Introducing the NETWORK

A monthly newsletter from FēD. Valuable, practical content to help your real estate business succeed online.

All of our inboxes are flooded with content — most of it useless. The Network is different. Only practical information with tips and strategies that can help your business succeed online. We’ve been operating in the real estate digital space successfully for half a decade, and we’ve learned a lot. We’re excited to share some of this knowledge with you.

This month’s issue:

  • Comprehensive (and effective) media display for real estate listings

Your listing media — display it effectively, control it all

You want the most exposure possible for your listing. Your clients demand it. You already know the value of quality media here (otherwise you wouldn’t be receiving this email). But are you maximizing the value of that media? Are you maximizing your ownership of that media?

  • Get your photos, your video, your 3D virtual tour up and out, everywhere — the “omni-channel” approach.
  • Use a single source to display all your media in one location. Reduce user clicks.
  • Use our Single Project Pages (SPPs), or your own website here, to effectively distribute media.

You upload the photos to the MLS and Zillow. You add the video or maybe the Matterport as “virtual tours” in the field provided. You hit “GO”. Hopefully you’re posting all over social media. Great. But what are you linking to? The PPAR listing? The Zillow post? Both of these options are stunted and sub-par. Visual media sells, and both Zillow and PPAR are about 10 years behind modern media display. Many of the external sites also might have profit motivations that are different than yours (cough, cough, Zillow).

  • The average value of a “click” in real estate marketing, is about $0.50. By publicizing links from Zillow or another external site, you effectively grant these external organizations this value. This can represent $1000’s/year in marketing value for the average real estate office, that a site like Zillow is capturing. From you.
  • Display your media loud and proud, big and bold. Don’t reduce resolution too much. Don’t reduce your video to a 200 x 150 backwater on a site that was designed in 2005, with video capability added as an afterthought.
  • Video and photos and 3D tours should speak for themselves. There shouldn’t be too much content other than the visuals.
  • Display video, photos, 3D tours in a simple, no-nonsense fashion.
digital-marketing

Media should be loud and proud, bold and unapologetic. It should speak for itself. It should be optimized for mobile display. PPAR slaughters image resolution. The specs their system reduces images to were optimal in 2005. Zillow’s a little better, but this year they chose to retire native hosting of videos. Many people think the decision here was strategic — that Zillow will come forward at a later date with some (paid/premium) service alternative. An attempt to further monopolize your listing media. They’re already competing with you directly to buy and sell homes; why not take total control of your media content too?

  • Control the media that you own. Your media has value — don’t give this value away to a competitor.
  • Our Single Project Pages (SPPs) were designed to maximize the effectiveness of your media, especially on mobile devices.
  • Zillow doesn’t work for you; we do. Our interests are aligned with yours — we want the most people possible to see your stuff.
  • No third parties involved with our SPPs. Just you, us, and your media hosted on our (local) servers in Colorado and Florida.
  • The site link that you’re pushing should market you, too.

Branding. Digital traffic is hugely valuable. But you need to capture it. The site you’re using to market your listings should also market you, and provide an effective way for interested parties (buyers or future sellers) to contact you. Ideally, there should be elements of a marketing “funnel” built into the site — a way for a user to stay engaged over time, without necessarily picking up the phone. The subtle, but effective “like this property” feature within our SPPs is an example of this — users can subscribe to a property with an email address, and receive relevant updates sourced directly from MLS data — relevant email updates that link back to you and your content.

Here’s an example. Our new SPPs are complimentary on any media you order from us, btw:

SEE AN EXAMPLE