Real Estate Marketing SEO Blog

Video Emails

You have seen them in your email box.This is what I just received in my inbox not too long ago.

A Video that you can actually click and it will play. However, of course you find out it will not play in your email. It is only a graphic that looks like a video say from Youtube.

So I was recently asked how do you make a Video Email work?

Tha short answer is you don't.

You simply create a snapshot of your Video you wish to link to, and then put it into your html email editor as a graphic that links to a Video URL.

So how I explained it was by demonstration. One of the best ways to teach. I took a snap shot of one of my most recent Videos.  I used my favorite snapshot tool-Snagit. I then layered an arrow play button on top of the graphic. I got the icon at my favorite Icon location called http://www.iconfinder.com/.

Here was finally what the graphic looked like. Now it is ready to paste into an email editor and link to its real web location. This is a video of yours truly, many years ago when I was a web marketing extraordinaire in training. In Business school we were learning Pascal on punch cards if that tells you how long ago it was.

 

 

 

 

 

Spring Clean Your Online Marketing

Image via Wikipedia

Have you ever enjoyed the freedom of going into your closet and emptying all those clothes and nick nacks that you haven't worn or used in years?  The energy it opens up is amazing. The same thing can happen in your business if you let it.

As THE longest standing SEO company in the real estate space, you can imagine how much clutter that can invade a business and computers. Search Engine Marketing is an ever changing eclectic business and the ability to devour relevant information is necessary to stay on top of the ever changing world of Google.

Junk can accumulate very rapidly in the ever changing world of SEO. In fact, the other day I was cleaning out the garage and came across a tutorial on "How to Dominate Yahoo Directory". I believe it was dated 2001. In case you do not know Yahoo Directory is hardly used by anyone at all anymore.

So over the weekend I completed the painful task of finishing off what started with multiple backed up hard drives going as far back as the 90's. They are now down to two. And soon will be one.

How did I do it?

Well I created more relevant categories for my business today. What didn't fit most likely was deleted. Old files and programs that did not match my business today or my vision for the future was scrapped.

Just like an old favorite,no longer fitting,torn T Shirt, these files had to go.

As I hit delete, my brain was just a bit more free to consider new opportunities. It was if a weight had been lifted off my brain space.

This was truly a liberating experience. I highly recommend you hit your closet, and then hit your hard drives for a much needed scrubbing.

Next step?

Use the Xenu tool and find out where your site has link rot. Clean up all your dead links. Google will love you for the work.

ROI on Time

Find out how much time you are spending on various online efforts.

Is Social Media really benefiting your bottom line?

Is that time better spent looking for links? Is it better spent blogging? Writing articles for syndication? Or looking for a SEM firm like ours to outsource?

De-clutter your life and your business so that you can have more time to spend doing the activities that matter in your life and business.

Does EMail Even Matter Anymore?

Somewhat contrastive to last weeks post on Baby Boomers... A report by Jupiter Research found that the rising popularity of social networking sites and other forms of communication including text messaging and cell phone use are beginning to impact the effectiveness of e-mail marketing, particularly the numbers of consumers that say promotional messages inspired purchases.

The report (The Social and Portable Inbox: Optimizing E-mail Marketing in the New Era of Communication Tools) indicated that emerging forms of communication are leading to diminished use of e-mail.

22% of e-mail users said they use social networking sites instead of e-mail, with scores more indicating they have used instant messaging (IM), text messaging, and cell phones instead of e-mail.

In 2007, 51 % of e-mail users said e-mail inspired at least one online purchase, and 47 percent said the same for off-line purchases. However, in 2008, the share of e-mail users fell to 44 % for online purchases and 41 % for off-line purchases.

This smacks against the study on Boomers that found that 75% who have received promotional emails about products and services have clicked through to the site being promoted, and more  than 55% have purchased a product or service promoted in an email.

Email Never Getting There?

Lyris ISP Deliverability Report (PDF), nearly 1 of every 5 permission-based email messages sent to U.S.-based ISPs gets automatically junk mail folder. That means slightly more than 76 percent of invited email successfully makes it to the inbox. 

Mortgage Broker Leads

Mortgage Brokers are having a rough go of it currently in many parts of the U.S. Just like the Realtors. Mostly because of tightening of lending requirements.

I recently witnessed a couple methods that Mortgage Pros are using to ramp up their chances of landing an application.

Something Happened After I Hit Send

I sent out an email Monday night and peeved a large group of my email list. However, to another portion of the list my email did absolutely nothing (based on responses), as it also persuaded another large portion. What in blazes did I do?

I sent out an email that was a recommendation to get a free $100 card from my favorite Mexican Food Restaurant. The copy was very hokie and written in an awe shucks style. It sent the clicker to a website that put the visitor thru a series of hoops in order to get a discount card.

Continues...

Modalities and Mail

This morning I picked up my most recent copy of DMNews (Oct 29,2007, page 14, page 10 in their online version).

The article I gravitated towards was about a real estate company called Real Living. The title of the article: Real Living turns to mail for growth. I really believe in the idea of doing what everybody is not doing philosophy of life. I recently watched Dan Kennedy say much of the same thing. Kennedy is a star maker in the Direct Response world. Have you ever heard of Craig Proctor? Thank Dan Kennedy.

Real Estate "Drips Not Dripping"

A new study to be released shortly by the Email Experience Council finds that links are missing in 28% of all emails , and many email sland into inboxes without proper rendering images.

"Our research shows that less than 50% of marketers are creating emails that render appropriately," states the report.

The study was conducted by reviewing 1,000 e-mails--both business-to-consumer and business-to-business--sent during the last quarter.

• 28% of the e-mails arrived without links
• 21% of the e-mails appeared completely blank when images had been turned off

Takeaway Lesson: This is obviously a result of overactive spam filters.  So a good idea is to test a few emails on dummy accounts to make sure you are getting thru. Much  of this is at the ISP level. SO you can contact ISPs to get whitelisted or If you are using a commercial mailer their ip may be the problem. So you might want to make them aware of the importance of whitelisting.

Hands Down:The Best Real Estate Marketing

What is everyone else doing? Do the Opposite!

We as people, and henceforth realtors and agents tend to be sheep. I think I have even coined us as sheople in an earlier post.

What do I mean? Well we often will follow the "wisdom of crowds" without thought of consequence. Instead of finding and then doing what the very best online marketers do. Often times we make judgements based on what the majority is doing. Unfortunately, the majority does 6 home buying or listing sides a year. The full article

If it Ain't Making Leads, Then its Just an Expensive Brochure

Blogging, Websites, lead capture vs open MLs.

I can't tell you how many times a day I hear an agent or an "expert" espouse the virtues of the empowered consumer and that it really is a benefit to leave the MLS open VS forcing them to opt-in.

The biggest excuse is that the consumer will just move-on to another website.

Hmm. Lots of responses come to mind for that one:

"Whose fault is that?"
The MLS has systematically been given away by NAR itself and boards since the beginning of the net.
"So what"
Serious people do not mind giving away some personal information for the data they want. Blogs are growing at a blistering pace where anyone with a thought can publish. Do you want to see the future? Just go to MySpace. What a mess of disjointed and frenetic text. Remember the line, "57 Channels and nothing on?" Yah. The net is Cable TV on Steroids.

The future of the internet is paid content. People, will not mind paying for content from sources they trust, because they want the information they can trust. When you have a medium where anyone with Frontpage and some time can start a business, it makes it more time consumptive to get what you want. Thus, people do not mind giving their information.

I have driven millions of consumers to my own and my client websites. They all get a phenomenal lead conversion rate.

Real Estate Control Freaks

At the end of the day, a forced opt-in is about control.

Control over your business, your website and your future. The money is in your list of prospects that come from your blog, your website and IDX VOW websites.

Control is from you communicating your message to an opt in list. It comes from knowing the point of your real estate blog, or your realty website. In my opinion that is to gather names. Lots and lots of names. So that can talk with those names on your terms.