Profit by Publicity: Successful News Hooks

REALTORS® can learn much about successful story angles from colleagues or competitors around the country who have generated free publicity about themselves. This week we highlight agents who promoted their listings in an unusual way, or had a listing with an interesting or newsworthy angle. To share your PR successes, please send examples to edwards@marinaor.com

 

Story Angle: Promote Your Listings in Unusual Ways

 

Realtors Let House Do the Talking

 

With so many houses on the market, Valley Realtors are trying hard to make their listings special. Adam Hamblen thinks he's found a way. "Ours is the one with the talking house, and that's what makes ours stand out," he said. The house itself doesn't talk. Rather, Hamblen's business partner, Dave Kinnaman, does the talking, with the help of a

transmitter. 

 

"They give you some suggested dialogue you can do and we kind of fill in with information about the property," said Hamblen, an agent with RES and Associates. Potential buyers driving by the pair's eight current listings will notice extra signs in the yard. They read "Talking House," with instructions to tune to a designated AM radio frequency.

 

Arizona Republic

Nov. 2, 2006

Phoenix, Arizona

 

 

News Hook: Comment on Interesting Listings  

 

Kozlowski Sells Colorado Home For $10 million

 

L. Dennis Kozlowski, the imprisoned former chief executive officer of Tyco International Ltd. and a former Cumberland resident, is selling his Colorado mountain mansion for $10 million to raise money for fines and restitution. “At ten million, it’s a decent house, although some people I talked to thought it wasn’t worth more than eight,” said David Nilges, a Colorado real estate broker not involved in the sale who toured the residence in January. “The view is to die for.”

 

Bloomberg News

Nov. 8, 2006  

 

Advice and Insights: Presenting yourself to the media as an expert on real estate-related topics is a time-tested way to help generate news coverage about yourself or your company.

 

Why? Because editors, reporters and columnists are always looking for experts to interview and quote in their stories about real estate prices or inventories, and a wide range of related trends, developments, news, forecasts, warnings, or predictions.

 

While there may not be any $10 million homes in your community, there may very well be a property for sale, or one that has just been sold, that may be worth a story. If you know about such a property, call the local real estate reporter and suggest they do a story about it—and that they interview you for the article.

Your sound bites or ink bites can help enliven their reports, add perspective or color to their articles, and provide important insights and information to their audiences.

 

But in order for you to be interviewed about your expertise by reporters for their stories, you have to do four things:

 

Know what you are talking about and legitimately position yourself as an expert on a real estate-related topic.

 

Know how to talk in sound bites or ink bites 

 

Let reporters know you exist and are available for interviews.

 

Return reporters’ calls or e-mail messages immediately.