Realty Coaching International

Using Podcasts to Promote your Real Estate Website

A podcast is a single/series of digital media files, which are distributed over the internet for playing on portable media players like an i-pod automatically upon subscription. There is one huge advantage of podcasting over broadcasting that unlike radio, or streaming content on the web,  podcasts are not real-time, meaning no live broadcast of content happens. The material is pre-recorded and users can check out the material at their leisure, offline.

Topic Ideas for 60-90 second  podcast!

• Basic information about the web address, size, age and style of your listed property

• Real Estate investing is still hot - why NOW is the best time to Buy!

• How to Navigate the Foreclosure Market to Find the Best Deals

• Benefits of Owning Investment Property (2nd Home, Resort, College, etc.)

 

 

 

How does a Podcast help your arketing?

 

1.       Automation:  Podcast subscribers or listeners if, like podcasts because it automates the downloading process and allows them to have it at their own portable media player. It removes the hassle of people downloading new files every time you upload new information on your site. All they need to do is subscribe once, it is that easy!

2.       Direct Reach: Now as a marketer, you can directly reach your customer/ target audiences’ desktop. No more trouble making the download process simple for people who do not get it, every time you upload any content! No more delays in making all the recent information reach its target audience. A prod cast makes things simple on both sides of the equation.

3.       Ease: Audio is easier to produce than text, plus has an advantage of involving one more sense into marketing, the sense of hearing! It is more or less personal as people can hear you and it seems like you are talking directly to them. Much more effective than a long, monotonous paragraph to read.

4.       No Spam: All the advantages of podcasting come with an added benefit, freedom from spam!

Blogging for Today's Real Estate Professional

Consider  the benefits of adding a blog to your online marketing strategy. Blogs have a great impact on the readers because of their personal nature. 

A Blog is short  “web log”. It is a frequent, chronological publication of personal thoughts and Web links Information. A blog can be a personal blog or a news related blog compiling into an online diary kind of a thing. Most blogs are of the hybrid type, giving information through the help of photographs and sketches.  Real estate is a service-oriented profession.

You can blog about the state of the local and national real estate market, showcase current listings  and community information. Talk about what makes your area special. Share with your insights as real estate professional who wants to make a difference in the community that they serve.

There are as many unique types of blogs as there are people. Automated published systems, most notably activerain.com, typepad.com and blogger.com, have made the trend of blogging catch up with thousands of people.

Using Social Media in Real Estate

Online communities – FaceBook, Linkedin, etc.

 

The classifieds sections of your local newspapers is history, if you are looking for buyers and sellers, the real estate marketing has a new address now i.e. Social media like facebook, linkedin etc., implying that advertisers should be marketing their listings at these social interaction websites, as this is where the target market is these days.

Tips on how to use social media:

1. Building your network: Building your own network is as simple as encouraging new as well as past clients to ‘add’ you to their networks. Some sites have this function as “add as friend”.  Including links of your social network profile to your business cards and brochures will help in building your own online “sphere/ circle”.

2. Create Groups – Almost all such sites have an option of creating groups or communities. Create one such community with a very obvious name like “XYZ homebuyers” where you can help other people with their queries.  This is the most obvious way to create a niche for yourself online; also it builds up a network that respects your opinion.

3. Keep in touch: You can also create a group to keep in touch with not just you clients but just anyone. The community / group can engage in post conference discussions, share information on new n old projects  basically keep this forum neutral

4. Exclusivity - You could use social networking sites to give exclusive offers to your group/ community. You could have an exclusive Group where you could share great listings with each other even before they hit the markets.

5. Blogging: One can even add RSS feed to a profile, resulting in new readers and being instrumental in driving back traffic to your blog or website, by sharing posts with your network.

Maximizing business through social networks is increasingly important to small and medium size businesses, especially in real estate which is a very network dependent industry.

Using Banner ads & pay-per-click to Promote Real Estate Listings

Banner ads

Banner ads are usually animated GIF images, or more recently made in Macromedia Flash.  A banner ad is an ad graphic hyperlinked to the URL of the advertiser. The full banner size is 468 x 60 pixels, and most sites limit the file size of the graphic to 12K to 16K. Banner ads turn out to be not as cost effective as other ways of advertising, but no matter which approach is used to pay for advertising, developing and placing 468 x 60 pixel banner ads is likely to be part of your advertising mix.

If you are using banner ads to target your online audience, there are probably a few things you may want to know. You can’t just take any banner ad design or animation banner and expect to get the best results. Here are some tips on using banner ads effectively:

1. Make sure that your banners take you to the right page. These are called "landing pages" and should be chosen carefully.
2. Use plenty of space. You want to be able to maximize your advertising space in order to get the most visibility you can.
3. Make sure to spend some real time on your ad to make sure that it stands out. Using professional banner ad design companies and creating effective static and animation banners can be essential to making sure that your ad attracts the right kind of attention.

Pay-per-click listings:

A great way to bring people who are interested in the products and services your real estate site offers is to advertise on pay-per-click (PPC) search engines.  "Paid Listings" or "Sponsored Search Results" as they are often called, are listings hosted on search engines, on a set of keywords. Whenever a keyword search is done, these search engine listings appear before natural listings, either in a boxed off area at the top of the page, or at the right of the page. PPC listings are powered by pay per click search engines, meaning every time anyone clicks on a listing in the sponsored listing section, the owner of the website has to pay a set amount for that click. A sponsored search listing / pay-per-click listing often includes a title, description and the URL.

Pay per click listings are considered to be better than banner ads. This is because not only are banner ads running out of popularity, but they can also tend to be expensive. Recent increase in the popularity of pay-per-click listing and click based advertising is testimonial to the fact that it is one of the best forms of advertising and  turns out to be most cost-effective as it has the benefit of having to pay only if the customer clicks on your listings.