THIS ISSUE: Spam Your Friends! / Realtor Cancellation Warning / Site Traffic ARCHIVES: www.privatelist.com/newsletter.htm SPAM YOUR FRIENDS! If you believe the formula: PRICE + EXPOSURE = SALE, everyone in your e-mail address book should know that you’re selling! A short note regarding your property will certainly not antagonize personal acquaintances, and even remote contacts may know someone who’d appreciate hearing about your property. So don’t be shy! Whether you address your one-time news release individually or send blind carbon copies to a mailing-list, phrase it something like this:
Thought you might like to know we’re offering our property in ____________, BY OWNER on the internet, through PrivateList. If you know of any prospective buyers who would like to save thousands
of dollars by avoiding realtor fees, please refer them to our full-colour
display (and all kinds of how-to information) at __________________ . Fill in the blanks with your property’s general location and the URL for your display (go to its first page, highlight and copy the location - including the “http://” - to your clipboard, then paste it into your e-mail). Use something like “Greetings from ____________” (fill in your name) in the e-mail’s Subject field, and include your phone number with your name at the end of the message. It bears repeating: PRICE + EXPOSURE = SALE! MLS CANCELLATION WARNING As a follow-up to our Jan1/00 newsletter, a warning to anyone seeking cancellation of an MLS agreement . . . A would-be client of PrivateList from Vancouver was informed by his realtor that he could cancel their MLS contract, which specified that a full commission would be due the realtor if the property were sold, at any time after the listing’s expiry (no time limit), where the efforts of a realtor were "an effective cause" of the sale (does this mean negotiations? a showing? a mere mention of the property to some buyer?). The broker’s cancellation form, however, went the listing agreement one better: it replaced the committment just described with a clause under which the seller would be obliged to pay the listing Agent’s commission on ANY sale - no mention of a realtor’s involvement - within 90 days of the cancellation or before the end of the original listing period, whichever was greater. Moral: read before you sign. TRACKER Two weeks ago, I placed a counter at the bottom of our Nova Scotia listings page. Anyone can click the "globe" graphic for a summary of page traffic, including number of unique visitors vs. reloads; what browsers, screen resolutions, color depths, search engines and keywords were most popular; and a list of the 20 most recent visitors. Like all trackers, this one has its limitations. For example, it uses a 15-minute time-frame to define unique visitors (visits by the same machine, 16+ minutes apart, are counted anew). Nevertheless, it does count page views rather than the far-less-useful hits, it does separate out reloads, and it is quite useful in illustrating traffic trends. The trend for PrivateList is UP, and we’ve already had indications that traffic across the site will increase strongly through the spring, particularly after the March/April issue of Sympatico’s NETLife Magazine (circulation: 480,000) hits the stands: a recent e-mail informed me that its "links" section will include a short review of PrivateList! FRIENDLY REMINDERS . . . Are the thousands of dollars you'll save by selling privately worth, say, an hour each week-end, spent reviewing your progress to date and mapping out your continuing campaign? It's important to maintain an active marketing focus until your property is sold. Therefore, each e-mail version of this newsletter ends with a series of reminders, tips and tools that lead to a sale! To access these resources, press here.
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