1/24/2010-2/05/2010 RealSkillz Freebie Picks- Free Online Reads and Real Estate Marketing Resources for Real Estate Agents and Real Estate Companies

1/24/2010-2/05/2010 RealSkillz Freebie Picks- Free Online Reads and Real Estate Marketing Resources for Real Estate Agents and Real Estate Companies

 

 

How to Create An Incentive for Visitors To Fan Your Facebook Page 

 

A blog post, day 17 in a series from John Haydon on how to optimize your blog with social media, that concentrates on Facebook Fan Pages.  Haydon's tips are easy to follow and involve creating content for Facebook Fans that visitors

can't see using the static FBML application.

 

This content should be useful to your Facebook Fans. 

Haydon mentions his own Facebook Fan Video that are not available elsewhere.  I would suggest reminding your fans that

if they have Facebook friends who could use this information then to please recommend they become a Fan of the page

after they have received the special content.

 

Bill Gassett's post,Agent Applause Real Estate Marketing Ideas,

is also recommended reading. The tip on thanking fans for joining

is a traditional technique that makes common sense.

 

 

 

How to Recruit a Guest Blogger

An article from Website Magazine on a topic that I see real estate professionals desire to enter into yet many struggle to carry through- adding guest bloggers to the mix.  The article gives solid tips on recruiting guest bloggers includes:

 

• Offer a link with keyword anchor text at top of post and body of post to guest blogger's website.
• Give stats on number of blog subscribers and newsletter subscribers.
• Post bio and photo of guest blogger.

 

I strongly recommend you visit the full article on guest bloggers and check out the bonus section which includes a tool you can use to find a guest blogger.

 

Using guest bloggers can really help to lighten your load and make your blog even more valuable to readers. Creating an Editorial Calendar will further help recruit and retain guest bloggers and generate traffic to your blog.

 

 

 

 

 

10 Free Online Sales Tools for 2010

 

 

An article on BNet from Geoffrey James about online sales tools to help sales professionals.  The entire article is extremely useful and cleverly organized.  The list is broken down into what each tool does, how it helps you sell, if it has any drawbacks,

why it's free (really clever section IMO), the name of the vendor, and where to get it. Very nicely done.

 

Of all ten tools noted in the article I found these three to be especially useful for real estate professionals:

 

• Xobni- A  plug-in for Microsoft Outlookthat displays a live stream of social information about your contacts inside Outlook 2003, 2007 and 2010 by pulling information, including photos, from the web, LinkedIn, Facebook, Hoovers, Twitter, and Salesforce.
• The Ultimate Cold Calling Tool from BNet- Categories of objections that you can click open and use one of the responses in your cold calls. They also have The Ultimate Prospect Qualification Tool.  Nice two-fer for real estate professionals.
• DemandBase-Desktop widget that lets you know what businesses are visiting your website, what search terms they use to find your site, and which pages they visit.

 

These sales tools should pack some power to your sales calls and marketing efforts to help rev up your effectiveness and seal your deals. 

 

 

 

Email + Social Bookmarking=Instant Rankings

 

An article from Dr. Ralph Wilson of Web Marketing Today that gives really simple steps to a good link strategy using your blog readers and email marketing database.  The article gives good concrete steps to follow and emphasizes that there is no magic formula, these steps involve dedication and hard work.  The article also includes a real life example of a successful campaign and emphasizes the need to ask your readers for a social bookmark by creating a call to action in your email newsletters and website landing pages.

 

These links back to your online newsletter and landing pages will help increase not only your link popularity but get your voice spread virally among your subscribers friends creating additional opportunity to increase your database. 

 

 

 

Integrate SMS and Social Marketing

A post on the MarketingSherpa Blog from Adam Sutton discussing the importance of considering multiple channels to reach customers to grow your database.  The article discusses the fact that social and mobile marketing are effective when they are coupled with email marketing.  As stand alone efforts SMS and social maketing are currently less effective than email marketing. 

 

If you think about the stand alone rule for offline marketing, for example running a mailing campaign like postcards, where you need at least eight impressions before the customer recognizes the brand it makes sense that adding multiple online channels to your marketing campaign would increase the effectiveness. 

 

It also makes sense that while some prospects might not immediately sign up for your SMS, a prompt on a Facebook fan page and an email campaign outlining the value and he WIIFM if they take the action might prompt them to do so. 

 

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Rebecca D. Levinson is a real estate marketing consultant with 17 years of experience serving real estate industry professionals. 

 

If you need assistance with online marketing, offline marketing, social networking, or blogging contact Rebecca D. Levinson at #262-203-5231 or email rebecca@bloggingintherain.com.