How-To's

Real estate agents comprise my biggest group of clients. I get lots of requests for help setting up websites, linking to MLS systems, etc. But when I suggest they set up autoresponders and AdWords campaigns, they usually give me a funny look - like “how much more is this going to cost me?”.

Truly, adding AdWords and an autoresponder to your web marketing activities will not ‘cost’ you - it will actually ‘pay’ you. A well-crafted AdWords campaign might cost you $50-$1000 per month, depending on your market. The payoff from AdWords is in the form of leads - and the value of that lead depends on the Realtor’s ability to convert them into a buyer or seller.

The concept is simple: get your visitor to your web page and collect their email address. Sounds easy, right? Well, that depends - on what you are giving the potential subscriber in return. Are you just saying something like - “join my email list” with a vague or non-existent benefit? Or are you offering the visitor something valuable to them in return, like a free report, free market data or something similar? 

Here are some report giveaway ideas:

• “Ten Mistakes Most Home Sellers Make”
• “How To Get Top Dollar For Your Home”
• “Home Sales Data In Yourtown, NY”

You can easily type up a 10-30 page report, create a pdf of your document (sign up for MY list on this blog and I’ll send you the software to do this FREE) - and upload it to go out with the first message of your autoresponder. Then follow up every 5-7 days with additional information.

How much does all of this cost? Only $20 a month - the most incredible deal in internet marketing today. I heartily recommend Aweber Communications. They are the absolute best in the business - and they use their product very well to promote their own service.

Take a free test drive of Aweber’s service - even if you don’t end up as a customer, it’s worth the time to observe how they promote themselves and walk you through their process - a very impressive company.

Writing good AdWords ads is always tough- you have very little space to get your message across. After you have carefully crafted an ad that is both eye-catching and relevant to your landing page - your next step should be to write a competing ad along with it - and configure your AdWords campaign to serve both ads evenly.

Your second or ‘challenger’ ad should be something truly different - a different take, perhaps a 180 from the concept of the first ad. The idea is to not let your own personal tastes govern what ads you serve - you need to let the customers decide.

Here is an example, ad #1 - this one gets lots of clicks:

Girl Power
Pink Taser C2 -Free Shipping
Bonus Pepper Spray w/Purchase
YourDomain.com/PinkTaser

And it’s competitor (a bit more conventional):

Taser C2 Protection
Free Shipping
Large Selection - Low Prices
YourDomain.com

Now go to Edit Campaign Settings and under Ad Serving, check ‘Rotate: Show ads more evenly’. Then you wait. I usually wait a couple of weeks - it might just be days if you get a lot of clicks. You can then use the free Verster tool to see if your click thru rates between the 2 ads are statistically different - and establish a ‘winner’.

Once your winner is clear, scrap the loser and create a new ad - and try to beat your new champ. Over time, you’ll improve your click through rates, and sales.

I have a great new report that explains in detail even more advanced AdWords techniques. Order “Why You Pay Too Much For Adwords” - only $7 - instant download link sent to your email!

As you build your mailing list, you should notify your mailing list subscribers about your regular blog posts. This is a proven way to build repeat traffic to your blog. Each time you post, your list gets a notice with a link to your new post. Here’s how it’s done with Aweber:

Log into your Aweber control panel, choose the appropriate list and click the Messages tab - then click Blog Broadcast.

In the rss feed box, put the url to your blog feed - in Wordpress, it’s normally http://www.yourdomain.com/feed.

Select Auto Send, # of Items = 1, basic template.

For your subject line, use something like this (all on one line): 

{!firstname_fix},

A New Blog Post:

{!rss_itemblock}{!rss_item_title}{!rss_itemblockend}

In your message box, use something like:

Hey, {!firstname_fix},

I have just posted a blog entry:
{!rss_itemblock}

{!rss_item_title}
Read more: {!rss_item_link}

{!rss_itemblockend}

To Your Success,

Carl Ringwall
Data SystemsPlus

{!contact_address}

That should do it. Post regularly, and try to keep your content relevant to your list.  If you have not tried the Aweber autoresponder service, it is highly recommended.

POST UPDATE: If you would like to see a video of this procedure, step-by-step, consider my new premium post on the subject- Carl

In a forum post, I explanied how iDevSpot’s iSubscribe could be used to set up a membership site with WordPress. While you can use iSubcribe to protect an entire WordPress installation and have it function as a membership site, it’s also a snap to set up a Pay-Per-Post system with your existing WordPress blog with iSubscribe. In fact, I’m getting some Premium posts ready to use this method myself.

To use this method, you need the iSubscribe script from iDevSpot. It is priced very reasonably and comes with great support. To integrate with your WordPress installation, install the Exec-PHP plugin. This excellent plugin allows you to execute PHP script within your WordPress posts. You’ll need to disable the WYSIWYG editor for this plugin (set this under My Profile). You also should test your PHP-Exec plugin to make sure it is really executing php code properly.

Now create a subscription within iSubscribe - you can create your subsciption with recurring billing or not. You’ll be creating a separate subscription for each premium post or page. Copy and paste the iSubscribe generated buy button code into notepad - you’ll need to manipulate the code a bit to get it to behave in WordPress. First, move the password and submit button input fields near the top of the button code, right after the begining <form> tag. This will insure your subscribe button looks right within WordPress. You may need to adjust the width of the password field. Remove the password field if you want iSubscribe to generate passwords for your users.

Second, remove all the carriage returns from the subscription code - you want the entire form code to be on one line within notepad - this is because of the way WordPress renders html. If you don’t do this, you’ll find that your buy button code will take up several lines in your WordPress post or page.

Ok, now create your premium blog post or page in WordPress. At the begining of your post, paste the page securer code from iSubscribe, including the <?php ?> tags. If you get errors when trying to view the post - check your paths configuration in iSubscribe.

You’ll now need to tweak the authorize.php file in iSubscribe as described in my iDevSpot forum post, in order to keep iSubscribe from breaking your WordPress theme. You’ll need to take out the <style> tag at the very top of the authorize.php page.

Now edit the authorize.php form code so it looks at home within the WordPress page.

It is really amazing to me how simple this is, and how well it works. Watch this blog in the coming days and you can see this system in action.