Archive for the 'advertising' Category

Social or Search: Who will be Online Advertising’s King of the Hill?

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NDG
on June 29, 2010
in advertising, e-marketing, interactive and web
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According to a recent article on Mashable, Facebook has reached the top volume ranking in the United States. Hitwise, the data analytics service from Experian, has found that social networks in general are more popular than search engines in some parts of the world, and that Facebook has now surpassed Google to become the most visited website:

“Facebook recently reached the #1 ranking on Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, and New Year’s Day as well as the weekend of March 6th and 7th. The market share of visits to Facebook increased 185% last week as compared to the same week in 2009, while visits to Google increased 9% during the same time frame. Together Facebook and Google accounted for 14% of all US Internet visits last week [the week ending March 7th, 2010].”

In fact, according to Mashable, networks such as Facebook been pushing hard against the biggest names in web search including Google for several months: “Now, we’ve learned that in the UK, people are visiting social networks more than they’re visiting search engines. Facebook dominates the current crop of social networks, accounting for the majority (55%) of all social site visits. When compared to the wider web, Google gets around 9.3% of all web traffic, while Facebook now captures over 7%.”

And, global page view trends for Facebook and Google show that “while social networks such as Facebook don’t pose an immediate threat to search engines for their core functionality, they do pose a large threat to search engines’ largest revenue source, advertising.”

Click Here to read the entire article on Mashable.

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Cheap, Versatile, and High ROI: E-Mail Marketing

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NDG
on April 15, 2010
in advertising, e-marketing, new home marketing and real estate marketing
. 1 Comment

Continuing our series of posts about real estate and homebuilder online advertising and marketing fundamentals, this week we’ll discuss the basics of e-mail marketing.

You may have heard some rumors about the eventual demise of e-mail, with whispers of Facebook and Google wave-type platforms as the likely successors. The facts, however, show that e-mail is alive and well, and only continuing to grow in popularity and omnipresence.

247 billion emails were sent each day in 2009, and there were approximately 1.4 billion global email users in 2009, according to market research firm The Radicati Group. Even Google’s popular Gmail web-based e-mail served approximately 176 million users all by itself in the month of December 2009 according to the Wall Street Journal. In fact, according to mail2web.com, there were 100 million more e-mail users in the world in 2009 than there were in 2008.

So the number of e-mail users within the United States and around the world is massive and getting even bigger. But best of all, according to the Email Experience Council, e-mail marketing produces an ROI of 40-50% greater than all other direct marketing media or methods. Just like your online advertising, e-mail is trackable and analytics are available for your usage and response that can help you refine and finely tune your messages and approaches to ensure the most response.

And as to the idea that social media is taking away market share and eyes from e-mail, the fact is that many employers are now simply blocking social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter to maintain productivity, leaving e-mail as your primary communications conduit and best option for creating trackable results.

So you should feel very comfortable making e-mail a major component of your new home and real estate marketing—it’s cheap, quick, versatile, and, when executed properly and ethically, produces astounding returns that you can monitor, track, and use to guide your refinement on the path to e-mail marketing success.

Next time, we’ll discuss Website & Online Advertising Analytics and its role in getting the most for your money in your online advertising and marketing.

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They Do the Hard Work For You—3rd Party Online Referral Sites

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NDG
on March 11, 2010
in advertising, articles, e-marketing, interactive, marketing, new home sales marketing, real estate marketing and web
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Continuing our series of posts about real estate and homebuilder online advertising and marketing fundamentals for 2010, this week we’ll discuss why and how to integrate your website listings content with 3rd Party Online Referral websites, such as NewHomeSource.com, Trulia.com, or Move.com—automatically—ensuring your listings on these websites are current and accurate, without having to manage the data manually.

An XML feed is a simple way to share your listing information with other websites. An XML feed allows you to publish as frequently as you need to, and modify the relevant fields (price, availability, square footage, etc) as often as you need to.  In order to help provide their users with relevant content, the referral websites will allow you to link your feeds to them, thus propagating your offerings further and creating more frequency and exposure for your listings.

WHY should you share your listings with these websites?

HOW do you share your listings with these websites?

By setting up an XML feed from your website to the 3rd party vendors of your choice. Your website or technology partner can help you organize your listing data into a standardized set so that your information is always represented accurately. This requires that your information utilize the correct fields and structures, as well as content tags. While the intricate details can be complex, the big concept is that you’re making sure your information is set up so that it can be shared effectively with the people who are looking for it—web-savvy homebuyers who are searching for your new homes.

Next week, we’ll discuss Banner Advertising and its role in your Online Advertising and Search Engine Marketing plans.

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Integrating Social Media into Your Online Marketing Plan

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NDG
on March 5, 2010
in advertising, articles, e-marketing, marketing, new home marketing and real estate marketing
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Continuing our Step-By-Step Process to Staying Focused and On Track in Today’s Market, this week, we’ll discuss how Social Media can help you distribute your content online to help achieve your search engine marketing and optimization goals, as well as help you achieve real authentic customer engagement.

Facebook, YouTube, Twitter—there’s a growing number of social media channels and platforms out there. It’s easy to get overwhelmed and off course trying to be everywhere, so we’re going to set the record straight about what you should, and shouldn’t, expect from your social media marketing efforts.

Make sure to review NDG’s online integration map for flowing data (content) throughout the fundamental online marketing components for Homebuilders, Developers, and Real Estate Brokerages.

NDG recommends that our clients have a living strategic plan for implementing, engaging, and monitoring your social media outreach. While social media can help build brands and maximize publicity efforts, do not expect these marketing components to instantly drive traffic or sales. Social media platforms are recommended because of their word-of-mouth generation capabilities and because of their wide-ranging reach across many varied demographic audiences. Do NOT abandon all other forms of marketing; rather, integrate social media into your current marketing strategy and, most importantly, your corporate website.

As a first, fundamental step, develop a blog to serve as the “content repository” to feed timely, relevant content to your corporate website. This same content can be distributed via a Facebook fan page. Then,  you can add other platforms such as Twitter and YouTube to your mix as you develop more content appropriate for these digital meeting places. Your website is the hub of all your marketing and advertising, and from this hub are distributed communications, each tailored to the channel you’re using.

Finally, remember that Content is Queen, and especially so for the social media. If you’re just shouting the same stuff down these channels, you’re wasting your time and money, and potentially damaging your brand and reputation. The ROI on your social media outreach will be directly influenced by your investment in generating good content, because this is what will help your Search Engine Results Page (SERPs) rankings grow higher and higher, and create more authentic engagement with your prospects—not repeating the same weak content over and over, which will just get you ignored by both your prospects and the search engines.

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Pay to Play Until You Can Go Organic: Search Engine Marketing

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NDG
on March 1, 2010
in advertising, e-marketing, marketing, new home marketing and real estate marketing
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As new home sales expert Myers Barnes often says, “It’s Online or the Breadline.” According to the National Association of Realtors, more than 90% of new homebuyers are starting their research and selection process online, shopping by elimination to determine which communities they will visit in person.

Your goal is to have your website appear on the very first page of search engine results pages (or “SERPs”) when your prospects search under the keywords associated with your website and its content, and have it appear there “organically” — that is, without resorting to paid advertising to help maintain this first-page ranking. This is no easy and simple task, nor does it happen overnight, but with testing, vigilance, and perseverance, you can achieve this goal.

Search Engine Optimization (or “SEO”) refers to improving your search engine ranking via non-paid methods. This is different from Search Engine Marketing (or “SEM”), paid search engine advertising that can help you eventually achieve your search engine placement goals without any financial investment. The most prominent example of search engine advertising is Google AdWords.

Keyword research will help guide the ongoing development of your paid search engine advertising, so that you can allocate minimal funds to test your advertising first. Once you have positive results, roll out your complete, tested & proven paid advertising. Remember, your goal is to have your website appear on the first page of search engine results. With a combination of Search Engine Optimization and Search Engine Marketing, you can achieve this goal, and then eliminate the expense of paid search advertising once you achieve sustainable “organic” first-page ranking.

Next week, we’ll discuss the facts and myths of how “Social Media” such as Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter can help you distribute your content online to help achieve your search engine goals.

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Why TRACKING is KING

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NDG
on February 17, 2010
in advertising, e-marketing, new home sales marketing and real estate marketing
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While Content is Queen, Tracking is King. Here’s why: Advertisers and Marketers today have the most concrete, reliable, and ample data to help analyze and understand the results of your labors.

Now you really can see what is working, and deduce why or why not with your online efforts (including e-mail, advertising, and websites)—giving you the power to refine and adjust over time to maintain and increase positive results. Your content will generate the results, and tracking will ensure that your content is as well crafted and targeted as possible to create the most response over time as situations evolve.

Remember: Advertising is what brings you the first contact with the prospect; marketing is what happens when you respond. Analytics help measure both your advertising and marketing results. Now you can have true ROI metrics that spell out the who, why, where, when, and how.

Of course, it takes time to analyze. And of course it’s not black and white; there will be shades of gray, but this is what gives you the most clarity. There are also industry benchmarks available to help evaluate your performance against other competitors in your selected arena. For example, here are some recent real estate industry e-mail averages, courtesy mailchimp.com:

Open Rate: 22.84%
Click-through Rate: 4.24%
Soft Bounces: 2.02%
Hard Bounces: 4.31%
Unsubscribe Requests: 0.30%

And since almost all online advertising and marketing can be tracked if the proper steps are taken, there’s no reason to blindly assume or guess about what is working and what isn’t anymore. So, never forget that the key to your online success is the formula of CONTENT + TRACKING.

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NDG’s 2010 Online Marketing Fundamentals

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NDG
on February 3, 2010
in advertising, articles, e-marketing, new home sales marketing and real estate marketing
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Connect the Dot.com’s in Your Online Marketing

for Homebuilders, Developers, and Real Estate Brokerages

A Step-By-Step Process to Staying Focused and On-Track in Today’s Market

NDG is sharing a roadmap with our clients and friends this year. It’s a roadmap to achieving online advertising and marketing results in 2010. In seven steps—steps, which we admit, are complex, and which take time and dedication to achieve—NDG will show you how to lay the groundwork for online real estate marketing and sales success this year. We’ll share one step per post, starting this week with:

Follow the Content Path: The Fundamental Components Required for Integrating and Flowing Your Data

What to do, where to do it, and how to make it all work together: Revealed below is NDG’s online integration map for flowing data (content) throughout the fundamental online marketing components for Homebuilders, Developers, and Real Estate Brokerages.

dataflow3

1. Utilize a Branded, Adminable, and Content-Driven Website

What does “Adminable” mean?

This term simply means that your website is easily updated with new content by non-programmers via a Content Management System (CMS) that allows you to modify the content on your website without the help of a programmer.

What does “Content-Driven” mean?

We mean that fresh content is critical to your success, just as gasoline is required to make your car’s engine go: Community Listings, Inventory Homes List, Customizable Interactive Floorplans, Product Photography, Customizable Driving Directions to Sales Centers, Homeowner Testimonials, etc.

2. Utilize a Customer Relations Management System  (CRM)

What is a Customer Relations Management System?

Software that helps organize, manage, automate, and ensure the quality of your company’s interactions with both sales prospects and buyers.  Utilizing a CRM system will help you convert browsers into buyers.

3. Export XML Data Feeds from your CRM to 3rd-Party Referral Websites

What is an XML Feed?

This is the programming code that feeds YOUR HOME LISTINGS into third-party referral websites such as NewHomeSource.com, Trulia.com, or Move.com, etc., automatically, ensuring your listings on these websites are current and accurate—without having to manage the data manually.

4. Connect with Social Media Platforms

What are Social Media?

These are the online communities, websites, and platforms (such as Blogs, Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, etc) that allow people from any location on the planet to come together to share common interests. Social Media are today’s public relations.

5. Acquire and Analyze Website Analytic Performance Data

What are Website Analytics?

The hard numbers from your website and other online components that tell you who is interacting with you, or not, and why, where, when, and how. The proof is in the numbers, and the more you know and understand, the more you’ll be able to refine your approach and modify your outreach to create the greatest results.

By utilizing each of these fundamental components, and by properly flowing your content and data through them in the correct order, you can ensure that your online resources are structured for maximum efficiency, that no (or at least few) opportunities for exposure and connection with the right prospects are being missed, and that you are poised for the most return on your investment.

Next week we’ll discuss the fuel that makes this online engine run: CONTENT!

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NDG’s Red Hot Online Marketing Strategies from IBS 2010

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NDG
on January 25, 2010
in advertising, e-marketing, marketing, new home marketing, new home sales marketing and real estate marketing
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A huge thank you to all who attended the Red-Hot New Home Sales and Marketing Solutions seminar with Myers Barnes and Jim Adams at this year’s International Builders’ Show in Las Vegas. We appreciate your time, and we’re confident that if you employ the tactics we outlined in the program, your team will achieve online marketing success in 2010!

We know it seems overwhelming but, with a solid plan of action, and a commitment to seeing it through, your online presence will begin to pay measurable dividends.

IF YOU MISSED THIS YEAR’S SHOW: A complete PDF of the Red-Hot New Home Sales and Marketing Solutions presentation is now available for you to download at your convenience here.

And of course if you ever need help, NDG stands ready to create real solutions to your online marketing and advertising problems. You can reach us anytime at our website, on our Facebook Fan page, or by calling (877) 889-1848.

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Get Red-Hot New Home Sales & Marketing Solutions at the 2010 International Builders Show

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NDG
on December 10, 2009
in advertising, marketing, new home marketing, new home sales marketing and real estate marketing
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Join New Homes Sales Expert Myers Barnes and NDG Communications President Tom Nelson at the 2010 International Builders Show for a fast-paced, results-oriented sales & marketing download.

Prepare to ignite your selling power with sensible solutions and a bold line of attack for your sales and marketing organization. Learn the techniques that will propel you to success in the new marketplace, along with remedies for overcoming hardship economies.

Wednesday, January 20th at 1:30 pm - 3:00 pm, South 220

Click Here to Learn More about NDG at the 2010 International Builders Show.

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NDG Goes for Gold at the Nationals Awards

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NDG
on December 3, 2009
in Awards and advertising
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The Nationals are the National Sales and Marketing Awards for the Real Estate and Homebuilder Industries. Now in its 28th year, The Nationals Awards Show pays tribute to superior new-home sales and marketing achievements by marketing professionals, homebuilders, and associates.

Silver Award Winners are the top vote recipients in each category and are the finalists for the Gold Award, which will be announced and presented January 19, 2010 in Las Vegas.

NDG Communications has received a Silver Award for Best Internet Marketing Campaign for K. Hovnanian Homes’ Pounce Before the Bounce campaign, and a Silver Award for Best Marketing Promotion by an Associate for the Myers Barnes Thrival Kit.

NDG  is proud to share this recognition with our clients, and proud of the work we have done for them this year. We look forward to seeing you all at the International Builders Show in January for the Nationals Award Show.

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