Sorry for the link bait headline. And I certainly don't want the same reputation as The New York Times. But I am doing something with my Florida real estate website that The Times (and MAYBE real soon The Wall Street Journal) recently decided to do as well.
The New Media Money Formula: Free Content = $$$
My plan (ah, yes, well-laid plans) when I wrote and published Florida for Boomers: A Guide to Real Estate was to have a Florida Resources page on the book's companion website that would be password-protected and for readers only. What an incentive for people to buy my book, I thought. Essentially $20 for access to an online wealth of knowledge about Florida and Florida real estate.
This worked for a short time, but nearly everyday I would have people who hadn't bought the book (which contained the password) write me and ask for the password.
And I'd always write them back saying they needed to buy the book to get the password. I'm sure some of them did. But I also know others did not. It made me wonder, what if they had been able to see the breadth and depth of the resources available to them...maybe THEN it would have convinced them to buy the book.
The Magic of Reciprocity at work.
Well, following suit of the big boys mentioned above, I have "freed" the Florida Resources. Not only to make money off of my content, (I have monetized the pages using Google AdSense) but to sell more books as well. Plus, behind the password-protected "brick wall" I had in place before, search engines couldn't pick up the best of my content. So I'm hoping after my next couple robot crawls, I should see more organic search traffic.
As a side note: I've not only made the articles and other resources free, I've gone the extra step to start adding video tutorials as well. Been playing with Jing quite a bit. I like it, simple, intuitive. I wanted to use Camtasia but they don't make it for my Mac yet.
Anyone have any ideas for video tutorials that boomers heading to Florida might like to see?
I've got some other videos planned such as "Ways to use Zillow to get the best deal", "Using Google Maps to check out an area", etc.
Let me know your thoughts in the comments.
On The Air Productions - Eugene, OR
On The Air Productions
Ryan, I absolutely agree with you. I think brand yourself as an information source establishes credibility and by doing in through the medium of video, your 3 times more likely to be viewed. I think attacking the market with viral videos brands your image and get leads at the same time! I own On The Air Productions, an advertising communications corporation. We create a property listing videos with your photos, set custom motion graphics and send to a professional voice talent for narration and post it on YouTube, Craigslist and index it on all major search engines. We can also cut your video into a custom fifteen second TV commercial, and air it on our special blend of program selection, geared toward potential home buyers in the area.
We've streamlined the process to be quick and easy; we can have a listing on TV within hours. Your phone number/picture/web/info runs on each of the ads, you talk directly to interested buyers. This process has proven to be extremely successful in a less than perfect real estate market!
If you’d like more info, feel free to let me know.
Robert Anderson
On The Air Productions
541-683-2100 office
541-953-8508 cell
Sep 28, 2007 04:26 PM
Rainmaker
10,107
10,107
Ryan Erisman
Author of Florida for Boomers
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