Brainerd Lakes Real Estate News

Lee Odden knows how to get a blog read. He published an article on the Online Marketing Blog called "25 Link Building Tactics to Improve Blog Search Engine Rankings". It scares me to think about all the things that I am not yet doing but as many posters have commented "this is just all part of the job". Some of his suggestions are pretty easy while others will take some time.

How to Re-purpose Your Real Estate Blog's Content To Grow Your Email List in 5 Simple Steps

If you are blogging 3-5 times/week as part of your marketing strategy you should use your published original blog content to your advantage.  Re-purposing the content from your published blog posts allows you an additional vehicle to brand your business and promote your services online. 

One easy way to re-purpose your content is to to create an ezine from the content contained in your published blog posts.  An Ezine is similar to a newsletter and is published in a PDF format which makes it easy for your readers to access, save, refer to, and share your content and information. 

Ezines are an easy way for you to distribute your content and to grow your contact database.

Here are 5 Simple Steps to re-purpose your real estate blog's content to grow your email list

1.  Decide Which Real Estate Blog Posts You Will Use as Content for your Real Estate Ezine

Before you create your ezine you will need to decide which of your real estate blog posts you will be using to create the publication. 

Here are some recommendations of topics for your Real Estate Ezine:

• Real Estate Market Reports- You could take 3 months worth of real estate market reports and create a quarterly ezine.
• Home Maintenance and Repair- You could group by seasonal repairs/improvements or by type of repair/improvement (e.g. kitchen, living room, outdoor landscape)
• Home buyer checklists
• Home Seller checklists
• Short sales 101
• First time home buyer information
• Relocation information
• Any of your real estate blog posts that you have in a series

Once you have decided which blog posts you will use in your ezine, list the names of the blog posts on a document ( I use Google Docs) and the order in which you want them to appear in the Ezine.

2.  Create your Real Estate Ezine

Go to Zinepal.com and take 2 minutes to fill out a form and create an account.  It's free.   Once you have an account an Zinepal you will log in and start creating your ezine.  The first step is to enter the url of your blog or your blog's rss feed.  Once you have done this the zinepal.com application will pull a list of your blog posts.  You simply check the ones you want included in your ezine and zinepal.com will add them to a dashboard for you. 

Check to make sure that you have the right blog posts for your Ezine in your dashboard and click the customize and create my ezine button. 

3.  Edit your Real Estate Ezine

Once you are in the Ezine Editor it will ask you to:

• Enter your keywords and an introduction for your ezine.
• Choose your logo for the header of the ezine, font type and font size.
• Upload an image for advertising on your ezine (I'll discuss this later).
• Save your ezine as a template for future ezines.

Editing your Ezine will take you about 5-10 minutes maximum.  Once you are done you can preview your real estate ezine or hit create to publish and save your ezine.

4.  Your ROI Is Dependent On How You Market your Real Estate Ezine

You will get a PDF copy of your ezine which you can download onto your computer and save in your documents.  You will also receive a profile page on zinepal.com that will become a library for your Ezines.  You can choose to keep this ezine profile page public or private.  If you allow your profile page to be public visitors can subscribe by RSS to your ezine feed.

Here is how I recommend you market your Real Estate Ezines:

• Decide which ezines you are willing to give away without requiring Internet visitors to fill out a form and which ezines you require visitors to fill out a form before allowing them to download.
• Take your private ezines and upload them to a document storage and collaboration website and set them as private. 
• Create a simple form for Internet Visitors to fill out before they can access your private real estate ezines. 
• Embed this form on your website, email, blog, social networks and other places online where your advertise your real estate services online.  After they complete the form it will take them to the URL where your private ezine(s) are located for them to download.
• Expose your public ezines by leaving them public on your profile on a document storage and collaboration website.  This will allow visitors to download and share your ezines by email, facebook, twitter, Digg and more.  It will also allow the search engines to index your profile page thereby increasing the visibility of these public documents.
• Use the RSS feed you are given from zinepal.com and embed it on your blog or website.  Even though you may leave some of your ezines public, you can still use the RSS feed to gain subscribers and grow your email list).

5.  Take the Marketing of your Real Estate Ezine to the Next Level

The simple repurposing of content from your real estate blog into real estate ezines can provide a wealth of viral branding avenues for you to explore and create new business opportunities.  Taking the marketing of your ezine to the next level means marketing your ezine in both offline and online venues.

Here's how you can take the marketing of your real estate ezine to the next level:

• Use the advertising space when you are creating your ezine to promote your business, another real estate vendor or local business (possible paid opportunity- add disclaimer), an upcoming home buyer's seminar you are giving, or a charity you support.
• Advertise your ezine in newsletters you send to your farm or in expired postcard and letter campaigns.
  
• Offer your ezines as printed publications in local businesses that you network and partner with and/or on their websites.
• Contact your local library if your ezines are of educational value on local or newsworthy issues and offer to allow them to be distributed in printed format and/or electronic format on their website.
• Submit your ezines to ezine directories.
  

Pull and push your content heavy ezine for the maximum ROI.

It's up to you to take action now that you know how to repurpose your real estate blog's content to grow your email list in 5 simple steps.

 
A Roadmap Blogging Real Estate Professionals 23-Oct-2009

Crush the box.  Somebody's gonna do it and it should be you.

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Portland Home Stager, Pangaea, shares how the broker, the seller, and the home stager teamed up to get this Portland, Oregon Home SOLD in ONE DAY to the first person who saw it!

I would just love to take all of the credit for this, but as I have said before, it takes a team to successfully sell a home. With properties languishing on the market for months and months at a time, it seems like a miracle that a home could sell so fast. So, here is what each person did.

The Broker:

• Counseled the seller regarding the importance of condition and presentation of the home.
• Expertly assessed the right pricing for the property
• Referred the seller to the Home Stager
• Hired a professional photographer to take great photos for the listing

The Home Stager:

• Started by asking the broker for any special concerns or negatives about the property - master bedroom not on the main floor was an issue.The bedroom on the main floor looked very crowded & wall color was dark.
  
• Scheduled and performed a thorough "Walk & Talk" consultation for the seller with specifics about what needed to be done and why.
• Empowered the seller to know that she couid accomplish everything by prioritizing and showing specific examples to take out any guesswork.
  
• Provided additional furnishings / art / accessories and returned to do the final staging.

The Seller:

• Trusted her professionals and committed to doing everything recommended by her broker and home stager.
• Rolled up her sleeves and worked hard!

Now here's the success story that shows that all three pieces are what sold this home ---

Two weeks prior to going on the market, the broker put out a "pre-listing" notice so people would know it was coming up. She connected with another broker who had a buyer ready to buy! They went to see the house, contract in hand ready to write an offer, before the painting and staging work had been done. As soon as the buyer saw that the "master" bedroom was downstairs, they changed their mind and passed on the house.

So, to prepare the home, I had the seller remove clutter & older, unattractive furniture. Also had her paint the kitchen in a warm sand color and paint the cabinets white, plus update the hardware. The main floor bedroom had a futon in it. Because of the arms on the futon, when it was folded down to be a bed, the arms protruded into the space enough to make it very tight and to "scream" that it was a guest room. Although I had recommeded painting a lighter color in the bedroom, time & money made us decide to go with the existing color. The seller's white bedding made the dark walls seem even darker. So I used darker bedding more befitting of a "master" bedroom, and added art & throw pillows that tied in with the green but in lighter shades.

So, after the property was staged, professional photos were taken that day and put online asap! An open house was held the next day. According to the broker, the very first person who walked in bought the home. Happy Ending!!

Here are before & after photos for you to enjoy. "After Photos" courtesy of Rachel Weinstein rachelweinstein@comcast.net

Portland based, Pangaea Interior Design, offers home staging, interior design, and redesign services in the greater metropolitan area. If you value professionalism, a collaborative approach and results, then please call or email for an appointment to get your listing ready for the market! 503.816.4394 design@pangaea-id.com  Pangaea Interior Design