Your normal routine to attract new real estate customers has taken a shift since COVID-19 struck. Its impact has forced agents to give careful thought to what to do next. Agent Insight continues to be a unique opportunity even during this difficult time.

Your community is undoubtably doing many things to combat the affect of this pandemic. In fact, many cities and neighborhoods have risen to the occasion during these difficult times. Look around and highlight the positive ways your community has responded with generosity, hospitality, and resilience!

For example, if you have a local museum offering virtual tours, post a photo of the building and write an article about how much you and your family have enjoyed seeing the exhibits via the Internet. Share the link to the museum tour.

Perhaps a music store is giving online instrument lessons. Take a photo through the store’s window showing their wares and tell about the classes and teachers.

Show new gardens that are popping up around town or groceries being delivered. Perhaps there is an exercise or yoga class being held in a local park with the participants all spaced far apart from each other. (Remember, we can’t run recognizable faces, so shoot the people from a distance or from behind them.)

As restaurants reopen, you can feature inviting outside dining areas with tables properly positioned for social distancing. Showcasing local restaurants is always a fine way to make a new contact. Let the proprietors know that you are promoting their place; maybe they will return the favor one day with some good customer leads. 

We frequently receive excellent photos and insights about outside venues that make a community or neighborhood appealing. Parks, dog parks, walking trails. lakes, fishing ponds, fountains, and other outdoor amenities are all good ways to promote your market. Post some new insights telling about the pleasure of outdoor spaces, even with social distancing in place.

All over the country, people have been celebrating with car parades. Decorated with balloons, streamers and posters, the cars stream by the homes of high school seniors who missed their graduation ceremonies. Others drive past hospitals, police and fire stations to salute first responders. Other parades pass through retirement communities to wave at home bound senior citizens.

Brad Brown, RE/MAX Advantage in Kearney, MO, posted a cheerful piece about parades in his town, explaining how they are morale boosters for the community.

Many Car Parades This Spring and Summer
In this current pandemic era, there are many reasons to live in the Kearney area! One of them is the multiple car parades that have blessed our town. The people sat in lawn chairs, or if it was a little cool, they sat in their vehicles across the many subdivisions on the parade route. The car group volunteers waved from their cars, while the families waved back. It is energizing and makes many feel very thankful. The Kearney High School will soon have a parade for the Graduating Class of 2020. I imagine there will be many more parades in our future in this new world!!

If you need inspiration for these and other submission ideas, explore through the Featured Insights section of Insight Insider. We are living in a difficult, unprecedented time, but you can still find many ways to showcase the positive attributes of your market area.

You can give depth to your Agent Insight pages with photos and written insights showcasing local history. These submissions are fun to research and easy to write. They tell your readers a little extra about the areas where they are shopping for new homes. History buffs will love learning about the community’s past, and everyone will enjoy little tidbits about local lore. Most important, historical posts can help potential home buyers feel a connection to the community’s past while looking forward to being part of its future.

Some of our creative RE/MAX agents have posted wonderful submissions inspired by the history of their communities. There are impressive insights on town founders, Civil War battlefields, famous old hotels, historic train engines, and even a state’s oldest tree.

You could choose to cover some big stories like the building of the century-old town hall. You might decide to write about something more obscure, like the excerpt from this amusing insight by Julie Daste, RE/MAX N.O. Properties in New Orleans, about a local bar that is nearly 300 years old.

Lafittes Blacksmith Shop Is the Oldest Bar in the US
Travel back in time at Lafitte’s Blacksmith Shop, the oldest bar in the country! But this isn’t your ordinary haunt:  Lafitte’s is heralded as one of the coolest watering holes around and featured on countless “Best Bars” lists including Time Out and Maxim magazine. While there’s some debate as to whether it really was the first establishment to sling drinks, we do know that the structure was built back in 1722. Upon opening, the bar was owned and operated by the famous Pirate Jean Lafitte, where it would function as a blacksmith shop by day and smuggling operation by night.

Resist the urge to use verbiage straight from brochures about your subjects. All posts must be written in your own words. But, again, these are really fun to write! You might choose to include an accompanying video with your submission. There is an excellent YouTube video linked with Julie’s insight on Lafittes Blacksmith Shop shown above.

You can take dozens of photos depicting local history.  Deciding which to send might be your most difficult task! Take a look at these beauties sent from agents around the country.

As with all photo submissions to Agent Insight, use some basic photography rules to show your subjects at their best.  Take several shots from different angles, then submit your favorite. Never shoot through your car windshield and risk ruining your picture with glare or grime on the glass. Remember that all Agent Insight photos are horizontal. If you submit a vertical picture, it will likely require substantial cropping.

The goal of Agent Insight is to show all aspects of your market area and give it plenty of appeal to potential home buyers. Submissions on local history give you another opportunity to present yourself as an expert on everything about the community.

Photos provided by Sherman Shanklin, RE/MAX of Green Country, Nowata, OK; Wendy Chong, RE/MAX Preferred, Oklahoma City, OK; Patti Schreiner, RE/MAX Southern Homes, Birmingham, AL; Ryan Eashoo, RE/MAX Edge, Davison, MI; and Darohnn Pender, RE/MAX Real Estate Results, Bentonville, AR.

During these days of “sheltering-in-place” mandated by the coronavirus, RE/MAX agents are looking for ways to keep their business rolling forward. One good use of your time is to polish your marketing plan by building your collection of Agent Insight posts. If you have not yet made any submissions or created your personal agent page, this is an excellent time to get started.

A quick reminder on why to post your photos and written insights:  Agent Insight gives you a platform to introduce yourself, your expertise, and your community to current and potential clients. Just like other real estate websites, Agent Insight lists houses for sale. However, it is a much broader venue for introducing the features and qualities of your marketing areas because aspects of your community can be covered with a much wider brush. Agent Insight helps website visitors answer the most important questions such as, “Can I see myself living in this community? Is this a good place to raise a family?”

So, how do you do this while you are working from home until COVID-19 restrictions are lifted? First, go through all the photographs you have stored in your phone or other mobile device. You should find plenty of appropriate pictures of your neighborhoods, city streets,  sports arenas, parks, schools, theaters, shopping areas and more that tell the story of your community.

Write a good, descriptive caption of 14 to 16 words and send it in. Including a subject and a verb will make your caption much more active than just a simple label. “The Annual Balloon Festival is a great community event for the whole family” makes a much better caption than just “The Annual Balloon Festival.” Once you get the hang of how to submit your photos, you’ll find that each one only takes a few minutes to complete.

Take this time to compose written submissions, too. There are two main goals for any written post. First, make the subject attractive to your potential clients to pique their interest and think about reasons to live in the area you are describing. Second, put yourself into the article so your reader knows you have first-hand knowledge. Keep your writing style informal, just as if you are showing a listing to a client. Talk about the events you enjoy in the city park every summer.  Tell about how impressed you are with the menu of the restaurant you just passed or how much you enjoy the dog park or why your family loves visiting the museum that opened recently. Submit insights about all your favorite neighborhoods, and remember to write them in first person for a more direct appeal.

The following submission about a local shrimp tour was written by Tonya Chevis of RE/MAX Along the Way in Long Beach, MS. Her style and content tell you this is something she loves sharing with  visitors. Her story shows that she is very much a part of the community and could be an informative source for her clients.

“The Biloxi Shrimp Tour is really a fun way to spend the day. We always bring out-of-town company on this tour, and we can usually find a coupon for it as well. It is a real shrimp boat that takes you a short distance out, and actually drops the shrimp nets. It is always a surprise to see what they pull up, and they do a great job of explaining everything that is in the net. It is touted as a 70-minute “living marine adventure” and I can tell you that it definitely is!”

Every community or neighborhood page in Agent Insight shows a “Featured Agent” in the top right corner. When you post on that page,  your name and picture will be in the rotation to appear as the “Featured Agent,” and your article and photo will be displayed continuously to website visitors. Try to write one or more written posts and photos on every page in your marketing area. Keep your face up front!

More information on how to make submissions to Agent Insight can be found on our blog, Insight Insider, on the Getting Started pages.  You also can find hundreds of ideas for your posts on the Featured Insights pages.

Good luck with your business during these challenging days. Load up your pages with new posts. Agent Insight is a fun and easy project to do while waiting for this difficult time to pass.

If the focus of your business is farmland, ranches or acreage sales, you need to make Agent Insight a strong part of your marketing plan. Your properties are exceptionally photogenic,  whether featuring small details or showing a panoramic view. The beautiful photo above is a great example.

You also have an unlimited opportunity to present yourself as the expert in rural sales with your written submissions. Be sure to use key words  in your headline and body copy that will attract potential clients searching the web. Some descriptors include ranches for sale, farmland real estate, equestrian properties, lake front properties, and hunting/fishing areas.

That’s exactly what agent Jeff With did recently with a post about a hunting property near Beggs, OK. Jeff and his wife, Joyce, are part of RE/MAX T-town in Tulsa, OK. He posted both a photo and a short paragraph on Agent Insight about the hunting land and attracted a client who became a buyer. Jeff’s post is descriptive, inviting, and to the point. Here’s an excerpt:

A Successful Afternoon Hunt in Okmulgee County
I was fortunate to spend an exciting day photographing a successful bird hunt. While my friend trained his dog, I got a good look at the hunting land near Beggs, OK….Located in Okmulgee County, Beggs offers some of the nicest field and upland hunting opportunities in the state. Just south of Beggs,…. a small farm and ranch community where the people are nice and friendly. Beggs is a wonderful place to live in Oklahoma.

Jeff grew up in California, but spent summers with his Oklahoma grandparents. After moving to Oklahoma several years ago, Jeff and Joyce joined RE/MAX where they specialize in farms, ranches, vacant land, commercial, and residential properties. The office IT marketing person directed them to Agent Insight.

“I wanted a better web presence and liked the Agent Insight concept,” Jeff said. “Our postings help give us that presence and create a ripple effect for attracting clients years down the road. We plan our posts to connect with people moving to rural Oklahoma. We work with many clients who move here to have some space. They are frequently looking for 10 acres with a house and plan to have a hobby farm. Others want a lakefront home with plenty of their own property around them,”

Before becoming a real estate agent, Jeff was a magazine owner and editor. The skills he honed then are put to work with his written Agent Insight submissions. He has an upbeat, down-to-earth style that exhibits his expertise for country real estate and his appreciation for life beyond city limits. He has posted on rural developments, trains, county events, camping venues, and some fun human interest pieces such as helping to find a lost dog. The insight he wrote on Oklahoma’s red soil is a fun read. He posted an accompanying photo, too. Take a look at his article:

Red Dirt Country
I was out showing a ranch in Coyle, OK this week and took a look at our Tahoe SUV. The picture does not do it justice, but the dirt is so red in this area that it stained my tires and the grey plastic fenders on the truck. In this shot you can see the red dirt clay and the tan clay mixed together. The dirt is such a bright, deep red color like I have never seen before. Really neat.

Both Jeff and Joyce are photographers and take their cameras with them everywhere for work and play.  Jeff finds it easy to get plenty of pictures before or after showing a property. He likes using Agent Insight as a forum for his photos and says it is also fun, quick and relaxing to post them. There is plenty of variety in the Withs’ photo collection as seen in the examples here, including the muddy SUV.

There are many RE/MAX agents who use Agent Insight to showcase the rural areas they sell. Their posts depict rolling hills, fields full of crops being harvested, rodeos, grazing cattle, big skies, barns, corrals, streams, lakes, and much more. Like Jeff With, their insights attract customers. It will only take a few minutes to get your own rural posts working for you.

You have reached a wonderful time of the year with endless possibilities for seasonal posts.  It’s the holiday season and wintery weather is here.  This is a visually dazzling time, so take advantage of all the activities and decorations that showcase your community’s holiday spirit.

Wreaths on doors, decorations framing Main Street, Santas everywhere, snow frosted parks and neighborhood streets – the opportunities are all around you.  Your festive Agent Insight submissions will show how lovely your marketing area is in winter and how many fun activities are available. Take a look at these beauties from some creative RE/MAX agents:

You have so much to talk about this time of year, too, so take a few minutes to write some winter-inspired insights. Remember, your best written posts are composed in first person.  Why? Because you are giving potential clients your observations and letting them get to know more about you. Put your own voice into your insights instead of just reporting the facts, and you become that subject’s expert.

Tracy Pickett, RE/MAX Legacy Realty  in Oxford, MS, is a good first person writer.  Here’s an excerpt from one of her posts about the season.

This time of year is a special time in Oxford. So many opportunities await visitors and residence. I love to get up early and take a morning stroll around the square. The store windows are all decorated and twinkling for the holidays. Lights are strung all around the area. It feels like walking in a Charles Dickens book or a Hallmark movie. It’s the perfect time to reflect on personal development and make plans for the future. It always makes my gratitude list. 

The December holidays are here for your inspiration, as well as all the winter scenes coming early next year. In the meantime, take a look through your fall photos and create posts that celebrate the beauty of autumn in your community and all the related seasonal activities. Football (professional, college, high school, and younger), parades, farmer’s markets, harvest scenes and, of course, the colors of the season.  Take a look at the pictures you’ve taken during the past few weeks and see what you have to offer. We have already received several from across the country. Please add yours to this beautiful collection. Here are some great examples.

Thank you for all your excellent submissions during 2019, and keep them coming in 2020! Best wishes for a wonderful holiday season from all the staff at Agent Insight and engageRE Tech Assist.

Photo Credits – Winter Photos: Clockwise from the top left, Kyrsten Ross, RE/MAX Signature Properties, Junction City, KS; Rudy Aversano, RE/MAX Eastern Properties, Ronkonkoma, NY;  Felicia Harris, RE/MAX Heritage, Blue Springs, MO; Gail Napolitano, RE/MAX American Dream, Denville, NJ.

Photo Credits – Autumn Photos: Clockwise from the top left, Rick Bauer, RE/MAX Home Group, Waterloo, IA; Paula Bellamy, RE/MAX Lake of the Ozarks, Osage Beach, MO; Amy Voelker, RE/MAX Cobblestone, Midwest City, OK; Gina Feltner Bouws, RE/MAX 1st REALTY, Marquette, MO.

In a recent issue of the Agent Insight newsletter, we discussed several components of our blog, Insight Insider. In this issue, we are presenting another valuable section:  Featured Insights. Over 500 submissions have already been selected for their excellent composition and content with more added twice monthly.

The Featured Insights section salutes the best of the best Agent Insight posts. The photos selected are amazing and every one of them was taken by agents, most using their cell phone cameras. Take a look to see an extremely wide variety of subjects and ideas that will inspire you for your own pictures. The four diverse photos below are all beautiful and well composed. The name of the submitting agent is shown beneath the photo.

The blog also features dozens of well-written insights on a wide range of topics. Some of the most effective ones are those using first person, which is so important for presenting your personal knowledge of your market. Read an excerpt from the following post by Tricia Cartwright, RE/MAX Legacy, Kansas City, MO. Anyone reading it would know that Tricia is passionate about her town and can provide valuable first hand knowledge about its available amenities.

Kansas City Chiefs Headed to Super Bowl LIV
Welcome to Miami! It’s been 50 years since the Chiefs made an appearance in a Super Bowl, and the loyal fans of Kansas City are elated for the opportunity at a Chiefs’s first Super Bowl victory. This team has proven…Read more…

Take a few minutes to review all the benefits at your fingertips in Insight Insider. For current users, you will find lots of inspiration from the work displayed throughout the blog. For first timers, you will see how effective Agent Insight can be for you. Bonus:  it’s fun to do, too!

The big advantage of Agent Insight over other real estate sites is it gives you an opportunity to present many features of your community through photos and written posts. Several RE/MAX agents in Bartlesville, OK are doing just that with a diverse collection of submissions.

Robert Phillips, a new agent with RE/MAX Results in Bartlesville, has posted several photos and insights during his first month on the job.

“Our branch broker, Kevin Lynch, said our agents make Agent Insight posts frequently as a way to show ourselves as experts on our community, ” Robert said. “I think this is a good time for me to submit many posts while I’m just getting started. I intend to continue adding to my collection as I grow my business.”

Many of the Bartlesville agents are following the same pattern. Throughout the town, they have covered very diverse subjects.  Written insights include local businesses and restaurants, charities, Robot City at the local tech center, a medical center, and the weather. The paragragh below is an excerpt from a post by Dennis Rudisaile from RE/MAX Results. It is written in first-person and tells about an event he attended at a unique Bartlesville wildlife preserve.

Woolaroc Museum & Wildlife Preserve – Hidden Gem in Osage Hills
I recently took a road trip to visit the sprawling wildlife preserve located on Highway 123 between Bartlesville and Barnsdall that is Woolaroc Museum & Wildlife Preserve. The event I attended, one of many that attracts visitors to the area, was the Mountain Man Camp. It’s a place where you can view the inside of a teepee and see how people lived in the 1840’s, all within the beautiful grounds of Woolaroc. You, too, can visit it anytime between mid-March to early September. Be sure to check on their website for the many events put on during the year.

The Bartlesville photos have even more variety. Subjects include the downtown area, parks, pools, bike trails, the community center, pastureland, schools, and good shots of local flora and fauna. The selections below are great examples of some different features of the Bartlesville area.

Photo credits:  from RE/MAX Results in Bartlesville, Robert Phillips and Dennis Rudisaile; from RE/MAX of Green Country in Nowata, OK, Sherman Shanklin and Lindsey Coe.

Many thanks to the four agents featured in this article and to the other Bartlesville area agents who have contributed excellent submissions for this community page. To other RE/MAX agents, take a look at your community pages and make sure you have a wide variety of subjects covered. You can’t tell a good story with only subdivision entries. Get creative!

Happy Holidays from the Agent Insider staff and everyone at engageRE!  We would like to encourage you to make the most of this season and fill your Agent Insight pages with fun and festive submissions.

Beautiful decorations, holiday lights, and annual holiday events present themselves to you every day from now through New Year’s. Choose your favorite neighborhoods to highlight, and add jolly seasonal posts to those pages. You want to show these areas looking their best all through the year.

Draw attention to glowing decorations in subdivisions, at shopping venues, and on downtown streets. Christmas plays, parades, concerts, and school programs all add color to the season. We’ve received many wonderful holiday photos throughout the years. Take a look at this beautiful selection:

December also offers wonderful subjects for your written submissions. Maybe the city park lines their walking paths with luminaries or perhaps there is a neighborhood loaded with lights and decorations that is the “Candy Cane Lane” in your community. Tell the story in a chatty, personal tone, use first person style, and you’ll have an excellent post about why you love the area. For inspiration, look at this fine holiday article submitted by Mandi Gipson, RE/MAX Connections in Ottawa, KS.

I Love the Annual Christmas Parade
One of my favorite memories of the holiday season while growing up in Ottawa, was the Christmas Parade. The smiling faces, the cups of hot chocolate and the loud horn of the fire truck. These are the sights and sounds that come to my mind when I think of the annual Christmas Parade. I was always excited yet nervous when the fire trucks would go by. “How cool is that big red fire truck,” I would say and then, just about that time, the loud horn would honk! The local bands that marched and played their music brought joy and smiles to the crowd. The end of the parade was always special, as Santa Claus made his appearance. At the end of the parade, a walk down Main Street and  lunch at one of the local eateries was a perfect end to a great time in downtown Ottawa! It was when I was a child and still is today!

After the first of the year, continue to fill your Agent Insight pages with lots of winter photos and posts.  Showing your community in all four seasons makes for a richer, fuller portrait of the area. Sledders, skaters, snowmen, and all kinds of frosty scenes will be available for weeks. Take advantage! Don’t worry if your part of the country isn’t snowy. You can still make the most of the season. Look at this winter scene from the Gulf Coast showing a sand “snowman.” Great photo!

The Insight Insider blog is a road map to Agent Insight, the unique tool that so many RE/MAX agents have made part of their marketing plan. It gives you opportunities to grow the RE/MAX presence in your area, elevate your personal online brand and generate more potential clients.

Insight Insider guides you through all aspects of Agent Insight so you can showcase your professional knowledge and experience. RE/MAX agents across the country have posted thousands of written submissions and photos and more are added daily, On the blog’s front page, you’ll find links explaining how to get started and another answers frequently asked questions.

There is a complete archive of all the Agent Insight newsletter articles. Emailed to our RE/MAX agents periodically, the newsletter contains a wealth of information for strengthening  your social media presence and for getting the most out of your Agent Insight submissions.

There are frequent interviews with participants from many different regions explaining why they participate in Agent Insight and suggestions for submission content. You’ll find good tips for photography and writing to make your posts their most effective.

Other articles explain how Agent Insight works for you. For example, one piece demonstrates how Agent Insight is a perfect sales funnel for your business. Another tells you how Agent Insight gives you a marketing plan on auto pilot. A third is about boosting client leads with Agent Insight. There are dozens of articles on files for you to review for great ideas.

On the left side of Insight Insider’s front page is a column called “Word from the Street“. If you are wondering what individual agents have to say about this resource, take a look at the enthusiasm you’ll find in these quotes. Here are a few examples:

“Agent Insight is the easiest prospecting tool that there is because you can do it anytime. You can submit new posts when you’re home in your pajamas!”
— Steve Snook, Senior Business Development Consultant, Mid-States Region

“I have found that my Agent Insight leads are quality leads. The people making inquiries truly want my resources. My marketing plan is working and I’m seeing results without spending a dime on it,”
— Valerie Bomberger, RE/MAX Harbor Country, New Buffalo, MI

“There’s a fear factor for clients in learning how to get involved in a new area. They can visualize themselves there with the help of my Agent Insight photos and articles.”
— Marty Remo, RE/MAX Benchmark Realty Group, Central Valley, NY

If you are new to Agent Insight and need some encouragement to get started, these quotes and others from “Word from the Street” can give you the incentive to get started. If you are an Agent Insight veteran but haven’t posted anything for a while, take these words from your peers to heart and get Agent Insight back on your schedule.

Every agent is busy, especially during the prime sales months. You should be thoughtful and strategic as you plan your submissions to Agent Insight. Here are some ideas for getting the most return for your investment of time.

There are many subdivisions and neighborhoods within your market area that have no Agent Insight postings. Fill them up with written insights and photographs. Covering your market thoroughly will strengthen the RE/MAX brand in your area and help keep your name on top.

It’s easy to find a list of subdivisions that have no Agent Insight postings. Simply navigate to your Agent Insight profile page and look for a red button in the right column that reads, “View Places Needing Insight.” Click on the button, and a list of places will appear. You will also find a blue “Opportunities” button on every city landing page that displays a list of subdivisions with little or no submissions. For more information, refer to our Insight Insider article, So, Would You Like to be Mayor.

You should be strategic in deciding where you want to place your submissions. For example, make sure you have posts in every subdivision where you have homes listed for sale. Agent Insight is a tool designed to drive potential clients to your listings, so use it! Further, ranking in the top of a Google search result for a potential seller’s subdivision would be an excellent component for your next listing presentation.

You might also want to have some posts covering the high value subdivisions in your market. Keep in mind that there will be more competition on those pages from other participating agents, so keep your name on top by making frequent submissions. You can always think of something new to submit, whether it’s a short article about the neighborhood’s upcoming events or photos showing it during different seasons of the year. Be as creative and personal as possible in presenting your observations about the subdivision. Frequent posts will also keep your agent photo at the top of the agent roster page.

Another good tactic for boosting your Agent Insight work is to schedule it into your weekly routine. Some agents choose to write their posts and photo captions while they sip their morning coffee. Others choose a convenient weekly time and mark it on their calendars. Some arrive at showings early so they can take a few pictures and jot down some ideas about the neighborhood before their clients arrive. Another prime opportunity could be between visitors at your next Open House!

Decide what game plan works best for you. Your submissions make you an expert about your community, and the flow of fresh material to Agent Insight can strengthen your SEO rankings which means a continuous generation of leads.