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Jun 30
2009
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Count international resort property sales among the industries that may be transformed by online social media.Posted by: Luis Miranda in MyBlog on Jun 30, 2009   |
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Todd Zurcher, a good friend, colleague, and also member of Boomers Abroad Online Community have been in the Real Estate and Resort Development Business for over 15 years. Todd's main concentration has been in "Development" and "Sales/Marketing", but have also been deeply involved in the "Construction" on many of the Development projects that He has been associated with.
Having recognized the need for a better way to promote Resort Developments, Todd formed a company called Organic Marketing Innovations Group, LLC (OMI Group). Through Strategic Partnerships throughout the industry, OMI Group offers Resort Developers and Owners an innovative approach to Marketing and Selling of their properties by using "Organic" methods of promotion instead of the "high cost" recent traditional ways.
Technology has become the most powerful community-building tool the world has ever known. More than 200 million people belong to FaceBook. Nearly 1.5 million professionals have joined LinkedIn. There are millions of other social networks, from Harley riders to fans of Johnny Cash. They start on the Internet, but they translate readily to meeting up for drinks, attending weddings, hooking up at concerts, helping one another out.
To neglect this technology for marketing today would be like neglecting television fifty years ago. Todd Zurcher and James Churches, principals of Organic Marketing Innovations Group, LLC, www.theOMIgroup.com, decided to embrace the new media revolution and have made a major commitment to it by launching www.ResortAuthority.com.
They call it a strategic network rather than a social network because it is designed to achieve a specific goal, rather than simply provide a platform through which people can connect. This strategic network brings worldwide real estate agents and their clients together with a collection of luxury resorts to expand opportunity for everyone involved.
The OMI Group and ResortAutority.com are also strategic Alliences of Boomers Abroad Portal and Online Community as it is shown in: BOOMERS ABROAD PARTNERS
The OMI Group and ResortAutority.com are also strategic Alliences of Boomers Abroad Portal and Online Community as it is shown in: BOOMERS ABROAD PARTNERS
Here is The Press Release:
Count international resort property sales among the industries that may be transformed by online social media.
Properties, brokers linked via Resortauthority.com
Denver Business Journal - by Greg Avery
Denver Business Journal - by Greg Avery
Two Denver-area resort marketing veterans started Resortauthority.com in May. The website helps real estate agents worldwide connect their clients with resort properties being sold in faraway, exotic destinations.
Increasingly, resort developers are paying outside real estate agents for referrals that lead to sales, instead of relying on large marketing campaigns targeting buyers directly.
The shift creates a new opportunity for local brokers at a time when their traditional business is suffering, and an easier avenue for vacation home buyers, said Todd Zurcher, co-founder of the site and its Arvada-based parent company, Organic Marketing Innovations Group LLC .
“People trust their local real estate agent far more than an international broker they’ve never met,” he said. “And, for brokers, it doesn’t matter where you live, it only matters where your clientele buys.”
Resortauthority lets brokers sign up for free. Resort developers pay a fee to join and list properties. Resorts will pay referring brokers fees — typically 2 percent to 5 percent of a sale — and handle the onsite showings and closing logistics.
Most real estate brokers lack the means to show clients listings of properties in exotic resorts. Resortauthority seeks to give a free way to start making money at it, co-founder James Churches said.
“There’s no reason not to do it,” he said. “You can have a presence in this kind of cool, romantic and fascinating area of real estate.”
Zurcher used to handle marketing for the Baja, Mexico, resort of Paraiso Del Mar. He oversaw building a 300-broker online referral network for the resort that generated about $9 million worth of property sales, Zurcher said.
He and Churches, a writer and resort industry marketer he’d known for years, decided to form the OMI Group resort marketing consultancy last fall. Around that time, a resort developer asked Zurcher to create an online network similar to Paraiso Del Mar’s.
The men realized there’d be a good business in creating such sites, but loathed the prospect of recruiting a new broker network for every new client. They thought it made far more sense to build a clearinghouse network of brokers that many resorts could buy into.
“That was the huge, huge light bulb that went off,” Zurcher said.
About 175 brokers from Honduras, Great Britain, Italy, St. John, Belize, Brazil, South Africa, Spain, Canada, Uruguay, Dominican Republic, Mexico and the United States have signed up.
Resortauthority is in talks with several resort owners to have them start listing properties on the website, Zurcher said. He and Churches expect to attract at least 20 resorts around the world as its network of brokers grows by a few hundred.
Two large resort and second-home projects in Mexico of Denver-based Club Acquisition Co. list properties on the site so far: Estrella Del Mar, Mazatlan, and El Dorado Ranch, San Felipe in Baja.
“Marketing today for the type of product we have is different than it was two to three years ago,” said Ralph Destito, chief marketing officer and senior vice president, Club Acquisition Co. “You’ve got to be in places where the prospects are.”
Reaching out through online broker networks makes more sense as buyers turn more to the Internet to research property purchases. Experienced local brokers who know their clientele are a valuable filter in finding resort buyers who not only are interested, but ready and able to buy, Destito said.
With little more than using word-of-mouth and social media such as Twitter, Resortauthority has grown its membership by three to five brokers a day, Zurcher said.
Resort real estate has been battered like other real estate markets, but the coming retirement of millions of baby boomers makes people across the industry confident of its health in the long run.
“We think the buyers are out there, the demand is out there and the resources are out there,” Churches said. “People just need to relax and let their confidence return. When people are as stressed out as they’ve been the past couple years — stretched as thin as they have been — they’re going to want a sanctuary.”
Details
Company: Organic Marketing Innovations Group LLC
Founders: Todd Zurcher, James Churches
Address: 6008 Nile Circle, Arvada, Colo. 80403
Phone: 303-502-9222
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