ADVANCED ACCESS February 2003 Newsletter

February 2003 Newsletter

"Observe good faith and justice toward all nations.
Cultivate peace and harmony with all…'
- George Washington (1732-1799)

More Homebuyers are using the Internet than EVER

According to Realty Times' Agent News, Realtors® should be aware that the number of Internet homebuyers is increasing. In 1996, two percent of homebuyers used the Internet to shop for a home, according to the National Association of Realtors®. In 2001, that number jumped to over 41 percent. The estimate for 2003 is as high as 70 percent, based on incremental growth; numbers will be confirmed by a year-end NAR buyer and seller report.

In the article by Blanche Evans, privacy, convenience, rich content, and the ability to ask questions of providers are just a few reasons why people prefer the Internet to other media. Homes are among the most heavily browsed categories of shopping online. Realtor.com, which provides home content for AOL Time Warner, says that the house and home channel is among the top three channels for AOL.com.

Recently, MSN's House & Home released their Online Home Shopper Profile, where they outlined some of the characteristics of the "typical Internet User" as the following:

Age - 28 percent are 25-34 years of age; 28 percent are 35-44 years of age.

Education - 88 percent attended college: 33 percent have graduated and 20 percent hold a postgraduate degree.

Marital status - Almost 70 percent are married and 8 percent are divorced. Nearly 62 percent do not have children.

Income - Income levels vary: $25,000-$49,999 (22 percent), $50,000-$74,999 (22 percent), $75,000-$99,000 (19 percent), $100,000-$149,999 (20 percent).

Intent to purchase a home - Approximately 13 percent will definitely purchase a new home within one year.

There's never been a better time to showcase your business on the Internet. The research clearly indicates your target market is educated, financially stable, serious about buying, Internet savvy, and wants to maximize their time by researching property information online. The more you offer your website visitors in terms of property information, photos, and virtual tours, the more likely they will be to contact you when they are ready to buy or sell property.

Check it out …our Marketing Tips are Better than EVER!

To entice MORE of you to READ our e-mails, we have given our weekly marketing tips a little more PIZZAZZ, and a brand new "look." Here at ADVANCED ACCESS we are committed to providing you with the tools you need to make the most of your website. To keep you current with the latest trends in Internet marketing, we send you a marketing tip EVERY WEEK via e-mail, with innovative new ideas to help you guarantee the highest exposure possible for your website.

Our new format includes graphic reminders about important topics, such as e-mail signatures, domain name protection, link popularity and much more.

Most of you are busy professionals; and we know it's hard to find the time to read our marketing tips regularly. If you don't have time to read our marketing tips every week, we keep them on file for you here.

YOU win the GOLD from RealEstateABC

Some web site "Gold Awards" are relatively easy to win, but the awards offered by RealEstateABC.com are not. To be worthy of a Real Estate ABC Gold Award, a web site must "overwhelm the web visitor with on-site consumer oriented content."

ADVANCED ACCESS has been recognized by Real Estate ABC as a consumer oriented web designer. The informative content on your ADVANCED ACCESS website has earned you a GOLD award you can be proud to display. To find out more about adding your website to the Real Estate ABC Directory, click here. To apply for your GOLD award, click here.

An Important Note: Adding your website to the Real Estate ABC Directory and displaying your Real Estate ABC GOLD Award is great for reciprocal linking and will help your position on search engines for link popularity!

New Intellicards Features

Our NEW Intellicards 3.0 is already receiving rave reviews from our clients. We are constantly adding new features to make it easier to work with than ever before. Here are the latest Intellicards features:

Ability to Preview Your IntelliC@rd. To help you decide which card to send, we've added a "preview" feature above the example of each e-card for your convenience.

Recycle Bin for Address Books. Oops! Have you ever deleted an address book by accident and wanted it back? A new feature in Intellicards will send any of your deleted Intellicards contacts or complete address books into the Recycle Bin for review at a later time. This will hopefully prevent the potential loss of important contact information.

Featured Cards. In our new 3.0 Intellicards, there are over 500 e-cards to choose from. To make your selection a little easier, we've displayed the most popular cards chosen by our clients as the "Top 10" selection, along with favorite cards of the AA staff, called "Our Favorites." In addition, you can select from the "Card of the Day - Week- or Month" choices.

At ADVANCED ACCESS, our goal is to provide you with the FINEST products and services available for real estate professionals on the market today. Therefore, we are always fine tuning our programs, and will continue to keep you updated about new features we're adding regularly.

Realty Times Announces NEW Partners for their
Market Conditions Reports

Realty Times announced even more exposure on the Internet's most trafficked real estate portals, including front page positioning for Market Conditions^TM reporter clients on Realtor.com and MSN House & Home, and a new advertising contract with Google.com.

The Market Conditions Report offers a unique opportunity for you to position yourself as the most knowledgable about YOUR local neighborhoods. Your participation in the Realty Times iMarketing Program gives you recognition as an industry expert on some of the top real estate sites for just $299 per year.

As the Internet's leading real estate content provider, Realty Times provides data to nearly all of the leading real estate portals. With Realty Times' iMarketing program which features the Market Conditions Report, you post your opinion of what is happening in YOUR local market in special reports that are published as part of Realty Times newsfeeds. Consumers can contact you directly with no referral fees involved.

Realty Times is the only company in the world that can get you found by housing consumers on the top real estate portals such as:

Realtor.com
MSN House and Home
Google.com
Yahoo!
Lycos
HomeSeekers, and many more

Verisign Announces Protection from CyberSquatters
(This Protection will COST you!)

These days, it's more important than ever to be aware of the date your domain (www.YourName.com) expires. We notified you previously about the importance of verifying your domain expiration date via newsletter and marketing tips. Unfortunately we're still finding some of our clients are losing their domain names to "cybersquatters" who steal them away as soon as they expire.

Recently, to prevent cybersquatters from re-registering your domain name immediately after its expiration date, VeriSign - parent company of Network Solutions, implemented a new program that allows you to "redeem" your domain names within 30 days after its expiration period.

In the new program, Verisign will "hold" your domain name hostage for 30 days after it expires and prevent anyone else from re-registering it upon expiration. Once your domain name has entered into this "REGISTRAR-HOLD" status it is only possible to release the hold with the payment of a $100 fee (in most cases.)

What does this mean to you? With Verisign's new program, it is less likely that your domain name will be stolen by a cybersquatter. However, if you don't renew your domain on time, it will cost you! Unless you want to pay a $100.00 fee for releasing the hold on your domain name, be sure that you renew it before the expiration date.

If you have any questions about the date your domain expires, or how to verify your expiration date, click here to view one of our recent marketing tips on the subject.

Chat with Your Colleagues on the
New ADVANCED ACCESS Forum

Are you interested in sharing your ideas and success stories with real estate professionals across the country? We recently announced the formation of our own ADVANCED ACCESS Forum, and since its inception you've posted hundreds of messages with innovative ideas, reciprocal link sharing, GREAT Internet marketing questions and more.

Some of the subjects included in the Forum are:

Search Engines, Meta Tags, and more
Traditional Advertising, and how it can drive MORE traffic to your website
Intellicards 3.0
Help Desk to ask questions of the AA Staff

Check out the conversation in the new ADVANCED ACCESS Forum. Ask questions, learn more, and chat with your colleagues around the country. To see who's talking, log in to your virtual office and locate the banner at the bottom of the page.

We'll see you at the forums!

Meet Jennifer Bouillon … our Featured AA Employee

This month we're featuring Jennifer Bouillon, the manager of our Design Specialist department in our Customer Service group. Jennifer has been with the company for two years, and in recognition of her exceptional talent and people skills, she was recently promoted to the position of Design Specialist Manager.

A whirlwind of energy and efficiency, there is no challenge that Jennifer Bouillon cannot overcome. Using a combination of charm, intelligence and sheer ingenuity, Jennifer is able to accomplish an enormous amount of work each day and she makes it look easy. A friendly and confident individual, Jennifer is admired for her "can do" approach to solving problems by clients and colleagues alike. What really matters most to Jennifer is that her customers are taken care of quickly and precisely…something she consistently accomplishes with ease.

Perhaps the secret to Jennifer's energy is a constant pursuit for survival in a (quite!) large family. Jennifer is one of 8 brothers and sisters, and obviously delights in being part of a big extended family unit. She loves people and animals, eating pasta, and in her spare time she enjoys dancing, hiking, camping, listening to music and more creative pursuits of drawing and writing. Before ADVANCED ACCESS, Jennifer worked at Disneyland for two years. Her favorite pastime is relaxation in the great outdoors.

Jennifer's favorite quote is "Reach high, for stars lie hidden in your soul.
Dream deep for every dream precedes the goal." -Ralph Vaull Starr

We have no doubt that Jennifer will always reach her goals. Thank you Jennifer, for representing ADVANCED ACCESS with style and competence. We're honored to work with you.

To our Valued Customers:

Thank you for your business - we appreciate your patronage and support. If you have any questions, comments or suggestions, please send them to us.

** Refer one of your colleagues to ADVANCED ACCESS - if they purchase a website, we'll add a FREE MONTH OF HOSTING to your existing contract. **

I hope I shall always possess firmness and virtue enough to maintain (what I consider the most enviable of all titles) the character of an honest man."

- GEORGE WASHINGTON (1732-1799), First U.S. President

January 2003 | Back to Main Page | March 2003