Sir, please STOP your superior marketing activities immediately!
Posted Oct 6, 2007 @ 11:38 pm, Viewed by 2618 Visitors, Read 2888 Times.STOP!
*kicking and screaming*
* drops to the floor and rolls around*
IT'S NOT FAIR!
What does that sound like? A child's temper tantrum?
Close. Towards the middle of September I received a snarky phone call from the sales manager of Woodbury Junction who was very upset that I had written a community profile about her community and posted it on my website alongside other community profiles of both new and resale neighborhoods. She then insisted that I remove the community profile and noted that she wouldn't honor any co-broke agreements, past, present or future, with me and she was so "outraged" that she called two other communities to let them know "what I was doing" (thank you?).
Of the two communities that she threatened to call I have heard back from one's corporate office. The person I spoke with said I absolutely must remove all content related to their community from my website. I noted that I had removed their community name and the builder's name from the profile but she said it wasn't good enough. The information I wrote about was in their brochures and online and that I am not allowed to write about it on the website.
I am really at a loss for... well, everything... in trying to understand why these builders wouldn't want the free marketing advantage. The only reason I can think of is that they don't want buyers to have representation but if they don't want to pay for buyer representation then why offer the co-broke at all? Isn't the purpose of builder marketing fees used as co-broke fees to pay for the services of a buyer agent after bringing forward a willing and able buyer so that the builder won't have to advertise as often to find buyers for their community?
So the question(s) remain: Do I remove their community profile as I did with Woodbury Junction before replacing it with a "non-branded version" or do I leave it up there and deal with the consequences? Furthermore, why hide your community from prospective buyers in a market where builders are sinking like plastic toys in Battleship?
A special thank you to the sales manager of Woodbury Junction for bringing this issue to light.
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Paul, I have considered removing their profile from my site but I want the site to continue to be up to date with the very newest communities in the area. It will be open publicly soon and I will take a "new approach" to handling my Woodbury Junction community profile in the near future.
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Joshua, Superior home builders welcome the free advertising. Do a search for Trump's projects (especially Las Vegas) and see how many REALTORS are advertising that project (with Trump's pictures and some with the exact same verbage) on their websites. True marketers understand the value of viral marketing and welcome it. It makes me wonder what else the particular community you are referencing does not "know". Can anybody from the public get a brochure for free? I've never come across a new home builder that was selling them. Are you re-selling the "free" information? Hardly. Buyers who choose to be represented by your real estate services do so on their own free will. Do you remove it? I can't tell you but the community certainly does not sound professional to me and personally, I like to work with professionals.