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Carver Communications - Index

Carver Communications - 5.1.08 - Index

Vol.XXVI, No.9 © Carver Communications, Inc. May 1, 2008
KGB Texas hired as PR Firm for SABOR
By Kate Cherry
Beginning in January of this year,
members of the San Antonio Board of REAL-
TORS® Communications and REALTOR®
Image committees worked diligently to select
and recommend hiring a public relations firm
for SABOR. The goal was to seek out a firm
that could help SABOR with its brand awareness
among the business community and to
educate consumers that a REALTOR® is the
trusted professional when it comes to buying
and selling property. The process was a long
but thorough one, and ultimately led to the hiring
of KGB Texas in March 2008.
To begin the process, a task force comprised
of individuals from the Communications
committee and REALTOR® Image committee
was asked to interview a variety of public relations
firms and narrow down its search to the
top firm that stood out above the rest. KGB
Texas was selected out of the group with the
recommendation of the Communications and
REALTOR® Image committees and approval
by the Board of Directors in mid-March.
KGB Texas was established in 1994 by
President and CEO Katie G. Harvey. The company
has a variety of clients nationwide and
provides the services of public relations, mar-
P.O. Box 33862
San Antonio, Texas 78265
keting and advertising to help grow its clients’
business. SABOR hopes to capitalize on these
services by having KGB Texas help send a consistent
and organized message to the public stating
that the San Antonio Board of REAL-
TORS® is a credible and reliable source of real
estate information in the business community
and that all real estate is local. SABOR also
hopes to utilize KGB Texas to deliver the message
to consumers to use a REALTOR®
because the REALTOR® is the trusted professional
in the business of real estate. As the planning
continues to come together between
SABOR and KGB Texas, another goal is to
create an evolving and growing relationship
between the two organizations that will help
maximize SABOR’s image to the public.
SABOR asked KGB Texas to evaluate the prior
REALTOR® Image advertising campaigns to
see what has been effective in the past and
assess tactics that were not as successful. The
purpose is to formulate an effective branding
strategy through public relations and advertising
to promote awareness of the San Antonio
Board of REALTOR’S® name and its role in
the community. SABOR hopes to accomplish
this with the help of KGB Texas by using press
kits, promoting SAMMinistries events where
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SABOR is involved, submitting press releases
and newsworthy stories to print publications
across the city and maintaining a consistent
message. SABOR and KGB Texas will work
together to stay current on SABOR newsworthy
events and local, state and national real
estate trends to help this branding process.
As mentioned before, SABOR’s goal is
to publicize information and events that are
directly tied to the Board. Some examples of
events and stories to promote include the 100th
Anniversary of the REALTOR® that will occur
in May, the San Antonio Texas Association of
REALTORS® Convention that will occur
from September 6th-11th, 2008, and the first
independent SABOR Housing and Market
Forecast that will be presented on January 6th,
2009.
In addition to Board events, KGB will
help SABOR to publicize real estate economic
trends and market statistics to different media
sources and highlight that all real estate is
LOCAL. Various promotions through stories
and events will be used to show that the San
Antonio real estate market is strong and vibrant.
SABOR also hopes to publicize different
trends and issues going on inside the industry
that will help consumers and REALTORS®
with their decisions and business practices.
This may include everything from providing
Question and Answer articles on various topics
in business and trade publications to elaborating
on buyer/seller trends taking place in real
estate.
SABOR is looking forward to the working
relationship with KGB Texas. The hope is
that it will be a growing relationship that can
prove to help SABOR not only today, but well
into the future. For more information about the
Communications or REALTOR® Image committees,
please contact Kate Cherry at
kate@sabor.com.
Tim Ford, President and CEO of dynaConnections, and Travis Kessler,
CEO of the San Antonio Board of REALTORS®, sign the official contracts
to make ConnectMLS of dynaConnections the new MLS provider of
SABOR. The MLS design team, standing in back, made the recommendation
to hire dynaConnections after listening to eight different vendors
and what those vendors could offer SABOR. The SABOR MLS conversion
will take place in August where ConnectMLS will run parallel with the
current provider Paragon until the official switch over on October 1st.