If sponsoring an event for dog lovers is a sophisticated way to drum up business for real estate agents (see post below), this Washington Times story suggests the perils of a more blunt marketing technique: spamming.

Seems a mortgage originator recently made the mistake of e-mailing FDIC chairwoman Sheila Bair a pop-up ad offering her $400 monthly payments on a $175,000 loan. The article doesn't say say whether the offer was legit or whether the originator is in hot water, but does a nice job of exploring whether lax regulatory standards helped create the "dry forest" that Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson recently told lawmakers ignited into the mortgage meltdown.

Why is San Francisco Bay Area luxury real estate firm Pacific Union GMAC Real Estate sponsoring "Save Your Dog Day" -- an event where dog owners can get a microchip implanted in Fido and a "rabies shot and amnesty" for unlicensed pooches?

Well, it's "a fun and helpful community event that brings people and their pets together" and Pacific Union is proud to be the sponsor, the company says in a press release.

Given the hassles pet owners often face as renters and the location of the June 14 event -- Danville, an upscale suburb east of San Francisco -- it's safe to say most of the people showing up will probably be home owners, and potential clients.

Pacific Union, which has offices in six Bay Area counties, obviously knows a thing or two about drumming up business to keep its agents busy.

Some real estate agents and brokers are going to great lengths to boost business these days in searching for overseas buyers.

Any stories you care to share about efforts to market properties and services internationally? What is the state of foreign demand for U.S. property in your market area?

Coldwell Banker's latest ad campaign lets its founders do the talking -- at least through voiceovers that accompany still portraits of the company's deceased originators, Benjamin Arthur Banker and Colbert Coldwell.

The campaign features a series of video ads with dialog between the founders' portraits. Perhaps following the lead of lawn gnome vacation photos, Coldwell Banker is taking these portraits on the road as part of the campaign -- the company unveiled some images of the portraits on a San Francisco cable car, at a rodeo, and at the Grand Canyon, as examples (see image).

The ads feature some chitchatty conversations between the company founders' portraits, such as mention of the 1947 company Christmas party or engaging in staring contests.

Some media folks who got a sneak peak at the marketing campaign questioned why the ad campaign seems to bypass mention of the current state of the housing market. Charlie Young, Coldwell Banker chief operating officer, explained that local housing markets vary widely, and some markets are faring much better than others. "We looked past the current situation in the real estate market, and what the press and the national media is propagating, and looked more at what consumer needs are," he said.

The lips on the founders' portraits do not move, and there are no plans to turn the founders into animated mascots, Young said, adding that the intent is to "keep the integrity of the portraits as is."

A Web site accompanies the "Portraits" campaign, at www.coldwellbanker.com/founders.

The founders' portraits even appear at the Facebook social networking site -- not sure who is doing the "talking" for them there.

Young said company sales associates were engaged and supportive in the development of the campaign. Wondering how Advertising Age might react, given the scathing review of the latest series of National Association of Realtors ads (see related Inman Blog post).

Bill Banker, grandson of Benjamin Arthur Banker and senior vice president of Cornish & Carey Commercial real estate, said he did have an opportunity to preview the Coldwell Banker campaign and said it's "sort of a unique approach."

Here's a commentary from Inman's Joel Burslem on the campaign at his Future of Real Estate Marketing blog site.

With so much bad marketing advice out there for Realtors, Dustin Luther of 4Realz Consulting says he's hoping to counter the sales pitch with a course that's designed to be purely educational.

Luther, who is taking his Web smarts on the road in Southern California this spring, told Inman News he's designed his day-long course to attract agents who are interested in technology and in learning how to implement a successful online presence and online marketing campaigns.

The course will cover blogging, engaging in social networks, how to attract leads, track where leads came from, and implement systems for effectively communicating with clients and closing business. After the course, Luther will set agents on a path to engaging in online communities and blogs with a 15-minutes-a-day exercise he'll offer up daily.

Luther gained recognition for his understanding of online marketing when he created the Rain City Guide blog in Seattle, and went on to work with Move Inc.

He has teamed up with Jim Marks, founder and president of Virtual Results, who will teach agents what a real estate Web site will look like in 2008 and beyond, as well as ways to measure their progress in Internet marketing.

The duo will have guest speakers as well, and are slated for the following cities next month:

Los Angeles, March 6
San Diego, March 19
Orange County, March 31

More info about the course is at 4RealzEd.com.

Kaira Sturdivant Rouda, president of national real estate franchisor Real Living, released a book today, "Real You Incorporated: 8 Essentials for Women Entrepreneurs."

Guys -- stop rolling those eyeballs -- this isn't one of those "break the glass ceiling" or "how to lead like a man while still being a woman" kind of books. It's relevant to real estate agents as it focuses a lot on finding your own authentic brand.

Rouda also shows readers how to use a personal brand as a competitive advantage.

Phoenix real estate blogger Jay Thompson points out that the book applies to men as well as women. He mentions in the comments of this post that he's not afraid to be seen thumbing through his copy.

Copies are available through the book Web site, www.realyouincorporated.com.

An InmanTV video interview with Rouda can be seen here.

...and avoiding the lazysphere.

If you read real estate blogs, some or all of these names will ring a bell: Maureen Francis. Brian Brady. Kristal Kraft. Rhonda Porter.

You will find those familiar names -- and faces -- on Trulia Voices, a corner of the real estate search site where consumers can pose questions to experts.

Together, the four have answered more than 500 queries. Francis, a Michigan realtor who is the author of the miOaklandCounty blog, has provided more than 244 answers since joining Trulia Voices in September of 2006. Looks like the rest of this group (which I just assembled at random surfing the site) signed up on the same week in May.

Why would these folks -- who all have well established, well read blogs -- be spending their time helping out hapless consumers? I can't speak for them, but you might assume that they're doing it for the same reason many people blog -- to raise their profiles and get business.

In a story filed from Real EstateConnect NYC on Wednesday, Glenn Roberts Jr. rounded up some insight from several prominent bloggers attending the conference.

Curbed.com founder Lockhart Steele said that the field is getting more crowded, and that there's a "constant battle for people's attention." What brings people to blogs is the news value and overall quality of the content -- which means providing fresh information or meaningful insight, Steele said. Steele discussed a recently coined term -- the "lazysphere" -- for bloggers who take a herd approach and don't add much to the conversation.

Not something Francis, Brady, Kraft and Porter have to worry about, as their answers on Trulia Voices demonstrate. If readers are attracted to quality content on blogs, the same principle seems to be operating on Trulia Voices, where stats are kept on not only the number of answers provided, but "best answers" and "useful answers."

Brady, author of the blog Mortgage Rates Report, has 33 best answers, putting him in the top 10 for that category on the Trulia Voices leaderboard. Francis, with 29 best answers, is up on the leaderboard too. Kraft, who writes Denver Dwellings, has 19 best answers while Porter, the author of The Mortgage Porter, has tallied 12 best answers -- even though she's made her views known just 39 times.

By contrast, one San Francisco Bay Area realtor who's answered more questions -- 1,698 -- than anyone on Trulia Voices has only 13 best answers. (Another broker who works both New Jersey and Florida, Deborah Madey, is dominating the leaderboard with a quantity plus quality approach. Madey has 103 best answers and 1,992 "useful" ratings in 1,676 tries).

Two possible takeaways: One, even the best bloggers are stepping outside of their blogs (many are already writing for more than one) to raise their profiles. Two, when they do participate in other sites (which can include commenting on other blogs), they don't lower their standards.

While all these efforts can lead to financial rewards, you also get the sense that the best bloggers are motivated by more than that. When I talked to St. Paul Real Estate Blog's Teresa Boardman last year for a story on real estate bloggers, she said she spends about two hours a day blogging. About half of that time is spent reading other blogs, Boardman said.

"I read about 100 blogs a day -- about half directly industry-related, and other like TechCrunch and BoingBoing, don’t ask me why," Boardman said. "My whole product is imagination driven, and input from other sources helps me write." (Click here to hear Boardman discuss her "hyperlocal" blog on Inman TV).

The bright orange polyester plush toys pictured here come to Inman News from China, courtesy of the folks at HomeGain.

"Behind the cute and cuddly nature of this critter is a profound message for real estate agents to 'stop monkeying around' and fight the effects of a challenging market with HomeGain's help,' " each Inman staff member who received one was informed in a letter from company execs.

We could just do what we usually do when promo stuff like this arrives -- ignore it and go about our daily business. But instead of a "see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil" approach, I thought it would be interesting to hear from readers whether you think HomeGain will get much mileage out of this campaign.

Last year, I was somewhat appalled when a well-known company that provides fraud detection services for mortgage lenders sent us fortune cookies with slogans like "Confucius say: Loans to crooks/Make problems with books."

At least HomeGain is not likely to offend anybody with its new campaign (Isn't the first rule of marketing, "First, do no harm?" Or is that some other profession?). Stuffed animals do seem to be the rage this year. Here's where these guys came from if you want to jump on this trend.

Real estate marketing consultant Marc Davison usually has something provocative to say in his regular Inman News columns, and today he argues that rumors of the newspaper's demise have been greatly exaggerated.

"If you think that print media -- and in particular newspaper advertising -- is a waste of money, think again," Davison writes. "Considering all the honest-to-goodness garbage found in most papers, a well placed, well written, neatly conceptualized ad could do wonders for your brand, your business, your properties and your customers." 

When it comes to newspaper ads, the founding partner of 1000watt Consulting  recommends "doing the exact opposite of what everyone else is doing. Take your face out of your ads. You don't matter anymore (it's nothing personal). Your services do. Your technology does. You insight does. Your call to action does. Your properties, especially if they aren't reduced to tiny thumbnails, matter most of all."

As somebody who still gets a newspaper delivered to my door, I am often impressed with the full-page ads that grace the front page of the San Francisco Chronicle's "Saturday New Homes" advertising section. In September, 2006, I was so impressed by an ad that touted the local schools as a selling point for homes in San Ramon, Calif., that I took a picture of it and posted it on InmanBlog.

"What's interesting about this ad for Windemere Ranch is there is literally not one word about the homes themselves," I wrote back then. "The entire ad ... is filled with statistics trumpeting the quality of the local school district ... Schools have always been a selling point for homes, but it seems that's even more true when competition for buyers is intense."

I don't know if I even needed to take a picture of the ad to share it with InmanBlog readers -- these days, at least, the Chronicle reproduces the section online just as it appears in print. The latest edition of the Saturday New Homes section promotes a new development in Dublin, a Silicon Valley bedroom community east of San Francisco that sits on the Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) train line. 

"For the cost of a comparable condominium in San Francisco, Elan at Dublin Station residents can buy a home, pay for 10 years of commute expenses and enjoy many luxuries," the ad boasts. "D.R. Horton is making this situation a pleasant reality for home buyers at Elan at Dublin Station, a stylish new community located adjacent to the Dublin BART station."

The ad then reverts to the usual pitch about the features and amenities the homes offer. But once again, it's local services (schools, transportation), that are highlighted as the biggest selling point. I realize these ads were placed by homebuilders, not real estate brokers or agents. But is Davison right? Are newspapers still a place to sell consumers on your services, technology, insight, call to action -- and, most of all, your properties?

Now that newspapers are publishing their classifieds ads on their own Web sites -- and even pushing them to other sites like Yahoo!, Homescape and now Zillow (see today's Inman News story) -- it's getting harder to distinguish between a print and online ad.

Someday all newspaper classified ads will presumably have a parallel existence online (we are probably close to that day now). Newspapers have to get classified ads into digital form as part of the process of printing them, and putting them online doesn't take much additional effort or expense.

But many online ads -- like those carried by Craigslist -- will never exist on the printed page. For realtors and many other advertisers, having a classified ad appear in print may not be that important.

In the battle for traffic, many Web sites do something that newspapers don't seem to think they can afford to: publish listings or classified ads for free. Web sites view your listings as content that will draw consumers, and allow them to sell ads to other companies with deep pockets. 

Newspapers -- which have all sorts of additional pesky expenses like reporters and editors, printing presses, and newsprint -- haven't gotten around to seeing listings and classified ads as content.   

Which raises a question. Why do newspapers have to publish classified ads in their print editions at all? With the cost of newsprint on the rise, many newspapers have stopped wasting paper on information that readers can get online, such as stock prices.

As the big advertisers -- the folks who buy display ads in their print editions -- migrate to the Web, why aren't newspapers doing the same thing as Web sites like Craigslist, and offering their readers the opportunity to post online classified ads for free?

Those who want to buy a classified print ad would still be free to do so, but newspapers would have to make most of their ad revenue by charging for display ads, whether in print or online. Realtors, for example, could feed listings to newspaper Web sites at no charge, but brokers would have to shell out for display ads if they wanted to showcase their firms and agents.

Makes too much sense. Please tell me somebody is doing this already.