Coldwell Banker Residential Brokerage
Lead Generation
The company’s main strategy over the last two years has focused around online lead generation for agents through LeadRouter.com, upgrades to ColdwellBankerOnline.com and strategic partnerships (that enhance and feature its listings/agents) with Realtor.com, Trulia, Zillow, MSN, AOL and Yahoo! Real Estate. Those partnerships and enhancements to ColdwellBanker.com have increased online leads by over 150 percent since 2010 (both of those projects started in early 2011).
ColdwellBankerOnline also acts as our syndicating hub, as it pulls information and updates throughout the day from the MLS and then updates the partner sites daily with any changes to listing content, including new photos, open information and price changes. ColdwellBankerOnline will bring in more than 6 million visitors from 194 countries in 2012 and generate over 14 million views on the listings on the website.
In addition, one out of every five visitors to ColdwellBankerOnline comes from a mobile device, up from 1 out of every 10 last year and 1 out of every 100 in 2010. To capitalize on this mobile growth, the company upgraded its mobile site by adding web app functionality, the ability to search by GPS for properties immediately surrounding where you are, and swipe through listing photos on the touchscreen. Coldwell Banker has also created mobile sites for each agent, that can easily be installed as a mobile web app for their clients for free to search the whole MLS.
As part of the digital trend, Coldwell Banker’s transaction management platform, Homebase, is its digital cloud-based storage program, with all documents related to the transaction uploaded by staff for agents to be accessed anytime, anywhere. Clients can also be invited into Homebase, so that they can download or view any documents for their transaction. It matches up with fillable forms that are available on the intranet to help agents make the move to paperless.
Some of Coldwell Banker’s other partnerships include heavily subsidized vendor arrangements with Homefinder.com for Single Property Websites, upgraded online reporting from DotHome through LeapRE, cost effective photography packages with VHT and a new partnership to create a full email marketing and social media communications platform for free for agents.
Online/Print Advertising
In addition to partnerships with Zillow, Trulia and Realtor.com, its other partnerships include heavily subsidized vendor arrangements with HomeFinder.com for Single Property Websites, upgraded online reporting from DotHome through LeapRE and a free social media communications platform for agents. Coldwell Banker has a strong print presence with ads in many local papers, with agents’ new listings rotating in those papers automatically. The company has its own View magazine, which is inserted as a topper in the Chicago Tribune three times a year, and also has listing ads in a variety of publications such as CS, Wall Street Journal, Ultimate Address, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Daily Herald, Chicago Magazine, Chicago Tribune, Pioneer Press publications and more.
Marketing Materials
Coldwell Banker offers customizable listing presentations, printed listing fliers, cost-effective photography packages with VHT and customizable brochures and signage. The company also utilizes MarketQuest, which prints detailed CMAs for clients.
Splits
N/A
Training/Education
All Coldwell Banker agents can use the CBeCast system to watch videos of training, webinars, interviews and roundtables about their available marketing tools on demand in many offices.