Have trouble sending and opening email? How about downloading zipped documents? Okay, here’s something a little more challenging. Do you know what html is, or how to write it?

Now that I have your attention let me say this! If you’re computer/Internet challenged, but are serious about your real estate career you should hot foot it to the nearest computer class and get some skills!

Why? Because the Internet has changed the way real estate is being transacted, and you’re either onboard as an active participant, or a passive observer as it flashes by you at warp speed.

Here are some things to consider about real estate internet marketing.

Real Estate Marketing Reports
One of the most effective ways to market real estate on the Internet is by offering real estate and mortgage related marketing reports in exchange for the recipients’ email addresses. Informational reports can make lasting impressions.

You can offer the reports via Ecourse lessons, web site pages, special reports, flyers, letters, etc. The manner in which you deliver the reports is only limited by your imagination.

In exchange for providing this information you gather the email addresses from the people requesting information from you. And once you have them you can continue plying them with your marketing messages until you convert them to paying customers.

You’ll learn, if you don’t already know, that it takes 4-7 communications to convert a prospect into a paying customer. Having their email addresses enables you to do this by providing information that they have requested. Your messages will be welcomed, appreciated and in many instances actually anticipated.

Finally, as noted below, there are effective ways to do this automatically! Meaning, it’s easy and cost effective to market to them until you get the desired response, which is often times a sale, or listing!

Web Sites
A real estate agent without a website is like a bird without wings. Unless the bird is a penguin it is seriously handicapped, as are agents without web sites!

Agents without sites are out of the loop, and are mostly unknown to many real estate customers. Therefore, they are not even a consideration for their business. If you’re not online you are not accessible by the millions of online real estate prospects looking to buy, sell, rent, or exchange real estate. Arguably, your real estate license is near worthless if you don’t have a web site.

Auto responders
An auto responder s an email system that enables you to provide real estate related information to prospects… automatically! It’s the online version of the Ronco cooking machine; once you set it you can forget it.

Once you program it with the information you want it to deliver, and specify the frequency in which the information will be doled out you’ll have a virtual secretary that works for you 24/7, 365 days a year! And it’ll never ask for a day off!

Instant Gratification
Buyers and sellers want information when they want it, which is usually “now” and will gravitate towards agents who can respond quickly to their interests. If you can do this you can get a slice of this huge, lucrative niche market. However, if your computer and Internet skills are sub par, you will be at a serious disadvantage to your competitors.

Real Estate Internet Marketing Is the Future, and the future is now! Online real estate marketing is booming. Increasingly, buyers and sellers begin their real estate related interests searching for information on line before their first contact with agents.

So, if you want to be a serious contender in the online real estate marketing industry you must be proficient enough with a computer to navigate the Internet, send and receive email messages, attach, send and open email documents, download zipped files, send zipped files, etc. If you don’t have the skills, get them. A class is often just a shopping center complex away!

Lanard Perry, author of a real estate marketing system, shows Realtors how to average 1 or more listings a week. Visit him at http://www.real-estate-marketing-talk.com for more marketing ideas.