Advertising Production

To produce your adverts, click on “Advertising” under “Properties” in the Expert Agent Top Menu.

This form allows you to open up an existing advertising run or create a new one.

1. To open an existing advertising edition, click on it in the mini grid on the right. You can search by edition date and newspaper name as required.
2. To prepare new advertising - Choose Publication: Click on the newspaper that you want to create copy for.
3. Choose Edition Date: Either enter manually of choose the Date Picker field.  Include Other Branch Properties: Check this if you want to advertise properties from other branches. Auto Insert Pre-booked Properties: On the next form, you choose which properties you want to insert into the advertising edition. Checking this box will ensure that any properties that have been pre-booked for the edition in question get included.
4. Click on “Select Properties” when ready. This will open the advertising tool for you to select properties to go into this advert edition. 

The advertising tool is split into 3 tabs – we will look at each one in turn. 

Available (Un-Selected) Properties for Advertising

1. All suitable candidates for advertising will be placed into the first tab, those being on the market and still within their default number of times to advertise. The total number of suitable properties will display on the tab (in this example there 1 suitable property). In order to see a summary of the property, hover over each record to see the snapshot display in the information panel.
2. If you would like to select all the properties for advertising click the “Add All” button or alternatively select the desired properties individually by clicking “Add” next to each record. This action will move the selected properties across to the next tab (Selected Properties for Advertising).

Selected Properties for Advertising 

1. The this tab shows you the properties that you have chosen to appear in this advertising edition – either because they are pre-booked to appear or because you have chosen on the previous tab.
2. Remove: This option removes the property from your chosen properties in the “Selected Properties” tab and puts it back in the “Available Properties” tab.
3. Setup Copy: This gives you one last chance to choose which copy you want to use and which pictures to send. Clicking “Edit” displays the form shown in the next section.
4. Sort by Price Order: You have the option to order by price using the ascending/descending buttons at the top of the grid or alternatively use the up and down arrows next to each property record to promote or demote its position in the advertising copy.

Setup Copy (Step 2 above)

1. You can change the advert copy, and specify which copy block you want to send. You can then promote and demote the photos before specifying how many photos you want to send with this property.
2. Click save when done.

This will take you back to the “Selected Properties for Advertising” tab - do one last check on your properties. When you are ready to send your adverts, click the “Output Options” tab.

If you cancel, you can recall your newly created advertising selection at anytime, just go to “Advertising” under the Properties dropdown from the Expert Agent Top Menu.

Output Options 

Once your final selection has been made and you click on the “Output Options” tab you will be presented with the following form:

1. Select the Output Options tab
2. Advert Heading or Full Address: Choose whether you want the full address to appear at the top of the advert. The default setting is the advert heading.
3. Photo Size: Choose the required image size (in pixels). Expert Agent will then resize all the images it needs to send to the chosen size. 800 width is larger than needed for A4. 400 width can be printed to around a 4” width. Frankly, 400 pixels wide is ample for most newspaper adverts so is therefore set as the default.
4. Price Location: Would you the like asking price at the top or the bottom of the advert? The default setting is set to the top.
5. Include Reference: If you check this, each property’s reference is inserted after the advert text. Include Postcode:  If you check this, the property’s postcode will display on the advert. Separate text files for each property: If you check this, Expert Agent separates each advert into a separate text file rather than putting all the copy into one file. You will need to confirm with the newspaper in question which format is best for them. Additional Comments for the Press:  Add any special notes here.
6. To preview your output, click on Report.  This creates an on-screen report in exactly the chosen format. It can printed if required. To Email the advert copy to the specified recipient (with a copy sent to you), click on Send E-mail Copy. The resultant email contains either one text file or, if you asked for separate text files, separate text files called 1.txt, 2.txt, 3.txt etc. The images are added as 1a.jpg, 1b.jpg, 2a.jpg etc. All of this is explained in the text of the email so that the recipient can use it without further explanation from you or us. Clicking on Log Adverts writes history entries for each chosen property. Each property gains a history entry to confirm that the property has been advertised. If you have specified a charge greater than £1, a charge entry will be written to the property’s cashbook. Clicking on Vendor Letters displays a form giving you a choice of all of your vendor letters. This allows you pre-configure then produce a letter that confirms that an advertisement is being placed.