pA:12, v7.27 — Business News & Trends

Business News & Trends

Mountain Views News Saturday, July 6, 2013

MVNews this week: Page A:12

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BUSINESS NEWS & TRENDS

Mountain Views News Saturday, July 6, 2013

FROM “LESS” TO “YES”

The painful truth: Sellers who do not price their property competitively are the most likely targets of
lowball offers. In soft markets, buyers are more prone to make low offers on listings seen to be priced
too high. Listings that don't sell usually require price reductions, which in turn often mean ultimately
accepting an offer lower than you could have received by pricing aggressively from Day One.

Since selling your home can be such an emotional and subjective experience, it's easy to understand
why you'd be reluctant to counter an offer below your asking price. But rather than feel insulted, try to
see it as the beginning of a dialogue that could ultimately produce a sale.

If you feel any of the terms or conditions of the offer are unacceptable, ask your agent to present a
counter-offer. Sometimes buyers and sellers don't really know beforehand what price they'll accept
until they've begun the negotiations. For example, a buyer might agree to a higher price than planned
if interest rates suddenly drop.

If you've received a lower than expected offer, but the buyers have proven their qualifications and commitment
by securing loan pre-approval, you have grounds for serious consideration. The process of
counter-offering can be swiftly settled or carry on ad nauseam. Be prepared to explore all options and
act quickly before letting your negotiations fail.

INTEGRATED
SOCIAL CAMPAIGNS

Most businesses use a 90/10 approach to their social media messaging strategy.
90% of content is valuable, informative, interesting, helpful, fun, entertaining and offers a view into
your brand’s culture. 10% is promotional in nature

The best way to approach the promotional side is to think “campaign.” Stick to a single, simple, clear
message and know exactly the response you want. Promote the same campaign message on all your
social channels and use the same hashtag.

Campaign types could range from offers, product or service promotions, membership drives,
invitations, updates, announcements like “we’ve moved,” or surveys and discussions.

Start with email marketing, create an email flyer. Think old school; remember when you printed
flyers and posted them on bulletin boards around your community? Create a simple email flyer
that you will post on your other social channels. Use a tool like Constant Contact to create a mobile
friendly, branded email. Make sure the call to action is “above the scroll.” This means you don’t
have to scroll down the page to see the important stuff. Use one image, 2-3 sentences explaining the
promotion and a big link for the response you want. Email your flyer to your greatest fans, current
customers and prospects and put a social share bar on the top of the email so it is easy for them to
share it for you. Stick to a single message and a clear call to action.

Facebook. Distribute your email flyer to your Facebook fans. Use a big picture and a link back to
the flyer you created in Constant Contact. Depending on the type of campaign, you might consider
promoting it with a unique hashtag. Each hashtag on Facebook has its own unique url so you could
also drive traffic to that url from other sites to get more engagement and spark discussion.

Twitter. Say a few words about the promotion and put a link to the email flyer. If the url is lengthy,
use a tool like bit.ly to shorten it, which also allows you to track how many people clicked on the link.

Web site or blog. If you feed your Twitter or Facebook posts to your web site, you won’t have to
worry about updating your web site. As you promote on Facebook or Twitter, it will populate your
web site.

Instagram and Vine Create a fun video about your campaign. Maybe it’s a video that teases the
campaign or shows the product you are promoting in different settings or how it benefits different
people. Post these on Facebook and Twitter.

After your campaign, measure your results. Did people do what you wanted them to do? How many
people clicked on your link, took action? Take time to assess the campaign and learn what worked
well and what didn’t. Take what you learned and repeat in your next campaign.

About MJ: MJ and her brother David own HUTdogs, a creative services business that specializes in Internet Marketing
strategies. They are known for providing valuable information at their Social Media and Email Marketing classes. “Like” them
on Facebook for trending news in social media, internet marketing and other helpful tips, www.facebook.com/hutdogs.

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