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ASK MR. INTERNET
Multimedia magic
Bring Your Site Alive With Multimedia
Adding audio and video to your Web site will have a miraculous effect on your sales.
Dear Mr. Internet:
What are the best ways to "jazz up" my Web site and make it more interactive, fun, and interesting for my visitors?
Stef Lukas
Lukas Group Realty
Calgary, Alberta
Canada
Dear Stef:
"Jazz-up" is a good way of describing what happens to your visitors’ experience when you include well thought-out multimedia elements at your site. There are some very exciting possibilities that will definitely grab the attention of your visitors and help you stand head and shoulders above your competition.
The Power of The Voice
One of the easiest and quickest ways to add compelling multimedia content to your site is by incorporating audio clips. It’s also a great way to build rapport with Internet-enabled clients who might not welcome a phone call. A Web-based service called AudioGenerator makes adding audio as simple as leaving a voicemail message. Once you’ve subscribed to the services for $29.95 a month (at this writing), your next step is to call the toll-free number and record your message of up to five minutes in length. There is no limit to the number of messages you can record or to the sites you can attach them to. The company will then e-mail you a one-line text that you can paste on your Web site to create a link to your audio on the company’s server. Click here to see how Phyllis Staines of RE/MAX Coastal Real Estate uses it to "jazz-up" her Web site (see the audio and video buttons in the middle of the page). You can get fancier by adding lead-in/lead-out music, editing the voice recording, and then uploading the final mix as a high-quality MP3 file to the AudioGenerator site. Click here to see how these kinds of effects are incorporated in a site I recently created for the REVA Network of virtual assistants. There’s a different audio message from me on nearly every page.
Multimedia is Worth a Million Words
If you or your clients are more visually oriented, there are plenty of inexpensive and relatively easy ways you can use multimedia tools originally designed for marketing listings and repurpose them into tours of neighborhoods, parks, or scenic spots in your market. Here are some examples:
- Cool tour of a warm place. Charles Williams of the Winter Park Land Co. hired virtual assistant Kim Hughes of Dallas to put together this multimedia tour of Winter Park, Fla., that incorporates photos, music, and text. Hughes used Imprev, a program designed for developing marketing communications online. First, Hughes picks from one of the predesigned templates, then uploads photos of whatever you’d like to tour, and adds descriptive text. Then click a button, and the program will create a Flash movie that can be uploaded to your Web site or hosted on the company’s site. Click here to view the tour. Diane Dunn with Coldwell Banker, Willis-Smith of New Bern, N.C., also uses Imprev for her area tours. Click here to see an example.
- Map-based guided tours. Rick Lorenz, a broker with the Wells Group Real Estate Brokerage in Durango, Colo., uses a different, but equally clever, approach. Click here to see how he has incorporated a map of his area into his Web site with "hot spots" that link to multimedia tours of the corresponding area. (Be sure to click on the red spots to launch the tours.) In this case, Lorenz used VisualTour for delivering the multimedia content. If you have VisualTour software, creating this type of multimedia tour is very similar to the process you’d follow to create a visual tour of a listing. Connecting it to a map is a little more difficult, but a Web designer or VA who knows how to create hot spot links can do it for you quickly.
Have Your Site Come Alive (Literally!)
If you really want to push the envelope of multimedia interactivity, the place to begin is BlueStream.
Developed by Rovion of Lexington, Ky., this remarkable service allows you to add "personality" to your site in a way that must be seen to be believed. Keep in mind that this kind of multimedia is highly sophisticated and requires a scripted digital video shot in front of a "blue-screen" (like most TV weather forecasters use). Bluestream essentially takes these edited digital video files and converts them into a special kind of Flash file that "pops" above everything else on your screen. It is probably out of the budget and practicality range of most real estate salespeople, but then again, so were listing virtual tours when they first came out in the mid-1990s. So even if it’s little more than wishful thinking now, click here to view a real estate example on Mary Ann Simmons’ Realty Executives Premier site (you may be asked to install Macromedia Flash Player, if you don’t currently have it on your system). When you go to view a site that uses BlueStream multimedia, it will ask you to enable a small Java applet; you must say "Okay" in order to view the effect.Also be sure your speakers are on.
The multimedia Web-site enhancements I’ve covered here are just the beginning of where online real estate marketing is going over the next few years. As high-speed Internet connections become ubiquitous, the unlimited supply of creative talent around the world will continue to find ever more clever ways to utilize it for enhancing your message. And that's real "cool jazz" baby!
More Resources
AudioGenerator. An easy and inexpensive way to add your voice or any other kind of audio to your Web site.
Imprev. A Web-based multimedia marketing materials service that enables you to create awesome Flash tours (with background music) of just about anything, including neighborhoods, schools, and other points of interest.
VisualTour. A software system designed to let real estate practitioners create their own visual tours and other electronic marketing materials.
BlueStream. A highly innovative and sophisticated way to make your site come alive.
Mr. Internet’s Tip of the Month
Saying that most people are tired of pop-up ads on the Web is putting it mildly. Now, thanks to the very innovative folks at Google, there is a way you can instantly put a stop to them, as well as have access to other very cool tools to help improve your browsing experience. Even better, the service is free.
Just go to http://toolbar.google.com, and follow the prompts for adding the latest Google toolbar to your browser. Just click on the link and the toolbar will load itself. It will immediately stop those annoying pop-up ads. And, if you do a lot of shopping on the Internet, you can set it up to automatically complete most forms with a click of a button. I personally love this feature because I purchase nearly everything online.
So go ahead, fulfill your New Year's resolution of no more pop-ups, and while you're at it, buy something nice for yourself on the Web.
Article Resources
Bring Speed and Simplicity to Your Web Site , Marketing Your Brokerage Tool Kit.
Tech Watch: Services Help Build or Enhance Your Web Site , Mike Antoniak, November 2003.
Previously by Ask Mr. Internet:
Let Your Virtual Assistant Do It
Searching All Contacts
Marketing Made Easy
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