E-mail marketing is a great tool because it is a low-cost activity with a potentially high return. You can reach thousands or even millions of people with one single message and even a modest return can earn you a nice size paycheck at the end of the month. But it all starts with capturing a well-targeted list. As they say, “The money is in the list.” But how do you do it?
Start with a landing page. Let’s say you sell pink widgets. Your target market is 18-25 year-old women planning a career while attending college. Write your web copy toward that target market and promise them the moon. Be sure that when you promise someone the moon that you actually deliver the moon. If you can’t, then make a smaller promise and deliver on that. Bottom line: You’ve got to deliver on all of your promises.

You’ve got widgets. They’re pink. Sell them like crazy. Start a newsletter, or just promise to stay in touch by e-mail through your Pink Widget Gazette. Have a sign up form on your website. Drive your sales copy around that sign up form. You want everyone who visits your page to sign up for the Pink Widget Gazette. This is your e-mail capture landing page. After you’ve got a good list, that’s when you start marketing like the dickens. You know your audience is interested in pink widgets because that’s what they came to your site for. Now you just need to market your widgets and that’s what your e-mail marketing strategy is designed to do. One step at a time.

Many times when a company starts planning their online advertising campaigns they plan for the articles, press releases, local search engines, etc. But they typically leave a major player off the list.

The traditional medias that were used prior to the advent of the internet are still a great place to advertise your business, the difference is that you can now improve on the tried and true. Where once you would have submitted your ad to the local newspaper for print, you can now include them in your online advertising as well and likely use the very same ad you would have used strictly for print advertising in the past. All the benefits and usually for the same or a fraction more. You see a lot of times that local newspaper will run the ad in both for the price of the traditional print ad, or they will boost it just a bit to include the online version.

As more and more people have joined the revolution of DSL, local papers have too. Many more readers are now looking at that same newspaper than 5 years ago. And you will when you remember to use that traditional medium in your new local online advertising. How could you go wrong? If you’re not sure how to do that or want more help just let us help.

The 80/20 rule says that 80 percent of your production (or profits) will come from 20 percent of your work force (or sales force). In pay-per-click terms, that could be stated “80 percent of your conversions will come from 20 percent of your ads,” or even “80 percent of your click-throughs will come from 20 percent of your pay-per-click sources (re: search engines).”

What this means is you shouldn’t expect overwhelming results from any one ad. If you find an ad that is doing well then you should milk it for all it is worth. If one search engine is delivering more traffic than other don’t be surprised (it will likely be Google). What that means is you should focus your energies on where the 20 percent is. That doesn’t mean you should discontinue everything else. You might have to tweak a few things to get more performance out of the other ads and search engines. But you really should consider that 20 percent as your most effective efforts and maximize all of your potential in your biggest performers. If you’re going to pay for clicks, you might as well pay for the best clicks, right?

Many site owners engage in email marketing, either direct email or newsletter email marketing. Being able to track the visitors that come from your email campaigns will tell you what types of emails to continue and which ones you need to adjust.

Adding analytics to your website will also allow you to see how much time visitors spend on your website as well. A visitor that clicks in and leaves, is looking for something that they evidently did not find on your site. Maybe it needs to be rearranged? Or possibly you need to rewrite your text.

The information provided by analytics is almost priceless to the site owner. A very simple website improvement, but one that cannot be missed!

Publicity is publicity, and few people would turn down publicity however they can get it. However, publicity that appears in print venues is here one moment and gone the next, whereas online publicity can endure and even perpetuate itself. An article in an online newspaper might include a hyperlink to your Web site or your blog. That can bring prospective clients directly to you. It might also motivate other Web site and blog owners to include references to the article (as well as the hyperlinks) which can create buzz about you on the Net and improve your visibility in search engines.

These traditionalists are missing the point. Given the benefits of online coverage, an article that appears only online, or online as well as in print, will be of far greater value than one that appears only in print. Each time a newspaper (or a magazine, for that matter) prints your article online, the potential readership for that story increases exponentially. And you still have bragging rights you would have if you’re tallying up your publicity “hits” for your Web site or media kit. A USA Today mention is a USA Today mention whether it happens online, in print, or both.

Although not a Real Estate website, Business.com is one of the leading directories online for anything business related. It is most likely the most popular directory on the web and is highly regarded, highly ranked and a listing will benefit you and your business greatly.

The Yahoo Business Directory is another highly ranked directory that has been around for quite sometime and has a reach of 330 million unique visitors.

Best of the Web is a popular directory that has been around since 1994 and is also great for link building purposes.

When it comes to a more targeted directory only for Real Estate, Reals.com has been around since 1997 and is said to be the largest real estate directory on the web.

If you are looking for a more affordable real estate directory, OverlyReal.com may be just for you. It is a bit smaller than Reals, but offers a more affordable listing price and may be just what you need for that extra online exposure.

All of the news worthy topics have occurred. You have it all written down. Now what?

Well the first step is to make it short and sweet. Give all of the details in a clear and concise way, but keep it short. Keep your sentences short and use paragraphs every 5-6 lines if possible. The body should not exceed 500 words.

Be sure to provide a place for readers to gain more information, like your website.

Terms such as “visit us today”, “buy me now” or “discount prices” will see your press release headed straight for the recycle bin, as will WORDS IN CAPITALS and the unnecessary use of exclamation marks.

When you have all of this in a generic format such as a text file then start scouting place to submit it. Perhaps look to other Real Estate industry press releases as a guide to help you structure your own. For a few bucks, you can even have a marketing firm write you something worth publishing if you are not confident enough in your own press release writing skills.

A search of the internet will result in many place to submit your press release and voila! You are on your way!

The answer is absolutely yes.

When you create a unique web page for your listings, you’ll find that you are able to:

1. Create a single place for prospective buyers to learn more about a property.
2. Give the property more attention than you would with a simple blog post.
3. Include more information about the property than you would be able to include on a marketing flyer.
4. Use the website as a place to include slide shows of property photos or even a virtual tour video.
5. Add a form where prospective buyers can schedule an appointment to see the home or request more information.
6. Market the listing more effectively.

When you design individual real estate property websites, you’ll find that you’re able to do more to get the word out about the properties that you’re selling - and add links back to your main website and blog as well.

However, that doesn’t mean that everyone is able to create the right content for their real estate web pages: so how do you decide who should be writing your real estate content?

If you have a knack for writing and you have the time to create the content, then by all means, go ahead an do it yourself. If you don’t know much about coding a website, you can have someone else design the site and post your content and you can focus on adding content with your blog.

You can have the person who designs your real estate website take charge of creating the content as well - something that’s great if you have, say a real estate assistant or real estate VA who knows a great deal about real estate and specializes in providing web marketing services.

Similarly, you can focus on finding a reputable ghostwriter who can research the information and write the content so that you can put your name on it. Ghostwriters aren’t all created equally, but if you’re looking for great content, you probably shouldn’t rule them out.

Remember, real estate websites need to serve multiple purposes. First, they exist to provide information. Second, real estate websites are meant to help prospects get to know you. Finally, they are a marketing tool - and a very effective one, provided they have the right content. Be sure that you’re considering this when you create your real estate websites.

1. Establishing your reputation.
2. Improving the visibility of your website

Both of these are tools for creating an influence over the buyers and sellers - and it’s that influence that will help you to build your real estate business.

Blog marketing, therefore, requires that you approach it with specific goals in mind:

• Consistency of message. When you’re marketing your real estate business with a blog, it’s a good idea to focus on providing a consistent message. If you find yourself writing posts that directly contradict one another, it’s going to be difficult for you to attract more readers and to establish the reputation you want to have for your business.
• Quality of message. With blog marketing, you can’t just type out quick messages filled with spelling errors and conflicting ideas; your goal is going to be creating posts that provide readers with information that they can use because that’s what is going to attract readers.
• Helping out readers. When you’re marketing yourself with your blog, your focus shouldn’t be just on writing posts, it should be on writing posts that others will want to read. The best way to encourage visitors to keep coming back - and to check for more details on your website - is to give them information that helps them to make choices that are right for them.

Focusing on the readers and providing them the information that they need will do more to establish your influence and build your real estate business than providing them with the same information they see everywhere else.

(source)If Google can find 1,000 links of a home’s address in its index, that means that there are 1,000 instances where prospective buyers can find your home!

Think about it for a minute: if having a thousand links back to a property means that there are a thousand chances that buyers will be able to find it, isn’t that far better than having, say, 5 links on?

To an extent, you can create links back to the property with blogs, posting virtual tours on sites like YouTube, adding photos of the property with links back to the site on photo sharing sites like Flickr. By doing so, especially given the popularity of these sites, you’re able to increase the reputation of your own website (or a web page dedicated to one seller’s home).

In addition, it’s important to know that there are others out there who can help you to build links; finding them (something that can be done in part by creating a well-optimized page) is going to be easier than you may think.

Great content, incoming links and the right keywords: all of these search engine optimization strategies will help you to help sellers sell.

That means that, when you develop your real estate websites, it is essential to make sure that your site visitors are able to find the information that they are looking for.

So what exactly does that mean?

On one hand, it means that you should make the links on your site straightforward: if you have pages that are designed for buyers, make sure that that is clear; the same is true when you have pages that are designed for sellers. On another, it means making sure that, when you add fresh content, there will be ways for site visitors to get to it quickly.

It also means that if you make changes to your site, that you have a tool for redirecting visitors to the information that you’ve moved around on your site. For some, this will mean creating a 404 page with links to other parts of the site. For others, it will mean creating a 404 page that redirects visitors to your blog or another relevant page so that they are able to find the details they are looking for.

In other words, when you design your real estate website, make sure that site visitors are able to find the right information - regardless of where those details are located.

How can local networking help you to get more out of the marketing that you do for your real estate business?

Real estate marketing thrives on the ability to get the word out about neighborhoods for those who may be interested in relocating to the area. When you network with business owners in your local area, why not focus on what you can do for one another.

When you network with local restaurant owners, you can offer to hype their restaurant in your blog or on your real estate website. When you network with those at various churches, you can help prospective buyers know whether or not there’s a church in the area that will suit their needs.

Of course, networking isn’t all about what you can do for other businesses; it’s also about what they can do for you. If you have flyers, they may be willing to let you put them up. If they know of someone who’s talking about buying or selling a home and you’ve been marketing their business, it’s a fairly safe bet that your name is going to come up in conversation.

In other words, make it a point to network locally when you need to market your business; you’ll find that the entire community benefits.

For example, those who live in communities where Spanish, Korean, French or another language is spoken as much as (or nearly as much as) English may find that if they do not translate their websites into the additional language they will alienate a large prospective client base.

However, that doesn’t mean that you should just run the content on your real estate website through a bit of translation software; after all, just doing that may not ensure that the content is translated properly. Instead, consider hiring a translator who can create the content that your clients are looking for - a translator who will work with you to focus on getting your message just right.

Of course, if you do not have translators within your office, that may prove to be an additional drawback to offering translation - unless you’re prepared to have someone on staff who can help you to communicate with every client that comes in. Still, if you’re looking to maximize the impact of your message and the number of people you reach out to, translations on your real estate websites just may be the right way to get that message across.

Because blog marketing is a tool for getting your message out there, you’re going to want to be sure that you know what kind of a message you want to send. If you message is - ultimately - that you want to encourage more people to invest in real estate, then you need to focus on the advantages of real estate investing; if you want to ensure that FSBO sellers use your service for marketing their home, then you need to be able to use your blog to talk about why marketing is so essential.

Providing information gives readers the choice about what they are going to do: it shows them that you know what you’re doing, and it shows them that there are pieces of the puzzle that they’ve been missing. Your blog is a way to fill in the gaps for them, it’s a chance for you to make sure that they are getting the right info.

The marketing information that you use in your blog has to be subtle - it’s not the sales pitch. Yes, you want to “sell” your readers - at least to some degree - on following through a link to learn more about a related topic or service, but your primary goal with blog marketing is simply to get and hold the readers’ attention.

On one hand, that’s going to mean looking into options like home swapping or flat fee MLS as well as home valuations and showing tips. What that means is that, when you’re marketing your services you’re going to want to be able to make sure that those people who are looking for specific information are able to find it.

On the other, it’s going to mean making a commitment to knowing which services that you offer that you will be marketing online so that you can direct traffic to your website. Pay per click advertising campaigns, after all, are only as productive as they are well thought out and well-executed; the same - on a more general level - can be said for your real estate websites.

Regardless of which services you offer on your real estate websites and within your business, the only way to really get people interested is to give them the information that they need. And the only way to get them to pay attention once you put that information up on your real estate websites is to launch a great marketing campaign.

The services that you offer, after all, are the foundation of your success - both offline and on your real estate websites.

1. Have a targeted message. When you’re sending just listed postcards to those in the neighborhood of a home, what you’re really saying is “If you know people who have expressed an interest in living nearby, have them give me a call.” When you’re marketing your real estate business online, try to focus on having a clear message.
2. Recognize that part of your goal is just to get your name out there. Sending just sold postcards in a direct mail campaign isn’t so much about telling people that there’s someone new in their neighborhood, it’s about getting the word out that regardless of what the market is like in your area you sold a home - it’s about letting folks know that, if they’re thinking about selling you’re there for them. This is a good thing to keep in mind when you’re designing web pages and writing blog posts.
3. Sometimes there’s going to be a need to use clear information, other times you’re going to want to be a bit vague to attract more attention. This is something to keep in mind when you’re creating pay per click campaigns. Just as you may send out a direct mail campaign to announce a homebuyers seminar, and when you do you’ll include the basics of what they’ll find without the specifics, when you launch a PPC campaign, you’ll need to know which information will bait people who are interested enough to act.

Those three tie-ins between direct mail and marketing your business online are meant to get you thinking: what other connections between the two do you see?

On one hand, that means looking toward the right information - the details that will allow you to understand search algorithms from Google and the other search engines. On another, it means choosing to work with an SEO company that will focus on getting your site ranking legitimately, not using tactics that are as likely to get your site penalized as they are to promote it.

Search engine optimization, after all, isn’t just about getting rankings and making sure that prospective site visitors make it to your website: it’s about making sure that once they are at your site they can find what they are looking for. In other words, the number one position on Google isn’t going to mean anything if once someone visits your site they don’t stick around to learn more about your services.

That’s why content is an essential component of every search engine optimization strategy: it’s the content that helps you to get the word out about what you do and what you have to offer. It’s the content that explains the difference between you and your competitors.

Does that mean that you should banish keywords from your content, your title tags, your blog posts or anything else? Of course not, it just means that you should look at more than just keywords - focus on your content, that will help you to reach your goals.

Start out by looking at the blogs that you read: why do you read them? Marketing blogs like this one are targeted towards real estate professionals who want to get ahead, take their websites to the next level and use them to attract buyers and sellers. Sure, a lot of the advice that you’ll find would be applicable to other businesses - rather than the phrase “real estate website,” consider “knitting studio website” and shift around specifics about the product - but we recognize who the members of our audience are and what they are looking for.

Simply put, when you read a blog on a regular basis, the key is that there’s information that you can put to work for you, information that’s geared towards you and your needs. If you’re writing a blog for those who are going to be moving into your area - if you want to be sure that you’re attracting people from other parts of the country to the neighborhoods where you sell homes, shouldn’t you be focusing on topics like relocating, the best features of the neighborhoods and some details about the services that you offer.

When it comes to blog marketing, your goal isn’t to attract readers who aren’t already thinking about your services to your website; you should be using your blog to speak to those who are already considering making the move.

Knowing which people you want to market your services to is always going to make your marketing materials stronger and more effective; why would it be any different for blog marketing?

First - and probably the most obvious option - you can maintain your real estate websites on your own. But, if you don’t have the time to make regular updates or you just don’t feel like it’s something that you want to do, it’s time to start looking at the other options that are going to be available to you.

As for those other options, one is to have your real estate assistant update the pages for you, another is to bring on an additional real estate assistant, even on a part time basis that can make sure that the job’s getting done. Not only can your assistant add new listings to your site, but also you can be sure that your web assistant is keeping your blog up to date.

On the other hand, you just might find that there are college students looking for internships or even high school students in the area who are looking for an after school job who have the tech know-how to keep your website up to date at a low cost in exchange for the experience.

Real estate websites are extremely effective marketing tools - at least when they are used well. The best way to make sure that your website is working for your real estate business is to keep it up to date.