New Website

[markl]

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.

www.theversatileinvestor.com

if you wish to send me feedback in private please email me [email protected]

Thanks

 

[markl]

65 views and no feedback?

Chris?

 

[housingrental]

Hi Mark

The site looks good to my unsophisticated on rto website design eyes

I think your face profile picture looks odd and you should replace it with a different photo

 

[CarrieKoch]

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.

www.theversatileinvestor.com

if you wish to send me feedback in private please email me [email protected]

Thanks


I think it`s great Mark! Very easy to understand, read and navigate. Good job!

 

[markl]

Adam,

I wonder is it the picture or the person being photographed that is the problem?

Thanks Carrie that is what I was looking to improve over my last website so mission accomplished

Regards,

 

[Cargren]

Hi Mark,

Very good! Clean and easy to navigate. I like it.

Like the concept of the VIP membership. Tried signing up for forum, but appears to be an exclusive membership of One for now!

Wishing you the best for 2010!

Rob

 

[RCrein]

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.

 

[markl]

Thanks RCrein

I think it would take a bit more than some criticism of some of the copy on my website for me to get upset. Thanks for the feedback we are looking to update some of the copy as well. We wanted to get the site up and running first and then we were going to fix some the sales copy.

Just a question for you then with regards to the value of the course obviously there is my time and my learning process how do you ever put a price on that? But the thing that is valuable at least from a monetary point of view is the documents provided with the course have cost me much more than the course sells for. I have been told by some professional people that my course is too inexpensive and people will think it is not valuable. That brings around another debate. I don`t know how to put the link on to the other debate raging on another link.

Thank you once again. As well if you want can you shoot me an email I would like to correspond with you regarding some copy

[email protected]

Regards,

 

[mponte]

Looks great Mark! Very professional.

 

[EdRenkema]

Nice website Mark, it still looks shiney and new!
I read the about you section and it mentions your bio - so where is your bio?

 

[vandriani]

Hey Mark,

The website looks clean and sharp. I like the way you kept it simple. I do have 2 things that you may consider:

1. Remove the flashing banner along the top or remove the flashing part, it is too distracting

2. Typically the links along the top match the sidebar links. You current configuration seems alittle disjointed.
I would just move the side bar links to the top bar and use the freed up real estate

for other content.

Otherwise a great improvement on the previous site

On another note, I really don`t like the format that some of emails/website that seminar patrons are producing these days. This does include REIN. I find that barrage of save this much, worth this much, multiple references and the overall length (10 pages if printed) is kind of used car salesman-ish. Most of the content is repeated 3 or 4 times. After reading these and geting about half way I look like this ....

.... I`m a big believer in the KISS principle. That`s my rant ...sorry for the thread hijacking Mark.

 

[cmattric]

Very good website. I think you can add a direct link of registration on becoming member page. Or am I mistaken?

Good Luck

 

[JohnSoucie]

QUOTE (vandriani @ Jan 6 2010, 04:46 PM) On another note, I really don`t like the format that some of emails/website that seminar patrons are producing these days. This does include REIN. I find that barrage of save this much, worth this much, multiple references and the overall length (10 pages if printed) is kind of used car salesman-ish. Most of the content is repeated 3 or 4 times. After reading these and geting about half way I look like this ....

.... I`m a big believer in the KISS principle. That`s my rant ...sorry for the thread hijacking Mark.

I like your new website Mark!

I`m also not a fan of the stuff zipping across the top of the screen. It makes a person stop reading the copy(which they might be getting immersed in!) to make sure they check out the little message that is about to zip off the screen....will they get back into the sales copy?

I did start reading some of the copy and came across many small typos, missing words....all minor, but you need a proofreader or two if/when you eventually do rewrite your copy.

My opinion on the typical lengthy copy issue discussed by Vince above(yours seems relatively short compared to some of the REIN copy BTW!).....I too never read it all, and actually find it confuses/distracts more than anything. But after diving into studying marketing a little recently it seems (and obviously I`m sure you already know this) it`s a valid way to write copy and the results have been studied/measured to be successfull. That`s why you see so much of it. But obviously it doesn`t work on everybody....and I`d like to think it doesn`t work on me!! But if I am honest with myself, I have bought lots of stuff that had this exact type of lengthy copy.

My conclusion to the lengthy copy issue......it won`t necessarily work on you if you aren`t already shopping for that specific thing in the first place. But if you are....you are on a quest for knowledge and actually researching at that point. So you are more open. It just doesn`t work on some....but probably does work on many. Majority rules!!

I`m sitting down with a good new book tonight....hmmm I wonder which one!?

Regards;
John Soucie

 

[RCrein]

QUOTE (markl @ Jan 6 2010, 01:19 PM) Thanks RCrein

Just a question for you then with regards to the value of the course obviously there is my time and my learning process how do you ever put a price on that? But the thing that is valuable at least from a monetary point of view is the documents provided with the course have cost me much more than the course sells for. I have been told by some professional people that my course is too inexpensive and people will think it is not valuable. That brings around another debate. I don`t know how to put the link on to the other debate raging on another link.

Thank you once again. As well if you want can you shoot me an email I would like to correspond with you regarding some copy

[email protected]

Regards,

Mark,

My comment about downloadable files is that they are rarely perceived as valuable because they are intangible. I understand the value is in experience and the content and don`t doubt that it is there. IMO consumers prefer a product they can touch even if it adds delivery delays. I think this is why the other courses out there still deliver binders and CDs/DVDs. Your copy might well include descriptions of the investment made in the material and benefits/savings you have realized from the lessons learned.

Glad to hear the comments were accepted in the spirit they were given. I will forward an email address separately. Happy to help where I can. Wishing you all success with the launch.

 

[housingrental]

Seriously you look better in other photo`s


QUOTE (markl @ Jan 6 2010, 09:27 AM) Adam,

I wonder is it the picture or the person being photographed that is the problem?

Thanks Carrie that is what I was looking to improve over my last website so mission accomplished

Regards,