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Attention Realtors,
buy this book:. "Internet
Marketing in Real Estate," by Barbara Cox and William Koelzer. Don’t
just buy it, read it. It could help your business immensely. It also
could help you overcome your apprehension about all that World Wide Web
mumbo-jumbo.
Finally, it could help to free
you from the intimidation of all those salespersons clad in guru’s
clothing who conduct seminars and office meetings, touting the latest
product or service that is claimed to be "essential" for your
survival in the wild-and-wooly world of real estate in cyberspace.
It has been my good fortune to
have an early look at this book, to be published by Prentice-Hall and due
out within a couple of months. The authors, not real estate
practitioners themselves, are both spouses of web-enhanced Realtors in South
Orange County.
They know whereof they speak, as
both are active providers of Internet related services to Realtors, and they
have both had the combat photographer’s up-close view of real estate in
the trenches. Their target audience will find the book both practical and
appropriately written.
"Internet Marketing in
Real Estate" consists of five
parts:
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"Creating and Building
Your Internet Presence: Your Web Site"
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"Getting Found"
(the all-important section)
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"Effective E-mail"
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"Time to Get
Started" (developing tasks, time-lines, and a budget)
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Appendices
No technical expertise is
presumed on the part of the reader. Each part that deals with Internet and
marketing related concepts begins with a friendly "learning the
language" section. A great deal of effort is made to explain to the
reader, in plain language aided with illustrations, how things work in the
initially mysterious world of Web sites, search engines, keywords, and
meta-tags.
Textbook-like, "Internet
Marketing in Real Estate" starts its sections with "the
basics" and then develops the concepts that have been introduced.
Sections end with exercises that encourage the reader to put hi/her new
knowledge to work.
The book also integrates related
topics that are not Internet specific. Chapter 1 of Part 1 could be titled
"Real Estate Marketing 101." It is important toward understanding
Internet marketing concepts but that is because it is basic to marketing per
se. Parts of the "effective e-mail" section are straight out of
basic composition. They are highly relevant.
"Internet Marketing in Real
Estate" doesn’t deal with all the issues that bear discussing. No
book does. For example, the authors do not engage the serious questions that
can be asked vis-à-vis the relative effectiveness of dollars and time spent
on Internet marketing as opposed to other kinds of marketing. That is not
their purpose.
When confronted with a new
marketing medium, a businessperson (real estate or otherwise) must always
ask the question, "If I adopt this, what will I stop doing that I am
doing now?" (If the task – or the dollars – represents an addition
to present efforts, rather than a replacement, then presumably it
replaces something we were doing or spending in our non-business lives.)
To the credit of Cox and
Koelzer, they present with great clarity the tasks and range of costs
associated with various levels of involvement in Internet marketing. They
provide the real estate businessperson with the information that will enable
him or her to make an informed decision about this medium.
For those who have already
decided that they want to make an effort at Internet marketing, the Cox and
Koelzer book will provide an invaluable tool. Even the sales-focused agent
who leaves the details to his marketing people and technical assistants will
want this book – to give to them to read.
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