What's YOUR "Marketing Plan"? If it's like most appraisers', it's "aggressively waiting by the telephone or fax machine waiting for it to ring!"
A few months back (click here) I announced that I planned to take a look at many of the viral marketing options that appraisers have available today. Those options range from simple eMail forums and blogging to targeted newsletters, videos, and podcasting. Today's post is a basic list of some of the topics that I hope to discuss in more detail over the coming year. I hope you'll follow this series and join in with YOUR "Success Stories"!
1. Offer free services and information delivered via email
Free email newsletters, market reports and notifications are a great opt-in way of staying in contact with clients and property owners. If you're like me, you've probably set up a folder or two in Outlook just to save quality newsletters from Appraisal Today, Realty Times, and Inman News. Do you think your clients do that too? Sure they do! Wouldn't it be great if they were saving, and passing on, YOUR newsletter?
2. Feature free personalized RSS subscriptions
RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication. As you're reading blogs and surfing websites (Yahoo!® News, Inman®, The New York Times®, Appraisal Scoop) you've probably seen the orange RSS logo and wondered what the heck is that? For most of us, RSS allows us to pull their content into our website or blog.
Have you ever considered syndicating your web site's or blog's content? What if you could push your news stories, blog posts, podcasts, and video blogs to other appraisal, lender, and vendor websites automatically? They'd benefit because they'd always have highly targeted, current content. You'll win because RSS keeps your company's name in front of clients. Click here for a How-To article on RSS
RSS feeds will keep your visitors on your site longer, and will keep them coming back. Plus, if you have a specialty (divorce, tax appeal, pre-listing) your RSS feed updates will remind visitors automatically that you’re the unrivaled expert in your area.
3. Use eMail and eMail forums to spread the word
Your eMails can carry a consistent message about you and your commitment to the profession and your community. Always, always, always sign your eMail correspondence with your contact information and Web or blog URL!
You want readers of your email to be just one-click away from being able to place and order with you. Learn to use the hyperlink feature of Outlook so that readers can easily get follow-up information on topics they may not understand or need additional information on.
If you have a page or document that you frequently send out, consider uploading it to the Web, rather than "attaching" it to your eMail. They'll appreciate the ability to share that link and not having their yet another attachment filling up their hard drive. Example: Comp Checks
4. "Lunch & Learn" Presentations
My friend and Appraisal Scoop author, Patrick Egger, is a master of the "Lunch & Learn" program for educating real estate professionals and keeping them focused on his message. If you have a favorite topic that you're an authority on, let your clients know that you're available to speak to their group.
Realtors in my area are a fantastic source of referrals and probably in your area too. Contact the lead broker and offer to put on a 20-30 minute talk on "How to accurately measure a home", "How to prepare better BPO's" or "How to use the County GIS data". You'll become an known as an expert and will likely be on their short-list when asked - "Who should I get to appraise my home?"
Click here to continue reading . . .
5. YouTube or ScreenCast Videos
Services like YouTube or ScreenCast have made it easy to publish videos from your PC to the web. When I publish them to this blog, they always result in a big bump in the number of hits we get. The free TechSmith product Jing makes it simple to record on-screen demonstrations with audio for publication or distribution. Would a video of how to import MLS data into an Excel spreadsheet for trending analysis be of interest to Realtors in your area? I guarantee that it would! Click here for some examples and watch for the Click here to see our video logo on the Appraisal Scoop blog.
6. Love Those Blog Links!
The viral aspect of marketing relies on others picking up your marketing "bug" and spreading it around to others. One of the best ways that happens is when another website or blog will reference and link to your site. A good example of that is a recent link from NAR's Powertools For Appraisers, blogging about the Regression Analysis videos posted on Appraisal Scoop.com. Not only does Appraisal Scoop benefit, but so does the a la mode Labs project, which was the original host of that series.
7. Blog & Article Comments - YOU can correct the record
Most blogs and on-line news services will allow you to make comments on their articles. Have you ever read an article that just does NOT get the facts right? Using the comments feature of that article allows you to correct the story and (at a minimum) link back to your Web site or blog. Some systems allow for limited use of html code and hyperlinks. If they do, be SURE to take advantage of that feature. Your comments will stand out from the crowd and people will be more likely to click-through to your site or blog.
8. Internal Links - Keeping it In-House
Internal links on your blog or Web site are links from any page within the blog or site to any other page also within the blog. From a user standpoint, internal links help keep visitors on your site by suggesting other relevant pages within the site. You stand a better chance of converting a first time visitor to a regular reader if they read more than one article on your site in a single visit, so internal links are very helpful to users. Here's an example of my How To Prepare For Your Appraisal Inspection page. Notice that almost all of the text hyperlinks on that page are to another related page within my site. That's keeping it sticky!
Also note on that page that I have box at the bottom where a visitor can ask me a question. So what? you ask. Anytime someone uses one of those boxes, their name and email address are added to my XSellerate database for future targeted campaigns. In the Realtor world that's called "Lead Capture".
The neat part of about this tool is that depending on the page, I can vary what "Category" that lead is placed into in my contact database. For example: If I have a Q&A box on a page for Attorneys, I would set my Q&A box to categorize that contact as [Client] or [Attorney]. Then when I run my next XSellerate campaign, they'll receive targeted material and not some "Junk" mail intended for homeowners.
9. Follow-up & Educate: Set up a 'New Client campaign to let them know the easiest ways to order appraisals and why they should rely on you. Include lots of hyperlinks to key parts of your web site or or blog. Tailor your messages to your client's specialty - lending, attorney, title company, sales agent, or homeowner.
10. Singing in the "rain" - Active Rain that is! Is this the only place that I blog? Nope! I blog in a variety of different venues as well as comment on other blogger's sites. From Appraisal Scoop you can scroll down and look for my Active Rain logo which will link you to my profile (click here).
The neat thing about Active Rain is the audience. Posting to other appraiser forums and blogs can get a little inbred?! Active Rain has a very large readership in the real estate agent community and beyond. They offer the ability to drill-down by location too. So, if a visitor is looking for a professional in a particular state, area, or city . . .they can use Active Rain to find them.
One of the OTHER great things is that there are darn few appraisers in the system. If you're even a least bit active on the system . . .your name can rise to the top of list to become a "Featured Appraiser" for your city.
Author: Brian J. Davis, ARA - Brian Davis & Associates - Brian has over 23 years of appraisal experience in Central, IL and hosts the Appraisal Scoop blog and the Win TOTAL Users Group an email forum for appraisers
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