On Tuesday we launched the premier of the “Ask the Experts” live real estate forum. Thanks to our terrific panel of experts, a great turnout and active participation from the audience, the forum was a success!

Overall, participants rated each of the experts with marks of excellence for presentation and content covered. Due to the positive response, we’ll be continuing the series, so stay tuned for future Ask the Experts!

If you weren’t able attend, here’s your chance to hear the valuable information and advice the experts gave out to real estate professionals.

Listen to the full version:

Or, listen to the individual experts here:

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In just a few days, on Tuesday, August 12 there is a HomeGain sponsored event taking place that I wanted to make sure all you Realtors knew about. It’s a live phone forum called “Ask the Experts” featuring an exceptional team of experts!

Meet the Experts:

• Joseph Ferrara of Sellsius Real Estate Blog – “Blogging Advice”
• Brian Brady of World Wide Credit Corp – “Mortgage Advice”
• Mitch Ribak of Tropical Realty of Suntree – “Lead Capture and Conversion”
• Jay Thompson of Thompson’s Realty – “Online Presence”

It’s a free call where you’ll get sound advice – and be able to ask these experts questions that relate specifically to your business! There are already a couple hundred people registered, so we are anticipating an interesting and fun event.

See the full email invitation.

Sign up here and we’ll see you on Tuesday.

If your email gets labeled as SPAM, it will not get read.

Many seemingly innocent and time-honored ad words are now considered SPAM words or add high SPAM “points” to filters which decide whether to toss an email. You may be using them in your e-mail subject lines without knowing it. Here’s a little help with that.

There are dozens of dirty words but I chose these as my top 10:

1. Free
2. Congratulations
3. Compare rates
4. Great offer
5. Order now
6. Guarantee
7. Amazing
8. Increase sales (started by another dirty email)
9. Dear friend (or your name)
10. Cash

Other SPAM triggers: Continue reading this post

Email marketing is another tool to increase business and drive traffic to your website but the emails must be received AND read to have any chance of success.

Here are some tips to smart email marketing:

1. Craft a compelling “grabber” subject line

Like any news article or blog post, the most important part is the headline. Like a headline, the subject line is your first contact with a reader and, like all first impressions, it is critical to craft a compelling reason to open the email. It is even more important with email. Emails are competing with a lot of other emails the reader is trying to cull—the delete button has been humming already before it gets to yours. How will you avoid that death null?

The best subject lines are simple, direct headlines. News or how-to advice seem to work best. Come on ads are removed faster than a weed in Martha Stewart’s garden.

2. Use HTML rather than plain text

Photos are an important part of any story and help get your story across. So is audio and video. They are more interesting than the WOT (wall of text).

3. Use professionally designed email templates

These are usually spam friendly and allow you to customize and brand as you like. Don’t be vanilla. Add links in the message to different parts of your site and measure which attract the most clicks. Continue reading this post

Real Estate Radio USA Inquires About Blogging School

Barry Cunningham and Barry Johnson of Real Estate Radio USA invited HomeGain’s Louis Cammarosano and Sellsius Real Estate Blog’s Joseph Ferrara to talk about the new Blogging School for real estate agents.

Listen to the radio show Continue reading this post

HomeGain officially opened the virtual doors of the HomeGain Blogging School today. The HomeGain Blogging School will provide AgentView agents with weekly tips on how to best use their HomeGain blogs. Tuition to the HomeGain Blogging School is included in the price of a AgentView subscription.

HomeGain has retained the services of HomeGain Guest Blogger, Joseph Ferrara, of the Sellsius Real Estate Blog to become the HomeGain Blogging School’s first instructor.

Mr. Ferrara, a.k.a. the “Blog Professor”, will be reviewing the blog posts on the HomeGain Agent Blogging Network and providing constructive feedback and tips to HomeGain AgentView agents via a weekly Blog Tip Newsletter.

“For blogging to work, it needs to be done right,” said HomeGain General Manager, Louis Cammarosano. “While there are many useful seminars that teach Realtors how to utilize blogging and social media, the HomeGain Blogging School will provide weekly and often personalized instruction. We are delighted that our customers in the HomeGain Agent Blogging Network will have access to the weekly blogging wisdom of Mr. Ferrara.”

Louis Cammarosano

Continue reading this post