Pump Up Your Digital Marketing

Part IV

Think Big and Play BIGGER!

 

Blissfield, MI, March, 2011 – Hal Holubik, owner of Tours D’ Force, a Southern Michigan Virtual Tour provider says; “What good is getting a virtual tour from anyone if it is not seen by the largest audience possible?  The bottom line with real estate as with many other kinds of sales, it’s a numbers game, the more people that see it the higher the ability of it being sold quickly.” Business Professionals in every field are in need of more exposure and a better way to capture and maintain the interest of online shoppers especially on the web; they must be aware and possess the flexibility to market their virtual tours in many places.


In part III of this IV part series (see part III here:  http://halholubik.blogspot.com/2011/03/pump-up-your-digital-marketing.html) we talked about syndication and social networking, meaning increased visibility, increased business. Then we talked about social network and how you the realtor can tap into that, and how you can get your customers to tap into that also.

Now let’s dig a little deeper into what that means to you, the realtor.  First of all as part of the syndication we put together an e-mail flyer for you and the e-mail flyer in this case fits all the requirement of our local association.  It has to be within a certain size you can’t have; you know 2 megabyte pictures in it so we work with the local MLS to make sure our flyer fit their rules so that we can actually send it out to their MLS postings.  The flyer itself also is something that the realtors frankly print.  It’s a two page flyer so you have a front and back, the front has all the information on the property the back has six photos for being able to look at the home.  You would not believe how many clients I have that we do these flyers for and I’m not even sure if they realize that we put it on Craigslist and every were else because they’re so excited to have a duplicate flyer that they didn’t have to go ahead and take their time to do.

 The You Tube link is really important as well, most people realize that if you have an iPad you cannot see a virtual tour today, and the reason for that is Apple has for many years had fights with the company that has flash and it doesn’t play on an iPad.  However we put an iPad button on your virtual tour that allows your clients to click there and be able to see the video version of your virtual tours.  So it’s an important piece of our over-all marketing plan, you never know where your clients going to be or your prospects going to be, you never know what tools their going to be using to look at it so let’s make sure we’re covering as much ground as we can.  Most common denominator, whether be it a droid, a blackberry, an iPhone, an iPad, what have you, is video so let’s take advantage of that.  So that’s why we promote as part of our media exposure the fact that this is out there on You Tube.

 So here you have what I call the Google juice.  This is a look by the realtors name and number one ranking is the Southern Michigan Real Estate Blog every virtual tour that we do gets blogged to this portal site TourLenaweeCounty.com.  Second and third is the virtual tour link but going down just a little further you’ll see just searching by the realtor two of their You Tube Videos both published by Toursdforce came up on the first page.  

 Looking at it by address, 432 State St., number two is the You Tube. You also as you look down through here you’ll see Realtor.com, you’ll see Trulia, Hotpads.com, the E-Flyer, and Homes.com all there on page 1.  So if someone is Googling the address, they’re that interested in the house they want to learn more about the house here is an awful lot that they can find out about the house and by the way most of them points them right back to the listing agent and that’s pretty cool, it really reinforces that listing agent.  Also, a lot of times, you got to keep in mind, those people that are searching for a home and looking up additional information about a home are also selling a home and if their selling a home their going to turn around and naturally ask the question, why doesn’t my address have this kind of exposure and all the while in the side lines your seeing Edward Surovell, Edward Surovell, Joel Posner, Joel Posner, and you’re going to find that a lot more people are starting to ask.

So the summary of virtual tours; first make sure that you are using clear panoramic and still images to show the property in the most complimentary way. Your tour window should be viewed as if it were a single property web site with all the attributes included. Your single property website should be Search Engine Optimized (SEO). Your single property web site should include weekly statistical reporting on all of your property virtual tours. Your listings should be professionally marketed through multiple distribution channels, you don’t know where your clients or potential customers might be or what tools that they may be using. And lastly your property listings should be exposed on traditional outlets as well as non-traditional outlet such as You Tube, Craigslist, and Smart Phones.

You may be asking yourself, what’s in it for me the realtor?  Well this is what’s in it for you, its search engine optimization, it’s reporting, it’s making me look more like a professional as a realtor, and its exposure to a larger portion of the public that I can do myself.

Social Networking let’s talk a little bit about that, it should be part of everyone of your conversations and activities.  It’s a great tool for realtors who what to involve their clients.  What I mean by that is a lot of times property isn’t selling very quickly today so the realtors client is calling them up and saying you know, what can I do, well one of the things that they can do is they can use the buttons on the bottom of your virtual tour and put the virtual tour so that way all of their friend and their friends friends see it on Face Book, Tweeter, You Tube, what have you, so you really want to reinforce the fact that the virtual tours are very friendly they have button on the bottom that your client can utilize to help publicize their own property as well.  So that’s just another way of involving that nervous home seller in feeling like their doing something that has some control over their own destiny.

Also it works well for content for social sites; you know a lot of real estate agents that I come across don’t feel comfortable blogging, if they do their putting up some generic thing that their corporate wrote for them that has cookie cutter recipes on how to make pumpkin seeds and instead of doing that, look this is relevant, pumpkin seeds are not relevant especially in a real estate blog so instead of doing that take your virtual tours post them to social sites, blog about them on Activerain, talk about the property and while you’re talking about that virtual tour, embed the tour, talk about whether listings in that area are up or down that gives you a great opportunity to get social.

Virtual Staging, virtual staging quite frankly is not for everyone nor is it something that you would want to use for all of your vacant home listings but it does reinforce that you are a partner and you’re willing to explore new technologies to help your client sell their home.  One of the most difficult things for me personally is when I walk into a vacant house to real be able to tell whether my furniture fit in there, you know, what would this room look like if I had my sofa over here, if I had my big screen TV on the wall, I’m just really bad at visualizing stuff in an empty room, now a lot of other people are also.  So as part of our virtual tour packages we do offer virtual tour staging and there are several advantages to virtual tour staging one of them is what you see here.  The left photo is the way the room looks the right photo if you will, the artist rendering of the way the room could look and most people are really taken a back when they realize what I’m saying, the fact that this room is vacant, there is nothing in this room, it is the same photograph on the left side and on the right side the difference is we have had an illustrator go through on the right side and put in furniture, and a part of this is being able to take these photographs, print them out frame them and display them in that room of the house.  So it’s not just putting it on a virtual tour, it’s taking the photograph, putting it where people are going to see it looking at the home and being able to go, OH WOW, this is what this house or this room could look like.  It’s not for the faint of heart; you’re talking a fairly sizable investment on a pro-room basis however you’re not going to do every room in the house, you’re going to do two or three rooms of the house, and it’s a whole lot less expensive than going over to Rent it all City, renting furniture, staging it and keeping that furniture in place for a couple of weeks.  It’s a whole lot less than doing that and certainly still has a lot of the same attributes when you print it, frame it and display it in the home.  

When we talked earlier, in the first part of Pump-Up Your Digital Marketing we talked about the X and Y generation text messaging and how many people text in the United States, that the median age is not 12, the median age is actually 38.  So there are a lot of older Americans that are using texting in fact 36% percent of seniors that owned a cell phone where texting messaging, and why, well that how they stay in contact with their grandkids, their grandkids text and that how they communicate with them.  So today 50% of all age groups text, it’s a powerful, powerful tool that you want to harness as far as your overall property marketing effort.

So text, the fact that it delivers on that customer pulling up in front of the house, in a moment I show you what the sign rider looks like, (you can put a sign rider in front of the house) and be able to text and be able to see immediately information on that home.  Also be able to see photographs and a virtual tour of the home simply by sitting in front of the house.  Now that a powerful tool when you consider that very often that when someone pulls in front of the house today, less than half actually speak to the agent when they first try to call.  While if their using text, their able to see information about the house, their able to find information frankly about you the realtor and also you the realtor will receive a text message back that tells you who that client is and it also tells you what that prospects cell phone number is as well which leads to lead generation.

Here is what the sign look like, so they would Text this number (there would be a number in the place of the word HOME) to phone number 43766.  It’s something like “Dancing with the Stars”, the fact that people vote that way, or NASCAR racing, if you what to find out more about your favorite driver text a certain number to this phone number.  So look at how diverse it is today in marketing these texts are and the fact that many many people know how to utilize this.  Now you still have your phone number, you still have your URL but this is additional sign rider to your existing sign that people can tap into to find out more information about that property. It is lead generation to you the realtor. 

So, the prospective buyer sees the sign in the front yard or in an ad and sends a text message to the display code.

They then receive immediate, detailed information about the property delivered directly to their cell phone.
                                                                  

Believe it or not, not everyone is going to have a Smart Phone and there huge group of people out there and there probably will be for several more years.  So anyone who doesn’t have a Smart Phone this is what you would see as a client.  You’re going to see pictures, you’re going to see information about the property, and you’re able to pull the You Tube video tour.

And once again it’s lead generation for you the realtor to follow up on.

Now, mobile web sites for realtors with internet connections. 
                                                               



Here’s why you want a mobile web site, two great screen captures here at the top.  So when you’re on your Smart Phone, whether it be your Blackberry, your iPhone what you see is that picture on the left, you see a portion of the website.  If you’re seeing the whole website you’re seeing it so tiny that you can’t read a thing on it.  So what you’re seeing is really very difficult on a phone to be able to accurate what the information is and what’s important there, and the navagation, you have to keep on zooming in and out scrolling up and down standing on your head, it’s really just too small to be useful on a mobile device. That’s most people’s regular websites, and by the way that’s OK because your regular website is just that, it’s for PC’s and MAC users to be able to find you on the web.  So you want to have both, I’m not saying ditch your web site, what I am saying is that you really want to have both.  You want to keep in mind that today’s mobile users are not a large audience buy they will be in five years or less.  Now let’s roll back, when you the realtor pitch your version of what I’m telling you right now, you will be pitching it to people who want to list their homes.  It’s that tech savvyness, it’s that fact that you have a mobile web site so a person pulling up in front of the house so their iPhone can view your home, and from the realtor’s perspective view ALL their different listings.  That’s a powerful tool for the realtor to utilize but it’s also a powerful selling tool for the realtor to be able to differentiate themselves on a listing appointment from outer realtors.
                                                               

OK, so we talk a little bit about the mobile web site, the importance’s here is that picture from the right hand side above.  The first one I highlight the fact that they can see multiple real estate listings that realtor has on the right it’s that I can take the phone and bring that house live an in person to that person who has an interest in the home, and I can do it by texting so in this case I’m showing you can have BUYIDI6 to 43766 will take you to all of my real estate listings, or I can have something like WWW.BUY MOBILEWEB.MOBI for people to just go straight there without texting.  So, it’s really kind of cool, you can get to your mobile web site any number of different ways including texting and going straight to your ULR for that mobile web site and it’s really inexpensive. 

QR Code (Quick Response Code). Now for those of you whose budget doesn’t fit into the test connect program or for those who just want to avoid having another monthly bill, we’re still able to give you a QR code, you’re not paying money for it, the QR Code included in our digital marketing package is free but keep in mind that QR Codes are not lead generating.  Just as with text connect and mobile web sites, the buyer drives by a home that looks appealing, and on the yard sign is a QR Code.  A QR Code is a two-dimensional code readable by QR scanners available as a fee app on Smart Phones. The information encoded can be text, a ULR, or even a video.  When the buyer snaps a picture/scans the code, they are directed to a mobile optimized site that includes ALL of the information about the home, or even a video tour of the home.

Pulling all of the pieces together. A successful marketing plan must include all of these things:

-             
 -    A well written property summary

-    Good photography, you want to have good photography on your homes

-    Print advertising, tie it to your virtual tours, tie it to your web site, don’t have a print ad that doesn’t say www.YourWebSite.com on it, if you are you’re wasting  your money

-    Good high quality virtual tours, you want to make sure that you have your Google Juice.  You also want to make sure that the property looks nice.  You don’t want to use virtual tours that are fish-eye-lenses, they can be in and out of a house really quick but when you look at the distortion, when you look at the poor photography that often time happens with this type tour.  Is all about crisp clear virtual tours.

-    Virtual staging, we can help you there, a low cost way of staging a home.

-    Social networking, not only from you but also from your client’s perspective, let them share in some of that social networking responsibility. 

-    Text marking and mobile web site’s, absolutely help you push the envelope in being able to have a broader net, you want to have a broad net to be able to catch more fish or in this case more prospects to view your home and be able to sell that home.   

                                                                                            
                                                                                              
Related Posts:
 Building a Bigger Tomorrow!
Pump Up Your Digital Marketing Part I
Pump Up Your Digital Marketing Part II
Pump Up Your Digital Marketing Part III


Hal Holubik
Owner/OrganizerTours D’ Force
Order a Virtual Tour: 517-486-4209mailto:hal@toursdforce.com
http://www.toursdforce.com

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