We all get a little crazed at times when we are about to head off on vacation. When we travel, we think we remembered to do something, but then we find that we did not do it. Others might find that there are some things which people have heard to do for so long that we just brush it aside and never take these travel tips. Here are a few for you.One of the biggest things we have seen is that people do not give themselves enough time to plan. When you plan, you need to be able to book things far enough in advance as there might be times when they fill up. You need to know when these times are and start getting dates so that you can make it there in time.Making sure you have everything you have to have can seem like a tedious task. We have all been there before, but here is what we have learned from traveling. We have learned that it is usually just best to buy a new toothbrush just for travel so you do not have to worry about if you remembered yours or not. Buying travel size is usually well also. Make a list of the things which you need to get.Arriving early and leaving early is always a good suggestion too. Too many people leave at the last minute or so forth. However, when you do not factor in road construction or long waits, then you might find that you miss a flight or show up late. This can ruin your plans greatly. We even suggest bringing with you a book so that you can read and if you have kids, bring something that can keep them entertained.As you look at how you are going to pay for things, one must know of a few tips we have for this as well. One such thing is to make sure that you go to call in your cards. If you spend too much money and they cannot call you, they might cut off your limits. Others think they can just carry cash, but that is not a very good idea to carry that much cash on you.While this should be something you already know, your safety as you are a tourist should be a priority. Therefore, you should carry ID with you in case something does happen. The other thing to remember is that women should never travel alone. You should try not to walk places after dark as well.One of the very last things would be how to stay safe at the hotel. You need to be sure you lock your door. Make certain to carry things that might be of value with you. If not, you need to ask for a safe. This ensures that you do not get ripped off. While you want to assume that you would be safe, you could never be certain. Do not even take the chance.These are things to remember. When you travel, think wisely. There are tips that people will tell you over and over again, but many do not stop to listen. Read about the area and read about the things they tell you to be mindful of and be prepared of. This can allow you to have a fun time.
Commercial Agents – Tips to Increase the Sales of Commercial Property Today
When it comes to the sale of any commercial property today, there is plenty of competition to contend with. In most cities and towns, there are many good properties listed and being actively marketed. The biggest frustration in selling commercial property today is in finding the right buyers who can act with appropriate finance. In simple terms there are fewer buyers around; the experience and expertise of the real estate agent is more important than ever before in the sale process.From the outset of the property marketing campaign, the specific target market should be the focus. All of the advertising should be written with a view to the targeted buyer. Clarity is important here.All of the advertising for the property should be structured around the target and what they are looking for today; the advertisements, promotional material, Internet listings, and direct mail campaigns should all be similarly structured.To understand this target market ask yourself these questions.
Where is the buyer for the property coming from?
What is the buyer looking for in selecting a property?
How much can they spend and on what terms?
What are the real features of the property that the advertising should be built around?
What is the best time of year to attract a buyer to the property?
What is the best method of sale that will attract the buyer to enquire and then to purchase?
What are the negative issues relating to the property that should be addressed prior to the campaign commencing?
What are the comparable properties nearby that frustrate the marketing process?
So these questions are critical to the property promotion strategy. The buyers in today’s property market are selective and fickle. There are fewer buyers around and negotiations take longer. That being said, the experience and skills of the real estate agent in the promotion, inspection, and closing of a property transaction is now more important than ever before. Knowledge and practice will help the process.Every marketing campaign has to address the target market and promote the individual property. The days of generic marketing are gone. Specific target marketing with dedicated advertising that really encourages enquiry should be the main focus of every campaign.The best ways to increase the levels of enquiry in every commercial property campaign include the following:
The buyers of commercial property typically come from the local area. This means that your campaign should be directed to the local property owners and the local business owners. To achieve this focus, it is best to direct mail and telephone the owners and the businesses that own or occupy local property. Every piece of direct mail should be followed up to optimise the enquiry and the information.
When any property comes on the market, within the first 24 hours ensure that flyers and information brochures are personally delivered to the neighboring properties and businesses within a radius of 500 metres.
Place a prominent signboard on the property at the start of the campaign. This is perhaps the best and most cost efficient way of promoting any property. If possible ensure that the signboard has specifically been created with property information and sale details.
When you draft your advertisements for the property promotion, use the keywords that apply today to the property type and location. These keywords will help the Internet Marketing and Internet listing. You can research the keywords from the larger search engines on the Internet. These keywords will be the words that the buyers of property are entering into the search engines when looking for properties to purchase.
When the promotion of property commences, make personal contact with the database within your office. This means telephone calls and meetings with the appropriate people. The information and leads that you gather from the campaign will be helpful in other property promotions at a later time. All the information should be entered into your database.
E-mail marketing will be a useful tool for every property promotion. Most agents are selectively sending out e-mail marketing each week. Any property promotion can be merged into this process.
To sell a property today, the best method of sale should be selected. That will be the method that buyers respond to and act within. Do not choose a method of sale that can frustrate the potential purchasers. The
Vendor paid marketing remains the normal and sensible alternative in every marketing campaign. Any serious property vendor will commit marketing funds to the promotion of their own property. Always ask for vendor paid advertising to comprehensively cover the target market.
Create an inspection process and strategy that covers the property and its features. Understand exactly how you will take people to and around the property. Identify the right things to talk about with buyers, and get market information to support your presentations or inspections.
Even in this tougher property environment, good properties will sell. It is a matter of the agency working hard to locate the buyers and then promote the property effectively. This is a personal process when it comes to each and every property.Open listings are generally a waste of time today as they always take longer to sell. Every serious vendor that needs to sell their property should commit to an exclusive listing and marketing campaign with one specialist commercial agency for a period of at least three or four months. If the property is unique then that time line will be longer.
What Is ‘Connection Marketing’?
Expand With Connection MarketingWhat you can do now to thrive in the new economy…If this has caught your attention it’s because we’re discussing Connection Marketing.What is Connection Marketing?In this article, I’ll go into an overview of what Connection Marketing is, and what you can do NOW to thrive in these new economic times.Connection Marketing: What is it?Marketing:My definition of ‘marketing’ is the communication between a business and a consumer. A ‘consumer’ is a potential customer; also know as a prospect. Any type of communication between the business and the consumer – whether it be through a video, through an ad, through a brochure – is what I consider ‘marketing’.Connection:’Connection’ means that the exchanges that take place, between business and consumer, do so in a friendly and humane manner. The interaction is from one person to another; NOT from a corporation trying to jam something down your throat.A quick back storyThe industrial economy brought us the television. The T.V. allowed us to market our products and services to the masses. In order to reach the general population, companies needed to create average products and services.This is in the traditional marketing sense. It’s the traditional way of doing things.Back then, we used to buy things that we NEEDED. As long as a company created a product that filled a NEED, they’d be able to advertise it – traditionally – and make money. But what happened is they started making bland and regular products so they could sell as many as possible to the masses.The internet has changed everything. It has made it possible to reach the most unique groups of people. The mass market has been dissolved – we no longer buy what we NEED, we buy what we WANT. And that means that businesses can now thrive by creating unique products, to unique segments of the population. This is where connection marketing comes in.Since people buy what they WANT (they already have everything they NEED), we should ask ourselves what that is. We don’t need to create something super bland and uniform, and we don’t have to worry about selling a bazillion units to average people. All of a sudden you can make niche products; very unique products, to niche crowds.Quick Recap:For the past 100 years here’s how I’ve seen the promotion of a product or service – the ‘marketing’. For the past 100 years, it’s been:Annoying: You ever watch a T.V. show, and every commercial timeout you see runs the same ad? Whether it be for Pizza Pops or Cadillac cars, they are very annoying and repetitive.Repetitive: They hope it burns into your brain, so that when you see it, you feel compelled to purchase it.Interruptive: When you’re looking for information you visit a blog. Within the first second you’re bombarded by pop-ups, asking for your e-mail address so they can send you something great. Don’t get me wrong I’m all for that, but give me a chance to read the headline!Exaggerative: The best example I can use for this is when you go to a fast food restaurant. How good does that burger look when it’s up on the billboard, or on posters? Of course when you get it, it looks NOTHING like advertised…Here’s how I see the next 100 years of promotion for a product or service – or the next 100 years of ‘marketing’:Relevant: Because we’re selling unique products to unique people, all of a sudden we don’t have to advertise our stuff absolutely everywhere. Only those people who have shown an interest or may have looked at something like this in the past, will see our ads or marketing, therefore making it relevant to them.Subtle: Imagine if you’re someone who loves books, but everywhere you look you see ads for sneakers… That not very subtle, and you’d notice that right away since it’s not very appealing to you.Anticipated: This is especially true when it comes to e-mail correspondence. Most companies now collect e-mails (which is understandable). The problem is that you get the same 6 e-mails a day, containing promotion notices, sales, and early-bird specials whether you want them or not. Because these messages are not anticipated, it is the MAJOR factor that makes a person decide to ‘opt-out’. In the future, these anticipated messages (also being relevant) will see much better open rates. Also, a person only gets the information they agree to receive.Honest: This may sound trivial, but a very important example is pricing an item at 49.99$. “Who are you kidding?” “Call it like it is!” You’ll never see two people at a party with the following exchange: “Nice shoes… how much did you pay?” “I paid 49.99$” Your marketing message should be from one person to another.The good news is that it’s all looking up from here! Taking a look at the past 100 years and the next 100 years, you can see that it’s looking good.The world is a different place… People want to connect.That means:NO MORE bureaucracyNO MORE ridiculous policiesNO MORE exploitation from greedy corporationsDecisions based on ROI are the ways of old – No more greedy fat-cats, wearing suits, drinking scotch and smoking big cigars making decisions based on how much money they can squeeze from people.Connection Marketing encourages better values; such as honesty and integrity.We don’t have to engineer bland products to serve average people, nor should we cater to a general public anymore.We can be TRANSPARENT. We can be OURSELVES.I truly believe that we can be successful when we follow this etiquette.Transitioning to Connection MarketingYou’re probably wondering: “How can I make the transition to connection marketing?… Will it work?”Well, most aspects of connection marketing are very similar to those of traditional marketing…You still have things like an online store or website, you still use landing pages to collect e-mails, you still offer products and services, and of course, you’re still making a profit!You’re still in business; you still provide value for people and for that you get paid handsomely.It’s the METHOD by which you carry yourself that’s different.It’s the look, the feel, the layout of the online store… It’s the look, the feel, the offer of the landing page… It’s what you do with those e-mails… It’s the product or the service that you’re offering that’s different.The 3 Pillars to Connection MarketingCABBIT – An aspect of your offering is remarkable and worth talking about.If you were driving down a country road and saw a cow in the field, you probably wouldn’t look twice. But imagine it was a PURPLE cow! (referencing Seth Godin’s incredible book titled Purple Cow)You’d most likely stop, take pictures, upload them to social media, and call your friends and family to explain what you saw. That’s because a purple cow is remarkable and worth talking about. Whether your product already has a Cabbit, or whether it needs one, it’s something you want to lead-off with. What truly separates you from your competition?CONNECTION – Opening the channel of communication with your prospects – creating a two-way dialogue.This pertains to the e-mail sequences mostly. Rather than bombarding people with unrelated, unanticipated messages, you’re creating an open dialogue with consumers. Imagine that you want to upgrade, update, or create a new product. Now imagine being able to ask your fans what they like/dislike about the current version. No more guesswork! Plus, a person might be more inclined to purchase your new product knowing they had a say in its creation. Powerful, and not to be taken advantage of… It’s free research!CONTRIBUTION – With our newfound success, we’re able to support worthwhile causes.I believe we all have a need to contribute – amongst others. We all want to help others. We want to do great things together. What if you build contribution into your ticket price? What if you took a portion of profits from every sale and donated it to a certain charity. Some people would like to do business with you merely because they’d be helping others. You’re not JUST doing it as a clever ploy to sell more stuff, but you WANT to do it because you’re helping others – and it’s good KARMA.I realize just may still have a few questions…How do I know this really works?Let me ask you this:Are you tired of the way you’re being marketed to by other companies?Are you tired of receiving irrelevant and unanticipated e-mails from companies?Are you tired of being misled by fine-print and exaggerated claims?These are traditional methods of marketing.If you’re fed up, chances are that lots of others are too.How do I know if this is a good investment?The fact of the matter is that traditional marketing methods are working less and less – companies find themselves spending more advertising money than ever, to have the same effect they may have had in the past.On a daily basis, we’re bombarded by 3000-7000 ads. We’ve grown so accustomed to them, we tune them out. Large corporations then resort to ‘ramping it up’. “We’ll just be louder than ever!” (Just look at how we now get ads in our inbox).I believe it’s possible to reach MORE, while spending LESS. The key is Connection Marketing.What I’m suggesting is that we stop marketing to EVERYONE though repetitive, average marketing and we instead start CONNECTING to unique markets – offering truly remarkable options.I’m sure there are many companies headed in this direction…Let’s start utilizing this approach as a means of promoting ‘the human connection agenda’.