Real Estate Marketing Drips: October 2009

Halloween Trick or Treat Fun with Real Skillz Newly Launched Free Real Estate Marketing Tools Website

A few months ago I launched my Real Skillz Goodies website to capture the web 2.0 tools in one place that real estate agents could use for the real estate marketing.  Today I am relaunching the site with a few tweaks and improvements and hope it will serve as your resource when you are looking for a specific type of tool to help you with your real estate marketing.

All the real estate marketing tools on the website are free or free with a paid version.  I have also broken them up into categories that I think will make more clear marketing sense for real estate professionals along with a resource link for each category tab.

Every time I write a new blog post about real estate marketing, the tools referenced will be included in this site as it will serve as repository and reference for real estate professionals to use.  Access to this website will always be free.

I'll be adding videos, audio, and more on this site to further serve as a resource for your real estate marketing needs.  I hope you come on by and have some Halloween Trick or Treat Fun with Real Skillz Newly Launched Free Real Estate Marketing Tools.

Enter the Real Skillz Newly Launched Free Real Estate Marketing Tools Website by clicking on my ghostly picture below.

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Real Skillz Halloween Treat~A Blogging Workbook for New Real Estate Bloggers

In conversations sprinkled throughout my blog and in seminars I have given to real estate offices and franchises I am aware that there are still many real estate professionals who are intimidated as to where to begin blogging.  There are many great resources to get started, but with the crush of information that exists online the amount of resources can be enough to make new real estate bloggers turn on their heels and run away from the blogosphere.

That's a shame because a content fueled marketing strategy online is a winning proposition for real estate professionals. 

• Real Estate bloggers win SERP (Search Engine Results Placement) on Google, Yahoo and Bing with content. 
• Real Estate bloggers win relationships with other professionals which often leads to referrals.
• Real Estate bloggers win new clients who get to know like and trust them by reading their  blog for advice about real estate,information on local events, and a few posts that are just about the person behind the real estate license.
  

Real Estate bloggers win business online when they are consistent, thorough, creative, transparent, sincere, and genuine.

Today I want to share two free resources with new real estate bloggers.  I thought about the lessons I have taught in real estate seminars and my own experience blogging to real estate consumers for nearly 2 years and put together this workbook and slideshow to share.

Real Skillz Halloween Treat~A Blogging Workbook for New Real Estate Bloggers.

A blogging workbook

A slideshow on blogging

• Real Estate Market Reports- You could take 3 months worth of real estate market reports and create a quarterly ezine.
• Home Maintenance and Repair- You could group by seasonal repairs/improvements or by type of repair/improvement (e.g. kitchen, living room, outdoor landscape)
• Home buyer checklists
• Home Seller checklists
• Short sales 101
• First time home buyer information
• Relocation information
• Any of your real estate blog posts that you have in a series

Once you have decided which blog posts you will use in your ezine, list the names of the blog posts on a document ( I use Google Docs) and the order in which you want them to appear in the Ezine.

2.  Create your Real Estate Ezine

Go to Zinepal.com and take 2 minutes to fill out a form and create an account.  It's free.   Once you have an account an Zinepal you will log in and start creating your ezine.  The first step is to enter the url of your blog or your blog's rss feed.  Once you have done this the zinepal.com application will pull a list of your blog posts.  You simply check the ones you want included in your ezine and zinepal.com will add them to a dashboard for you. 

Check to make sure that you have the right blog posts for your Ezine in your dashboard and click the customize and create my ezine button. 

3.  Edit your Real Estate Ezine

Once you are in the Ezine Editor it will ask you to:

• Enter your keywords and an introduction for your ezine.
• Choose your logo for the header of the ezine, font type and font size.
• Upload an image for advertising on your ezine (I'll discuss this later).
• Save your ezine as a template for future ezines.

Editing your Ezine will take you about 5-10 minutes maximum.  Once you are done you can preview your real estate ezine or hit create to publish and save your ezine.

4.  Your ROI Is Dependent On How You Market your Real Estate Ezine

You will get a PDF copy of your ezine which you can download onto your computer and save in your documents.  You will also receive a profile page on zinepal.com that will become a library for your Ezines.  You can choose to keep this ezine profile page public or private.  If you allow your profile page to be public visitors can subscribe by RSS to your ezine feed.

Here is how I recommend you market your Real Estate Ezines:

• Decide which ezines you are willing to give away without requiring Internet visitors to fill out a form and which ezines you require visitors to fill out a form before allowing them to download.
• Take your private ezines and upload them to a document storage and collaboration website and set them as private. 
• Create a simple form for Internet Visitors to fill out before they can access your private real estate ezines. 
• Embed this form on your website, email, blog, social networks and other places online where your advertise your real estate services online.  After they complete the form it will take them to the URL where your private ezine(s) are located for them to download.
• Expose your public ezines by leaving them public on your profile on a document storage and collaboration website.  This will allow visitors to download and share your ezines by email, facebook, twitter, Digg and more.  It will also allow the search engines to index your profile page thereby increasing the visibility of these public documents.
• Use the RSS feed you are given from zinepal.com and embed it on your blog or website.  Even though you may leave some of your ezines public, you can still use the RSS feed to gain subscribers and grow your email list).

5.  Take the Marketing of your Real Estate Ezine to the Next Level

The simple repurposing of content from your real estate blog into real estate ezines can provide a wealth of viral branding avenues for you to explore and create new business opportunities.  Taking the marketing of your ezine to the next level means marketing your ezine in both offline and online venues.

Here's how you can take the marketing of your real estate ezine to the next level:

Pull and push your content heavy ezine for the maximum ROI.

It's up to you to take action now that you know how to repurpose your real estate blog's content to grow your email list in 5 simple steps.

 
A Roadmap Blogging Real Estate Professionals 23-Oct-2009

Crush the box.  Somebody's gonna do it and it should be you.

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I am giving the readers of Blogging In the Rain a preview of the weekly newsletter I launched this week from my Facebook Business Page, Rebecca D. Levinson, dba Real Skillz Real Estate Marketing.  My Facebook Business Page distributes weekly newsletters, daily reads, and bi-weekly discussions.

If you are on Facebook friend me and fan my Facebook Business Page so that you won't miss out on these Free Real Estate Marketing resources.  I look forward to getting to know the less "business" side of you as a Facebook friend and to giving you more real estate marketing tips as a Facebook fan of my Real Estate Marketing Business, Real Estate Skillz.

Week of 10/20/09- Real Skillz Freebie Picks- Free Online Reads and Real Estate Marketing Resources for Real Estate Agents and Real Estate Companies

• Are The Right People on Your Marketing Team?- A Free E-Book from HubSpot that real estate companies can use to gauge their internal marketing departments and that real estate professionals can use to gauge their current social media marketing efforts. The link to the Free E-Book is in the body of the blog post, "Inbound Marketing Book Launched In Stores Today".

Real Skillz Freebie Picks- Free Online Reads and Real Estate Marketing Resources for Real Estate Agents and Real Estate Companies is a weekly online newsletter for Facebook Fans of Rebecca D. Levinson, Real Estate Marketing Consultant.

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If you like what you read follow Rebecca D. Levinson as a friend and a fan on Facebook for more real estate marketing tips and real estate marketing discussions.

How to Manage the Time You Spend on Social Media In Three Simple Steps Using Google Docs

If you have a marketing plan that integrates social media, you know how easy it can be to get bogged down in applications, new social networks, SEO, and general SMM (Social Media Marketing) research and development.  The time suck is one of the biggest road blocks to social media success.  

To be effective with your social media strategy you need to track:

• The completion of your goals (social media activities)
• How long it took you to complete your goals
• Feedback- The good and the bad of each activity daily.
  

There's an easy way to track your social media activities.  All you need is an online stopwatch with sound, and an online chart that tracks your social media activities.  I am going to show you how to create a Social Media Marketing Log using Google Docs.

1.  Get the goal setting template.

Download the runner's log template from Google Docs into your Google Docs Account.  You will need to be logged into Google Docs to do this.   The runner's log turned out to be the perfect fit for charting social media marketing activities.  Are you surprised?

2.  Edit the Runner's Log Template to fit your Social Media Marketing Goals

You can edit the Runner's Log inside of Google Docs.  I removed these fields on the form:  Location, Distance, Who I Ran With, and Approximate Calories burned and added one field- Type of Networking.  When you are done you should have these fields on the form:  Type of Social Media Marketing Activity, Time Spent, Notes. 

You can also change the theme, there are 68 total. Choose a theme that you don't mind looking at everyday.

3.  Publish your Social Media Marketing Log In Your Google Docs Account

Hit Save in Google Docs when you are done and it will provide you with a link to view the Social Media Marketing Log you have created. 

Your responses will funnel to a spreadsheet in your Google Docs account that will be timestamped for you to easily analyze and track from anywhere you have an internet connection.

That's it your done.

There are many time tracking and project management tools on the internet but this simple chart gets the job done and will grow as your social media efforts expand.  Sometimes the more complex tools become a time waster when there is more time spent configuring and playing with them then actually using them to track your social media efforts.

Simply put, sometimes the simple things can be the most effective measurements of success.

Have fun and enjoy.  Now you know how to manage the time you spend on social media in three simple steps using Google Docs.

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If you enjoyed this post on time management check out these:

• A Cure for Time Exhaustion.  The Solution that Business Planning Forgot
  
• How to Nip Blogging Schizophrenia in the Bud
  

Three Online Marketing Assumptions You Might Be Making and How You Can Correct Them

In the 24/7 world of online marketing that now includes interactive social media and blogging strategies, it is easy to get caught up in new web 2.0 tools and not work on remaining consistent and improving the work that has already been created.  Pruning my blog and improving my online marketing presence this week has been an enlightening experience this and I wanted to share my findings and solutions with you. 

Here Are Three Online Marketing Assumptions You Might Be Making and How You Can Correct Them

1.  Your Online Business Profile Should Be Brief

One common assumption about online business profiles is that less is more. While you shouldn't write an epic biographical novel, your online business profile should include relevant information: Background, Services, Testimonials, and Contact information. Spice up your online business profile by telling readers about YOU, the person, not just the business professional. 

It's a good idea to create one basic online business profile in a document processing application (I use Google Docs).  Obviously your ActiveRain profile will be different than your Facebook profile which will be different from your profile on Twitter.

If you save one master profile you can pull content from it to create a different profile for each of your social networks.

You want your profile to be tempting enough that prospects either pick up the phone and call you or they email you.  Do not make the assumption that prospects will read a paragraph about you and visit your website for more information.  You need to capture your prospects attention on the platform in which they found your profile.  The content in your business profile should keep visitors intrigued and reading. 

Remember, if visitors don't stick who cares about the click. 

Almost every single client that has called me from my real estate marketing profile on ActiveRain has picked up the phone because of an emotional trigger related to what I wrote....which would be the softer, more personal side of who I am and what makes me tick.  How do I know?  I asked the ones who didn't tell me, though many of my prospects and clients have told me this as soon as they had me on the phone.

Know-Like-Trust + Experience and Knowlege= Contact From A Prospect

Here's a resource for further details on how to create an engaging online business profile in 5 simple steps.

2. Your Blog Readers Will Know All the Places You Have A Presence Online

It can seem confusing, based on the concerns from some in the real estate blogging community and social media marketers at large, whether you should "maintain the purity of a blog" by not adding calls to action.  Well rest assured you can maintain a quality blog and add a call to action for your blog readers.

Most good marketing has a call to action and the most valuable property of your blog is the post itself. 

Both a call to action AND your blog are two great tastes that DO taste great together.  The formula you want to write is: Valuable Property + good marketing=Call/Email of a prospect. 

Do not think for a minute that other marketing professionals do not have a call to action in their blogs. You will find calls to action in the footers and links of blog posts across the blogosphere.  Remember that socialize buttons, RSS text links/buttons, email links, website links, and phone numbers are all important calls to action that should be incorporated into your blog posts. 

Strategically you will want to vary your calls to action based on the keywords and content of each post.  This will be easy if you have an online marketing strategy.

3.  Your New Blog Subscribers Will Read Your Older Posts

Most of your new blog subscribers will read from the day they subscribe forward.  Sometimes they might dig back a week or two....but further isn't likely UNLESS YOU...

Point readers, new and old, in the direction of your older posts.  Many of your blog readers will read other bloggers online and your older blog readers may miss a few of your blog posts as they have other bloggers they follow.  Point your readers in the direction of your older posts.  When you write a post, link to 2-3 other blog posts you have written in the body of your post (if applicable) or in closing as recommended reading. 

Not only will you be providing your readers with a valuable resource on the same topic as your blog post, BUT if you link wisely, you can also win by increasing the Google Juice to the blog post.

Fresh New Post Content + Recommendations to older related blog posts= Value to your readers new and old

All Good Marketing Intentions Succeed with Action

If you are making some of the aforementioned assumptions in your online marketing now is a good time to start correcting them.

As my good friend Anne Marie Malfie made the point, frequency is a required action for successful online marketing.  You must not only go backward and correct the 3 online marketing assumptions you may be making but moving forward you need to implement these ideas into your online marketing strategy and take action frequently.

If you enjoyed this post about online marketing then you should read,

• Advertise Online Only What You Are Willing to Answer
• Your Internet Appraisal Shouldn't Be A Drive By Valuation
• Pre-Spring Cleaning:  How to Stage Your Internet Storefront and Create An Engaging Online Marketing Presence
  

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Top 7 Tips to Connect with Blog Comments

Do you want to kick your blogging up a notch?  One key to successful blogging is listening.  When you listen by reading a blog post you need to treat that time as you would if you were sitting across the table from a prospective client.

To listen you need to make a commitment to unplug from your other tasks at hand. There's a lot of hearing that gets done online, but listening is in a class all its own.  If you truly listen you set yourself up for great connections and true business opportunities.  Add commenting to your blogging goals and try these commenting tips.  

Top 7 Tips to Connect with Comments  

1.  Read the Full Post- It's common for people to skim posts online.  Try to choose blogs that you can regularly visit that are chock full of great content and interesting subjects that keep you on your toes. 

Continue Reading Top 7 Tips To Connect with Blog Comments

Businesses Who Outsource Work Overseas Will Get Less In Return Thank You Think

This past weekend I was searching for a coder for a website project I have.  Before going to the job boards and looking at Linked In, I did a Google Search online.  One of the first organic search results was for a company called O'Desk. 

Oh my O'Desk is an interesting freelancer website.

If you log onto O'Desk you can find SEO Specialists, Link Builders, Copywriters,Virtual Assistants, Marketing Assistants, Senior PHP/Sequel Developers, Graphic Artists and more.  So far so good right? Then comes the crazy part.  You can hire a worker overseas, the Phillipines seems popular, for $3/hour to build your linking strategy.  Overseas coders quote 50-75% less than coders for the United States.

And right here is where you say, "Oh Rebecca, Thanks for letting me know about this site...I can afford those prices.  I'll have to check it out". 

Right?

Wrong.  I say wrong and this is why.  For every job that you give to an overseas worker, you take the business opportunity away from an able bodied and willing to work American.  Does this mean I am prejudice? Do I have something against foreign workers?

I am not prejudiced.  I am aggravated.  I am sad. 

• I am sorry to see so many people willing to work who are obviously well qualified and look at the O'Desk board to see that these U.S. workers have 50% less hours than their foreign counterparts. 
• I am sorry to see the unemployment numbers rise and small and large businesses alike continue to outsource labor overseas.
• I am sorry to see solopreuners and entrepreneurs struggle to employ workers to help them with their non-revenue producing tasks and turn toward these board to have their website, blogging and social networking done for them at $3-7/hour.

I am sorry because I know that behind every displaced worker and underbid contractor there is an American who is getting the short end of the stick by their own fellow Americans.  I am sorry because the Recession may be officially "over" but if unemployment rises we are headed to something much worse.  I can't help but think that these moves relocate more Americans from Middle Class to Poor. 

I can't help but think that these moves threaten to move America to a two class society-Have and Have Nots and no in betweens.

You may not know someone who is effected by unemployment but really you do.  In six degrees of separation we are all linked to someone who is not doing well and should be given an opportunity if able, willing and ready 

Instead by outsourcing work we disable the able bodied American worker.

I am not anyone's moral compass but businesses who outsource work overseas hurt your business more than you think.  If we burden the very backs of those who consume and purchase products and services sold in AAmerica who will be left to purchase and who will be left to sell?  The decisions we make to outsource work to foreign workers will hurt someone tomorrow.

What businesses may THINK they are saving today will be recycled to hurt them tomorrow.

It may seem painful to pay more when we could pay less.  But not all moral decisions are easy decisions.  Not all right steps are easy steps.  I concur that sometimes the best steps can seem painful, as an entrepreneur I've had to make some of those this year.

No one said running a business was easy.  No one said doing the right thing is always easy either.  Does each of businesse's survival come at the expense of our American Workers.  Though they are not the cheapest they are most likely the fittest.

Come on America, we are better than this and we each individually CAN do better.

Businesses Who Outsource Work Overseas Will Get Less In Return Thank You Think.

Michael Jackson, Social Media Gluttony, and Wall-E

Today I was reading a newsletter from Social Media Today that warned about the risks of overusing social media, with quite a brilliant comparison made to Michael Jackon.  Social Media Gurus who rise to the top must be careful that their transparency, position, and influence does not disengage them from their audience

And isolate them......

At least that is what I got out of the analogy.

The article was prompted by a post that Jason Baer wrote, "Let's Stop Swooning Over Social Media".  I applaud this post for its spot on appraisal of what social media marketing has come to many and for its resounding message-we must not turn our backs on consumers who are still not engrossed in social media as much as marketers are.

Great timing for me, not only because I feel I have written about this a time or two, but also because for the past month I cannot tell you how many "consumers" ask me "What is Twitter?". They laugh and tease about it, guess at it,some vaguely have knowledge of it.  So I spend time giving mini Twitter classes to consumers on the fly. 

I don't mind and I know it's a smart place to be- early adoption is half the winner's race.

I digress....back to Jason Baer's post and Social Media Today's news article.  When I read both today I thought they were spot on and I went back to re-reading the ClueTrain Manifesto and then in the middle....as often happens...I had to jump right up and open up my blog to write.

Because again what struck me about these posts was the emphasis on relationships....making and engaging in relationships and not disregarding those relationships that you can also find offline.  Relationships come in many forms, many places, and not always the places we are swooning over.

I smiled, thinking of communication and relationships... and I thought of this,

If you enjoy posts on social media then read,

• The New Front Porches of America Are Online
• Stealing Bases Wont Hit It Home Everytime with Social Networking and Blogging
• The Misconception of Social Networking:  Magic, Miracles, or Just Plain Moving and Shaking

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