Not My Idea of Marketing

[HHI Golf Guy]

From FoxNews.com:

Skin Bared to Sell Real Estate

LONG BEACH, Calif. (AP) — Real estate agent Wendy Heath (search) is undressed for success.

Heath, 34, said a blazer and slacks just don't cut it in the highly competitive Belmont Shore (search) housing market.

She chose to wear a bikini on a billboard that went up May 2.

"It's kind of flipped people out," said Heath, who reported receiving almost as many calls from Realtors upset with the ad as those voicing support. "A couple of agents are having a fit about it, but that's because they just didn't think of it first."

The billboard features Heath, a former personal trainer, wearing a bikini alongside the family English bulldog and the words, "Got real estate?"

"I'm here to create relationships with down-to-earth people who want to do business with me and appreciate who I am. More than anything, it's got people thinking," Heath said.

[judyo]

Sure was a good picture, though! Now if I could put my head on that body & switch out my Pekingese, Gizmo, would I get more clients?

[Phoenix Realtor]

What a lunatic. Sure it got her some attention... but at what price?

This is all over some other forums I'm on...

I would never do that, even if I was female and had a good body.

[judyo]

Seriously, if I were her I would definitely think twice about showing vacant properties or sitting open houses alone after that billboard stint.

[HMiller]

Seriously, if I were her I would definitely think twice about showing vacant properties or sitting open houses alone after that billboard stint.
Good point. I think she has a team working for her (I assume it's made up of men :p ) so hopefully they're doing that work.

I think she was going more for the publicity resulting from the controversy than from the ad itself and apparently it's working as she's all over the news out there locally and it now seems nationally. Wonder how many relo requests she's getting? Personally, I say if it works then more power to her.

For those who haven't seen the billboard (http://presstelegram.com/Stories/0,1413,204~21474~2862513,00.html) Personally, I'm more offended by her websites. Complete dup content, tsk tsk tsk.

[judyo]

Personally, I'm more offended by her websites. Complete dup content, tsk tsk tsk.

LOL! I'm a woman & I didn't read the website. I just looked at the pictures!

[Phoenix Realtor]

LOL! I'm a woman & I didn't read the website. I just looked at the pictures!

The exact oppisite of what men have been telling everyone about Playboy magazine for years! They just read the articles... :eek:

[HMiller]

The exact oppisite of what men have been telling everyone about Playboy magazine for years! They just read the articles... :eek:
... and they do have some great articles too.

[HomeSurfer]

Wendy is a formal personal trainer.

I've talked to her several times in the past and she seems like a very nice person. I like her. The bikini billboard doesn't bother me.

As for the duplicate content, it was written to inform the web visitor, not for search engine optimization.

However, it is not located directly on her site so her site has no duplicate content penalty. At least some of the content pages are indexed by Google and at least some have a PR3. There are approximately 150 pages of offisite content, all linking to her home page, using personalized anchor text, "Long Beach Real Estate by Wendy"...

Now...

...explain how Wendy's "duplicate content" is a bad thing?

JudyO has the same content setup that Wendy has. She'll be interested. So let's try not to write a kneejerk reaction here.

[HMiller]

Actually ABC, when I posted I shouldn't have mentioned that her "site" is all dup content, I should have just said her homepage as I didn't actually delve into her site. Well, except for her billboard page in order to uh, ahem, analyze her advertising methods and learn from it. My conclusion being that I could never pull that off as a bikini would never look quite as good on me. My comment about being offended wasn't meant to be taken seriously, was just trying to make a lighthearted joke. Sorry if it didn't come out that way and I certainly didn't mean to direct any comments toward whoever created the content.

[HomeSurfer]

Well, I agree that Wendy has a lot of work to do on her site. I suspect that she has been busy selling real estate successfully, and that is why her site development is lagging.

I just didn't want people to think there was actually something wrong with the content, since my company supplies that.

It was mostly designed for agents just starting out, so that in a couple of minutes they could add 150 pages of stuff to their site by "bolting on" our content product.

The way we set it up, though, does not hurt anyone's site for SEO and we've actually had some people say it enhanced their search engine performance quite a bit. That's a side benefit, though, not something we guarantee or use to market the content product.

[La Jolla Real Estate]

I appreciate the fact that she is doing something different...at the same time making the rest of us look a little better. Well, maybe not physically better...

G&S

[Phoenix Realtor]

Definately makes the average Realtor look better in the eyes of the consumer. :D

[San Diego Real Estate]

Matt no Doubt about that... LOL...

[CTABUK]

This is where I come unstuck :rolleyes:
She does make a couple of good points

Hey, that's no worse than Superman, come on guys I like it here, don't banish me :eek:

[HomeSurfer]

Personally, I liked Wendy's billboard. I don't live that far away. She used to be a personal trainer and wasn't advertising *** or anything. Living on Balboa is literrally living steps from the Pacific Ocean. Bikinis are part of living at the beach in Southern California.

Some agents have photos of themselves skydiving, surfing, scuba diving, motorcycle riding, and so on - which isn't really business attire. Plus, I have known agents who did use "***" as a lure to attract clients, whether it was actually delivered or not - and sometimes it was. Wendy was not one of those agents.

A long time ago, Mike Fong and I met in Los Angeles and we joked about putting up a joint venture web site, "Realtors in Bikinis." We never did it, of course. We would have been harpooned. But it would have been a fun web site (at least for guys).

[cody]

Genious, if you ask me. She was probably a nobody before or just local, and now people all over know of her, the old saying "no such thing as bad press" I think works here.

[jay19n64]

I'm not impressed..... I find it unprofessional, but I bet she gets the older guys to give her business.

[sac23]

If I saw her billboard on one side of the road and mine on the other side I would probably be more apt to call her. That is sad isn't it.