I do get tired of reading Realtors marketing material about how they are number one or the top realtor. They sell more houses, they are more ethical than all of the other Realtors, they make more money than all of the other Realtors. Is that what the public really wants? We all need to do personal promotion, but there is a better way!
I wrote blog previously about our buying movie rights for our small town library. I wanted to share with other real estate agents a truly unique way to contribute back to the people who make your business possible. I had no comments, so I take it that I did not get my message across.
Chestermere is a small lake community just outside of Calgary Alberta. It has grown from 900 people to over 12,000 in the 17 years that we have lived here. While the population has grown, services have not kept pace with our growth. It is a great place to live and only 5 miles from Calgary, but for the latch key to car key (11- 15 year old) it might as well be 100 miles away as they cannot get out of Chestermere with out a parent to drive them. With a membership with Audio Ciné Films Inc. our public library can show any film belonging to any of the studios listed below.
These include: Walt Disney Pictures, Touchstone Pictures, Hollywood Pictures, Buena Vista Pictures Distribution, Pixar Animation Studios, Alliance Films, New Line Cinema, Fine Line Features, Miramax Films, Focus Features, Odeon Films, USA Films, Artisan Entertainment, MGM Studios, United Artists, Orion Pictures, Universal Studios Canada (MCA), Polygram Filmed Entertainment, Equinoxe Films, TVA Films, Think Films, Warner/Turner/MGM Titles, FunFilms Distributions, Atopia Distribution Inc., Films Séville.
As there is no theatre in our town we also purchased the rights to show pre-release movies, that is movies that have not hit the video stores yet. This gives us an opportunity to provide movies before they can rent or buy it. Our first movies in November will be WALL-E and Narnia the Chronicals of Prince Caspian. So we are able to show great films.
While at first I thought this would just be great for the kids, I have had adults ask if we could do a date night, and women who are looking forward to seeing a movie with their moms, or girlfriends, so we will have a Chik Flik night. The seniors are interested in their own time....We are going to have a Hannah Montana Pajama Party for the pre-teen girls and more great ideas come in daily.
This is such a great marketing opportunity. If your library does not have a theatre, you can buy a reasonable home theatre package that will not set you back that much. Costco.ca had a complete package for $2,700. The membership and several new releases a month will cost less than $1000 per year. If you feel this is too much for you to take on alone, why not have your office or a group of local realtors get together to do it.
We must also say that we in Chestermere are blessed with a great library board and a staff that is enthusiastic although it will make more work for them. We cannot charge for movies but we ask that they have a library card $25/family per year (which will help bring our fairly new library's numbers up). We are also asking that they bring something for the food bank if they can. Once again giving us an opportunity to do something for our town.
We have it set up so that they can go to our website www.chestermererealestate.com to see what is playing. We have flyers with our names on them advertising what is coming up. All the businesses around town are happy to put up the posters.
So many realtors spend more sending out flyers saying how wonderful they are. Why not just do something wonderful for your community and then they may understand that you truly appreciate the wonderful opportunity that they have given you to be their local realtor.
Other non-theatrical rights companies are http://www.criterionpic.com/ and in the US http://www.criterionpicusa.com/
