Planning a Real Estate event just got cheaper –
Say Goodbye to the cost of printed invitation with an envelope and stamp and hello to the new age Electronic Invitation. If you are planning an event in this current real estate market and are looking to slim down on your costs go electronic for your invitations. Use www.Evite.com for your next Real Estate social event.
For all of you who have gone through the hassle of sending out invitations you can empathize with me that in this day and age it’s just too much work for us to coordinate the designing, printing, stuffing, labeling, stamping, mailing then recording the RSVP’s, talk about time consuming! Something like that takes about 1 – 2weeks minimum to coordinate, if it’s a large guest list and you are having offsite printing done. With electronic invitations from Evite.com you can have your invitations out to your guests within hours!
Don’t get me wrong I think there is a time and a place for an elegant, formally printed invitations I just believe that in 2008 the typical homebuyer or broker is going to be more responsive to an email invitations than a piece of mail. One, the guest will receive the invitations much faster than if you mailed it to them; two, it’s easier for them to reply; and three, you are saving the environment.
Sending snail mail for open houses, first-time buyer seminars, broker events, and community events is both time consuming and a waste of valuable marketing dollars for the everyday Realtor. Evite allows you to generate customizable e-mail invitations, manage RSVP’s online, upload updates electronically, post photos of the past events and even set up a payment system via PayPal for events that require a fee.
The best thing about evite.com is that it’s 100% Free! All you have to do is set up an account with your name, email address and zip code (evite.com guarantees that they will not share your personal information without your consent, they make their money from the advertisements see on their site).
Basically the Real Estate Agent or event planner will populate a list of potential leads, or brokers contact names and emails for the event. Then they would select a template invitation or design a custom invitation, add the contacts to the evite and click send! The contact person will receive an email with a URL link to the electronic invitations stating information about where, when, how much it may cost, and what the event is about in seconds. This customized evite acts as a home page for the event; guests can access this page to double-check recent updates, location, time, and address information, or to browse other guests’ comments. You can control additional options that include itemized checklists for yourself as well as hand out food assignments to your guests and solicit feedback on invitees’ favorite appetizers, drinks, and music. You can also allow guests to be able to view the complete guest list and invite more people or the opposite you can hide the guest list.
No need to field phone calls or reply cards from the mail, just check your status online at evite.com. All your guests will have to do to RSVP is click a button and add a comment. Evite will e-mail you updates when a guest responds to the invitation. You can check your event account page on the site at any time to monitor responses and guests’ comments or to make edits and updates. Evite will even record the number of guests who will be attending, will not be attending, or may be attending as well as how many have not responded yet.
(Note you will need to make and account to view some of these features listed below)
- The evite.com site makes creating and managing online invitations a synch – view how to create a customizable invitation here: Create an Evite. Evite.com provides options for you to personalize your invitation, some features include:
a. Choice of background colors
b. Fonts
c. Clip-art graphics
d. Sound affects
e. Directions from www.maps.google.com.
f. Upload images or photographs
g. Select from hundreds of templates
h. You can even design your very own invitations
i. If you are looking for some help when creating your evite visit: The Help Center - Evite’s “My Address Book” permits you to import contact information from other contact programs such as:
a. Gmail
b. Yahoo Mail
c. Hotmail
d. Microsoft OutlookOnce you import your contacts, you can create different groups of guests in the Evite “My Address Book” for different types of events, for example you can group all your Brokers together for all your Broker Only events.
- Once you have logged in to your account the Evite home page will display your upcoming events, and past events. You will have access to your address book, social calendar, the management system for Evite events, and helpful tips for event planning. From the management system for your evites you can send out email reminders for the upcoming event to the people who RSVP’d yes and to the ones who have not responded yet, you can send updates to all who are attending, post your event on your calendar displaying your future events, and even post pictures after the event for your past attendees.
- Below is a sample evite invitations for you to review:
Some Alternatives to www.Evite.com include Mypunchbowl, Skobee, Going, Planypus, Socializr and Renkoo, these last six are creditable but just have not caught on like evite.com. Facebook Events is great for fewer than 30 people and for a guess list that includes fellow Facebook users, just watch your news feed for R.S.V.P. updates.
Keep your eye out for more cost and time saving blogs from www.realestatemarketingblog.org. Thanks for reading and please comment if you can add to my post.