Real Estate Marketing Tip

Digital Home Info Enhancements

February 3, 2012 | Posted by Adam Small in Real Estate Marketing Blog, Real Estate Marketing Tip | No Comments »

Digital Home Info - Real Estate Marketing PlatformOver the last month we have made a number of small enhancements to Digital Home Info.  These enhancements include:

  • Music on the YouTube Real Estate Videos – If you have selected a music file to play on your Virtual Tour then the music will now be included in the YouTube video that we generate.
  •  
  • Panoramic photos are now included in the YouTube Real Estate Videos – Our YouTube videos will now scan panoramic from right to left.
  •  
  • Email Photo Uploading – We have made the process of uploading and inserting photos into an email easier.  The process now directly inserts the photo into the email instead of having to drag and drop it from the gallery on the right side of the screen.
  •  
  • Email Photo Gallery – You select photos from your photo gallery and insert them directly into the email at full size instead of having to resize them once they are inserted.
  •  
  • Photo Trim – Sometimes photos imported from an IDX feed will have whitespace on the edges, especially if it is a vertical photo.  This whitespace just doesn’t look right so we have placed a “Trim” link under each photo that will replace the whitespace with black space.  This looks much better in the Virtual Tour.

If you haven’t yet had a chance, check out these enhancements and let us know what you think.

*NOTE – music has not been added to existing videos.  To rebuild your video for existing listings rearrange the order of your listing photos in the gallery (make sure to restore the desired order).

Tagged , , ,

How to upload panoramic images

January 27, 2012 | Posted by Adam Small in Real Estate Marketing Blog, Real Estate Marketing Tip | No Comments »

Panoramic Virtual Tour

We are commonly asked if our Virtual Tours support panoramic images. Yes, our Virtual Tours do support panoramic images.  The steps below show you how to upload and set parameters on panoramic images.

  1. Login to the Digital Home Info portal.
  2. Click on the “Listings” tab.
  3. Click on the “Edit” link for the listing that you are working with.
  4. On the “Edit Property” page select the “Gallery” tab.
  5. Press the “Add New Images” button.
  6. Press the “Browse” button to find and select the desired image.
  7. Press the “Upload” button.
  8. Once the image has upload (it will be removed from the list) close the upload screen by clicking on the “X” in the upper right corner.
  9. When the screen refreshes the panoramic will be in the list of images. Under the thumbnail of the panoramic, click on the “Edit Info” link. This will show a pop up screen.
  10. In the pop up you can:
    1. Add an Image Title
    2. Add an Image Description
    3. Change the time in seconds that an image is displayed on the Virtual Tour.
    4. Change the direction an image moves in the Virtual Tour.
  11. For a wide panoramic image select “Left to Right / Right to Left” in the “Direction of Image” drop down list.
  12. Press the “Save” button.
Your panoramic image is now uploaded and setup to pan across the screen. If you need any help or have any other questions please feel free to contact us.

 

Real Estate Email Marketing Reports

December 14, 2011 | Posted by Adam Small in Knowledge Base, Real Estate Marketing Blog, Real Estate Marketing Features, Real Estate Marketing Tip, Real Estate Tutorials | No Comments »

What do all of those terms in my email marketing reports mean?

Opened – The number of unique people that opened an email at least once.  Even though they may have opened the email more than once they are still only counted once.
Unopened – The number of emails that were not opened.

Bounce – An email that was unable to be delivered because of an issue with the email address. i.e. bad email address, miss- spelled name, domain is expired etc…

Delivered – The number of emails that were delivered.

Total Opens – The total number of times the email has been viewed.  Each time the subscriber opens the email is counted.

Clicks – The total number of times a link in the email has been clicked.

Unique Clicks – The number of times links in the email have been clicked.  If a subscriber clicked on a link more than once it is only counted once.

Forwards – The total number of times that the email was forwarded using the “Forward” feature link in the email.

Opt Outs – The number of people that opted out/unsubscribed from your list using a the link in this campaign.

Feel free to contact us if we missed any terms.

Tagged , , ,

Facebook Real Estate Integration

December 9, 2011 | Posted by Adam Small in Real Estate Marketing Features, Real Estate Marketing Tip, Real Estate Tutorials | No Comments »

FacebookWe just updated the way that Digital Home Info integrates with Facebook. The changes include:

  • Easier set up of “Listing of the Day” status updates
  • Publish “Listing of the Day” to multiple Facebook Pages
  • Install “My Listings” tab on multiple Facebook Pages

 Here’s how to setup the “Listing of the Day” feature.  (You must do this to before you setup a “My Listings” tab.)

  1. Click on the “Account Info” tab in the Dashboard.
  2. Select the “Social Media Settings” tab on the Account Info page.
  3. Click on the “Click here to authorize Digital Home Info access to your Facebook account” link.
  4. Click on the “Login to Facebook” link.
  5. Click on the “Allow” button on the “Request for Permission” page.
  6. Check the box next to each Facebook page that you want to push the “Listing of the Day” to and press the “Save” button at the bottom of the screen.
  7. When the page refreshes the Facebook pages you selected will be listed with checkboxes for each day of the week next to them.  Select the desired days and press the “Save” button next to the Facebook page.

To setup the “My Listings” tab:

  1. Goto http://www.facebook.com/apps/application.php?id=258943535455
  2. In the bottom left section of the page you will find an “Add to My Page” link. Click on it.
  3. Select the page that you want to add this application to and press the “Add to Page”.
  4. At this point the application has been added to your page. You may add it to as many pages as you like as long as the page is authorized above.
Please feel free to contact us if you have any questions or need assistance in setting up your account.

Tagged , , ,

How to Create a Real Estate Email Marketing Campaign

December 1, 2011 | Posted by Adam Small in Knowledge Base, Real Estate Marketing Blog, Real Estate Marketing Features, Real Estate Marketing Tip, Real Estate Tutorials | No Comments »

Email Marketing is an important part of any Real Estate Marketing Plan and one of the features included in the Digital Home Info Real Estate Marketing Platform.  Many of our customers are eager to get started using this great feature but aren’t quite sure where to get started.  So we created this tutorial to show you how to create an Email Marketing Campaign using the Digital Home Info system.

1) Once Logged in to the Digital Home Info Portal hover over the “Email Marketing” tab in the top navigation bar.

Real Estate Email Marketing

2) Click on the “New Campaign” link in the drop down menu.

3) Select an Email Subscriber List from the available lists.  Press the “Next” button at the bottom of the screen. (Don’t have a list created yet? Click here to create an email marketing list)

Real Estate Email List

4) Enter a Campaign Name, Subject Line and Select a Date and Time to deliver the email.  Press the “Next” button to go to the template selection screen.

Real Estate Email Campaign

5) Select an Email Template to use.  You can select from the provided templates or add a custom template and use it.  Press the “Next” button to go to the Email Editor.

Real Estate Email Template

6) Edit the default content in the email template by typing over it or using the photo gallery to add your images.  Click on the “Next” button to go to the “Text Only” version of your email.

Real Estate Marketing Email

7) This is a “Text Only” version of your email.  It is for email clients that do not show html email.  The text only version includes all of the content in the html email and tries to format it in an easy to read format. When you are done editing this press the “Next” button to go to the Campaign Review page.

Real Estate Marketing Email

8) On the Campaign Review Page you can review the settings for this campaign.  Click on the “Edit” button next to each section in order to change the information.  You can also preview the HTML and Text versions of the email by pressing the “Preview” button.  Enter an email address to send a test/preview of the email. You must send a test/preview email before being allowed to actually schedule the email.

Real Estate Email Marketing Preview

9) Once you have reviewed the test/preview email you press the “Schedule Email” button to send your email. Once an email is scheduled it may be modified from the “Pending” section at any time up until it is actually delivered.

Real Estate Marketing Email Review

Feel free to let us know if you have any questions.

 

Tagged , ,

How to post your listings to Craigslist

November 17, 2011 | Posted by Adam Small in Real Estate Marketing Tip | No Comments »

Craigslist is a great place to post your listings.  We have seen that listings posted on Craigslist tend to get more Virtual Tour traffic and generate more leads.  That is why we made it easy for our agents to put their listings on Craigslist (and other classified ad services like Backpage, Kijiji, etc…).  We automatically generate html code for every listing in the Digital Home Info system.

There is a link to the HTML code page on the “Listings” tab to the right of each listing, just above the real time reports and QR Code.

Posting Real Estate Listing to Craigslist

Clicking on the “Get HTML Code” link will take you to the HTML page.

Craigslist Real Estate Listing

Pressing the “Select HTML Code” button will select all of the code so that you can easily copy it.  Then clicking on the “Post to Craigslist” link will take you to Craigslist.org where you can then post the listing by pasting in the code you copied earlier.

There is a preview of the HTML code below the button so that you can see what it will look like.

Real Estate Listing Craigslist adAs you can see, the ad contains listing photos, property information, agent contact information and a link to the virtual tour.  By using the provided code an agent can save hours and effort and get a great looking listing ad with all of the necessary calls to action to generate leads.

Please feel free to contact us if you any questions about this or any other Digital Home Info feature.

Tagged , , , ,

QR Codes for Real Estate

November 10, 2011 | Posted by Adam Small in Real Estate Marketing Blog, Real Estate Marketing Features, Real Estate Marketing Tip | No Comments »

QR Codes for Real EstateDigital Home Info has integrated QR Codes into its Real Estate Marketing platform.  In addition to being available for immediate download and use in other marketing media we have integrated QR Codes into the new Virtual Tour flyers and will be adding them to signs and riders.

  • QR Code for every Listing - Every listing has a QR Code ready for download in the dashboard.  The QR Code links directly to the Mobile Virtual Tour for the Listing.
  • QR Code for Mobile Real Estate Agent Website - Every Digital Home Info customer gets a Mobile Real Estate Agent Website.  We provide a QR Code that links directly to to this mobile optimized site.
  • Downloadable - Every QR Code is downloadable in a large format.

We are excited and pleased about this latest release.  Please feel free to contact us if you have any questions.

Tagged , , ,

Mobile Real Estate Agent Website

November 10, 2011 | Posted by Adam Small in Real Estate Marketing Blog, Real Estate Marketing Features, Real Estate Marketing Tip | No Comments »

Lately we’ve noticed many of our agents using various services to publish their content in a mobile friendly format.  We think this is a great trend but were concerned that once again agents were having to duplicate entry of information in order to get listings and blog posts in a mobile friendly format.  So in an effort to continue making the lives of our customers easier Digital Home Info has released a new feature, Mobile Real Estate Agent Websites.  Every Agent can now set up a mobile website to show off their listings and blog feeds in a mobile optimized format.  The best part is that the Mobile Real Estate Agent Website is included as part of the service at no extra cost.  Below is a quick video tutorial that shows how to implement your web site.

Tagged , , ,

How to edit my Profile Information

November 10, 2011 | Posted by Adam Small in Knowledge Base, Real Estate Marketing Blog, Real Estate Marketing Tip | No Comments »

Below is a quick video tutorial on how to edit your profile information in the Digital Home Info Real Estate Marketing platform.

Tagged

Virtual Tours: 3 Tips for Enhancing Your Photos

November 9, 2011 | Posted by Adam Small in Real Estate Marketing Blog, Real Estate Marketing Tip, Real Estate Newsletter | No Comments »

Virtual Tours are an important part of any Real Estate Marketing Platform.  Virtual tours can also be the first exposure that a potential buyer has to a listing.  This is why it is important for your virtual tour to look great.  Below are three tips to help you enhance your virtual tours.

  • Upload large photos – many agents will simply download photos from their listing system and import them into a virtual tour system.  The problem with this is that many listing systems resize the original photos and they end up extremely small.  At a minimum your photos should be 640px wide and 480px high.  For the Digital Home Info system the optimal size of a photo is 1280px wide by 1024px high (unless you are using panoramic images).  Images of this size will display very well in both the Animated and Full Screen virtual tours.
  • Over saturate photos – Over saturating a photo is a process that makes colors seem brighter.  In the Digital Home Info gallery there is a photo editor that will allow you to adjust the saturation of a photo.  We have found that over saturating a photo by about 10% will cause the colors in most photos to appear much brighter without distorting the overall image.
  • Number of photos – A prospective buyer is viewing a virtual tour for one reason.  They are trying to determine if the listing is worth the effort of viewing in person.  We have seen instances where agents upload 40, 50 or more photos to a virtual tour.  While it is a great a way to show every aspect of the home it also allows a buyer to see things that might be on the “Deal Breaker” list.  Things like a rough patch in a basement floor or really close neighboring homes.  These are things that in person may not be as much of an issue but cause the buyer to pass before they ever see the listing in person.  We recommend somewhere between 12 and 24 photos as the optimal number.  This allows you to showcase the listing and leave a little mystery for the buyer to see when they get there.

Tagged ,
Page 1 of 3123