Marketing

More Services for our Clients

Posted in: Advertising, Blog, Company News, Marketing, Technology by Paul McEwan on May 18, 2011 | No Comments

In case you didn’t know allow us to re-introduce Tribalyell’s email newsletter online software with a fancy new web page!

We have written about this amazing email newsletter software’s trackable social sharing abilities before and you can read about that here. Social sharing from a newsletter campaign is just the beginning. Aside  from that there is the ability to create and upload your own templates, choose from a list of free templates or have us design a custom template that matches your brand and all with client personalization. You have a choice of  monthly rates or a free account with a low pay as you go rate so you don’t feel pressured to use it.

If you have any questions, please leave a comment.

Introducing E-flier Social Sharing

Posted in: Advertising, Blog, Company News, Marketing, Technology by Paul McEwan on February 4, 2011 | 1 Comment

Our new Social Sharing feature in our Email Newsletter software went live yesterday, making it super easy for you to share your campaigns on Twitter and Facebook and then see a report of the results.

Before I dive into the details, here’s a preview of the new Social Sharing report. You can click it for a full-size version.

Our providers have been thinking long and hard about the best way to add this kind of social integration for the TribalYell Eflyers System. As always, the goal was to keep the sharing process as simple as possible for you and your subscribers. Here’s how it works.

In-email sharing made easy

The easiest way for your subscribers to share your email newsletter  is by adding a “Tweet” or “Like” button to your campaign. Then with a couple of clicks any subscriber can share your email with their friends or followers. To do this, we’ve introduced two new tags that you can easily add to your existing designs.

Add a “Like” button to your campaign

Just add the following tag anywhere in your email design and we’ll instantly turn that into a working Facebook “Like” button.

<fblike></fblike> turns into

When your subscriber clicks on this button in their email, we’ll load the following lightbox where they can “Like” your campaign and see which of their friends have also liked it. Here’s an example of this in action:

If you don’t want to use the standard “Like” button, just add your own text or image between the tag and we’ll turn that word or image into a link that, when clicked, loads the lightbox like the one above.

Add a tweet button to your campaign

Let your subscribers tweet about your campaigns using the new tag below.

<tweet></tweet> turns into

If your subscriber is a Twitter user, clicking that button takes them straight to a compose window with the tweet pre-populated with your campaign subject and a shortened URL linking to the web version. Here’s how that one looks:

Just like the Facebook Like tag, you can add your own text or images between the tags and that will be used instead of the default tweet button, giving you complete design flexibility.

Sharing made simple for our clients

If we’ve built templates for you, we can easily add permanent “Like” and “Tweet” buttons to them that work for every email newsletter you send. We’ve also made it simple for clients to add their own share links to any campaigns they send using the editor.

Get the word out from within Campaign Monitor

Our new social tags aren’t the only way to get the word out about your latest campaign. You can also share them yourselves right from Campaign Monitor. The report for every email you’ve ever sent now includes a new “Share” button in the top right corner. Here’s how it looks:

Clicking the “Share button” will open the popup where you can share on Twitter or Facebook with a single click.

Whenever that URL is mentioned on Twitter or “Liked” on Facebook, we’ll track the results for you. You and your subscribers can share your campaign any way you like and we’ll handle the rest.

Real-time reporting to bring it all together

While there are lots of different ways to share your campaign, we bring it all together with the new Social Sharing report. This includes who tweeted about your campaign, who liked it on Facebook and who forwarded your email on to friends. Basically, whenever anyone shares your campaign, we’ll show you who it was and how they did it.

The report is broken up into two parts. Up top we’ve got a summary of the activity so far across Twitter, Facebook and email forwards.

Below that is a real-time list that pulls all of this together into a single activity stream. See what people are saying about your campaign on Twitter, who’s sharing on Facebook and which subscribers have forwarded it to their friends.

For each subscriber that tweets, we’ll show you their Twitter avatar and a link to the tweet in question. We also link to the subscriber snapshot and display a gravatar if available for anyone who “Likes” your campaign or forwards it on to friends.

There are loads of other subtle features in this report, but I’ll leave some of them for you to discover once you start sharing. We hope you have fun with this new feature. It’s a brilliant way to learn more about who is sharing your campaigns with the world, and what they’re saying about you in the process.

More about Tribal Eflyer Service

At TribalYell Integrated Branding, we offer everything you need to create and send successful email marketing campaigns. Deliver beautiful emails, manage your subscribers and track your campaign results, all from within your browser!

It’s new, as self serve as you want and it’s free. There is no monthly subscription. You are only charged a small fee per eflier and email in that campaign.  TribalYell Efliers [Beta]

Send beautiful emails

• Build your own campaigns
• We provide a custom template designs
• Choose which customers to target

Great looking reports

• Great looking charts on the results
• See who opened, clicked and forwarded
• Drill down to individual subscribers

Manage your subscribers

• Easily add your own subscribers
• Handles unsubscribes & bounces automatically
• CAN-SPAM compliant

Target specific customers

• Create segments for targeted campaigns
• Segment based on location, interest or
  anything else you store

View the results anywhere

• Mobile friendly version
• Access results from anywhere

No experience required

• Simple interface
• You don’t need to be a ‘coder’

Conversation vs Interruption Marketing

Posted in: Advertising, Blog, Marketing, Technology by Paul McEwan on December 20, 2010 | No Comments

Who came up with the phrase conversational marketing? Probably the same people who came up with the phrase interruption marketing. These phrases themselves aren’t bad descriptions of marketing styles but I’m seeing the descriptions used  for defining different marketing tools as either new school or old school and therefor, either good or bad.

For those of you who do not understand what Conversational Marketing and Interruption Marketing are, here is a brief explanation.

Conversational Marketing: Conversations happen and you are weeded out or led further into levels of brand alignment based on what you say. Contests and give aways might be used to entice you to re-tweet or post something and can help create a viral marketing spin and gain more conversation for catching already aligned people. Or to explain it differently, turn each person in the conversation into an advertiser. Facebook, and Twitter are the types of platforms where Conversational Marketing can happen.

Interruption marketing: This is a single sided conversation. An advertisement that is placed in a relevant magazine or a TV commercial that is played to a demographic who is watching a show. Interruption Marketing has interrupted you to say its thing. Considered Mass Media Advertising it is  therefor considered “Old School”. There is a trade-off that in return for the interruption, entertainment congruent with the pitch is offered as part of the better more well rounded advertisments.

For some odd reason, one is seen as good and the other as bad. Personally, I love good traditional advertising but then that’s part of my industry and perhaps I’m biased but tell me, don’t you hate missing the preview ads before a movie? I am always a little disappointed. Do people not like the Super-bowl ads? I love them. It’s part of the game on the screen!

With Interruption Marketing at least we know what we’re getting into. We either stop to look or move on. For me, (and again, my point of view), Conversational Marketing can be insidious and boring. Is the conversation real or fake? The day is coming when bots will be able to auto converse with masses upon masses of people to weed them out and get to a small percentage of those who will be lead down a garden path turning each one of them into little advertisers who tow the party line. (Also known as raving fans).

Interruption marketing tactics get used in purely conversational mediums. For instance, Twitter now sells tweets and is considered interruption advertising but with the ability to position well and so begins the confusion. They are also boring as hell, especially for those who communicate visually.

Then there are those just winging it with zero thought put into what they are trying to do.

Think Ben Think

Look Great?, Look silly

Almost 4000 tweets and 0 followers. What a charmer

Free Client Appreciation Social Media Workshop

Posted in: Advertising, Blog, Clients, Marketing, Technology by Paul McEwan on September 17, 2010 | 5 Comments

I consider my clients, The Tribe. Being part of the Tribe has its privileges like re-tweeting everything I see you say on Twitter, joining your Fanpage and linking with you on Linkedin and now a free workshop. This kind of online networking and sharing helps everyone be found online. However, something is amiss. Not enough of my clients are online. The websites are there but they themselves are not. It’s like opening the store and leaving it unattended. So, I want to help out.

This Free Client Appreciation Social Media Workshop  is for you if you are a client and one of the 4 categories below

1. You don’t have or understand Twitter, Facebook Fanpages, or Linkedin but want to.
2. You have, and understand Twitter, Facebook Fanpages, or Linkedin but want to connect them to your website
3. You have Twitter, Facebook Fanpages, or Linkedin, have them connected to your website but don’t follow a regular social media campaign.
4. You just want to hang out and meet your other Tribe Members.

Before I can commit to a date time and place, I need to discover how many would want to attend. For those of you out of town, let’s rig up Skype. Pre-register by emailing me or commenting below.

While you are at it, follow me on Twitter, Join our Fanpage and link with me on Linkedin.

Ad Campaigns That Work

Posted in: Advertising, Blog, Creative, Marketing by Paul McEwan on August 9, 2010 | 2 Comments

Just because the Pet Rock or The Million Dollar Home Page are simple doesn’t mean they are easy to think up. It takes a creative mind to think up simple. The kind of simple that have most people scratching their heads wondering why they didn’t think of it first. To create an ad campaign that works always appears to be simple. So simple it looks like the creative department didn’t  do anything and left it to the art department, but it’s the other way around. It’s the idea. If the creative is good, the art department is hardly needed, it all just falls into place. The best ad campaigns don’t ever change our minds about a person, place or product but  they will change our actions. Our actions to buy, go, or vote for.

I Don’t know if this guy thought of this by himself or if it’s been done elsewhere. It illustrates my point. More people who would otherwise never give any money to a street person, will be more likely to change their minds and throw money at this guy than any other in his market sector.

Principles Lead Your Brand

Posted in: Blog, Marketing by Paul McEwan on May 5, 2010 | No Comments

Successful advertising and marketing is about knowing your businesses basic principles and allowing them to lead your conversations and interactions. Whether it’s an ad campaign or social network marketing, it should not be about convincing someone to like you. It should be about giving reasons to try you.

People don’t believe they need help in this area because even the largest corporations do it by convincing rather than using principles and incentive driven methods. Look at BP.  British Petroleum changed their name to Beyond Petroleum to “Greenwash” their brand. How is that working out for them?

People want to be liked, even business owners. When it’s personal it requires more than a  self help book. It’s deeper than that and that kind of help is hard to convince a ROI outcome.

What are your businesses principles?

An example of No Market Research

Posted in: Blog, Marketing, Real Estate by Paul McEwan on March 29, 2010 | No Comments

Just had a letter handed to me by an assistant. It was..

• hand delivered to her home by a Realtor this morning.
• The envelope was hand written.
• The content was a very well put together article/guide to selling your home
• accompanied with a nice personal letter from the Realtor who did the delivery. (could have used a second set of eyes)

The person who got the letter doesn’t own the house. She rents it. FAIL

If you’re going to go to this much trouble to market, why not spend some time doing the research? There is a way to know if the home is owner occupied. You can even find out where the absentee owner lives. If you can’t then hire someone like us to do it for you.

This poor Realtor double failed. The person who received the letter not only rents but she works for a top 1% Realtor. Not a hope in hell on this one.

MyRealPage Postcard Marketing Campaign

Posted in: Blog, Marketing, Printing, Real Estate by Paul McEwan on March 22, 2010 | 1 Comment

You are not JUST ANOTHER REALTOR.

Not if you are a myRealPage Realtor.
You are a SmartPhone Enabled Realtor and that’s exciting!
You also have VOW and many other advanced website features many don’t have or don’t know about.

Why not direct people to your website with a proper marketing campaign.

TribalYell will help you inform prospects of your website features with FREE content on the back of your postcard campaign.

Don’t have a postcard campaign?
TribalYell has that ball already rolling for you too. Here’s our solution to help get your prospects online.

Here’s what you get:

• 1 Custom postcard design (with your branding)
• 18,000 postcards printed with your custom design on side 1
• 3 x6,000 campaigns pre-printed side 2 (marketing aimed at increasing website traffic)
• Delivered to 1,500 owners in your farm area once a month for a full year rotating the message every month.

Each ad rotation comes with a “badge” for your website that ties the message together like this one below.

Claim your area now (We will not deliver more than one campaign per area)

One cost covers

• design
• print
• postage
• delivery to the post office
• 3 website badges

Start now

Leave a comment

Google Goggles and Real Estate

Posted in: Blog, Marketing, Web Design by Paul McEwan on | 1 Comment

What is Google Goggles?
Imagine taking a picture of a house with your phone, submitting that picture to a Google search and getting all the listing details on it. That’s what Google Goggles will do.

Thanks to the ever advancing Google, you can now search the web by taking a picture of the item you want to know more about. While this technology is in its infancy, in 2 years it will be full blown so the question is: What does this mean for Real Estate?

Image searching. It’s not new and it works by analyzing the image name and alt tags given to the image within the HTML code. What is new is the ability to take a picture and submitting it to a search – That will affect real estate.

What are image names and alt tags?

Image Names
If you upload an image with a name DC0023854.jpg blind luck will produce any search results. Changing the image names to something like 103-548-main-st-vancouver.jpg has a much better chance of being indexed by search engines and found by someone, which hopefully leads back to your website

Alt Tags
Alt tags are descriptions written into the HTML. You don’t need to know HTML to add Alt tags. When you upload images to Facebook, flickr or Picasa (and almost any image hosting site), there is an area to add tags and many times a description.

Surprising how many images from the MLXchange describes itself as “exterior front” (the default). Please change this to the appropriate room at least. Add to the description in the MLX to help yourself further. Put the address or who it’s listed by or even your website in that additional description area. The question remains whether or not the MLXchange is adding these descriptions into the HTML as Alt tags. We know for sure that it renames the pictures. For now, who cares, let’s get used to doing this and hope the MLX will change.

Here’s the result
When someone (anyone using Google) types in a particular address of a house to get info on it, the idea is to have your listing images show up first. In the future, (a few years away), when someone takes a picture of that house for information on it, your information will show up.

It’s important to note: Adding text on the image via Photoshop (or image editing software) does not help at all.

If you feel like geeking out on this subject, read more about it here:
http://www.realestateseopros.com/blog/seo-news/google-goggles-for-real-estate-coming/

Don’t forget to contact us if you need any help with this or anything else.

The fastest way to get printed material produced

Posted in: Blog, Marketing, Printing by Paul McEwan on February 2, 2010 | No Comments

It’s not easy to explain printing processes and short run digital vs long run offset to those who “just want it printed”. There is a belief that the smaller the amount, the less money. But doing things this way will cost way more in the long run. The fastest way to get printed material produced is to pre-print colour “Shells” professionally and then imprint the information in black  in a blank area in the design, (perhaps your own laser printer). The most simple form of this is letterhead. Yes, it’s still cheaper to have your letterhead professionally printed and stored for your use at a later time.

Bulk, pre-printed colour shells stored for imprinting later are called called “Shells”. Shells need to be printed offset and in large quantities. When you do this, you will pay fractions of the cost compared to printing short run. Here’s why:

Digital:
Is basically a giant Xerox (digital laser) machine. The “ink” is actually a type of plastic fused onto the paper with heat. It’s far more expensive and slower to come off the digital press. It seems faster to the customer because there is no waiting time for plates to be made, press to be set or ink to dry. But in reality, a press can produce more per minute.

Offset:
Is ink to paper, (laying into the paper). Never will anyone purchase 500 or 1000 pieces of offset printing because there is a set up to get the press to run the job and a drying time for the ink. This is why 1000 pieces cost the same as (or close to) 2500 pieces. Some printers minimums are around 5000 pieces for offset. Once set up the cost per piece is a fraction of the cost of digital printing.

Important: You can not run a digital printed piece back through a digital printer (laser) again for risk of delaminating the first print job. (remember, the “ink” on digital printing is a type of plastic). The heat that fuses on your imprinting will de-laminate your past printing. Sometimes it works. Many times people wonder why their printer stopped working and jammed so badly.

Cost:
Full colour, full bleed postcards printed one side and stored at the printer for imprinting short run black and white on the back when needed cost about $700 to $800 for the first 10,000 (offset of course) and about half as much more for double the amount and so on.

The black and white side is about $85 for the first 1000 imprints and $55 for every 1000 (or partial) there after.

The “Simplify Your Marketing” seminar explained a lot of the different cost effective touch points we offer that are not only priced well but easy and fast to implement in a moment’s notice. The seminar explained how design and marketing departments work and how to save on design billing.