobile real estate website, and is available both to Delta Media Group's real estate website customers, and companies not using Delta Media Group as their partner in real estate Web technology.

For more information on how to launch a Mobile Broker Advantage™ system for your real estate company, click to contact Delta Media Group.

Read more about Mobile Broker Advantage™ here.

JUST RELEASED: Mobile Broker Advantage™

2009-09-03T15:46:00.005-04:00

Delta Media Group has just released Mobile Broker Advantage™, our new mobile real estate website platform!

Check our new mobile real estate website page for further details and the Mobile Broker Advantage™ Q&A.

We'll have all the details on Mobile Broker Advantage™ posted on Delta Media Group's blog this afternoon. Make sure to check back, or contact Delta Media Group for info on how to be the first real estate company in your market with a Mobile Broker Advantage™ mobile real estate website.

Delta Media Group updates 'Listing Reports'

2009-08-26T15:35:00.002-04:00

Delta Media Group has updated our recently-launched 'Listings Reports' to display each agents' main office.

As we blogged about last week, Delta Media Group's new Listing Report opens a CSV file that displays agent first name, agent last name, number of listings per agent, number of listings per agent with reports set up, number of listings per agent without reports set up, number of reports set up to agents, number of reports set up to sellers, and number of reports set up to go to both the agent and seller.

With our new update to the report, the last column will show the main office each agent works out of, so real estate website administrators can more easily sort offices and file Listing Reports into a spreadsheet for each office administrator.

Contact Delta Media Group with questions on our Listing Reports update, or for more information on our real estate website and lead management systems.

Delta Media Group launches new 'Listings Reports'

2009-08-21T11:01:00.008-04:00

The next in the line of new reports Delta Media Group released this week is the Listings Report, or reports, depending on how you view it.

Delta Media Group's new Listing Reports make it easy for real estate website administrators to see how many listings each agent has, and of those, how many have set up automated Seller Reports to distribute to their sellers. Though generally the same report, we created it in three different formats for ease of use, searchability and simplified CSV exporting.

The first report displays all agents, whether or not they have listings. The second report displays only those agents with listings. And the third report displays the same information sorted by listings instead of agents.

Upon creating a Listing Report, a CSV file will open that displays agent first name, agent last name, number of listings per agent, number of listings per agent with reports set up, number of listings per agent without reports set up, number of reports set up to agents, number of reports set up to sellers, and number of reports set up to go to both the agent and seller. The type of report will determine how this information is assorted.

All information in the report is located in a different spreadsheet column, allowing it to be easily searched, ordered or imported into another lead or listing management system by the administrator.

Listings Reports are located under the new "Reports" tab in the "Listings" section of the administrative DeltaNet.

Delta Media Group's new 'Agent Lead Detail Report'

2009-08-21T09:40:00.008-04:00

This week we mentioned a few new reports Delta Media Group released on the administrative side of our real estate website and lead management systems. We'll address those one by one.

First up is the new 'Agent Lead Detail Report,' located under the 'Reports' tab in the 'Leads & Contacts' section of the DeltaNet. The Agent Lead Detail Report is a summary of all recent leads among a selected time frame, ordered from oldest to most recent. It was built to conveniently display lead details over a given time period to real estate website admins, so they can better track the website's progress and evaluate the type of leads they are receiving.

The report shows the day and time the lead was submitted, the customer who submitted the lead, the agent the lead went to, the type of request submitted (Showing, E-mail, Photo Portfolio, etc.), the type of assignment the lead has (No-fee Referral, Broadcast, Fee-referral, etc.), and whether the lead is still active or not.

The Agent Lead Detail Report can be sorted by date range, allowing administrators to view the details of all leads submitted to the real estate website over the past few days, or during a set prior time period. The Agent Lead Detail Report can also be exported as a CSV file, allowing real estate company admins to save spreadsheets of lead detail reports, or submit them into additional lead management systems.

Check back to Delta Media Group's blog for updates on the other new system reports released this week.

Delta Media Group releases new 'Reporting' features on real estate websites

2009-08-19T23:14:00.004-04:00

Delta Media Group has just released several new reports on the administrative side of the DeltaNet.

Among those are a new lead management report and three new administrative listing reports. Each will help administrators using Delta Media Group's real estate company website and lead management systems to better track their Web interaction among real estate agents and consumers.

Over the remainder of the week, Delta Media Group's blog will highlight the features and advantages of the new tracking added to your real estate website and lead management systems. Make sure to check back for more details, or subscribe to one of our RSS feeds available in the top-left corner of the blog.

Are you attending Inman's Real Estate Connect conference?

2009-08-04T14:22:00.003-04:00

Delta Media Group will be in attendance at Inman's Real Estate Connect conference, beginning tomorrow in San Francisco.

Real Estate Connect is Inman's annual real estate conference. It will run tomorrow, August 5, through Friday, August 7 at the Palace Hotel in San Francisco's Financial District. The website for the event reads:

"Connect SF 2009 will bring together the innovators, technologists, visionaries and risk takers who will define real estate’s future."

If you are attending Real Estate Connect, we'd love to know! Contact Delta Media Group here.

See the Real Estate Connect home page for more information on the conference.

Delta Media Group releases new photo title functionality

2009-07-29T12:10:00.001-04:00

A routine fix has led to new real estate website functionality for our customers.

While addressing a bug in the photo system, Delta Media Group programmers realized it would be convenient for agents and admins if they could save original photo titles when replacing photos.

Now, when an agent or admin replaces a listing photo on a real estate website, he has the option to keep the existing photo comments or remove them.

Delta Media Group's real estate website and lead management system accepts up to 99 photos and 255 characters of text per photo, allowing agents to narrate a photo walk-through of a listing. Since agents often replace listing photos with high def images, the option to save the photo title saves agents the time of having to rewrite their listing photo descriptions.

The new programming automatically saves photo titles when a photo is replaced, unless an agent or admin clicks the box to clear the photo title.

Agents and admins using Delta Media Group's real estate Web systems are encouraged to add extra listing photos and descriptions. Many MLS's place limits on the number of photos permitted per listing. Since buyers often browse several real estate websites before making a purchase, having more listing photos than the competition can help capture these buyers.

In addition, photo titles provide unique listing content - a key to building successful long tail search engine optimization. Listing content is typically replicated on all real estate company websites and real estate agent websites that are subscribed to a particular data feed. But the ability to provide photo titles gives brokerages several areas from which to create unique content, which search engines love.

Interested in more info about real estate search engine optimization? Contact Delta Media Group for details on our new Real Estate SEO platform.

Delta Media Group releases 'Post-to-Craigslist' updates

2009-07-28T15:12:00.000-04:00

As promised, Delta Media Group released new functionality today to its 'Post-to-Craigslist' system.

The Craigslist system now displays the number of days since a listing was posted to Craigslist for each respective listing. The 'CraigsList.org' column of the 'Listings' page has the link from which agents can generate a Craigslist ad, and displays parentheses noting whether an ad has been generated and, if so, how long ago.

The new programming allows real estate agents and admins to monitor when they need to re-post listings to Craigslist based on the expiration date for the agent or admin's respective area.

Each Craigslist region can have different posting regulations. Some only hold a post for seven days, while others may be posted for 30 days or more. The posting date monitor gives brokers and agents working between multiple markets an easy way to track when they posted their listings, and better gauge when they should re-post.

Delta Media Group released its 'Post-to-Craigslist' system two months ago, easily allowing brokers and agents using Delta Media Group's real estate website and lead management systems to post listings to Craigslist. The tool has been a tremendous boost for real estate brokers and agents, with several reporting significant traffic increases generated from Craigslist.

For more information how to improve your online profits, contact Delta Media Group.

Updates to Craigslist system to be released tomorrow

2009-07-27T12:08:00.004-04:00

Delta Media Group will release new functionality to our 'Post-to-Craigslist' system tomorrow.

Make sure to check back to Delta Media Group's blog for more information on Craigslist system updates, or check out a few of Delta Media Group's previous Craigslist system updates:

Contact Delta Media Group for more information on posting listings to Craigslist, or our real estate website and lead management systems and search engine optimization services.

Delta Media Group adds website tracking to Lead Management system

2009-07-14T16:32:00.006-04:00

Delta Media Group programmers have added new functionality to the 'Leads & Contacts' page of the lead management system on the DeltaNet.

The 'Request Source' category of the 'New Leads' and 'Processed Leads & Contacts' pages of the DeltaNet has long shown agents and admins if leads came from their website or another source - like a sign call, office visit, or magazine ad call - if the lead was manually entered into the lead management system.

Now, the 'Request Source' category will display specifically what kind of website the lead came from, whether the real estate company website or a real estate agent website.

The new 'Request Source' lead tracking functionality makes it easy for real estate agents to see if they are generating website leads themselves or the company is driving leads to their sites, and gives company admins the ability to follow how many leads the real estate company website is producing for agents.

Delta Media Group's real estate websites are integrated so real estate company website leads can automatically distribute to real estate agents, who receive instant notification of the lead via E-mail and text message (depending on the system the agent is using), and can quickly follow up with the customer about his or her specific request. 'Request Source' lead tracking can help agents and companies better understand their lead types for follow-up and strategic marketing initiatives.

Just Released: New programming on the Open House V3 system

2009-07-07T17:30:00.000-04:00

Delta Media Group launched the Open House V3 system for all real estate company websites today, and added a few updates to the system.

Real estate companies now have the ability to customize the message displayed when no open houses are found. The 'No Opens Verbiage' feature is located on the bottom of the 'Open House Preferences' tab on the DeltaNet Real Estate lead management system.

Located just above the 'No Open Verbiage' section is the 'Hide Filters' field, where real estate companies can now disable certain filter feeds on the public open house search form, including the 'zip code', 'neighborhood,' 'subdivision' and 'school district' fields.

When adjusting these fields on the DeltaNet, the adjustments will default to all open house forms.

Contact Delta Media Group for more information on the Open House V3 system and new programming, or for details on Delta Media Group's real estate website and lead management systems.

Open House V3 now live for all real estate company websites

2009-07-07T15:11:00.005-04:00

Delta Media Group has launched its new Open Houses Version 3 system for all real estate company websites.

Previously, the V3 system had been turned on for a majority of real estate company websites, but as of 12pm Eastern, it has been launched for all.

The new Open House system allows Delta Media Group to continue to make updates and advancements with the Open House system. If your real estate website previously did not use the new Open House system, click here for more info on how it works, or read more info on the history of the Open House systems here.

Delta Media Group has also releases some new updates with the Open House V3 system. Check back to Delta Media Group's blog for further details.

Admin controls now available for Photo Portfolio, My Homefinder Offers systems

2009-06-24T13:12:00.001-04:00

Yesterday, Delta Media Group released the new 'Photo Portfolio Offers' system on its real estate company websites and Upgrade real estate agent websites.

Today, Delta Media Group has released an administrative setting to give companies the ability to turn off the Photo Portfolio Offers and My Home Finder Offers prompts.

Admins can access this under the "Settings" tab of the "Leads & Contacts" section of the DeltaNet. The Photo Portfolio Offers and My Home Finder Offers are turned on by default. Admins can un-click the boxes next to their descriptions to turn them off.

The My Home Finder Offers and Photo Portfolio Offers systems were built to encourage real estate website visitors to create My Home Finder accounts on Delta Media Group websites. Both systems recently went live for all real estate company websites and agents using Upgrade real estate agent websites.

Contact Delta Media Group for more details.

Delta Media group launches 'Photo Portfolio Offers' system

2009-06-23T14:45:00.005-04:00

In recent weeks, Delta Media Group has taken several pro-active steps to help the agents and brokerages using our real estate websites to generate more leads and customer portfolios.

Today, Delta Media Group released its new 'Photo Portfolio Offers' system, which prompts real estate website visitors to create a My Home Finder portfolio account while sifting through listing photos.

The system is available to all real estate company websites, but only to agents using the Upgrade real estate agent website.

The Photo Portfolio Offers system is set up to encourage a website visitor to create a portfolio account and save the listing he is viewing the photos for. It prompts the Web visitor on every third listing he views photos of, on the third photo he views upon clicking to view more listing images.

Unlike the My Home Finder Offers system, released last week, the Photo Portfolio Offers system generates new account registrations as new leads for the respective real estate company or agent when a website visitor creates an account. This sends the lead through Delta Media Group's lead management system, thus following any pre-set lead distribution rules, like sending the listing agent an instant text message notification that she has a new lead in her lead management system.

When new leads come into the agent's Lead Management system, the "New Leads" page displays the customer's name, the date the lead came into the system, the lead request type, the lead request source, how old the lead is, and which agent the lead is assigned to.

The "Request Type" category specifies whether the lead is from the Photo Portfolio Offers system, or if it's another type of lead, like a showing request or E-mail lead.

The Photo Portfolio Offers system has operated in beta testing for the past few months on a real estate website, and has helped produce significant lead results for the real estate company.

Contact Delta Media Group for more information on the Photo Portfolio Offers system, or for details on Delta Media Group's real estate company websites, real estate agent websites, and real estate lead management systems.

Existing home sales increase 2.4 percent in May

2009-06-23T11:55:00.004-04:00

Existing home sales increased in May, marking the first time home sales have increased in consecutive months since September 2005.

The 2.4 percent increase in existing home sales is smaller than initially projected, though still shows that the real estate market is picking up. The unsold home supply also decreased by 3.5 percent to 3.80 million. The supply of unsold homes had not decreased in earlier months this year, even when home sales had increased.

USA Today carried the Reuters article on the increase in existing home sales, which noted:

"The National Association of Realtors said sales rose 2.4% to an annual rate of 4.77 million units from a downwardly revised 4.66 million pace in April. That compared to market forecasts for a 4.81 million-unit pace. However, sales increased for a second straight month in May."

Read the entire USA Today article here.

As noted in an earlier blog entry, pending home resales increased in April for the fourth time in five months.

More legislation to help home buyers?

2009-06-22T16:14:00.008-04:00

Delta Media Group recently blogged about a new legislative proposal that could increase the current first-time home buyer tax credit to $15,000, and lift the first-time home buyer and financial stipulations.

Today, USA Today is reporting that a handful of new home buyer tax credits have been proposed, potentially increasing the chance that another could be passed to help the real estate market.

The USA Today article mentions three proposals that could increase or extend the current credit, including:

"A Senate bill to expand the tax credit to $15,000 for any home buyer regardless of income was introduced this month by Sen. Johnny Isakson, R-Ga. It is co-sponsored by Senate Banking Committee Chairman Chris Dodd, D-Conn.
'It would go a long way toward inducing trade-up buyers into the market,' says Lawrence Yun, chief economist at the NAR.

A House bill to keep the $8,000 credit in place until June 2010 and expand it to all home buyers was introduced last month by Rep. Kenny Marchant, R-Texas. It also would provide a $3,000 credit to homeowners who refinance.

Another bill in the House, introduced by Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson, D-Texas, would extend the credit to all home buyers through 2010."

Have you experienced an influx in business due to the first-time home buyer tax credit? How do you feel these new proposals might help?

Check back to Delta Media Group's blog for more details on home buyer tax credit legislation.

Several new DMG system updates on the table

2009-06-22T09:12:00.000-04:00

If you haven't checked Delta Media Group's blog recently, you might have missed a few of the several updates we have made with our real estate website and lead management systems.

Delta Media Group will release several additional updates soon, I discovered in a recent meeting.

One such update will be to the Leads and Contacts dashboard on the DeltaNet of the real estate agent website. I don't have any details I can disclose now, but check back to Delta Media Group's blog for additional news coming soon.

Another is an updated version of the Atlas Search map. I have seen an early beta version of this, and I was very impressed.

Also, Delta Media Group should be releasing another new system update this week. Make sure and check back to the DMG blog for more details.

Delta Media Group to attend the 2009 REALTORS Conference & Expo

2009-06-18T10:26:00.006-04:00

We know it's still several months away, but Delta Media Group will attend the NAR's 2009 REALTORS Conference & Expo in San Diego.

If you're attending, plan on stopping by Delta Media Group's booth, #615. Click to view the 2009 REALTORS Conference floor plan. Delta Media Group will demo its real estate website and lead management systems, Search Engine Optimization services, and the several system updates it has released this year.

The conference begins Friday, November 13 at 4pm, and runs until Monday, November 16 at 2pm. Former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is scheduled to speak at the General Session, and Reba McEntire is performing at the Celebrity Concert. Other speakers include: Liz Murray, Dr. Daniel Shapiro, Paul Martinelli, Tara Hunt and Sugar Ray Leonard.

View the 2009 REALTORS Conference & Expo website.

New 'My Home Finder Offers' system released

2009-06-17T15:44:00.001-04:00

The new 'My Home Finder Offers' system is now live for all real estate company websites and Upgraded real estate agent websites built by Delta Media Group.

Delta Media Group announced the My Home Finder Offers system upgrade last week. The system automatically prompts website visitors conducting a property search to create a portfolio on the real estate website. When a website visitor enters property search criteria, the system opens a modal window - a pseudo pop-up window that appears within the same browser and allows consumers to create a My Home Finder account or close the window to continue with their property search.

Those website visitors who create an account will be saved and appropriately distributed within the lead management system. Those who click to skip the registration will not be prompted again until the next time they return to the website to conduct a property search, or if they leave the window inactive for 30 minutes or more.

The new My Home Finder Offers pop-up is designed to help boost portfolio creations in a non-invasive way. Visitors to the real estate website can easily skip the registration, or register to receive all the benefits of creating a My Home Finder portfolio account.

Upon creating a My Home Finder account, agents and admins using Delta Media Group's lead management system can follow listings the website visitor viewed, and see his or her saved listings and property searches.

Contact Delta Media Group with questions about the My Home Finder Offers system.

The My Home Finder Offers upgrade is the second Delta Media Group has released this week. Yesterday, Delta Media Group launched the 'Share My Leads' system upgrade. Read more about 'Share My Leads' here.

Delta Media Group releases 'Share My Leads' system

2009-06-16T16:16:00.004-04:00

Delta Media Group just released its new Share My Leads system on all real estate agent websites.

The Share My Leads system is ideal for real estate agent teams. It allows agents to share leads, whether processed or unprocessed, with other agents within their company.

Share My Leads settings are located in the "Settings" tab of the "Leads & Contacts" section on the real estate agent DeltaNet lead management system. Agents can choose other agents they want to have access to their processed or unprocessed leads. The leads will appear on the other agent's DeltaNet "Leads" or "Contacts" pages, and list which agent the lead was initially assigned to.

To keep customers correctly assorted, Delta Media Group added an owner column on the right side of the Leads and Contacts databases. The column shows if the customer is one of the agent's own, or, if he/she is assigned to another agent, who he/she is assigned to.

Share My Leads was designed to help agents respond to leads and share customer information more quickly. In the past, agent teams had difficulty sharing customer information if the member of the team who received the lead was in meetings and could not follow up or pass the lead on to other agents until their schedule cleared.

Contact Delta Media Group for more details on the Share My Leads system.

Real estate website traffic from Bing

2009-06-16T09:20:00.007-04:00

A quick update from yesterday's blog entry about Bing...

I took a look at the stats of seven of the real estate website and lead management systems Delta Media Group builds for brokerages throughout the country, from large brokerages to small; from brokerages in the north, south, east, west and mid-western United States.

In each case, the real estate website was already receiving a portion of traffic from Bing. At best, Bing was the fifth-largest source of traffic for two brokerages over the past month. At worst, it was the 12th largest source of traffic. By comparison, Google was the top source of real estate website traffic to five of the seven brokerages, and the second largest source for the remaining two. That being said, Google drove, at best, 13.5 times more traffic to the real estate website than Bing, and at worst, 26.38 times more Web traffic.

Keep in mind that Bing has only existed for two weeks. Since these stats showed traffic for the past month, Bing is on course to, after one month, drive somewhere between 7.5-15 percent of the Web traffic that Google drove to the seven real estate websites I analyzed.

Obviously, Bing is not yet a significant player compared to Google. But in many cases, Bing drove more traffic to the real estate websites analyzed than did some of the largest real estate portals.

Bing should continue to become more popular, thus driving a larger chunk of traffic to real estate websites. It may not crack Google's dominance of the search engine industry, but search engines should continue to increase the amount of traffic they send to websites, particularly in the real estate industry.

If you're looking to improve your brokerage's real estate search engine optimization, Delta Media Group can help. Contact Delta Media Group for more information.

Is Bing something you should worry about?

2009-06-15T11:03:00.005-04:00

In case you haven't heard, two weeks ago Microsoft released their new Internet search engine, tagged "Bing."

While Bing is obviously a competitor to Google, Microsoft calls it a "decision engine" rather than a search engine. Either way, it's a way customers can potentially find your real estate website, thus making it important to your business.

The New York Post reported yesterday that Google co-founder Sergey Brin is "so rattled by the launch of Microsoft's rival search engine that he has assembled a team of top engineers to work on urgent upgrades to his Web service."

Google currently draws 60 percent of online searches in the United States, and Bing is not expected to take a significant cut in that market share soon. But with all the buzz Microsoft's new platform is getting, it's certainly worth keeping in mind.

How can I rank in Bing?

If search engines are finding your real estate website, Bing should find it too. The essential theory of how Bing's algorithm works is the same as other search engines. But Bing obviously has its own unique differences, and those could significantly alter the search engine results on your real estate website. Thus, your website could be on the front page of a local real estate search on Google, but rank significantly lower on Bing, and vice versa.

It's really too early to tell exactly what Bing's algorithm searches for compared to Google and Yahoo's. But it's not too early to build good search engine results on Bing. If you're looking to improve your real estate search engine optimization, Delta Media Group has a new platform designed to help your company do just that. Contact Delta Media Group for more information.

Homebuyer tax credit could still be expanded

2009-06-12T15:29:00.005-04:00

The current $8,000 homebuyer tax credit could still be boosted to $15,000, if a U.S. Senator gets his way.

Johnny Isakson, R-Ga., introduced legislation yesterday that would beef up the current homebuyer tax credit if passed. The legislation would affect the credit in three major ways:

It would increase the maximum tax credit from $8,000 to $15,000.
It would apply to all homebuyers, instead of just first-time homebuyers.
It would eliminate the current credit's income caps of $75,000 for an individual and $150,000 for a couple.

Isakson initially tried to push a $15,000 tax credit through for all homebuyers with President Obama's first economic stimulus bill. The bill was revised, and the tax credit was cut from $15,000 to $8,000, and restricted to only first-time homebuyers.

The National Association of Realtors endorsed Isakson's legislation yesterday. Read more about Isakson's first-time homebuyer legislation here.

Follow Delta Media Group's blog for the latest in real estate news and real estate website, lead management, search engine optimization and technology updates.