If you don’t follow up right away, you’ve lost the lead. On the other hand, if you follow up too aggressively, you also risk losing the lead.

So where do you find that happy balance? How do you follow up with new leads to ensure that you’re funneling them down the purchase funnel effectively?

Here’s 3 ideas to ensure effective follow up…

1. Follow up with a phone call.  

Give them a call to just say “hi” and “thanks.” Let them know that you appreciate that they took the time to look around and register on your website and let them know that you’re there to help answer any questions if they have any.

Keep it casual. In fact, your call might go something like this:

Hey there, this is [Your Name] calling from [Your Website Address]… I just wanted to call and say thanks for taking the time to register for the IDX search on my website and if there’s anything I can do to help answer any questions, don’t hesitate to let me know.

From there, they’ll either begin to engage in a dialogue about real estate with you, or they’re not ready and they won’t. But when the time comes, you bet they’ll remember to call because you were welcoming, you were approachable. And people like that.

2. Follow up via email (think drip campaign). 

At the very least, new IDX leads should be getting a personalized welcome email from you (we’ve talked about how to draft an effective welcome email before). Then, if you want to take it a step further, you can create a 5 – 7 part email drip campaign.

The reason for that is simple, it’s an effective form of follow up. People are much more likely to open your emails earlier on when they’ve register than they are to open them several months later. So the more you follow up now, the more likely they are to read your incoming messages. And thus, the more likely you are to connect with them.

3. Study the IDX report data and follow up with relevant listings. 

You can access IDX report data for each of the IDX users in your dsControlPanel. To do this, perform the following steps:

• Log into the dsControlPanel,
• Hover over IDX Products >> Click on Contacts

From there, you can click on a specific contact to open up their profile. In their profile, you can access the IDX Report Tab. This will give you all kinds of details on what that particular contact is searching for. You can see:

• Where they are searching (what cities, communities, tracts).
• The price range their searching in.
• The property type and number of beds and baths they’re looking for.

From here, you can do one of two things to effectively follow up with them… You can either:

1. Call them with a list of relevant listings to show them and ask to schedule a meeting. 
2. Email them a list of relevant listings. You can say something like, “Hey Ricardo, I see that you were looking for 2B/2B homes in Irvine around $300,000… Here’s a few homes that you haven’t looked at that I think match your criteria really well. Let me know what you think and as always, I’m happy to help answer any questions you might have.”

Your goal here is to continue to be helpful so that when they ARE ready to buy, they’re thinking of you and calling you.

Recommend any other tips?

What else do you do to follow up with new IDX leads? Do you call them right away? Or do you email them and let them know that you’re there to answer any questions when they’re ready?

Can I find the information I’m looking for?

Does this site look trustworthy?

Is the information presented here reliable?

Those are all of the questions racing through the consumers mind when they land on your website. Fortunately for you, you can influence whether they stay on your site long enough to engage with your content and make a decision as to whether they’d like to work with you or not.

Here’s a few things you can do to build your blog’s credibility and generate more leads…

1. Create a thorough “About Us” page.

An effective “About” page communicates:

• Who you are and what you do.
• What market areas you service.
• Communicates your experience and affiliations.
• Contains your contact information.

Your About page will be one of the most visited pages on your site. After someone reads your post, or spends some time searching for homes through your IDX search page, they’ll often want to know, “ok, who is this Agent?”

It’s just part of the “getting to know you” process. The more effective you are at communicating that information, the better.

2. Create a testimonials page. 

Testimonials are an instant credibility booster. When someone’s considering doing business with you, it’s easier to influence their decision to say yes if you have real references (testimonials) of other people that you’ve worked with.

I’ve referred to Real Estate Agent Cyndee Haydon’s testimonial’s page on more than one occasion, but because I think she’s done a phenomenal job showcasing past client’s experiences with her through the use of video testimonials.

3. Make yourself accessible. 

This means having your phone number and email available throughout your website. This way, if someone wants to get a hold of you, they can.

Having people jump through hoops to fill out a contact form just to ask you a quick question can make some people feel uneasy. Especially if by submitting a form request, they’re getting automatically opted in to a newsletter. some people really don’t want that. They just want a little more information on a listing.

4. Respond to inquiries in a timely manner. 

When someone submits an inquiry about a listing via email, or when someone calls, make it a habit to respond immediately. You’d be surprised how many people don’t actually do this. So by doing it yourself, you’re setting the expectation that a.) you’re on top of your game, b.) you’re reliable because I can get a hold of you easily, c.) you care about your customers (and that in turn makes me feel good about working with you).

5. Communicate your value add – that people can access up-to-date listing data easily on your website.

You can do this a couple of different ways:

• Create a simple Home Search page where site visitors can easily search for the latest real estate. Communicate the value behind why users should register to create an account. I like the way Jay Thompson has done this on his website.
• Create a Listing Feed page where you provide a list of the latest real estate in a specific coverage area. Remind site visitors that listing data is updated every couple of hours. This serves as a nice, subtle reminder that they can return to this page at any time for updates.
• Create community landing pages for each of the areas you specialize in. I particularly like this example from Lori Bee.
• If you have a mobile home search option, remind site visitors that they can search for listings on the go. I like how Mike & Tina McGee communicate this with a mobile landing page.

The Bottom Line:

Each of these elements complement one another. People are coming to your site to search for homes first and foremost. But they’re making their decision to want to work with you based on the signals they get when looking at your site…

• Are you easy to get a hold of?
• What are other people (clients) saying about working with you?
• Who are you? What have you done? What are some of your professional affiliations?

You’ve got to help site visitors “see” that you’re a trust-worthy real estate agent who can help them with the most important purchase transaction of their life-time. And these are a few ways to help you accomplish just that…

What would you add? How else can you establish your credibility with site visitors who are just beginning their home search and are trying to get to know you?

There seems to have been some confusion and questions regarding the Zillow acquisition of Diverse Solutions.  So, I’m writing you today to clear this up and open up a dialog.

As most real estate agents will tell you, listing syndication and IDX are two very different animals, and Zillow understood this distinction when they purchased Diverse Solutions.  Simply put, Zillow acquired us because we deliver amazing IDX products, and we’ve expanded into new markets and grown our client base month after month

For nearly seven years, we have preserved these close relationships with each MLS and data provider by regularly updating our products for compliance, providing regular reports on usage, and otherwise maintaining a strict adherence to IDX data policies and display guidelines.  We’ve always been dedicated to the upkeep of our MLS relationships and the overall integrity of our IDX display.  We take these MLS relationships very seriously and respect the value of their data.  We would never do anything to jeopardize the trust the MLS place in us every day.

Zillow recognized the work we’ve invested in creating and maintaining these agreements and worked with us very closely to ensure the acquisition was a smooth transition for every MLS.  Our IDX team contacted each MLS individually and explained how our relationship would continue now that we were part of Zillow.

We explained that Diverse Solutions would operate as usual, with the same restrictions and control over their data, continuing to support existing IDX solutions for approved MLS members.  Any new features, products, or other offerings that would use or otherwise access IDX data would go through the same strict compliance approval process as before.  All MLS data will continue to be controlled by the same team at Diverse Solutions for the same explicit uses as before.

Our IDX data feeds have always been used solely for our family of IDX search products, and all our new or updated agreements reflect this commitment.  We’ve kept your MLS data safe, and now as part of Zillow, we’ll continue to do so.  We will never use your data for any other application including for publication on Zillow.com unless you provide us explicit permission to do so.

Justin LaJoie
Founder, Diverse Solutions

Think of it this way… It’s kinda like sitting at a restaurant. You just finished a meal, and the waiter comes around to say, “hi, how was everything? Great, can I help you with anything else, maybe some dessert?”

You weren’t really thinking about dessert, but heck, she was so nice, the food was good and she asked, so you go ahead an order anyway.

Sometimes, that little extra nudge is precisely what your customers need to hear in order to take that extra step and contact you. And that’s exactly the type of situation you can control by customizing your Welcome Emails and IDX Email Alerts.

See, when someone registers to the IDX on your site, two things are happening…

1. Anyone who registers to your IDX is receiving a Welcome email.

In a previous post, I showed you what an effective welcome email looks like:

Thank you for registering on our Phoenix Area Home Search!

We promise not to bug you about buying or selling a home. But if you have ANY questions — about homes you see, how to use the search system, or anything else, please don’t hesitate to contact us! We are here to help whenever you’re ready.

You may be contacted by a Thompson’s Realty agent shortly after registering. This is not to “hard sell” you on buying or listing a home. That’s not how we roll. We just want you to have an agent to help you if you need it.

Regards,

[Contact Info Here]

To unsubscribe from these emails, click here.

The goal here is to make users feel welcome, encourage them to use the IDX on your site, and encourage them to contact you should they have any questions moving forward. Really, you’re just setting some expectations with them and reminding them that you’re available to help answer any and all of their real estate questions.

2. Anyone who saves a search is automatically receiving daily emails with new and updated listings from the MLS IDX feed that match their criteria. 

Just like you can customize the content of your Welcome emails, you can customize the content of your “Results” emails. By default, your results body emails show nothing other than the listing updates for that day.

However, to maximize the effectiveness (and likelihood of a potential buyer contacting you), you need to add a subtle Call To Action encouraging them to do so. Something like:

 Here are your listing updates for the today. If you have any questions on any of the properties listed below, please don’t hesitate to contact me directly at (xxx) xxx-xxxx or simply hit reply to this email.

To edit your the intro/body of your Results Emails, log into you Control Panel > Hover over IDX Products >> Click on “Emails.” There, you can edit the body of your Results Emails by simply typing in the text into the text field as shown below:

How have you customized your welcome and IDX email alerts? What’s working for you? 

What do you do to remind customers that you’re there to answer their questions?

But you knew that already.

You also know that it’s one of the more time intensive tasks when it comes to managing a real estate blog.

What will I write about today? Tomorrow? The day after that?

Well, here are a few ideas for using other people’s content to add to your writing routine…

4 Ways To Use Other People’s Content in Your Marketing:

1. Invite other professionals whose content complements yours, to guest post on your site. 

So if you have a real estate blog, you might invite a professional home stager or mortgage professional to guest post on your blog. They can write about things like how to successfully stage your home for sale, financing options available to first-time home buyers, et cetera. 

Post examples:

• How To Successfully Prepare Your Home for Sale
• 12 Expert Tips To Make Your Small Home Appear Larger
• [City Name] Mortgage Rates Report: February 9, 2012
• FHA Financing! Does It Make Sense for You?

2. Instead of (or in addition to) a testimonial from your home buyers, have them write a guest post on your blog about their experience. 

You just helped someone buy a home. It’s the biggest, most emotional purchasing decision they’ll ever make. But you helped them do it!

They did it with complete confidence and trust in you, and now they have the keys to their new home.

When a client is ready and willing to write a testimonial for you, why not in addition, have them write a guest post about their buying experience with you? Some questions to answer:

• What was the buying process like? What scared them the most?
• How did you help them feel confident about the process?
• What went wrong and how did you fix it?
• Would they recommend you to anyone else?

Here’s how one agent features her clients and their experience when closing escrow on a new home: N Redington Beach Realtors Reviewed.

3. Give your readers a voice. A way for them to share and submit their own content. 

I love what Ines Hegedus-Garcias has done with her Miamism Friday’s Series. Once a week, on Friday’s, she features a new photo by members of the Miami beach community to feature on her site.

It’s simple really. Just one photo that properly embodies what it’s like in Miami. And she consistently encourages her readers to submit their photos:

** Share your MIAMISMS and we will feature them!! send them to us via email (info@miamism.com), Facebook, Twitter (@ines), or post them on Flickr in the Miamism Group **

How can you do the same?

4. Invite your best clients to write about the local community. 

Do you have any customers who are foodies or just love to take photos of the local community? If so, why not invite them to guest post on your blog!

They get an platform to talk about their favorite places to visit and favorite things to do, and you get content that directly related to your local community – it’s a win/win.

What else?

What others ways can you use other people’s content to contribute to your marketing efforts? Have you invited other industry professionals whose service complement yours to guest post on your blog? How did it go?

[Note: This is a basic video tutorial to dsIDXpress...]

The great thing about dsIDXpress is that it’s not only easy to install, but it does a lot of the heavy lifting for displaying IDX listings on your domain for you.

See, the way it works is, it’ll take every single listing as it hits the MLS, and it’ll create what we call a “virtual page” for that listing on your domain. It not only does that for each individual listing as it hits the MLS, it also does that for listings by area types (cities, communities, tracks and zip codes).

But you still have to do a few things to bring attention to those IDX listings to new site visitors. So in today’s video tutorial, I’m going to show you how to use dsIDXpress widgets to hi-light IDX data on your domain.

Here’s the video:

(Click here if you can’t see this video).

How are you using dsIDXpress on your website? What do you want to learn about using dsIDXpress better?

“Instead of one-way interruption, web marketing is about delivering useful content at just the precise moment that a buyer needs it. – David Meerman Scott, Marketing Strategist & Author of The New Rules of Marketing & PR

Most Agents start a real estate blog with the intent of using it as their primary lead generation tool. Yet often times, design and marketing are treated as an after-thought.

“Just write good content” is the advice most people will give you. And although yes, that’s an important ingredient, it’s not the only ingredient.

So today, I thought we’d review some big picture concepts as reminders for things you need to consider when marketing your real estate blog…

5 Quick Lessons In Marketing Your Real Estate Blog:

Lesson #1: Write for your customer (not the industry) first. 

Your customers have one of several questions:

• What are some homes for sale in [insert neighborhood] between [insert price range]?
• What are some of the best schools in [insert neighborhood]?
• How’s the market in [insert area]? What’s the average sales price? What’s the average Days on Market?
• How do I determine how much I can get financed for?

Those are specific questions addressing specific needs of a typical client. Your writing should address those needs first and foremost. Basically, you need to write for your customer.

Writing and pontificating about what’s going on in the industry is all good and gravy, but if you’re not answering your potential customer’s questions first, you’re losing business. Period.

Lesson #2: Make your website easy to navigate. 

Do you know why you have such a high bounce rate? Meaning, why people are coming to your website and quickly leaving?

It most likely has to do with how difficult it is to navigate. Most consumers are impatient (I’m one of them). If I can’t find an answer to a question on one website, I’m clicking away onto the next one.

If site visitors are unclear about where to click or where to go next to find the information that they’re looking for, you’ve lost them.

Lesson #3: If you want people to use your IDX map search to search for homes, and register, you need to make it obvious how to do so. 

Often times when I’m on the phone with a real estate agent, they’ll say to me, “Hey Ricardo, can you go to my website really quick and click on my home search?” 

I say, “Sure… Ummm…where is it, I don’t see it?” 

And I’m in the industry! I seen hundreds if not thousands of real estate websites and I know what most IDX searches look like. If I was confused about how to access the home search, how do you think the average site visitor feels?!

The point here, is that you need to make it blatantly obvious over where to click to begin your home search. Otherwise, again, you’re losing potential new business.

Some key places to insert a IDX search form or link to your search is:

• On the upper right-hand side of your site – the very first item of your sidebar.
• Put a link to your IDX search page in your site’s navigation – it should read: Search for Homes.
• You can create a search form that stretches from left to right of your site’s width, just below the header.

Basically, anywhere above the fold, and where it’s the first thing site visitors will see.

Lesson #4: If I have a question about a specific property, how can I get a hold of you? 

Put yourself in a site visitor’s shoes for a moment. You’re on a real estate website looking for homes and so far, you see a few homes you like. Suddenly, you have a question about a specific property for sale. You’ve spend more than 20 minutes on this website, you’re not working with an Agent, so you figure hmm…I’ll just call this Agent.

But when  you go to look for a phone number, nothing. Nada.

The About page reads: Welcome to WordPress, this is an example of an About page.

The Contact page doesn’t have a phone number listed and the contact form is broken. Furthermore, there’s no phone number anywhere on the header, footer or sidebar of the website.

What do you do? Do you still continue to search? Or do you call it quits?

Before you start to think this scenario is a little far-fetched, I’m sorry to say that it happened to me. I was trying to contact this Agent (regarding something else), and I couldn’t find a contact number anywhere.

If your goal is to reach consumers and engage in conversations about real estate to try and make a sale, make it easy to get a hold of you!

Lesson #5: Just because you built it, doesn’t mean they’ll come. 

Most people think building an awesome website and writing great content is all you need to do. And nothing could be further from the truth.

In the beginning, you need to spend almost as much time promoting your content as you do writing and creating it.

Part of it is making sure that your posts are optimized for SEO. The other part is sharing your content with your database through emails, and sharing your content through social media. Not in a “Look at me! Look at me!” sorta way, but in a way that’s helpful to others so that they keep coming back to read your content frequently.

Over to you…

What would you add? What’s your best advice to newbie real estate bloggers looking to market their real estate websites?

1. Visitor Demographics,
2. Top Landing Pages,
3. Conversions

Understanding some of these key statistics will give you a better understanding of what consumers are doing on your site, how they’re interacting with your content (if at all), and what you need to do to improve your content to reach more people.

Let’s take a look…

Visitor Demographics: 

In Google Analytics, in addition to seeing an overview of your over-all site traffic, you can access information about your visitor demographics. Here’s what it looks like:

Where this type of data becomes useful, is it gives you an understanding of who’s visiting your website. More specifically, from which locations.

This is useful because it tells you whether you’re attracting the right demographic or not.

Is anyone local reading your blog? Yes or no? Then, what can you do to improve that.

Are potential out-of-town buyers reading your blog? How can you write content that’s better tailored for them?

Top Landing Pages: 

If you log into your Google Analytics, click on “Content” – then, click on “Landing Pages.” This will show you what some of your most-trafficked pages are. In other words, these are some of the top pages people are landing on when they search.

In addition however, Google will also show you the bounce rate for some of these pages. In other words, how long are people staying on these pages before click off and away from your site. If that number is high, it might mean readers aren’t finding your content very relevant to their search so you need to work on improving that.

Conversions: 

How much of your site traffic are you converting? In this case, rather than look at basic email subscribers, let’s look at this from your IDX registrations standpoint.

To understand this number, first you need to set up your analytics and set some “Goals.” Here’s a set of instructions for how to do this with Google Analytics and dsSearchAgent…

1. Create a “cname” on the domain the idx will be framed (like: idx.myhomessite.com) that points to idx.diversesolutions.com.

You’ll do this in your own DNS manager such as GoDaddy, Register.com, NetSol.com, etc.

2. Get a google maps api key for the root domain (like: myhomessite.com NO WWW! Very important that WWW is not entered when entering the domain name).

It will auto generate something that looks like this:

ABQIAAAAf6cbyswk_Z-n0S5qllah6xT288IPOVNVFVjqjvObAqiMc4554f43sKaRTIwWVtwhV7Vln33w9w5zmA_lpSmA

Save that and send to us once the CNAME has been created. And let us know what the CNAME is as well.

Once this is done, you can sign up for a Google Analytics account and start seeing the statistics including sign-ups.

In order to see all that you’ll need to use the following as “goal URL’s in the Google Analytics account:

* /IDX/Send Contact Form
* /IDX/Email a Friend
* /IDX/Search – Zillow
* /IDX/Search
* /IDX/View Property Details – Zillow
* /IDX/Visitor Registration
* /IDX/Abort Visitor Registration
* /IDX/Visitor Login

How do you set up Goal URL’s in your Google Analytics Account?

1. Login to Google Analytics Account.

2. Click “Analytic Settings” in the orange at the top left.

3. Find the domain name.

4. Click “edit” on the far right.

5. Click “Add Goal” to the right of “Goals (Set 1)”.

6. Enter a “Goal Name”. This should reflect the purpose of the goal. So, for example, if you are using the goal URL, /IDX/Visitor Registration (which means someone has registered on the IDX) you might want to enter a name such as, “IDX Registration Complete”.

7. Leave “Active Goal” as “On”.

8. Goal Position: If you are adding more than one goal, be sure to change this to “Set 1, Goal 2″ etc. as you add more goals in the set. If it’s your first goal in the set leave it as-is. You are able to add 5 goals per set.

9. Goal Type: URL Destination.

10. Match Type: Exact Match.

11. Goal URL: in this section, you will enter one of the goal URL’s that we have set up for you to use. Again, those include:

* /IDX/Send Contact Form
* /IDX/Email a Friend
* /IDX/Search – Zillow
* /IDX/Search
* /IDX/View Property Details – Zillow
* /IDX/Visitor Registration
* /IDX/Abort Visitor Registration
* /IDX/Visitor Login

12. Leave everything else as-is.

13. Save your Goal.

14. Once all your goals are set you can begin testing. Keep in mind that this MAY NOT start to work for up to 24 hours. So, you may want to reserve your testing for the following day.

Once you’ve set all of this up, you’re ready to start tracking!

What other metrics are you tracking? What are you using for analytics?

Once a week on Friday’s, I’m going to take one (or some) of  your most pressing questions about IDX, web analytics, landing pages (and the like), and answer them right here on the blog. Let’s call this the Friday Help Desk Series (that sounds good). If you want to be featured next week, drop a comment on our Facebook Page or if you want to remain anonymous, email me: rbueno@diversesolutions.com with “Help Desk” as the subject line. No question is to big, or too small. So hit me with it!

This week, several of you have asked:

“How do I use the radius search or polygon feature on my account?”

Radius Search and Custom Polygon Links are two new features that we enabled in dsSearchAgent v3.3 released earlier this week.

To enable Radius Search, you’ll need to perform the following steps:

1. Log into your dsControlPanel,
2. Hover over IDX Products ==> Click on “Options” ==> Click on the “Search” Tab

Once there, you’ll want to click and drag “Radius” out of the disabled panels section and into your active panels section. See here:

You’ll want to repeat this of course for any custom links that you create if you want to enable Radius Search on those custom links/maps as well.

Now, as for the custom polygon links… Just to be clear, this feature is accessible to you in order to create a search around a specific area like say around specific tracts, neighborhoods, water-front properties, et cetera.

This was intended to provide you with an easier way to create custom links around very specific borders and parameters. Consumers however, won’t be able to draw, create and search by polygons on the front-end.

Now, let’s look at how to create a custom polygon link, shall we? You’ll need to perform the following steps:

1. Log into your dsControlPanel,
2. Hover over IDX Products ==> Click on “Links”
3. On the right-hand side, there’s a little icon to “create a new link” – click on that.

From there, you’ll proceed to create your custom link like you would any other custom link. But right below the “map starting point,” you’ll see another map right below it that reads “Custom Polygon” – and that’s where you draw and create your new polygon to filter search results by polygon. See here:

And there you have it… You’ve just successfully enabled search by radius on your new IDX map search AND you’ve created custom polygon links for your niche community pages. All you have to do now is share your new IDX search features with your clients

Here are two examples of Agents who have blogged about the new search features on their websites to share with their site visitors:

• New Features on the Best Home Search Site in Nashville!
• Search for Homes in Charlottesville by Radius (Proximity)

Have you introduced the new features to your site visitors in any way? What do you think so far?

As part of our commitment to innovation, this IDX update is included for both new and existing dsSearchAgent Pro users.  Additionally, all v3.3 features are now included as part of our free IDX trial accounts, so even those still on the fence about our solutions can take our latest features out for a spin.

Read below to learn how the latest advances in property search technology are being used to improve the MLS search experience for your clients in this release.

Find nearby IDX listings

Now website IDX visitors can use our new Radius Search panel to find homes near a given location, just like they can on your mobile IDX.  Home buyers simply use the built-in Use my browser’s location option or type in an exact street address, then specify the distance from that spot they want included in their search.

This new search panel is available for all accounts and can be enabled from the Search Tab of your IDX Options.

Create custom polygon links

Added by popular demand, you now can create custom search links using polygon map areas.  Custom IDX links make it easy to pre-filter listings on your real estate web site, and this new polygon option provides even more control over your search.

You’ll find the new Custom Polygon editor in the custom Links area of your IDX admin.  Zoom and pan the map around, then switch to our Draw a shape tool and outline the area(s) to include in your search.  Polygons are great for filtering for listings near light rail stations, along the waterfront, or even on specific islands – - simply draw your search area!

Driving directions to any listing

We’ve also added one-click access to driving directions on all IDX listings. Located under the Maps tab of each listing, our new Get Directions button prompts users for their starting location, then provides step-by-step directions to the listing using Google Maps data. The Driving Directions option is automatically enabled for all accounts already using the Map features on their listings.  You can edit these settings on the Details Tab of your IDX Options.

Both our Radius Search and new Driving Direction features use a combination of Wi-Fi hot spots and IP addresses from Google’s mapping API to determine location for each IDX visitor.  This data tends to be pretty accurate, but we also provide users the option to manually enter a starting address for their search.

More ways to capture IDX leads

v3.3 adds new ways to convert your visitors and capture new leads with your mapping IDX.

A new Ask a Question button makes it easier than ever for home buyers to get in touch with you.  Located below the photos section on each IDX listing, this button prompts users to fill out a quick contact form at any time during their search.  The Ask a Question button can be enabled through the Details Tab tab of your IDX Options.

Additionally, we’ve added new instant message opportunities throughout the mapping IDX interface with new chat buttons below the contact form on the left side of all listings and below the Schedule a Showing and Ask a Question forms.  All chat features send instant messages to your desktop or your mobile phone via SMS, and our new buttons make it even easier for buyers to take advantage of these features.

The new chat buttons have been added to all accounts that already had our existing chat features enabled.  You can enable all dsAgentChat features for your account on the dsAgentChat tab of your IDX Options.

Known in the real estate technology industry for our regular product updates and attention to customer input, this is just a first of many IDX updates for 2012.  We encourage your feedback on this release as well as input on what you’d like to see in our future IDX releases!