QUOTE (markl @ Jan 5 2010, 10:22 AM) Hi Everybody,
Well it has been a big week book has launched and now my new website is up and running. Any and all feedback is welcome I would like to hear your thoughts on it.
Thanks
Hi Mark,
First congratulations on your book and website launch! It takes a great amount of drive to complete these kinds of projects and you obviously have worked hard to deliver them. I have plenty to learn about real estate and have found this site and its members to be very helpful. I do have marketing experience and offer a few comments in the spirit of helping and because you have asked for feedback. The comments are intended to help you be more effective at what you want to do, I`m sure I will benefit from your insights on the real estate side. I tried to PM this but don`t have priviledges to do so it appears.
I have not explored all features of your site but just the main screen, a couple of submenus and the article with your profile in Canadian Real Estate Magazine. BTW another congrats on scoring the interview. A valuable marketing asset and well displayed as it should be.
The overall appearance and layout of the site is attractive and logical. Artwork is good but starting to stray into two many colours. The blue/white/green/yellow looks fine, but IMO black banner, red icons etc. is starting to clutter. Moving banners are attention-getting but might really kill your views from the dialup surfers still out there. Perhaps not presenting them in an endless scroll would be sufficient. Show them once then offer a `next` button for viewers who want more.
My biggest caution is in superfluous marketing language like "world`s best real estate investor" or "greatest secrets of investing that real estate agents don`t want you to know". Hopefully when you read these you cringed and thought I`d never say something like that. I have an aversion to hype. I see lots of it and it both turns me off the product and makes me question its credibility. So when I see "the book everyones talking about", I am lead into the thought path of I`m not sure that`s true and if thats the kind of statement being made right up front, how good or credible is the content to follow? Much better to focus on your credible strengths. Stuff like "A decade`s experience in 200 pages" or whatever, but something more factually based.
In the same vein, when skimming the course promo, unsubstantiated value statements tend to draw more criticism than conviction. If something has a value that should equate to its price plus a reasonable profit for the transaction. If I was pitching a product and said it was worth ten thousand dollars, but becuase I like you sonny I`m gunna let you have it for just a measly thousand. You might say "Gee what a great guy, he`s actually going to lose money selling me this fantastic bargain", or you might think "what a pile of baloney" and dismiss the offer altogether. Introductory pricing is credible if the final price doesn`t seem inflated. Downloaded material costs nothing to publish and has less tangible `value` in a consumers mind. If you want any volume, the value has to be readilly apparent to the target market.
I know we see lots of hype and is tempting to follow the prevalent examples, but offer you the thought that credible statements help sell and at the very least they don`t discredit or distract the buyer from the product. Wishing you all the best with your launch. If anything I`ve written had given offence, my apologies; they are just my two cents, but they really have a value of many thousands of dollars, lol.
