Archive for the ‘Marketing’ Category
Twitter Tips for Real Estate
Posted by Sibet B Freides in Marketing, Real Estate Trends, Social Media on April 19th, 2012
When you first got on Twitter was your reaction the same as everyone else’s? Did you overthink it, and insist that it was stupid because it was “nobody’s business what you had for lunch”? I’m guessing it took about six months for you to stop overthinking it.
Since it is the global opposite of traditional marketing, no complicated strategy is actually needed.
The biggest challenge is not figuring out what a hashtag means, it’s learning to communicate in 140 characters or less and learning how to shut off your “marketing mind” and turn on your conversation.
Twitter is an amazing place to keep up on the news, and for meeting people and sharing ideas. Over the years Twitter has been good for businesses. It puts you in touch with people you may never have met otherwise.
It’s also a place to experiment with content ideas and to test out reactions to photographs and articles before pulling the trigger and making them part of your permanent message.
If you are just getting started, or if you have been using it for shameless self promotion and gotten discouraged, here are some quick tips to keep in mind:
- Follow the local media. They don’t just tweet the news, they are also usually pretty social.
- Try to spend more time on Twitter reading than tweeting. Get familiar with the conversations happening and join in. It’s sort of like training wheels, only when they come off you will still be listening.
- Please – don’t tweet or read through tweets when you are with clients. It’s a constant stream so forget trying to keep up. You can set up filters and notifications for the tweets you simply don’t want to miss and read them at your convenience.
- Promote other businesses in your community. Recommending others – even those that may have seemingly appeared to be competition in the past – goes a long way at defining you as an expert. People will naturally want to return the favor when you play nice in the social sandbox.
Learning how to use Twitter means being able to network anytime and maybe even connect with people that you wouldn’t get to meet any other way. Remember it’s not about a list of your next open houses.
Are You Making These Marketing Mistakes?
Posted by Sibet B Freides in Marketing on April 11th, 2012
Where’s my audience?
Did you rush out to create a kickin’ new website, Facebook page, and Twitter account? Great! You’re ahead of the game. Except, after that you sat back and waited for fans, followers, and customers to flood your contact page and phone lines.
Just because you built it doesn’t mean they will come! You have to actively market yourself with smart strategies. It takes time to cultivate relationships over social media by consistently tweeting, blogging and even setting up joint venture and affiliate programs. In addition, you must balance this with offline activities such as networking and speaking.
I put myself out there but no one responded.
Be consistent with your value, messages, and efforts. As with any marketing media, success takes time and regular exposure.
Jack of all trades, master of none.
Don’t try to be everything to everyone. You are an expert in your field for a reason. While your company may be more than capable of handling multiple roles and specialties, market to a specific audience with specific needs and you will start reaping the benefits. Be crystal clear about who you serve and you will attract the ideal clients.
You reel ‘em in and leave ‘em hanging.
Follow-up is where many small business owners fall short. A trusted connection takes consistent presence without pushing or spamming. The easiest way to do this is to set up a drip campaign that provides value over a series of regular emails. You will stay top of mind and establish yourself as an expert before ever trying to pitch your product or service.
Do you use drip campaigns? Follow up phone calls? What works best for you?
Is There More Than Just a Click-Through Rate?
Posted by Sibet B Freides in Marketing, Social Media on March 29th, 2012
Many marketers resort to the basics when it comes to discernin
g the performance of an Internet display ad. The click-through rate (CTR) is not only easy to understand, but also easy to explain to clients, who typically expect a black and white “confirmation” of the money they’ve invested in advertising.
Of course clicks generate valuable traffic, but they require active participation from the user. Research actually shows that even with a low CTR, online advertising is still effective. Could it be the exposure itself, not the click that drives traffic?
In a study titled “How Online Advertising Works: Whither The Click?” comScore has shown that two-thirds of Internet users do not click on any display ads over the course of a month. It was determined that branding will drive users to the advertiser’s website even without clicking. Furthermore, exposed users were 17 percent more likely to make a purchase at the advertiser’s retail store.
If clicks are not the quick and easy campaign measurement for online campaigns, what metrics can you use to show your clients? Here are some things to pay attention to:
Reach
Reaching as many relevant people as possible should be your goal for every campaign. This was typically measured by counting the number of unique cookies placed on browsers that would be exposed to the campaign.
There is a problem here – 33 percent of users delete their third-party cookies (cookies used by ad servers) each month, making each user is count on an average of 5.1 times during that same period. Measuring unique users requires you to compensate for this cookie deletion so the number isn’t over-estimated. For 10 million users about 100 million impressions would be needed on average to equal the adjusted cookie metrics.
Traffic
For an online only campaign, site traffic is another gauge of advertising effectiveness, showing users who were enticed by your banner to seek more details about your product or service, whether they clicked your ad or not.
Simply measure the daily visitors before, during and after your campaign to estimate your site traffic as a result of a campaign.
ROI
ROI cannot truly be calculated unless you are selling your products online. Online-only retailers who can capture the full effect of online advertising should by all means track ROI.
But if you only collect leads only and do not sell anything online you can either calculate a value for each conversion (leads), or track your investment on advertising by calculating the average cost per conversion.
Although arguably more measurable than traditional media, online campaigns must be analyzed with a well-rounded approach, tying the big picture together. There is no magic bullet but a good agency will size up and present the big picture with all their campaigns.
5 Reasons People Leave a Website
Posted by Sibet B Freides in Marketing on March 22nd, 2012
Getting web traffic can be challenging, but keeping people on your site long enough for them to become potential clients or customers is even more difficult. Here are some common mistakes that make people jump ship and what you can do about them.
Poor navigation. Nothing confuses or frustrates visitors more than a website that is not clear and hard to navigate. Scattering your information, being too wordy, having vague content, and making your main message appear below the fold are all reasons people will jump off your site before clicking any further. Make sure your navigation is logical and easy to understand. The biggest mistake businesses make is having no call to action present. Users need to be told what to do and where to go next.
Obnoxious use of video. People want to choose the content they view. Having a video (or audio) that loads automatically will most likely drive visitors away faster than you can say Vimeo. More demerits if it’s the type of video that doesn’t allow you to see the length or pause. Users want options. Make sure you provide them.
Excessive pop-ups. Many marketing gurus will tell you that pop-up registration forms are the way to get hundreds of subscribers. I find them to be disruptive and flat out annoying. Placing your registration form prominently above the fold on your site and offering a special report or free gift is a much better strategy. There is nothing worse than reading the second paragraph of an engaging article only to be interrupted by a full-page pop-up window telling you what to do. Abort!
Illegible fonts. Loud colors and fancy typeface can really discourage users from staying on your site. Avoid elaborate fonts, your goal is simplistic legibility. Furthermore, using words in a graphic instead of properly within the site diminishes SEO capabilities.
Stale content. You may have the perfect design, stellar content, and even great interactive comments, but what if you haven’t updated your content frequently? Whatever you do, never say “site under construction” – like familiar strips of your local interstate, this signifies to visitors that completion is probably not going to occur any time soon.
Keep your content fresh, which not only keeps visitors coming back, but enhances SEO as well. Blogging is a great way to achieve this goal.
If you’re struggling with your website design, Idea Associates can put all these elements together to create the best site for your business.
Using QR Codes to Engage
Posted by Sibet B Freides in Marketing, Social Media on March 8th, 2012
QR codes seem quick and easy – they’re all about convenience. But when you think about it, in order to take advantage of them, they require people to own a smart phone, have a QR reader downloaded and installed, and have their phone handy with the app open and ready to scan at any given time.
Whew! It’s a lot more complicated than it appears.
Worse yet, many companies are using them to convey data that could be just as easily delivered in another (more convenient) format. They are popularly replacing URLs in common advertising.
Are people really ready to replace URLs? When done correctly, all they require is your memory, not a smart phone, data plan, or special app.
What should they be used for?
QR codes are most effective when they unlock information, not lead users to a final destination. Especially one they can call up on their mobile browser! Is there an immediate payoff for your users’ efforts to take out their phone, open the app, point, scan, wait for the code to register, and find out what’s next?
Do you have a special list of products or services that continually get updated? Do you run promotions that change frequently? How about location-based campaigns? These are perfect candidates for your QR adventures!
Make sure your information is formatted for mobile, and again, that it’s relevant for your user immediately. If you’re trying to get people to your website, or to opt in to your list with no timely reward, a QR code is not the best solution. Just like when Twitter first hit the scene, don’t do it to be with the “in” social networking crowd – you have to have a solid plan to engage your audience.
How to Break Into Mobile Without Breaking the Bank
Posted by Sibet B Freides in Marketing, Social Media on March 2nd, 2012
How do you, as a small business owner cut through all the noise and reach today’s “always connected” customer?
You don’t have to pay top dollar for the latest and greatest bells and whistles to go mobile. Here are a few ways to get started:
Make sure you’re findable. It’s a bit labor-intensive, but well worth it to “claim” your business and its location on sites such as Yelp, Yahoo Local, Facebook, Google Places, and even Foursquare. This costs no more than your time.
Optimize your website for mobile viewing. Mobile searches have grown 400 percent since 2010, according to Google. Once they find you on their phone, consumers visit (59 percent) or call (61 percent).
If your website was created more than a few years ago, or was built with Flash or other outdated plugins, your site is at risk for being invisible to mobile searches.
If you’re confused by all the options available, Idea can help your site go mobile!
Take your social “pulse”. Sites like Kudzu, Angie’s List, Google, and dozens more are letting your customers review you (often without your knowledge). In fact over 80 percent of consumers say they read reviews before making a purchase? Any negative reviews or poor feedback about you can affect your customers’ purchasing decision. You can use Google Alerts to see what’s being said about you on a regular basis. Like GI Joe said, “Knowing is half the battle”!
Customers aren’t just browsing the mobile web anymore. They’re researching products, sharing opinions, and completing transactions. Don’t let your fear of breaking the bank stop you from getting your business on the mobile web.
Improve Your Email Campaign
Posted by Sibet B Freides in Marketing on February 29th, 2012
Getting customers to engage with your email campaign is a big factor in its effectiveness. How do you create a campaign that your customers will read regularly? Content is king, but design is the magic key to the kingdom.
If you’ve been sending plain text emails to your subscribers, you might want to rethink your strategy. HTML emails might sound complicated, but they have advantages that plain text just can’t offer. A recent study shows that HTML transactional emails got a 50% higher click through rate than plain text.
Brand Your Campaign
HTML gives you style control over your email messages so you can design them to reflect your brand’s online identity. You can add images – like your company logo – and use background colors and fonts to match your site design.
Using the same fonts and a layout that’s similar to your website will carry your brand’s online personality through to your email campaign.
Keep ‘Em Reading
You can use HTML design opportunities to your advantage by creating an eye path teasing your customers to read through your entire message. One way to do this is to implement a big leading image and text that’s half on the “fold” – the area of the message that displays before the reader has to scroll down to read more.
Laying out your message around the fold like this engages your readers’ curiosity, enticing them to scroll down through the rest of your message. You can even put an incomplete, suspenseful sentence around that area, making the user click through a link to get the rest of the story or offer.
How do you use custom designs in your campaigns? Have you noticed a difference in engagement and response when switching to HTML?
Has Print Media Fallen Behind for Good?
Posted by Sibet B Freides in Marketing, Real Estate Trends on February 28th, 2012
Though the death of print media was declared in late 2006 it actually made a bit of a comeback in 2010. Next it became well known that the Internet is the place that consumers increasingly spend their media time. Today we know that people are actually spending more time on their mobile phones than they are spending interacting with print media.
According to eMarketer, time spent on mobile devices is now an average of 65 minutes a day, compared to 44 minutes a day for magazines and newspapers. Although both were tied last year, mobile actually grew by 30%.
Are media dollars spent online surpassing those spent on print?
Mashable.com recently proclaimed they would for the first time in 2012. What does this mean for REALTORS®?
The return-on-investment of real estate ads in newspapers and other print media have been second-guessed for quite some time, as multiple studies have shown that the majority of homeowners begin their search online. You can see this trend illustrated in eMarketer’s chart below:
Why exactly does online surpass print media? Today’s consumer is accustomed to the instant gratification of the Internet – information is free and mobile. Now, even those who enjoy newspapers and periodicals can read them on their tablets. But what about real estate? Consumers still seem to be attached to local newspapers.
Of course, knowing your local market is very important, but keeping up with national trends is as well. Agents should take a good look at the tools and new strategies available to them and reevaluate. The same old formula no longer works in this market.
That being said, we believe some print media remains very effective in real estate. The most successful advertising programs we have found offer a customized solution including print, online, and eFlyers in a competitively priced package.
Still Think Size Matters?
Posted by Sibet B Freides in Marketing, Social Media on February 21st, 2012
You’re a social media marketer – are you still worried about quantity over quality for your success measurement? Does size matter? Really?
In a recent study, 75% of the respondents really are still worried about size.
Sure, it would look great to be able to tout that your client has 25,000 followers on Twitter or 75,000 Facebook Likes, but how many leads and sales have your efforts led to? With the current options of buying followers and likes so prevalent how can anyone put any stock in numbers, anyway?
A more viable goal would be to drive as many people to a website as possible, having those become actual leads and, eventually, sales.
If your content, products, and services are top notch, it really doesn’t matter what your grand total is. It’s more important to look at the steady rate it is climbing, if people are hiding your messages or unsubscribing, and the quality of the comments and engagement.
What do you focus on when it comes to metrics and measurement? Let us know by commenting below or posting on our Facebook page!
How to Handle Negative Online Reviews
Posted by Sibet B Freides in Marketing, Social Media on April 17th, 2012
Removing negative comments is rarely the answer. Here are some suggestions to instead influence your customers and clients when a less than stellar review is posted.
Most Important – Join the Conversation
The first thing you should do is respond – in a timely manner – to each of the reviews publicly, addressing the issues while maintaining a professional tone. If you know the complaint is not essentially valid, respond saying you are sorry for their experience and will immediately look into it for them. Believe it or not, people want to be heard even more than they want their issue resolved. You’re already ahead of the game if you can publicly show them that you’re willing to hear their concern or issue. This is also where you can tell your side of the story, as long as you focus on the solution and stay professional at all costs!
Online reviews are not set in stone and often will be updated (and upgraded) by a customer who was given the dignity of a reply and an apology.
Ask Your Satisfied Clients for Positive Reviews
There is no shame in asking for testimonials – most people are more than happy to talk about their positive experiences on Facebook, Kudzu, Google and more. You are not bribing or soliciting positive feedback – you are honestly and genuinely asking your audience to share their experiences online.
Every website should have a section for “What People Are Saying”… just make sure you ask the party prior to posting their words. Make sure they tell you how they would like to be credited (initials only or full name, etc.) and if they would like to leave a link to their website at the bottom.
Have a plan
With online review sites providing a today’s of word-of-mouth marketing, reviews are essential but can be either helpful or damaging to a business.
The reality is, you can do everything right and yet still receive a negative review. It all depends on the customer’s expectations; they are either met or they’re not.
Following up by phone after the completion of a service can help head off unflattering reviews and provide an opportunity to satisfy frustrated clients before their feedback goes public.
Now it’s your turn: how do you handle negative comments on Social Media and popular review sites?
Tags: conversation, Marketing, negative comments, online, reviews, social media, testimonials
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