Every once in a while... something really COOL comes along and blows everything you know away.
And at the same time, introduces a new technology that replaces the old.
BLOGS replaced your Guestbook. Websites are replacing the need for your stupid real estate guide advertising. Fax machines replaced courier pigeons. Okay, maybe I'll stop with the comparisons here.
Samsung will help usher in a big change in Social Networking with the introduction of their new Cell Phone/HD Video Camera. It's a call phone. It's an HD Video camera. It's both.
I'm trying to figure out how to buy 200 of these for our customers and before I replace my iPhone with one of these... I'm willing to bet $100 that Steve Jobs is right now... figuring out how to launch a newer 3GS phone, called the iPhone 3G HD. So their iPhone will do HD video too.
Imagine no longer needing a 360 virtual tour camera. Obeo, CirclePix, RealTourVision... buh-bye. You're Out of Business now.
The REALTOR takes the Samsung Phone, records a video of the house when you write up the listing agreement. You upload an edited video to YouTube and then you take the link and paste that into your MLS and your website.
Anyway, I'll keep this short. Watch the video here. See for yourself.
- bart
Now I can say I've seen everything when it comes to marketing real estate. I can die now. There is nothing more to invent or for anyone to see.
Trulia, Cyberhomes, Realtor.com. Glenn at Redfin. Dave Liniger at RE/MAX, even the guys at CENDANT. It's over. Go home now. You can shut your business down. Someone figured out how to use SEX to sell luxury homes.
This kind of advertising is better than "BUY THIS HOUSE -- GET FREE Gas for a year or FREE Pizza for a year." "FREE closing costs," or those neighborhood heat maps on Trulia's website. I've been selling virtual tour camera kits for a long long time, and this kind of advertising is better than any 360 virtual tour.
The card below shows a woman dressed in a bikini (not nude) but you still get the idea here.
We've all heard the adage, "SEX Sells." right?
SEX helped VHS win the war over Sony's Beta in the early 80's. Sony wanted nothing to do with adult content. VHS format came a long and adult entertainment movies made every red blooded male rush out to buy one. It didn't matter that the VHS, once sold in the early 1980's for more than $500. Sex sold that product pretty fast and Sony lost the battle for a superior Beta VCR.
I was at Eastman Kodak from 1990 - 1995. Back then, you didn't have a CD-ROM drive built into your Mac or PC. You had the Bernouli Box, or a SyQuest external drive. CD-ROM external drives sere SCSI or Parallel and they were pricey. $495 - $595. Nobody saw the need for CD back then, either. Then sex on CD came out and guys once more found an excuse to go to Comp USA and buy one.
I think that using SEXY ads can work for selling real estate. The $8,000 tax incentive is one reason. An enterprising California REALTOR using SEX to help sell a Napa Valley Home is actually a pretty interesting idea.
We all know that crappy websites don't do much for your leads, right?
Attractive packaging will work wonders for increasing leads.
I have no doubt that SEX can help get eyeballs to your website, or help you move some home inventory.
But I'm curious what the rest of you think about this kind of advertising.
- bart
This one really got me started.
I mean no direct disrespect to an ActiveRain Advertiser, but on the right side over here ---> there's a tiny square ad that asks, "Paying Too Much for Your Website?"
You click the ad and you get presented with a FREE Website offer with incredible details;
- The Industry's most powerful website? ( this is pure marketing BS )
- Fast easy set up (maybe)
- Your own .com or you can transfer yours at no charge and no hosting fees. (so what? This is nothing new)
- Unlimited listings and property descriptions so buyers get all the info. (Gee, this is stupid. Re-key in the same information you already put now in the MLS)
- 30 customizable templates (McWebsite templates for sure) and 100 pre-written content pages to choose from so your site looks totally unique.
(Let's see. 100 pre-written content pages. Which means you COPY them to your site. 100 pages of stuff you can copy so your site is unique. Oxy-moron. Jumbo Shrimp. Military Intelligence. Same thing here. Google penalizes for duplicate content, did you know that?)
The problem with firms like these is that they PREY on the digitally challenged and REALTORS who are clueless. FREE website? Wow what a cool idea?
Looking like 15,000 other agent websites is NOTHING to be proud of, people.
Nobody will let me run this funny Radio Commercial for a make believe Website company.
Play the Crappy Website 30 Radio Commerical
Rule of Thumb
There is NOTHING ADVANCED about AdvancedAccess anymore.
#1 Expert is not the #1Expert in websites today. Your website looks the same as 15,000 others out there. Same template, same school information, but they rearrange the colors is all.
Homes.com is another, unremarkable, me-too McWebsite template company.
If you want a really GOOD website, the rules of the game are simple. Build it from scratch. And at the risk of plugging Steve Krug's book again, "Don't Make me Think," you simply must get that book, read it and follow the directions.
- bart
This one's an interesting story with a very happy ending.
Our website, has been ranking page one #1 and page one #2 on Google for six years.
So last year, to save marketing dollars -- the board of directors elected to REMOVE the toll free phone number off the top right side for a year.
They thought we'd save $190 or so a month on WATTS charges. In 14 months... I saw sales go down and we actually LOST $192,000 in sales from last year compared to 2007 end of year sales. I showed this to the board in March this year and they agreed they made a mistake.
We put our toll free number back up, and like pure magic. The very next day, calls came in and sales picked up and have remained higher than normal by 22 - 30%.
Most of the staff gets excited about this. So I go to the old book shelf and dust off an old book I had not read in six years.
The book is tltled, "Don't Make Me Think," by Steve Krug. It's a wonderful book and there is a 2nd edition out there right now that I just bought from Amazon.
I read this book, cover to cover again and I looked at our own website, Voyager360.com. We've been page one #1 on Google for six years now when you search for, "virtual tour cameras, or 360 virtual tour equipment."
We weren't getting a lot of sales this year and after I read Steve's Book, I figured out why.
Our website navigation (bar) wasn't as user friendly as it could be. I mean, it really sucked. Below you can see that we have drop down menus on our website. It's nice, but nobody knew to DO this.
Visitors to the site just clicked on the top leval navigation so lots of people never even found our STORE and detail pages. Steve was right. People don't WANT to THINK when they come to a website. We never TESTED our site on anybody.
I knew I had drop down menus off the main navigation... but every day, 500 to 700 new people coming to our site missed that. As a result, our website navigation was hard for many users and I was thinking our page rank had dropped when it hadn't moved off page one in Google in six years.
Sales were down, but how can you get BETTER than Page One Visibility on Google? You can't.
But you can improve the USABILITY of your site. Steve Krug's book will show you how.
So we retooled our site, and the very next few days, sales picked up, and now we're back to $50,000 plus sales of our camera kits per month.
Below is our same navigation now with a horizontal Contextual sub navigation. Now we're selling lots of kits and making fabulous money again.
See the 2nd LEVEL? Blue house icon and the left to right sub navigation? This is what kicked our sales in the ass and started making our cash register go Kaching! again.
Your website may be suffering the same fate. For $24.95 at Amazon, Steve Krug can tell you and show you a valuable lesson. The same one the Bartman just learned.
At 40-something... I'm a walking example that you CAN teach an OLD DOG some new Tricks.
- Bart
For weeks now, I've been enjoying an Inman News spinoff website. The Future of Real Estate Marketing.
I'm not sure if they ran out of money, or no one has told them their site has been off the air since yesterday but nonetheless... it's gone.
I will certainly miss the site if it's off the air for good.
This is what happens when companies run at too many directions at once, when you should be paying attention to your web servers.
- bart
We design and build and host Google SEO Friendly broker-agent websites, Custom IDX systems, WordPress Blogs and provider of the original, Do It Yourself 360 Virtual tour camera kits.
Established in 1997, Voyager International has been providing the four (4) mission critical marketing tools and products you'll never get from your real estate franchise.
We provide brokers and million dollar producers with;
1.) Affordable, built from scratch, hand tooled SEO + Google Friendly Websites for Brokers and Agents,
2.) Help with Blogging systems, such as WordPress, help with FaceBook, Social Media Coaching,
3.) Custom IDX Systems, or off the shelf, Map-based IDX IDL systems for agents / brokers starting at $59 a month,
4.) Fire Real Tour Vision, Obeo or CirclePix and shoot your own 360 Virtual Tours. We have the original, Do It Yourself 360 Virtual Tour Camera Kit, with step by step training and instant access to Realtor.com SHOWCASE Listings, too.
"We Put Butts in Seats and Make Your Cash Register Ring."
We're a partner for one broker or one agent per market. Far more than just another vendor, Voyager becomes a permanent part of your SUCCESS TEAM efforts in helping you achieve your marketing and sales goals.
"We're Focused on One Thing: REAL ESTATE -- that's why we're better than the rest."
We've had 12 years to screw up things. We've also seen how many real estate marketing firms out there including a lot of national real estate franchises over promise and under deliver. We've seen grown men and women throw, kick things across a room. We've embraced two unavoidable facts in this business;
1.) Everything changes in six months.
2.) If you aren't keeping up, how are you going to catch up?
"Hiring Bart from Voyager was the best thing I could have done in 2008. This was the best marketing investment I ever made. Since everyone knows the power of the Internet, Bart certainly knows how to get agents from nowhere to being up front and visible when it comes to search engine rankings. My advice to others on ActiveRain... if your area is open, snatch Bart up now before your competitor does."
-- Jamie Mades, REALTOR. Keller Williams | Colorado Springs Team
< img title="Google Logo" src="http://www.voyager360.com/active-rain/google-logo.jpg" alt="Google Logo" width="424" height="127" />
“Bart is one of those rare creative graphics wizards who can bull doze any website and create a Web User Interface make over with his "Ninja" graphics creative director abilities. He consistently delivers results for each of his clients by producing a clean website designs that are instantly recognizable as Bart's work. If Bart wasn't one of the senior share holders at Voyager, lots of companies would be vying to have him on their full-time payroll.”
-- Ashish Agrawal, Google
“I was very fortunate to be trained by Bart Wilson in photography and virtual tours at Voyager International He is a true professional. Not only is he extremely knowledgeable in his field, but also honest and conscientious. I highly recommend Bart and his entire team at Voyager International.”
-- Guy Coates, Owner Gemini360.com (a virtual tour company doing business in Prescott, AZ)
“Bart is an outstanding entrepreneur who is able to listen to customer issues, and develop solutions that address their pain points. As a result, he has developed real estate technology solution that resonates with real estate professionals and franchise owners.”
-- John Chan, Sr. Product Manager, BlueArc.com
“Bart's expertise in his field is matched only by his commitment to client satisfaction. He is phenomenal to work with, and his services are a tremendous asset.”
-- Rosanna Tussey, Virtual Assistant to Ralph Roberts
“Bart is one of those visionary guys who doesn't mind getting his hands dirty. He's got to be the hardest working man in the real estate world. His tenacity is admirable. He always maintains a positive outlook and he makes things happen."
-- Prof. Karl Baehr, Emerson University, Boston
“Bart, I am leaving the country this morning, but before leaving I wanted to thank you and Voyager for everything you have done to help our business. Getting us page one ranking on all our important keywords has been awesome. We engaged you two years ago to help improve our natural ranking on the major search sites like Google, Yahoo and MSN and you delivered. Your knowledge of the business and constant tweaking on our sites has resulted in getting, and mainining, page one rankings. Earlier this year you suggested a rebuild to our site to make it even more search engine friendly and again you came through with our position improving on Google, Yahoo and MSN. Page one ranking has had a direct impact on improving our sales. I have nothing but positive things to say about you and your company.”
-- Terry Pullan, CEO Pullan Communications eProspecting.com. A Division of Dominion Enterprises
Voyager designed a custom 20 page brochure and a DVD video to help our brokerage market a $64 million dollar California ranch property. I would recommend Voyager international to any high end luxury broker who demands the very finest in real estate marketing services. If you have a high profile, Hollywood type client that needs to sell their estate, you might consider Christies Great Estates or another luxury marketing firm but Voyager is actually better qualified and does the work at a very reasonable rate. Voyager is discreet about their clients and they are the very best at what they do.
-- Michael Bohnen, Bohnen Real Estate
I've used every possible invention of 360 virtual tour equipment on the planet including all of the national photo service companies and Voyager is simply the best. Their do it yourself 360 virtual tour kits are easy to use and affordable to own as advertised.
-- Ralph Roberts, Ralph Roberts Realty. Profiled by CNN as America's Scariest Salesman
When our Windermere Real Estate office was set up, I got volunteered with the task of finding a way to do 360 virtual tours in house. Thank God we found Voyager. I was calling everyone out there and no one seemed to have a whole system. Those that did, said they didn't train and that we should to hang out at the local camera store begging for hints, others recommended we attend a local computer user group. Voyager's customer service sold me the minute we called them. They showed all options for their kits, and they walked me through the Voyager back office listing manager. In one weekend, Voyager taught me how to take 360 virtual tours and the rest was easy. Thanks Voyager. We love you.
-- Tiffany Watson, Windermere Real Estate
The knowledge and depth of Voyager's real estate marketing expertise puts them head and shoulders above Obeo, CirclePix, even Clareity Consulting. We've been burned by Homestore and other firms that have taken us for an expensive ride with very little to show for it. Voyager took care of our 360 virtual tour camera, aerial tours, and now we're looking forward to having Voyager help us with our search engine visibility headaches.
-- TJ Tutor, REALTOR, Coldwell Banker Prime Properties
Marketing homes in Spain is very much different than the way estate agents do it America. Voyager understands that tools like American MLS are not available to us in Europe. Voyager has brought many tools and has helped us grow much business for all of us. We do not ever have taken virtual tours of homes in Spain and it is now getting popular here as Voyager said it would soon be. Now that Voyager has office in Spain, it making us easier to work with them and the training and support is really good.
-- Carmen Santiago, España Estates
No one has the marketing tools that Voyager has for International sales. We are pleased to be staying with Voyager as we build new additions on estates then we need to advertise them to the best possible buyers. Kayyah.com is a real easy way to market homes with video and virtual tours. The time difference between Voyager and our office in Instanbul we thought would be hard. Voyager worked weekends evenings so we can speak with them and get training and it took much less hours than we had first thought. We will stay working with Voyager and we can understand why more real estate in Turkey will be going soon to Kayyah.com.
-- Bilgin Çelik , Istanbul
ActiveRain Corp. is not responsible for the accuracy of the site's content (which is written by members of the ActiveRain Real Estate Network) and does not endorse the views of the real estate agents, mortgage brokers, and others listed here.
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