25 Restaurant Marketing Ideas You’ll Love

What specific steps are you taking to grow your Restaurant?

Tell me if this sounds familiar: you’re confident that your restaurant is one of the best in your city or town. At some point, your customers have even praised you for making such a delicious meal.

You felt on top of the world.

But, you’re still stuck. Not knowing what to do to get more customers. You reasoned that too many restaurants are spring up in your city. And competition will grow even stronger.

Here’s the solution: You need to stand out in through effective marketing.

Whether you’re just starting out or you’ve been running this awesome “spot” for few years, you can’t do without marketing.

You may not attract angel investors, but at whatever level you operate right now, you can boost your sales – in the same manner Pinocchio’s Italian Eatery increased their sales by 16.7%.

Focus on achieving consistent daily sales. Because that’ll determine your weekly average, then monthly, and more.

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Having said that, here are the 25 simple and creative restaurant marketing ideas that will work for you:

 

1. Engage local food bloggers

You can’t successfully promote your restaurant all by yourself. You need the help, audience, and expertise of other food bloggers.

These influential online entrepreneurs can promote your restaurant on social media networks and niche-specific discussion boards.

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You may have heard stories about succeeding as a single body. It’s not entirely true. The local food bloggers of this internet-driven age understand what you’re trying to do, so they’ll go all out to help you.

Business is about relationships and team building rather than going solo. The overall victory seen on the outside can be broken down to individual input of a larger crowd.

So how do you engage local food bloggers?

Well, you can invite them to share their cooking tips with your website audience. You may even host an event and invite a handful local food bloggers as keynote speakers.

Most of these local food bloggers have built up a strong following on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. They can help amplify your marketing efforts – and drive more customers to your restaurant.

 

2. Grow your email database

Are you building your email list?

You know what I’m talking about, don’t you?

In case you’re not aware, it’s a fact that if you’re not capturing your website visitor’s personal information (e.g., email address, phone numbers, address), you’re not truly in business.

Sooner or later, you’re going to hit a deadend in your business.

As a restaurant owner/marketer, don’t be left out of this. Email marketing is not only for digital marketers, local businesses can take advantage of it, too.

However, when you pay attention and study your market, you can actually add more email and phone subscribers to your list – from those who are interested in foods and restaurant.

Building targeted list will produce better results for your restaurant business. Here are proven means to get it done effectively:

i).    Collect phone: Often times, you would have people call-in to make reservations, ask questions about your menu, cuisines, services etc.

You may not be the one at the receiving end, but your restaurant staff or team member taking the calls should get the caller’s mobile phone number, or/and email.

ii).   At the point of purchase: You can give a voucher or discount coupon to your customers who come to dine at your restaurant, on the condition they give their mobile phone/email.

Putting up a good creative show can equally help you add more targeted customers to your list. In this case, even timers to your restaurant will drop their mobile phone number/email, once they have derived a value from your event.

You can find out the opinion of the majority of your customers before moving on with your messaging.

With your targeted list, you can either use a bulk SMS or email autoresponder to send your customers special bonuses/freebies, especially during occasions of their birthdays, weddings, anniversaries, etc.

 

3. Build a tribe with your landing page

A tribe is simply a loyal group of customers who believe, trust, and will do anything to buy from you. Building a tribe takes time, and it’s better done with a landing page.

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Restaurant owners are becoming aware of the need to build new landing page for their campaigns.

A landing page is your web page with a single purpose. When potential customers visit this page, it’s a good opportunity to get their opinions, feedbacks, emails, phone numbers, etc.

Getting it done the right way is the only way to get the right results. So, here are a few suggestions:

i).   Let your landing page load within 2 seconds: The human attention span is 8 seconds. Consequently, you need to build landing pages that are insanely fast, on both desktop and mobile devices that your audience uses to access it.

ii).   Set the tone you desire on your landing page: Make it clear what the landing page is for. If you’re giving early access to a new recipe or food club, then your page must be about nothing else.

 

4. Get active on social networks

Are you actively promoting your restaurant website and center on social media networks?

Michael Lukianoff, Fishbowl’s chief analytics officer told CNBC in an interview that “social media gives smaller, independent, and regional [brands] a level playing ground to get their message/voice out.”

In other words, you can’t compete successfully with other restaurants without a strong presence on social media.

There are so many social media platforms, (e.g., Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, LinkedIn, Google+), but you’re not required to use all of them.

Through years of experience with restaurant businesses, I can boldly say that Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Pinterest and the best – you should focus on them.

On the flip side, you don’t have to take my word for it. You need to find the social networks that suits your brand and stick to them.

This you can find out by clearly getting to know the kind of audience your brand serves, your industry, the social marketing technique that works best for you.

Above all, only share relevant information on these social channels. That’s the only way to differentiate your restaurant from others.

Your relevance can be looked at, from the quality of the content you share on those channels.

Use the resources available to you, to create beautiful content you so desire, in the forms of mobile apps, and source for useful information online.

Sharing useful and relevant information is important, but you share it matters, too.

For example, take a look at what Grubhub is doing. Among other things, they make you want to eat the food – just by the way the presented it on their website.

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5.   Have a functional, and professional website

You need a functional website to stay above the fold.

For you to be seen as an authority by your industry, your website must be designed to be practical and useful and professional.

Gladly, a Phoenix-based restaurant increased customer conversion by 70% after they designed a simple, but good-looking website.

In fact, when Gladly added a Notification Bar for Restaurant Week, to further engage the customers, it generated additional 374 clicks.

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Your website doesn’t have to be sophisticated before it can attract local customers to your restaurant.

In marketing, being “relevant and clear” is alway better than trying to be clever and miss the essence.

On of the best ways to keep your restaurant website relevant and your value proposition clear is by producing helpful content.

To avoid messing around with html, CSS or PHP codes associated with dynamic websites, it’s advisable to start a WordPress blog on your restaurant website.

Let’s look at it briefly…

 

6.    Start blogging about food

Blogging is a powerful sales driver. When you start blogging, you generate leads. And leads become customers when you nurture them.

In fact, blogging frequently can increase your leads generation by 89%.

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If you want your food related content to be read, shared, and aid customers in making purchase decisions, you need to study your market – and understand the restaurant trends.

Making the decision to blog consistently isn’t easy. Here are few tips to supercharge your food blog:

a).   Be original: Your audience will love you if your blog posts, articles, videos, and other multimedia content are unique.

b).   User friendly design: Your blog design should make visitors want to stay. There shouldn’t be any difficulty with navigating on your blog.

Additionally, people should find it easy to comment, follow you on social networks directly from your restaurant blog, and share your content.

c).   Go beyond publishing: It’s no longer enough to just write article and expect people to read it. When you publish your helpful content, promote it actively on social media networks.

d).   Keep your blog open: Yes, don’t do it all by yourself. Get other food bloggers to write content for your blog – and share their expertise with your audience.

 

7.    Engage in local SEO practice

Local SEO (search engine optimization) is basically the process of optimizing your local business (restaurant) website and blog posts rank highly in Google for keywords that your audience inputs into Google search.

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In local search optimization, you want Google to rank your web pages primarily for keywords that have your city, town, or state. E.g., where to eat in Boston, top restaurants in Los Angeles.

You can make use of this checklist from Smallbiztrends. The simple step by step approach involves the following:

i).   Keyword research: Find the keywords that your audience is inputting into Google search. You can use the Google Keywords Planner or Keywordtool.io.

You may also ask your customers, friends, and family members what they usually type into Google search whenever they’re looking for a particular restaurant or meal plan.

Since you operate a real business, you also need to check your title tags, meta descriptions, and Name, address, and phone number (NAP) information.

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As shown by the image below. The first ring of purple, is the title tag, and the second which is in black, the meta description.

ii).   Optimize your website images: The way search engines see images is quite different from the way we do. In order to get your site images search friendly, you need to pay attention to your file name, title text, alt-text, and size.

You can use JPEGmini to optimize your images and convert into JPEG extenstion.

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iii).   Claim your restaurant in Google Places: It’s free. All you’ve to do is sign up at Google My Business.

iv).   Improve your page authority: Before Google can confidently rank your content pages in their top results, you need to build links to those pages where you’ve published helpful content.

 

8.    Integrate loyalty programs into foodie apps

Foodie apps are used on mobile phones. Examples are Tender, Off The Menu, Kitchenbowl, etc.

Considering the increased use of mobile devices, mobile phone users can now make some food decisions on the go now. Isn’t it awesome?

Sadly, if mobile users can’t access your restaurant or order a meal online, you can’t really get along with the competition.

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However, for these foodie apps to truly bring your restaurant success, you need to incorporate loyalty programs.

Loyalty programs are special programs that restaurants and businesses use to build deeper connection with their customers.

You need an understanding of your customers, and what motivates them to visit a particular restaurant over another.

Use foodie apps to collect user behavior data from your potential restaurant customers. It’s expected that at the click of a button, your new and existing customers should be able to get the latest information about your restaurant, meal plans, recipes, and other benefits.

Using mobile apps to further engage your customers is a powerful marketing idea that’s proven to work. As an example, Jaspare’s Pizza generated over $117,000 with their restaurant app.

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9.    Make an irresistible ‘’special’’ offer to social fans

It’s high time you get creative with your offers.

Don’t just make “offers” that your competitors can flip over.

Make it special.

Special offer can be a discount , a coupon, or just sending food over to your customers who may have participated in your contest either on facebook, or other social media channels.

Here’s an example of a special offer from 56 North Bar & Restaurant.

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Not only is it going to make more people/customers order from your restaurant, it’d also create a buzz that would make your audience wait for your next announced contest.

10.   Collect and sort customer behavior data

Putting customer behavior data and sorting them is essential if you must increase daily orders. It helps you make better decisions – and ensures that your restaurant offers aligns with customer’s expectations.

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What specific information should you focus on?

a).   Personal info: This includes the customer’s full name, sex, age, location, and earnings. Of course, you can collect this information by studying a customer’s order history.

b).   Personal disposition: This involves their attitude/behavior while they were using your restaurant’s product/service, as well as when they visit your restaurant.

It also involves the reason they would choose yours over another, what they hope to get from using your restaurant, etc.

When you’re armed with these vital data about your customers, you’ll most assuredly serve them well.

 

11. Gamify customer experience with mobile

Gamification is a popular marketing approach that works, especially for restaurant businesses.

Gamification is the concept of using game design elements in non-game applications, to make them more fun and engaging.

For one, there is an increase in gaming in the US and other parts of the world.

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The high demand by customers for quality service has made running a restaurant a daunting task. Because, there are hundreds of new restaurants springing up around your locality, as I write this.

Since the introduction of mobile app which makes it easy to access a product or service from anywhere at any given time. It has become difficult for marketers to increase sales, by solely depending on offline marketing strategies.

Mobile searcher are the most targeted group of customers you can ever get. According to KISSMetrics, 78% searches for local business search made on a mobile device resulted in a purchase.

In order to increase and retain your customers, you need to optimize your marketing tactics – using gamification tactic.

And considering that almost 155 million Americans are regularly playing game, if you can approach these people in this gaming language that they understand, you’ll definitely acquire more customers to your restaurant website.

Adding a little fun to your restaurant business; through mobile apps, or online reservations will dazzle your audience and help you achieve your goal.

To get started, create simple games that will be launched on mobile apps. You can use Buildfire app builder, which comes with a lot of templates related to food, healthy living, fitness, and so on.

Remember that when people use this game, they are more likely to order from the restaurant.

With the use of innovative ideas, your game should definitely stand out from the rest.

Be creative. Add more features to make the game more fun for your users. For example:

  •  Providing a quick and easy ordering feature for gamers to place an order within the game interface.
  •  Pricing calculator to make it easy for them to check the price of what they want, and make a choice based on their budget.
  •  Added benefits for high scorers in the game, should be awarded with free meal from your restaurant. It’ll encourage more people to play the game regularly, not only for fun, but also for what they stand to win if they attain a certain score.
  •  Request modification to help your customers adjust their order.

 

12. Use Facebook retargeting ads regularly

Most people will not order from your restaurant at first visit.

It’s estimated that only about 5-8% of your website visitors will convert on your page. Question is, “how do you recover 95% of leads who ignored your offer the first time?”

That’s where retargeting (also known as remarketing) comes into play.

Unlike popup ads, people actually like retargeted ads.

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Retargeting can be executed on several platforms, but Facebook seems to the best for most marketers.

I’ve personally better conversion rate for retargeted ads using Facebook than Google AdWords.

Facebook retargeting is a powerful marketing technique that you can use to serve ads to people who visited your restaurant website initially and left without placing order, or participating in your contest.

This is how it works:

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Retargeting ads effectively can help you build your customer base, and increase revenue.

For example, Nissan, a Japanese car manufacturer sold over 160 cars through leads generated from facebook ads.

Postano, a company that works with brands on social media strategy, through retargeting, saw a 278% conversion rate lift in 60 days.

When a potential customer visits your restaurant website or landing page, a cookie is added to the visitor’s browser.

That way, when you retarget ads, such as will be triggered by the user, the moment they visit any of the publisher networks through their browner.

As often as these people see your ads, they urge to place order will grow. This is why you see TV commercials for a particular product.

Retargeting basically drives potential leads back to your website, by targeting the users who have previously visited your website.

 

13. Leverage Yelp reviews to inspire customers

In the world of marketing, word of mouth has been confirmed to have a great positive impact in lead conversion. Customers are more confident when they read reviews on a product.

Data from the Search Engine Land 2013 Report, “85% of consumers say the read online reviews for local businesses, up from 76% last year.”

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One of the reasons why Amazon grew to become one of the largest online store, is the priority they place on customer reviews. They even append customer reviews to specific products to persuade new customers.

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You can actually use this to your own benefit, too.

Yelp is the best way to find local businesses. Rankings are based on positive reviews from each local business.

If you want your local business to be accessible on Yelp, you need to become active on social media networks where your Fans and Twitter followers can amplify your reach by leaving positive reviews about your customer service, recipes, snacks, and restaurant.

 

14. Connect and build relationship with local food bloggers

The high inflow of professional chefs have made the restaurant business more competitive than ever, coupled with high customers demand for better service.

If you want to get more sales in this business model, start building relationship with local food bloggers. In case you don’t know, the top rated organizational goal of B2B content marketing is brand awareness.

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You can build a strong brand by connecting and building relationship with other bloggers in your industry.

According to a post by Sethlui, you can get instant exposure just by engaging the two most famous food bloggers in Singapore, Ladyironchef or Ieatishootipost. With them you can get  up to 300,000 visitors a month to your restaurant website.

Are you concerned about reaching out to a large number of people? Blogging is a great way to do that and probably gain customers. The chart below shows the impact of blogging on customer acquisition.

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Local food bloggers can contribute to the success or downfall of your local business. To be on the winning side, connect with them.

 

15. Setup your Google+ account

If you’re already active on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Instagram, what about Google’s own Google+?

Google+ is a social network like no other.

Although, having a Google+ account doesn’t mean that your local business website will rank in the #1 position.

But when you grow your connection and add more people to your circles, this can bring more people to your restaurant – whether online or offline. With over 25 million users – you benefit from Google+

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How Google+ can boost your restaurant business:

  •  You can reach out to large number of customers on the platform, or circle when offering promotions.
  •  Since you can select group or circles you wish to send message to, Google+ makes it easier for you to specify people who will receive your message.
  •  You can easily promote your brand to more than 20 million active Google+ users. You can edit them about your dishes, recipes, and huge benefits of eating at your restaurant or ordering from your website.
  • With the use of video conference feature , it’s more easier for you to relate with your customers on Google+.
  •  Above all, it helps to improve your search engine ranking on Google. Since Google+ is a product of Google. It’ll tend to rank you higher than brands that are only on facebook, in order to encourage more people to use their platform.

 

16. Use geo-targeted keywords in your ads

Do you know that using geo-targeted keywords in your ads can help you acquire the right customers? Geo-targeting is important every local business, not just restaurants.

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Why waste waste money on Google AdWords, when you can make more money through effective targeting.

For instance if your restaurant is located in US, there is no need targeting Canadians. Trust me, this is where most restaurant marketers miss it.

Facebook encourages geo-targeting as well  – where you’re given the chance to select country or state to aim your ad. Take a look:

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Using geo-targeted keywords, you get to focus more on people that are likely to come to your restaurant.

In a nutshell, if your restaurant is located in Los Angeles, then you need to aim your ads to local consumers in that location, since you’re closer to them.

 

17. Send out promotional email newsletters

“Email newsletter is the best way to maintain customer relationship on the internet.”

Jakob Nielsen

As a restaurant owner/marketer, you’ve got to understand that sending email newsletter, can help you reach a targeted audience. According to Adobe, if you invest $1 in email marketing, you can derive up to $40 ROI.

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For your newsletter to be effective, and convert subscribers into customers, you need to send relevant offers coupled with educational content.

Recent study shows that 70% of emails are opened in search of a deal or discount.

Focusing on sales promotion alone will discourage email recipients. Better yet, offer a discount or deal that recipients can’t resist.

 

18. Use dedicated solo ads to run a campaign

What are solo ads?

I thought you should know this by now. Anyways, solo advertising is the processes of sending educational and promotional emails to a third-party email subscribers.

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When you’re doing solo advertising, your leveraging other restaurant’s email or phone list.

If you want to achieve better results, don’t try to sell your products to strangers. Because, obviously, your first email to subscribers who don’t know you will sound strange.

Use that opportunity to offer something for free.

Ideally, use solo ads to build up your own list. When you’re marketing your restaurant online, you can’t get ahead with a targeted list of hungry customers.

To get started, look for food bloggers, online restaurant marketers, and fitness experts with loyal subscriber list. Then, strike a deal with them, and use their list to grow your restaurant.

 

19. Offer a deal in the local paper

Why not take advantage of local newspapers to bring in new customers to your restaurant?

Offering a deal in the local paper can equally improve your reputation, and up your brand. If you’re just starting out, creating massive brand awareness is critical to your success.

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Since the cost of advertising on local newspaper is not that expensive, you can use it to offer discounts and deals. Just like free things, people see it as an opportunity to spend less and save more.

Overall, you’ll see increased orders when you offer discounts on your dishes. More so, people hate to lose. Consequently, they’ll take action on your offers.

 

20. Focus on promoting your Restaurant’s brand

The most important thing about your restaurant business is your brand.

Don’t be too engrossed on the profit. Work hard and smart to get your brand name on every of your customer’s mind and lip.

And there are so many ways to build a brand in your locality. Let’s briefly consider a few of them:

i).   Sponsor a local sports team: Taking the bold step to sponsor a local sports team can help your brand in a tremendous way.

You could provide them with new branded jerseys. Since they have lots of viewers both live and on TV., you’ll enhance your brand identity – and impact your community.

iii).  Donating food in a community events: Volunteer to feed people during special events organized in the community. It gives people the opportunity to know your restaurant and feel obliged to visit often.

iv).   Donating money at community fund raising events: Either donating anonymously or publicly, the community will appreciate your effort.

And definitely want to patronize you, since they know you’ll contribute to their fund raising in the nearest future.

 

21. Build relationship with delivery service

If you wish to take online orders from around the world, you need to start building a relationship with delivery services like UPS, DHL, and the like.

These delivery services can help you get your products to customers around the world. Distance is no longer a barrier. If you want to focus on delivery within your locality or environs, you can use the services of Bitesquad.com.

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Often times, customers are too busy to come over to your restaurant, or maybe a celebrity who wouldn’t want to be spotted at your restaurant.

But if you can deliver delicious meals where they are, they’ll quite appreciate it and order more.

 

22. Use guest blogging to create more attention

Guest blogging is another way to grow your business online. As a restaurant owner, you are probably equipped with lots of experiences.

GrooveHq, a customer service company used guest blogging to grow from $0 to $100,000 in monthly revenue.

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Use your experience and knowledge as a restaurant and food professional to build your business. Picking topics that you can write like:

  • How To Successfully Get More Customers To Your Restaurant
  • How You Can start a Small Restaurant Business and Succeed.
  • 7 Ways To Get Repeat Orders From Your Customers Easily

Contributing useful articles to other blogs that have lots of visitors is the quickest way to build your own audience, and redirect customers to your restaurant.

 

23. Offer coupons and discounts

Are you offering coupons and discounts?

If you’re not taking advantage of it, you’ll struggle to get more customers to your restaurant website or eatery.

For one, coupons are powerful engagement drivers. Socially Stacked stated that 42% of customers prefer a coupon code when ordering a product. But that’s not all. Take a look at this infographic:

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Make no mistakes about it, customers will always look for free gifts, or coupon codes. In this competitive marketing era, you need to provide more than “good” service to your customers.

Treat them with honor. Appreciate them. And always look out for ways to build interest in them – concerning your product.

 

24. Start a food truck: take your business out there

Instead of waiting for your  customers to come, go all out for them.

After all, they deserve all the best treatment and appreciation from you. Just like offering a coupon code gets them excited, a food truck will equally build in them the desire to purchase from you.

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With a food truck, your restaurant is mobile and versatile. Maybe you’re in a location with a fierce competition. This is the only way to move beyond restrictions.

Here’s the harsh truth: Majority of the customers you will sell food to may never come to your restaurant.

But with a food truck, you can reach them. This will also advertise your restaurant and strengthen your brand to the customers.

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Most important, the relationship could be very strong someday, such that if you didn’t go looking for them, they will come looking for you. Isn’t that awesome?

Don’t sit back in your restaurant, blaming the economy. Stand up and reach out. They are waiting out there.

 

25. Use online reservation Restaurant tool

Online reservation restaurant tool is a software that allows you to manage your orders. It’s not easy managing a restaurant, but with this tool, it’s fun.

Statistics found that more than 16,000 restaurants are using online reservation tool to take orders from their customers, especially in the US.

With this tool, a guest can book a place to eat. The tool also manages traffic, rewards customers, create brand awareness of the restaurant and motivates people to write reviews.

It gives you ample time to attend to other things while business goes on.

It may interest you to know that 73% of restaurants have seen the need of this tool, and want to upgrade their operation this year. You’ve to see the need to use this software. It will save a lot of stress.

This online reservation tool carries all the necessary information needed by customers to make informed buying decisions. All in all, it can boost your restaurant’s revenue.

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When you make life easy and simple for customers, they’ll buy more.

For example, the ease of staying in the office or home and ordering a favorite meal, and receiving it within 10 minutes could help you win lifelong customers to your brand. With this tool, you will always be busy delivering orders from your online opentable.

 

Conclusion

Your restaurant is calling out for you.

With these 25 marketing ideas, nothing can stop you from dominating your market. One important thing you have to do is build a marketing funnel for your restaurant website and landing page.

This funnel will give you the opportunity to cater to every customer as soon as they visit your website – regardless of the stage they’re in the customer buying cycle.

From the early stage of awareness, down to the bottom of the funnel where they eventually orders from your restaurant or visits in person, you need to understand, educate, and inspire them with useful content.

Which of these restaurant marketing ideas have you executed? Share your opinion.

10 Powerful Real Estate Marketing Strategies to Sell or Rent a Space ASAP

Every realtor follows the same patterns.

Buying magazine and newspaper ads. Hosting a weekend open house. Making sure Zillow is updated. Adding properties to listing sites and social media pages. Putting a sign in front of the property. Maybe laying out some flyers or business cards around town.

There’s nothing wrong with a realtor doing these things, don’t get me wrong.

They do them because they work and generate a profit.

The problem comes when realtors use these strategies as their crutch and depend on them to be their life blood.

Especially in a tough market or with unique properties, such as a church.

They continue using these strategies… which are the exact same strategies their competition is using… but they somehow hope for or expect better results.

And while we’d all like to think that wanting or hoping for something bad enough means it will manifest itself in our lives, we all know that it logically isn’t true.

So if you’ve got a property that you’d like to sell or get rented out ASAP… even if that property’s been sitting on the market for ages, you can whip these tactics out of your back pocket and just watch closing after closing after closing start to happen.

Come up with some new ideas.

These real estate marketing strategies will help you stand out, get attention, get remembered, and more importantly… close any deal as quickly as possible.

(And better yet? Most of them work for both residential and commercial properties.)

1. Target Life Events on Facebook

We all love bragging about our life events on Facebook.

Almost as soon as they happen, we’re broadcasting them to the world.

It’s to the point that for “proof” we now say things like “Pics or it didn’t happen” or “It’s not official until it’s Facebook official.”

We joke about it, but we do mean it.

But people openly and willingly announcing their major life events on a social platform that gives advertisers access to this data is pure gold for someone a realtor working in residential real estate.

Think about it.

Because the vast majority of these major life events mean that people will need to make sure they’ve got the right space to accommodate these new life changes.

Life events like:

  • Engagements
  • Marriages
  • Moving to a new city
  • Announcing a pregnancy or a birth

And if you sign up for Facebook as an advertiser, you have access to target all of these life events within the geographic area you serve with your real estate business.

So if you specialize in inexpensive apartment rentals?

You can target a campaign towards young, single professionals under the age of 30 who’ve just moved to the city. (Probably because a job brought them there.)

If you specialize in starter-level homes for new families?

Engagements, marriages, and pregnancy announcements are going to be your thing.

And yes, you can have different ads show to the different life events: one set of ads for engagements, one set of ads for marriages, and another for pregnancy or baby announcements.

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Here, WordStream shows us how to find these life events when setting up your targeting for a Facebook ad.

 

2. Invest in an Emotion-Invoking Copywriter

I just pulled this description for a $529k home off realtor.com:

“Location, Location, Location! North Asheville ranch! 3 bedrooms, 2.5 baths, hardwood floors, built-ins & private, landscaped back yard. New roof, HVAC, & electrical. Charming, slated porch off family room!”

In this particular location and neighborhood, the price is higher than average, and the pictures of the living room with old, ugly, outdated wood paneling certainly aren’t doing anything to get prospective buyers in touch with the realtor about this house.

Sure, the location is nice, but if you can get a more or less equal home for over $100k less in the same neighborhood… what gives?

If you want people to even consider this house, which is obviously going to be a pretty tough sell at that price point, you’re going to have to hook potential buyers with more than just a list of features, photos, and that description.

Since the features won’t change and that wood paneling in the living room is also probably there to stay, you’re going to have to dig really deep to find some emotionally-hooking phrases to get the attention of someone who’s clicked through. You want them to really look at the house and make sure that they remember that house over the 10 others they explored in that one online shopping session.

So what if the description read something like this instead?

“Less than a 10-minute drive from all the funkiness of downtown, this ranch-style home in North Asheville sits near the center of the Grove Park area of the city… directly in between the two major country clubs, next to some of the best up-and-coming restaurants. The quiet neighborhood is a retreat, but you’re only ever a few minutes away from the best Asheville has to offer.

The home itself has 3 bedrooms, 2.5 baths, and the most charming little porch that acts as an extension for the rustic, truly ranch-style family room. It’s country-meets-city in all the best ways.

The back yard that extends from the porch has been carefully landscaped to showcase some beautiful flower bushes and to accommodate all kind of fun outdoor activities: spring barbecues, summer water balloon fights, or peacefully soaking in the sun while you drink your coffee on a crisp fall morning.

Plus, with hard wood floors, and a new roof, new electrical, and a new HVAC system, you’ll be set in not having to worry about repairs for a long, long time.”

You see how that makes a difference, don’t you?

Suddenly the reader goes from ticking things off a somewhat existent list in their brains to see if the house is a fit for their family… to actually imagining and getting emotionally attached to the idea of their family in THAT particular space.

Suddenly, they’re way more interested and you start getting more and more calls for showings.

Coming up with this kind of description may not be your cup of tea, but hiring a copywriter that specializes in emotion-invoking phrasing like this (especially for a property you think will be a harder sell) will pay for itself way more quickly than you’d imagine.

Pssst…. I know I gave a residential example here, but this works equally well for commercial listings. Business people are NOT just cold-blooded creatures in suits. They’re humans and have emotions too.

 

3. Retarget Web Viewers with Property Images & Emotional Ad Copy

Alright, so someone looked at your website page for a specific property but didn’t fill out your form to get in touch with you?

No problem. Not all is lost.

When people are shopping for a new home or a new office space, it’s really common that they check the market for all different kinds of options before they start getting in touch with realtors about a showing.

It’s a normal behavior that you can capitalize on to make sure your listings get sold or rented out quickly…. via retargeting.

I’ll keep the technical explanation of how this works really brief:

If you have a listing you want to sell or rent fast, you can rig that listing with what’s called a retargeting pixel.

This pixel gets attached to visitors who spend time on that page checking out the listing.

When the people who’ve seen that listing are browsing the web—reading other websites or scrolling through their Facebook feed, for example—they’ll see ads for the property they’ve already checked out because they’ve been pixeled.

And beyond the visual recognition and reminder of what the property actually looks like, you can use this retargeting to evoke the same emotions you evoked with your description copy on your listing’s page.

In a case study done by Think With Google, one luxury watch company saw a 1300% ROI with their remarketing strategies within just six months.

If this sounds like an interesting strategy you’d like to try, but you’ve got no idea where to start, here’s some links to check out:

Disclaimer: You only have the power to pixel people on websites you own. But it’s still a really, really effective strategy.

4. Take Prospects Out on the Town

If you’ve got a prospect for a commercial or residential listing who’s interested in the property itself but isn’t 100% sold on the location, take them out on the town.

Find out the sort of activities they like and the kind of local amenities that are important to them, and take them around to sit in and experience some cool places within reasonable distance of the property.

For example, if a company is looking for a new office space but wants to make sure there’s a good selection of bars with happy hours for their employees to enjoy after work, take them out to a couple different bars close to the office space during happy hour.

Or if a home buyer wants to make sure she’s close to a variety of freelancer-friendly coffee shops and coworking spaces, buy her a couple of passes to the coworking spaces or give her a gift card or two to some of the best coffee shops for freelancers next to the home she’s considering.

Actually getting a buyer’s’ feet wet in the neighborhood of a property they’re considering helps them imagine their life beyond their living space, which for most buyers, is equally important to the time they’ll spend indoors.

Actual, first-hand experience builds up a knowledge base within your prospect’s mind that can never be replaced by simply telling them about things and showing them pictures

“Someone telling you about how something tastes, in effect, giving you a vocabulary for describing tastes, is not of great value,” said Roger C. Schank in a 1995 technical report called What We Learn When We Learn By Doing for Northwestern University’s Institute for the Learning Sciences.

“The experiences that build up a knowledge base cannot be obtained vicariously,” he went on. “One must have experiences, not hear about them. The reasons for this are simple. Hearing about them means that the teller has crystallized his own experiences, shortened them, summarized them, and in effect has taken from them the material of indexing, the stuff from which we can build our own index. One cannot index on someone else’s experience largely because that experience, as transmitted, will omit many of the details that are the fodder for indexing.”

 

5. Hold an SMS Campaign With Your “For Sale” or “For Lease” Signs

Putting a “For Sale” or “For Lease” sign is probably already one of your first to-do items any time you get a new property in your portfolio.

And that sign probably already has ways for people to get in touch with you about it or to learn more about it… It probably lists your website, your phone number, and maybe even your email address.

But you can take that typical “For Sale” sign to the next level by using it as a lead-gathering magnet for an SMS campaign.

You’ve seen those things that say “Text ‘Coupon’ to 800-555-1234 to save 10%,” haven’t you?

If you live in any remotely civilized area in 2016, the answer is yes. You’ve seen them.

And these things are effective.

More effective than apps, even.

Because not everyone in the US has a smartphone, but almost everyone does have a mobile phone with SMS capabilities.

And on average, 90% of all SMS messages are read within 3 minutes of being received. I couldn’t find data on how long it takes to check app notifications, but if my behavior is any indicator, it’s a little longer.

With that said, creating a mobile app is still a viable way to promote your real estate business.

PLUS, not only do they prompt people to get in touch with you in a relatively non-committal way, it also gives you their phone number so you can, get this, actively reach out to them.

And I don’t mean scaring them away by calling them the instant you see that they’ve texted you for more info.

Because that’s just creepy.

Instead, I mean feeding them information about the property over a series of days, and then making a call or sending a message to see if they’d like to arrange a viewing.

For example, if you’re selling an office space in a popular downtown area, you could put your sign in front of the office building that says something like “For photos of the property, text ‘Pics’ to 555-1234.”

Then, as promised, you respond to their text message with a few photos of the property and information on the property’s specs.

Over the course of a few days, send them more pictures (different ones, of course) along with interesting pieces of information about the property itself and the neighborhood it’s in.

This is a non-invasive way of selling, each text has the opportunity to opt out if they think the property isn’t for them, but it’s also highly personal because it’s information delivered to their phone… one of the only devices in life equally as important as their house keys.

The backend of how this all works is a little too complicated to get into in this blog post, but to be honest, you probably won’t even have to worry about that.

There’s lots of softwares that can help you get this done easily, including:

Or ZDNet has a DIY approach combining Google Voice and Gmail.

 

6. Video Footage of the Space

Recording high-quality video footage of a space works really well with remote home buyers who want to set up viewings before they get to town, or with renters of higher-end vacation properties.

Video (with a professional camera crew, not your smart phone and a selfie stick) showcases the space in a way even the best pictures simply can’t.

It shows you (or someone else who’s really great in front of the camera) moving through the space, fitting into the space, and enjoying it.

It shows how things work together practically and helps people imagine themselves living out their lives (whether it’s their personal life, their work life, or their vacation) in that exact space.

It gets them emotionally attached to it pace and piques their interest to get in touch with you about coming to see it or booking it.

One of my favorite examples of this was when Eat Pray Love author Elizabeth Gilbert decided to sell her home.

She hired a videographer to follow her around and outside of her house while she talked about all the wonderful and enchanting aspects of it.

In the video, she’s happy, she’s open, she’s fun, and she’s relatable. And she clearly loves the house, which shows.

And while you watch the video, even if you live nowhere near New England or that kind of price range is out of your budget, you can totally imagine yourself living there, can’t you?

 

7. AirBNB for Buying Prospects

Before we buy a car, we test drive it.

Before we buy a new pair of shoes, we try them on our feet & walk up and down the retail aisle.

But before we buy a property, often the only “trying” we do is spending 30 minutes walking around the inside and outside of a house, forcing ourselves to quickly imagine what our life would be like there.

We never actually try a new space on for size until we’ve actually sunk a mortgage worth hundreds of thousands of dollars into it.

Which thinking about it, seems a little crazy, doesn’t it?

So why not let your buying prospects try out the new space and “live” there for a few days and nights?

Of course, this is something you’d have to clear with the current owners, but if they’re ready to have their property sold yesterday, this can be a great approach to get them on board with.

The idea is you list the space on AirBNB and let a buyer—or the buyer’s family—“rent” the space on the platform for a nominal fee.

They come in, unpack a small bag in a bedroom, watch TV, drink coffee on the porch, leave to go to work, come home from work, go on a sunset walk around the neighborhood, and get a real feel of how enchanted their life could be in that space.

Not only does it drive home the point that the space is desirable, functional and worth the asking price, but it also taps into the buyer’s emotion via the physical experience of actually experiencing daily life there.

The underlying psychology here goes back to the quote from Roger C. Schank in section #4 about taking your potential buyers out on the town.

It builds up their own personal knowledge base of the place instead of relying on what they hear you (the realtor) and the current owners say.

And by giving them a first-hand experience that’s way more “real” than just a walk-through, it creates more of an emotional attachment to the property you’re trying to sell than any other property they’d be considering with their purchase.

8. Host a Biz-Friendly Event in the Space

If you’re selling or renting a commercial property, though, letting a business “rent” the space for a set number of days doesn’t make any sense… it wouldn’t even be worth it for the buyer who’d have to invest loads of time moving office equipment back & forth.

Instead, you can take a spin on the open house idea and host an actual event in the space that caters to the kind of businesses who’d be ideal for the space, or people whom you know could refer the right businesses to you.

For example, if you have a small property that’d be ideal for a small, boutique agency of 5-10 people, host a free networking luncheon in the space with a basic buffet.

Send invitations out to local owners of growing small agencies and to the coaches, accountants, and consultants that work with these agencies to come, network with each other, and check out the space.

Make sure to mention during the event that you’ve sponsored it, what you do as a real estate professional to help these types of businesses, that the space you’re standing in is available, and what kind of perks come with the space and its location.

 

9. Sell the Neighborhood, Not the Property

Just like in idea #4, we’re focusing more on the neighborhood the property is in than the property itself.

As you approach a property with the prospective buyer, make sure you spend plenty of time pointing out all the perks of the neighborhood that lead up to the actual property’s location that you know they’ll be interested in.

If you know they’re foodies, point out all the boutique restaurants and what they’re known for.

If you know they like a good nightlife, point out the bars and clubs.

If art is important to them, point out the music venues, art studios, and nearby galleries.

By doing this, they’re already imagining themselves living life in and enjoying the neighborhood of the property before they even see the property in person.

And particularly if the property is a little less stellar or really isn’t anything “special”, they’ll be able to overlook more of its misgivings than you’d imagine if they’re already so emotionally attached to the neighborhood.

To be clear, this isn’t about tricking buyers into a space they’ll be unhappy with or that won’t work for them… but is more about giving them something that’s perfectly functional and gives them the lifestyle they’re after.

 

10. Referral Incentive Strategy

And, finally, here we are talking about referrals.

You may already have a referral strategy in place, and if so, you’ve seen how powerful incentives can be for getting leads of the right buyers and renters for your property.

But if you haven’t started a referral strategy, start making a list of people you trust to send you quality referrals. (You know, people who you know won’t waste your time with ill-fitting referrals just for the chance of getting some sort of monetary kickback.)

If you don’t have anyone in your network—or you only have one or two and you want more—you can build out your list intentionally over time.

Think of the kinds of job roles and positions that come in touch with your target market on a regular basis.

For example, if you focus on selling starter homes in your city, you could list out marriage counselors, financial advisors, and mortgage bankers.

Once these people are in your list, start reaching out to them to find ways to get to know them, and if, after a while, you feel like they’d be a good person in your referral network, you could offer them your referral incentives.

In this post on Duct Tape Marketing, Jonathan Fields talks about how he incentivizes new customers while they’re still in the honeymoon phase of a product or service and increased his incoming referrals by 300%

Doing One Thing ‘Outside of the Box’ is Often More Than Enough

Turning a property around—whether you’re responsible to rent it or sell it—can be tough, especially when you’re in a buyer’s market.

But just because the cards are technically stacked against you doesn’t mean selling or renting a property as soon as possible has to be difficult.

Often adapting just one or two of these tactics into your property selling strategy will make a huge difference in how quickly you’re able to get offers and close deals.

What are some of your favorite ideas?

Powerful Real Estate Marketing Ideas From 19 Top Experts

Being in real estate is tough business, especially when you only get paid for the performance and results you deliver. We’ve talked to 19 of the top experts in real estate, real estate marketing and real estate PR to bring you their best real estate marketing ideas. These will get you the close you are after whether you’re working with a buyer or seller.

 

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#1. Pam Danziger – Unity Marketing

@PamDanziger

 

As a high-end real estate marketer, your primary responsibility is to create a perception of luxury for a home that becomes the reality and expectation of the potential home buyer. Creating that luxury perception becomes the key. It requires effective marketing strategies that draw the affluent home buyer. That means every potential customer contact – from online listing, advertisements, listing flyers, brochures, direct mail contact – must communicate the luxury story aimed to entice the potential luxury buyer.

The Secret: It’s Not About More Marketing; It’s About More EFFECTIVE Marketing

To sell a million-dollar house in a slow market, you don’t necessarily need more marketing or advertising, but you need more EFFECTIVE marketing and advertising. Here are some research-based ideas to help real estate marketers sell more million-dollar homes in a luxury housing market that has suddenly gone cold.

Brand Name Drop

In today’s marketplace, luxury brands are cultural currency. They talk to the quality and value of a million-dollar home. Real estate marketers should take a full inventory of the brands reflected in the home, not just the appliances, but the fixtures, local name-brand architects, designers, and contractors that are reflected in the home. Luxury brands in the home testify to the luxury price tag, Use them.

Tell Stories About The Home, Don’t Just Describe It’s Features

Real estate listings are just that: fact-based objective listings of the home’s features. But such listings – square footage, lot size, number of bedrooms, baths, etc. – tell the prospective buyer nothing about the experience of living in the home. Story-based listings that weave the home’s facts and figures into the story romance the listing and make it come alive. Don’t just write a listing, tell a story about the home.

Hire A Writer

A picture may be worth a thousand words, but in today’s internet-powered, social-media driven, content-marketing world, a thousand words need to go along with that picture. Those thousand words must tell stories engaging enough to make the prospective home buyer curious enough to call the agent and set up an appointment to experience the home for themselves.

Real estate agents think nothing of hiring professionals to do their photography and videography, yet they write the listing themselves. This is a huge mistake! Writers can take that fact-based listing description, including the extensive brand-name inventory, and tell a story about the home that will romance the listing and make it pop! Plus, writers are fairly inexpensive to hire. Put one on the payroll and see the difference it makes to the listings and your sales.

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#2. Bob Gordon – Remax

@BobGordon

Blog

This is a low cost, organic route to lead generation.   Beyond blogging, you can share your content in Groups on Social Media, use your posts as material for a Drip Marketing campaign and even share Client Testimonials in your Blog. I do all of this and more with my website: boulderrealestatenews.com

Recently I’ve created a electronic newsletter, using my BLOG content as the stories, so that interested consumers can click to my website.

Interact on Social Media

Interact on social platforms, especially in Groups. Specifically, in a local FB group called the 8-Oh-Oh-27 (named after a zip code), I posted I was looking for recommended contractors to create a list to share. I had a massive response. Over sixty LIKES, and another 50 comments, about a 1/3 wanted in the material, the rest wanted a copy.

Utilize Video

I have published over one hundred videos, some of which have been viewed extensively. My favorite videos are quick post-closing client testimonials. My clients thank me by name and share how excited they are to be in their new home. They mention the things I did well – the marketing, the communication, the strong negotiation skills. Then I post the video to my Blog, share on Social Media and I TAG everyone involved when sharing — the closer, the other agent, the client, the title company, the mortgage lender. These videos get great exposure.

 

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#3. Luca Alessandrini – Online Optimisim

@_Luca_Luca

Building and Maintaining Relationships Online

A key activity to building relationships is an email newsletter. Through platforms like Emma or Mailchimp it has never been easier to handle create and distribute your own email newsletter. Letting past, current and potential clients know your activities including listings, speaking opportunities, closings, open houses, even personal events like weddings, births and graduations are a great way to keep clients engaged. This contributes to increased trust, referral opportunity and relationship building. Newsletters are a more direct method of communication compared to social media or blogging, two other strategies commonly used to build connections.

Building Confidence in Your Ability Through Social Media

In 2016, especially in the real estate industry, it is essential to show movement, progression, and of course, great sales. Most house buyers are not looking for the house of their dreams, but the best home for them. By connecting clients to the best home for them, they can provide strong testimonial, key content to be published on your social media accounts. Overall, real estate agents must communicate their ability to match homes with clients and build relationships with past, current and potential clients to best increase their leads and improve their business..

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#4. Karim Wahba – Realty One Group

@WahbaRealtor

 

Price Under Marker Value

If the fair market value of a house is $500,000 for example, sometimes I advise my sellers to list slightly below the market value. What this does is it exposes the property to so many more potential buyers & so many buyers schedule appointments to view the property. This often results in multiple offers being written on the property & a bidding war ensues. This benefits the seller, in many cases the final purchase price ends up surpassing the fair market value. People want what other people want, so they keep bidding up!!

Limit Showings & Create Deadline

By limiting the showings of a property to one open house, this means many buyers will come in to see the house during this 3 or 4 hour window as that’s the only opportunity to see the house. This almost ensures that an open house will be packed with potential buyers. The more crowded the open house, the more buyers feel like everyone else is going to bid for this property so I’ll bid the highest.

If the open house is on a Saturday, I like to create a deadline to receiving all offers by noon on Monday. What this does is it also creates a sense of urgency & subconsciously buyers automatically prepare to compete with other offers.

Again it just plays on the notion of “people want what other people want”.

 

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#5. Sam Williamson – Aims Media Glasgow

@AimsmediaUK

 

Retargeting

Most consumers considering purchasing real estate deliberate for months (or even years) before finally deciding on a property, and they’ll often spend significant time using the Internet to look at the various options available to them. This means it’s likely that they’ve visited your website several times to take a look at any available properties, which presents the perfect opportunity for retargeting.

For real estate, email retargeting is probably the most effective marketing method to use. The emails can be kept in the inbox and referred to when the customer feels ready to purchase the real estate.

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#6. Blake Philpott – RE/MAX City Realty

@blakephi

Facebook Ads!

Great way to let literally hundreds of thousands of people in the community know about the listing, I will do this for all my listings, it works like magic. Exposing the listing to the highest number of people is what really brings in the money for the seller once people start to compete for the property.

Professional Videography, Photography, And Even Drone Footage

According to the real estate association 90% of buyers are first drawn to a property (online or otherwise) by good quality photographs. Don’t use your smartphone! This is one area you want to spend your money. Bright, spacious, clean photos bring people in!

Special Events

On some listings I will use facebook, instagram, and community outlets to advertise an event in the home for sale. This is not just an open house – this is a social gathering for everyone in the community to visit a well staged home fit to sell, complete with food, drinks, and even live music (if the home is large enough).

Network – Use Others’ Businesses To Your Advantage

One thing I love to do is use other people’s talents in selling a home – They will advertise for me! For example, I have many friends who are very talented artists, I often stage homes with their art. It helps sell the home and they do a lot of advertising for me as well to show of their work. It gets a lot of attention.

 

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#7. Alex Barshai – Third Temple Digital

Always Hire a Professional Photographer

Images sell. As simple as that. By our nature we are very visual and professional photography makes the property shine. In fact, realtors that invest in real estate photography sell homes 32% faster and for 10-20% higher prices.

 

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#8. Jay Seier – Jolly Homes

@JollyHomes

 

Make Sure All Your Marketing Is Trackable

Why would you spend money on marketing and not be able to track it? If it’s not trackable, how do you know it is even producing.

3 tips to make sure all of your marketing of a property is trackable:

1. Use unique URLs for all of your properties and attach Google analytics to them. www.123AnywhereSt.com or www.yourwebsite.com/123anywherestreet

2. Use tracking numbers in all advertising. You could use a toll free number with extensions or use local numbers you rent to track the incoming calls.

3. Make sure all paper materials, (flyers, postcards, etc.) point people to these unique numbers and webistes.

4. If you syndicate your listings to Zillow, Trulia, etc., make sure your profile is up to date and you make sure that the comments include your contact information or at least your name.

If you do all of these things you will not only be able to track the effectiveness of your marketing but you can also show your results to new prospects and you know that hardly anyone is doing that.

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#9. Sep Niakan – HB Roswell Realty

@sepmiami

Professional Pictures Go a Long Way

Don’t skimp on pictures. Spend the money and get a professional to make your place look like a million bucks. Yes, your property will essentially sell itself, but to do that you need to entice people to walk in the front door, and pictures (and video) are what make that happen.

Speak Directly to the Perfect Buyer in All Your Marketing

Don’t just regurgitate the features of the place. Instead, put those features in context of the target buyers’ daily life. Think about the most likely buyer profile for your property, and “speak” to that person in the marketing you do. For example, will the space be perfect for a young single professional, a couple with a newborn, or a couple of empty nesters, or someone who simply must have a calm, serene view? (Be careful not to touch on anything that will smell like you are referencing or pushing away any protected classes.)

 

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#10. Sacha Ferrandi – Source Capital Funding

@SourceCapital

Face-to-Face Marketing Generates More Sales

Go out and talk to people face-to-face. Interact with local businesses and ‘network’ as much as you can. In real estate, people often buy from someone they like and when you have an opportunity to talk with consumers in person your chances for a sale increases dramatically.

Leverage Social Media to be ‘Fun’

No one likes advertisements on social media these days. Leverage social media in a way that shows your properties, but has a light, fun message for your followers. This will not only result in more engagement, but will help you connect with millennial consumers that are just now entering the industry.

Don’t Forget About Your Website

Most people just build a real estate website and forget about it. You should be constantly trying to improve your site and adding content and photos to increase your rankings on Google and other search engines.

 

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#11. Henry McIntosh – Twenty One Twelve Marketing

@2112_marketing

Utilize Visual Content

Selling real estate predominantly comes down to aesthetics, use strong, high-resolution imagery across social media platforms like Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. Use hashtags that relate to the location of the property and its selling points to help entice people to view more on your website.

You should also produce video content. Live videos ceded out on Facebook and Periscope can be highly effective. By producing a house viewing style video, you can show a huge amount of potential clients around a property in one go. Don’t do anything differently in the video, act as if you had a client physically in the property. Viewers can post questions as you go, which you can answer in real-time. Record the video so you can use it on your website and other social media channels too. This form of informative content is loved by consumers and will help physically get them to the location.

Advertise

Advertising doesn’t have to be expensive. Once you’ve created great content, advertise it across social media. This is a cheap and effective way to reach people who may be interested in the property. You can target people based on location, age, gender, interests and much more, allowing you to target your ideal demographic and encourage them to come and view the property.

Brian-Davis---Spark-Rental

#12. Brian Davis – Spark Rental

@SparkRental

Consider Inexpensive Ways to Boost “Sexiness”

The trick is to find items that are inexpensive to install, but that stand out in real estate listings. Buyers and renters make housing decisions largely on a subconscious, emotional level, then use reason to justify those decisions, so as a seller you want to brainstorm ideas that make the home feel chic, modern, sexy… without breaking the bank. For example, you can install almost any type of “smart home” technology for less than $200: smart door locks, smart thermostats, smart security systems, smart smoke and CO detectors, even smart coffee makers… each can be bought in the $100-200 range. I once bought a used Jacuzzi tub on Craigslist for $700, put it on the rear deck, and then asked $5,000 more than we were originally planning. The phone rang off the hook for showing requests.

The Right Words Really Can Add $10,000 to the Sales Price

According to a Zillow study earlier this year, the word “luxurious” added 8.2% to the sales price of lower-tier homes for sale. Among higher-tier homes, the word “captivating” added 6.5%. They go to identify 15 words that added value to home listings, from “impeccable” to “landscaped” to “pergola”.

Be sure to remind prospects of the expected benefits for a certain neighborhood, but also be sure to point out better-than-expected features of this particular home. People shopping in a trendy urban neighborhood expect to be able to walk to many amenities, so remind them the home is “a five-minute walk from Whole Foods”, but also point out the home has surprisingly spacious bedrooms for this popular urban neighborhood.

Perfect Presentability

Unless the home needs repairs and is being sold as-is, it should be perfectly clean inside and out, with flawlessly groomed landscaping and floors you can eat off of.. The name of the game is first impressions, and nothing turns prospective buyers or renters off more than other people’s dirt and grime (especially in kitchens or bathrooms). If there isn’t much landscaping to speak of, you can still find ways to spruce up the front of the house and boost curb appeal, by adding bright-colored potted plants. The nice thing about potted plants is you can reuse the same ones over and over, and move them from listing to listing as you make sales (just make sure the contract excludes the plants).

Lastly, be sure to include lots of photos of your perfectly presentable home with the listing.

 

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#13. Deidre Woollard – Lion & Orb PR

@lionandorb

Write For Humans And Bots

Listing descriptions should appeal to both human readers and search engine spiders. Both have short attention spans so put the most important features of the property as close to the top as possible. On your personal website use a slightly different property description so that bots don’t see it as duplicate content.

Curate Your Photos

It’s tempting when you pay for 50-100 photos from a professional photographer to put them all in the listing description. This however can decrease the likelihood of showings if the potential buyer sees something they don’t like. You don’t need to show every room of the house and every detail, concentrate on the most visually appealing photos and also make sure you have a few single images that will work for social sharing. You can use different photos in different configurations, perhaps a smaller set for the MLS and a more expanded set on a property or brokerage website.

Use Video To Tell The Story

Most clients wants a video but not all agents provide them. A video can do more than just show off the house, it can also showcase the neighborhood and local features. Now with Facebook live and Snapchat video there are additional ways to create an in-the-moment experience of the home and the neighborhood. By 2017, video will be nearly 3/4 of internet traffic and video is increasingly a part of the real estate discovery experience.

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#14. Jason Parks – The Media Captain

@themediacaptain

 

Invest In A Professional Photo/Video Shoot

Hire a local photographer that can also shoot/edit video. Have him/her take professional pictures at your office and on location at a home. Make sure you also arrange for some of your top clients to come to your office to get photographed and record video testimonials.

This entire photo and video shoot can be accomplished in 90-minutes. It will provide you with hundreds of pictures and great video content. This can be applied to your website, social media channels, online advertisements, direct mail and much more.

The key to obtaining successful content is to make sure you plan out the entire shoot based on location, who you’ll interview and what key points you want to get across. If you prepare, you will obtain amazing assets for your marketing channels.

 

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#15. Tania Matthews – Keller Williams Classic Realty

@taniasmatthews

 

Timing is Everything

If at all possible, list on a Thursday and host an open house on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday directly following the listing. You can door knock and circle call around the area informing neighbors about the upcoming open house and to “choose their neighbors.” It’s also a good idea to list well before the open house on the MLS, Zillow, Realtor.com, and Facebook.

Snail Mail Still Works

Just listed postcards to the neighbors and sphere. You can have this automated using Prospect Plus. Mailing renters in the area and letting them know they could own the house for $XXX/month for less than they’re paying for rent. We’ve also seen success with mailing local area investors (if applicable to the property) and your database talking about the ROI.

Blogs & Videos

If you have a strong online following, creating a blog post on the property can help capture interest, especially if it’s a unique listing. What we love to do is also create a teaser video using our DJI drone of a new property coming to the market.

 

#16. Chase Michels – Brush Hill Realtors

@PattisellsDG

Stay Social

Social media accounts including Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Google +, Pinterest, etc.. Link all of your social media profiles together by using www.ifttt.com.

This site will allow you to tie together your accounts so if you post on one application it will be applied to all, this is a great way to save time and keep all accounts updated.

Social Advertising

Run Facebook, Twitter and Instagram ads. These companies allow highly-targeted ads to run to the exact demographic that a potential buyer may come from.

We do this by initially creating a YouTube video. YouTube is important because it ranks very high on google searches so your videos will be easy to find when searching your name or the property address. We then load the videos to the appropriate social media and “boost” or promote the video to whatever demographic we may be targeting.

If you are hosting an Open House in a few days you can boost that video to a 2-mile radius of the home, people aged 35-65+, household income of $100K+. The demographic data these companies offer is pretty accurate so it allows for cost effective advertising.

Create A Facebook Business Page

Promote your services on there and try to grow a following. Once a client “likes” your page they will begin to see your posted content on their timeline. Share your posts to the wall of the clients’ home you are advertising. This shows your client the types of marketing you are doing, but it also promotes that post to all of the clients connections as well.

Retargeting

Install pixels on these ads to allow for re-targeting to these potential clients. Re-targeting remains to be a cost effective way of marketing to a client who has shown interest.

Reviews

Get reviews on sites such as Zillow, Trulia, Yelp, Realtor.com. Profiles with just 5-10 reviews get 50% more traffic than profiles with 0 reviews.

Go Professional

Provide a professional photographer to capture the property at its best. According to a Redfin study, homes that are professionally photographed sell for at least $934 and as much as $18,819 more than homes photographed by an amateur. The study also shows that homes photographed by a professional garner 61 percent more online views. We understand that web appeal of our listings is a huge selling point, this is why we hire a professional photographer for every home.83% of home buyers believe the most valuable feature of a website is the photos. This is why it is imperative for our listings to have the best possible photos online.

Single Property Websites

Provide a unique single-property website solely for the purpose of marketing the home to potential buyers. Buyers can use this site to view information and photos of your home while also scheduling a showing with just a click.

Go Offline

Print marketing of the home including newspaper ads, brochures, flyers and postcards. 79% of households say they read direct-mail, sending out 5,000 postcards allows over 3,900 potential buyers in the neighborhood to see the ad.

Blogging & SEO

Create great blog content consistently. This is extremely important and helps SEO rankings immensely.

Go Local

Sponsor local charities or events. This is a great way to give back to your community while also marketing yourself.

Stay In Touch

Email drip campaign your farm area or database.   Make sure content is local and thought provoking, if not clients will not engage.

Use Video

Start using video for listings. It allows potential buyers to get a better idea of the actual space. Also, 3D cameras and drones are extremely important when marketing a home online.

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#17. Dave Kohl – First In Promotions

@DaveKohlOnline

Look To Buy What You Want to Sell

The first thing to do is to look to buy the same home you are looking to sell. Do a search on real estate specific web sites for the same number of bedrooms and baths, and for as many of the features it allows which are similar and within the same general vicinity.

When the results come up, select to review from lowest price to highest price. Carefully review every similar property which comes up no matter what the price. If there is a photo spread, look at every photo. Keep a list of the best selling points from each ad, as well as which elements of the photo(s) which best catch your attention.

Do an honest comparison of the best selling points and photos you find from all of these ads. For your next step, go back online and search for recently sold homes in your community and note prices on recently sold similar homes.

Next, expand your geographic parameters. Search for a similar home for sale in a different city/state with a similar climate and size, using the same criteria. Make separate notes about what you like and don’t like about each ad. Doing this can lead to more selling points than other local agents are currently using.

Go back and review the highest priced properties within your search parameters. What do they have that yours doesn’t? Is it something you could easily add? If not, are there ways to show the value of yours?

For example, suppose a similar home to yours has a built-in swimming pool and yours doesn’t. Your selling points could include “Close to city park & pool”. Without saying it, make someone researching area think “I could save $10,000 by walking to a pool someone else maintains!”.

Ideally, by comparing the home you wish to sell against others for sale, you will come up with both unique features and specific selling points. Your best result is to be able to list the home with something along the lines of “largest bedrooms and closest to train station of any 3 bedroom home in (community)!”.

Many agents fail to update their information and selling points regularly. Take notice of how long the properties you are looking at have been on the market. You might find ads which haven’t changed in six months, thus taking away any urgency to pursue that property. Your property should always be advertised with “fresh” information and be updated frequently whether the price changes or not.

Continue to monitor the advertising of those similar local properties and watch for others coming on the market. You need to make sure that your selling points are still current along with looking out for newer ones.

 

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#18. Jeff Knox – Knox & Associates Real Estate Brokerage

@dfwknoxre

Identify Your Probable Buyers

For instance, if you are listing a larger home in a neighborhood known for its great schools, identify your probable buyers and leverage your online marketing to target those buyers. For the house in this example, your most likely buyers will be a family with children needing good schools and a larger home.

Reverse Prospect on MLS

Most MLS systems now allow Realtors to reverse prospect to find agents who have clients looking for a home in the area of your new listing. Contact these agents and let them know about your new listing.

Contact All Realtors Who Have Sold A Home In The Neighborhood

Contact all agents who have sold a home in the neighborhood within the past year. Most likely, they have some “sideline buyers” who are just waiting for the right house to hit the market. Sideline buyers do not search daily so they may not see your new listing. Be proactive and reach out to these other agents.

 

#19. Greg Chaplain – The Real Estate Group LLC

@TREGtweets

Price It Right

The best marketing strategy ever invented is called “price it right.” The thought of pricing it high and expecting a buyer to “make an offer” is a myth. Pricing it high is a barrier to the prospective buyer seeing the property at all.

Set Up The Property Appropriately

Furnish rooms for their intended use. In other words, a dining room should showcase dining room furniture. Not a weight bench or pool table. These items should be removed and placed in storage off-site. An empty room is better than one not set for its designed function.

Be Prepared

Whether there is a showing appointment scheduled for that day or not, whenever leaving the house be sure that it is in show ready condition. (Especially if your schedule doesn’t allow you to shoot home on a moment’s notice to prepare the house for a showing)

 

Think something is missing? Comment below and let us know your best real estate marketing ideas!

Church App Checklist: What features do you need?

A mobile app can be a wonderful benefit to the church and the community it serves. Apps enable the church to reach beyond Sunday morning and far beyond the four walls and interact with the community anytime, anywhere. We have seen cases where the number of those using the app, far exceeds church membership. This usually occurs when the congregation begins sharing the app, a favorite sermon, a blog post or daily devotional with a friend. Or perhaps it is as simple as a FaceBook or Twitter post from the app.

We are not here to convince you of the need to go mobile. If you are reading this document, then you are well past that stage. Most churches understand they need to go mobile, they just don’t know how. Therefore, we have written this guide in plain english (no technical talk) to be used as a checklist of features, functionality and use cases you should be considering when going mobile. It will help you understand what is possible and then determine what is right for your church.

As you go through the list below you are going to start to understand the power and possibilities of mobile. When you are done, I believe you will conclude that mobile needs to be woven into the DNA of your church.

A word of caution. As you read through the possibilities you are going to be saying to yourself, YES, I WOULD LOVE TO BE ABLE TO DO THIS but …… how much does it cost. That is the beauty behind BuildFire. The hard work has already been done. We’ve implement solutions for thousands of churches. You can see all the functionality below working in a live on a BuildFire app. Just download “The Vertical Church” on iTunes or on Google Play or go to our website and play with a live web version. So for now just imagine the possibilities and when you’re done reading, let’s talk!!

So let’s get started ……

Mobile giving

An absolute must for any mobile platform. A statistical discussion is beyond the scope of this document, but it should suffice to say that study after study indicates giving increases when a mobile solution is offered. It really is intuitive – when people are thinking about giving, provide them the tools to do so at that moment. Implementing a mobile solution is very easy, especially if you have a mobile friendly giving page on your website. If not, it very inexpensive to change it. No need for any fancy mobile giving software, simply import the web view from your website into your phone. When done right, it will provide the user with a very nice giving experience.

Sermon notes

Another one of those “must haves” in a mobile solution. To begin with, it saves money. How much do those Sunday morning bulletins cost? What if you could print 50% or 80% less? What if there was a last minute sermon change? How about all that material printed for retreats, bible studies, etc. Sermon notes is not just for sermons, they work for any seminar or meeting. Some churches attach follow-on bible study material to a sermon. On the user side, let’s face it, these notes might last a week or two before they are thrown out. Wouldn’t it be nice to have a place to electronically take personal notes while in church or in your Bible study, then store the notes in a private place for future reference, bookmark your favorite notes and be able to search for past notes based upon keywords, etc? Make sure if you are going to implement a sermons note solution that your mobile solution is optimized for tablet use. Most people using this functionality will do so on their iPad or Android tablet.

Church-Sermon-Notes

Push Notifications

An absolute must! Push notes have a 97% read rate!. There are many use cases, but the most valuable are those where you need to reach out and alert people now. A change in a starting time, a cancelled service (a favorite in snow country), a last minute special event, change in Easter service times, a special Good Friday service reminder, etc.. I recall visiting a church where they were expressing disappointment with the attendance at a hastily planned weeknight event. A great guest speaker was in town and they were unable to contact enough of the congregation through email (less than 10% read rate). There are many features to push functionality but one that is key for churches – Groups. The ability to target groups within the church … you don’t want the entire congregation receiving a notification regarding the women’s ministry.

Church-Push-Notification

Daily Devotional/Daily Scripture

A fantastic way to reach out to the congregation; send something inspirational each day. Tie it into the weekly sermon. If you lack the time and resources to do this manually, simply automate …. there are a number of free services that provide messaging that can be automatically updated in the app each day. Find a service you are comfortable with, set it up once and let it run.

Church-Devotionals

Play video recordings of Sermons

For those that can’t make it on a Sunday, are traveling, or perhaps were inspired and want to hear it again (you should be so lucky). Yes, I know sermons are on your website but people today are mobile. They want to watch from their bed, in the back yard, while waiting for a plane, etc. I recall sitting beneath a park tree with my wife while on vacation listening to a sermon from our home church posted earlier that morning. People will share the sermon through the app … “hey … check out this sermon.” If you record your sermons this is a must have and very easy to do. Most churches use YouTube or Vimeo to post their sermon. If so, this functionality is easy to implement. From then on, just update Vimeo or YouTube and your app automatically is updated at the same time.

Play audio recordings of Sermons

This one is more important than video. People love to listen while exercising, walking the dog, in the car, etc. There are a million use case. What is real important for audio …. Make sure the audio player in your app works in “background mode.” In other words, when the app is closed, the audio player still works. Otherwise, every time your app shuts off, you will lose the audio; eliminating 90% of the potential use cases. Seems simple, but many app solutions do not work in background mode.

Calendar/Events

You can have one or many calendars…i.e. One for each ministry or just one comprehensive church calendar. If you maintain an online calendar(s) through Google, Microsoft, etc., you should find a solution that permits app calendars to update automatically from your existing online calendars. No need to manually maintain and update separate calendars. If you choose to integrate a calendar solution, make sure it provides the ability for users to add church events to their personal calendar with a simple “click.” It is nice to be able to periodically peruse the church calendar and add events of interest to my personal calendar. In addition to the date and time, make sure your calendar solution provides for location information (address) to enable mapping and directions functionality. With all of this, you will be able get a reminder of event on your phone along with driving directions and estimated time you should be leaving your current location to arrive on time. That should certainly increase attendance for any event!

Church-Calendar

Home groups/Bible study times and locations

By posting addresses of these groups (along with phone, pictures, descriptions, etc. if you choose) you can make it easy for people to find a group near them. The phone’s GPG function will show a map of where they are in relation to all the groups around them. Find one you like, click on the map to get directions and/or click on the phone number or email to inquire.

Church-Locations

The Bible

An easy call and very easy to implement. Your congregation will now have access to the Bible, anytime, anywhere. There are many on-line Bibles, pick one and use a web-view to enable this on your mobile solution.

Church-Bible

Contact Us/Find the Church

Similar to Home Groups above. You can have a listing of all church staff organized by ministry, alphabetical, etc. Include addresses, pictures, phone numbers, emails, etc. The nice thing about a mobile app is the integration with the phone’s technology for GPS mapping, locations, driving directions, emails, calling etc. ….. as simple as a click and contact. An important note for larger church campuses – make sure you have the capability to provide detailed campus mapping. If looking for the administrative building, the address alone will not be enough. You will need the ability to specifically identify a location on your campus. This is a great on-campus feature for users to easily identify where they are in relation to the Administration Building, Children’s Ministry, Sanctuary, Bookstore, etc.

Public social walls

Men’s & women’s ministries, high school, etc. can all have separate chat walls. These social walls have a variety of uses. Some churches use them as prayer walls, others to allow the congregation to post comments on fun events they have attended, pictures, reminders, encouragement, etc.. We have seen a number of cases where people have reached out for help using either these public or private (see below) walls. It is amazing to see how people respond to those in need. In any case, you should be able to have as many of these walls as your church size warrants. If you implement these social walls, make sure your app requires user registration before they can post to walls and your solution provides an administration panel that enables you to lock out anyone posting inappropriate comments.

Private chat with the church

Some churches like to provide members the ability to chat privately 1X1 with the church. This might be a private prayer wall, someone reaching out for counseling, etc. This is a “many to one” chat feature where anybody with the app (many) can post a private message to the church administration (one) and the church can reply back privately as well.

Church Blog Posts

If you maintain a blog, this is a must. Very easy to integrate into your app via RSS feed. Feeds come in directly from your website into the app, it’s that simple. The good thing about a mobile blog is …. people may actually read it. When you post a new article, send out a push message letting the congregation know there is new material to read. Perhaps add a teaser … preview of what is coming this Sunday. In any case, it is an opportunity to engage and minister during the week.

Pastors-Blog

E-Commerce store

You have a bookstore, selling study material, etc.? Make it available through the app. An upcoming study series …. remind them to purchase materials through push notification and allow them the purchase using the app. This can be done very cost effectively with existing online solutions like Shopify, WooCommerce, etc.. When you settle on a mobile solution make sure you can integrate with an E-Commerce solution. Alternatively, you may already have a mobile friendly E-Commerce site that will work well with a simple web-view.

Sharing the App

It is about sharing your faith so make sure you have this functionality. The ability to send and email, text, etc. with a link to download the app. The link can accompany any message you like. “Hey … check out my church and listen to the sermon last Sunday; it was awesome!!!” I know many people who encourage their children who are at college or moved away to stay engaged with their “home church” on the app.

Sharing on Social Media

Similar to share the app. Make sure people can sign into your app using Facebook and Twitter. Provide them with messaging and graphics that they can easily be posted their their Facebook and Twitter accounts telling them about their great church!. The user can of course create their own message, but pre-templated messages provided by the church make it easier and you control the message. Think about including a short video in the message. Can you imagine the entire congregation sharing this on their Facebook and Twitter accounts; how many people would see this video? You will grow the congregation and likely find you have followers who are not even in your geographic area but like your sermons, blog posts, music, etc.

Youth Attendance Rewards

This one is a bit different but very cool. A twist on Loyalty and Reward functionality built into some app solutions. All kids have smartphones; so engage with them. Set up an attendance based reward system where, based upon attendance, they earn points towards rewards like a personal bible, church hat or tee shirt … the possibilities are endless. You just need a “check in” feature that is controlled by youth staff and a tracking method. Most loyalty based programs can do this.

Appointment setting

If your church offers counseling or other appointment based services, this one might be right for you. This provides the ability for users to view your calendar and set an appointment. No worries here, they can’t see your personal calendar, just a calendar where you have identified times when appointments are available. You can also limit the amount of time that can be booked … only one 15 minute spot can be booked at a time. This is an easy one to implement. There are a number of free or relatively inexpensive third party solutions that can provide this functionality, just make sure your app can integrate with the one you choose.

Church-Appointment-Setting

Forms Submission

How many forms are filled out each year at your church? Let’s pass on listing all the possible examples and just say it is a lot. Wouldn’t it be nice to have all these forms completed and submitted electronically? It is super cheap and very easy to integrate into a mobile app. Take a look at the options and pre-formatted templates available from Google forms, JotForms, TypeForms, to get some ideas. If forms is a need, make sure your app can integrate with the solution you choose. Also, make sure your mobile solution is optimized for tablet use. Most people using this functionality will do so on their iPad or Android tablet.

Polls, Surveys, RSVPs

Want feedback of any type, try a service like PollDaddy; they even have a free service. It is easily integrated into mosts apps. The point with mobile is that you can reach people and request feedback in real time, wherever they are. Send a push notice and ask for immediate feedback. Better than sending an email, waiting for them to get in front of their computer, hoping they read it (or it gets past the spam filter), further hoping they go to the survey website and then waiting and see if you get a response.

Church-Polls

Voter Registration

Encourage the congregation to be registered. Many states have an online process. Create an interface on your phone, it is easy. On election day, send out a push message reminding the congregation to fulfill their civic duty.

Multiple Ministries on a single App

I see many churches with multiple apps. I saw one recently that had a High School app, another for Jr. High, a music ministry app, a men’s group app, a separate one just for sermon notes. Yikes!!! … what a maintenance nightmare and talk about confusing the congregation. With advanced folder capability (keeping each ministry within their own folder) and the Group Push functionality we discussed earlier, a single app should be able to provide for each of these ministries and/or functions. These capabilities should even provide for multiple campuses on a single app as well. There is no need for multiple apps.

Listen to Christian Radio

There are a lot of great Christian radio stations that broadcast over the internet. Stream their broadcast through the app. Give the congregation a few stations to listen to while on the go, in the car, walking the dog, etc. The app provides them with mobile access.

What do you think? Could your church benefit from a mobile solution? Have questions, want to explore more possibilities or just get started? Click here to set a 15 minute appointment with one of our church experts here at Buildfire.

How to Build and Manage a Team of Remote Content Writers

Maintaining a successful marketing strategy for your business requires a consistent stream of fresh content that offers value to your visitors. To some business owners, content creation sounds like an easy job, but many companies lack the time and motivation to do it. If you don’t have a dedicated writer in your team and your employees aren’t willing to contribute, you can profit from hiring a team of remote writers.

By hiring remote workers, you will have access to a wide talent pool of writers from all over the world. On top of that, your business will save on overhead costs and your remote writers will enjoy a better work-life balance while working from the comfort of their home.

Despite all of the benefits remote work brings for you and your employees, you might experience challenges with finding the right writers and managing your remote team. Take a look at the following advice to help you make the process of assembling a remote writing team easier.

 

Develop a Content Strategy

Before you start looking for writers, you need to create an effective content strategy that will help you decide on the type and number of writers you need to hire. The strategy will also help you stay focused on your long-term goals and not just on producing content.

You first need to decide what exactly you want to achieve with your strategy and set goals that are in line with your business plan. Spend some time researching your target audience and analyzing their needs and interests. This research will help you decide on the type of content that you’ll produce. Any type of content you decide to create should have a clearly defined purpose.

Define the style and the length of the content and estimate the number of posts you are going to publish each week. Spend some time evaluating the goals of your content marketing strategy as this will help you find the right writers for your company.

 

Determine How Many Content Writers You Need

Once you know what kind of content you are going to create and how often you are going to publish it, you will need to decide how many writers to hire. Dedicate a week of your time to creating the content you need by yourself. This will help you evaluate the time required to do the job.

Knowing how much time it takes to create a certain amount of content will help you determine how many writers you need. Being able to judge the number of writers you need is important because, by hiring an inadequate number of employees, you’ll risk burdening them with too much work.

On the other hand, assembling a team composed of too many workers can create a lot of idle time, and your writers might look elsewhere to find work when they learn that you can’t keep them busy. By hiring the right number of writers, you will ensure you always have fresh content on your blog.

 

Understand the Skillset Required for the Job

The type of writers you need to hire will predominantly depend on the kind of content that needs to be created for your target audience. Different content types require different writing skills, so keeping this in mind will help you pinpoint the right writers for your company.

You should focus on finding writers who have the ability to write for different audiences and strategies. Writers with experience in long-form journalism can help present the compelling story of your company. Those with experience working at a copy desk or for a marketing agency can deliver sharp and witty content.

It goes without saying that the main skill you are looking for is the ability to write. However, industry knowledge and a basic understanding of SEO are also important prerequisites you should look for in your writers.

Other important features you should look for include basic planning and organizational skills. Since your remote writers will be working without your immediate supervision, they should be self-disciplined and self-motivated to meet deadlines. In general, remote workers produce 13 percent more than their in-office coworkers, so you shouldn’t be too concerned about them not producing content on a regular basis.

Find Experienced Writers

Finding the right writers might not be easy and may take some time. However, patience and persistence in this part of the process can definitely pay out. Taking the time to find skilled writers will help you develop your content marketing strategy to its full potential. This, in turn, will drive traffic to your site, raise brand awareness and develop your authority.

Since you are hiring remote workers you will have an extremely wide talent pool to choose from. Try not to rely too much on low-quality freelance sites as this can leave you disappointed. At first, the pricing might seem attractive, but the quality of the writing might not suit you. Putting the word out to your network of contacts will help you find experienced writers who can deliver the high-quality content you need. You can also try finding writers by asking recommendations from your business colleagues.

Experienced writers often have their own websites, which can simplify your search. This allows you to review examples of their work and see whether their style suits your company. Look for writers who have the experience and background you need and ask to see various samples before making them an official part of your team.

You can also give potential employees an assignment to test their writing skills. Give them a topic and basic guidelines, and let them write an article. Try testing their proofreading and editing skills as well by giving them an article that needs to be checked. These simple assignments will help you decide whether the candidate is a good fit for your company.

 

Managing the Team

Once you’ve found the right team of writers, you will quickly realize that managing a remote team differs from your previous experiences overseeing traditional workers. For example, you can’t always instantly respond to questions and concerns, and it can take a long time to give and receive feedback. Also, keeping track of your remote writers’ status and progress is one of the hardest parts of managing a remote team.

You will need to compensate for the different communication requirements by using tools that can improve your team’s efficiency. Defining the writing guidelines will also help keep your content strategy on course. The following tips will help you manage your remote workers efficiently.

 

Set Up a Centralized Communication System

Focusing on regular and effective communication with your remote writers should be your top priority. Remote workers can’t stop by your office every time they need to ask you a question. That is why you need to decide on a centralized communication system every employee will use.

Using team chat apps such as Slack or Google Hangouts will enable you to limit the use of email for correspondence. This will allow your remote employees to quickly and easily communicate and share information with you and each other. It will also give you a chance to communicate your expectations, give instructions and establish deadlines and goals.

Consider using project management apps to organize your tasks and track projects. Apps such as Trello or Asana can help your team manage resources and responsibilities, and finish projects on time.

Collaborative systems such as Google Docs can enable you to work on projects in real time. Working this way removes the tedious exchange of latest document versions via email. It also allows you to check on the status of work being done by each writer.

Using video conferencing software for virtual meetings with your remote employees is a great way to brainstorm ideas and discuss projects. Solving problems and making decisions this way can also be much easier than relying on chat.

 

Define the Style Guide

It is important that all of your writers produce content that is consistent in style, tone, and voice. Establishing rules and guidelines early in your relationship with remote writers will help you avoid misunderstandings and run a smooth operation.

Create a style guide that will help your writers in creating content that is structured, organized and professional. This guide should document the preferred spelling, punctuation, grammar, terminology, formatting, and design. A style guide will help all of your writers stay on the same page by establishing the basic rules to follow.

Every member of the team should have access to the guide at all times and it should always have the latest information with recent updates highlighted so your team will easily notice them. This way, your team can refer to the guide whenever they need to and you can make sure that all of their writing is uniform.

 

Refine the Process

As work progresses, routinely ask your writers for feedback, so you can improve your processes and enjoy better outcomes. Don’t be discouraged by setbacks and failures because creating the right framework for managing remote writers takes time and effort. If you focus on consistent improvements, you’ll reap returns in the form of a team that works well together while achieving your goals.

 

Final Word

Hiring remote writers give you the ability to orchestrate complicated marketing efforts without the need for traditional in-office workers. Finding the right writers for your remote team and managing them will require a lot of effort on your part. However, with continuous work towards improvements, you will have an efficient production process that consistently hands you the content you need to build success.

 

About the Author: Jill Phillips is a freelance writer from Buffalo, NY. She writes about business and tech topics. When she is not writing, Jill enjoys taking photos and hiking with her dog. Connect with Jill via Twitter @jillphlps