Roberto Mazzoni

In my last post, titled “Eight rules to avoid social media disaster”, I have mentioned that the first rule is to allow your customers to be in control of their time, to let them decide when they want to view or use your services or products. In the heydays of television, the best shows where always being plaid at certain times and in certain days. You had to be in front of you TV set exactly at that time if you wanted to watch it.

Allow your customers to have control of their valuable time.

Our life was actually running at the drum beat of somebody else. I remember for example when I was a kid in Italy, we had a very popular advertising show being run every evening at 9 pm sharp. It was a collection of very spectacular or funny (for the time) advertisements, it featured some of the best actors of the time, each one featuring a “short movie” centered on a specific product. It was very popular.

Almost every kid liked it and they watched it with their families just before going to bed. Therefore this show, named “carousel”, was the signal of the end of the day for a whole generation of kids, not the sun set or some other natural event. That how powerful the television was then.

Today, in the digital media age, we can view our preferred show when we want: we can record it, get it on demand from a subscription service, rent a DVD, download it from the Internet, and so on. Therefore the customer is getting used to control her own time and decide when he wants to consume our services.
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Marketing on the Web today is about providing content and making sure that people find it relevant and easy to reach. It can be about products or about how to do something or achieve some result. Basically it need to solve some problem, or cater to some necessity or desire, but still it must be available and easy to consume.

Eight rules to avoid social media disaster

My field is international real estate and the experts say that in real estate you make money when you solve problems. The same is with any other type of business, but what matters in the first place is finding the people who have these problems so that you can solve them and this bring us to the channels and the format of information that you will have to use to find them. Social media is based on digital media: text, audio, pictures, video in all their various formats. And here are the rules that I have gathered on how to use it:

1. Your customers have very different schedules so you need to allow them to get your information when it is more convenient for them. Direct interaction is valuable and interesting, like in webinars, Q&A calls and social media chatting, but cannot be used on a wide scale. So record your key content and make it available for future reference (click here to read more on this point).

2. You cannot predict where your customer will use the information. She will not necessarily use a computer, therefore prepare to make your content available on portable devices (like the iPod) if possible.

3. Create content that can be viewed on as many different devices as possible. Less people have time to spend in front of their computer just for getting information. Production schedules get more and more tight, so produce your content so that it can be consumed in a number of ways.

4. Be concise as much as you can and to the point. This doesn’t mean that you should write little, but avoid padding your content with useless material. Value the time of your people and they will value you. Always give them a short cut to the action items they can perform immediately.

5. Never create an article or video or podcast/MP3 that depends on previous material to be fully understood. Build every single item so that it can be used by itself. You can still create series, but each item in the series should be independent.

6. Keep it simple: it you expect your public to understand what you write because they have read something else before you will lose. Always define your key terms when you use them and where you use them.

7. If you don’t provide real value in your content then it is pointless. The value is established by what other people think of it. Also the value of a piece of content needs to be evident by its title and presentation. People need to know immediately what’s in it for them.

8. Use as many channels as possible to reach your audience as they will shift in the use of their channels and you will lose them is you use just a few.

By following these simple rules that I have collected from my personal experience and from the writings or presentations of Internet Marketing experts you will be able to grow your public and keep in touch with it in the way it is most convenient to them.

Roberto Mazzoni

P.S. I am sure you have your own opinions about this subject so please leave a comment and invite others to do so. Your viewpoints are important to allow me to improve  my content.

During the current real estate market situation, there is a definite benefit in selling US properties overseas. You can count on potentially higher prices, shorter closing terms and additional business in the form of support or management. This requires in the other end to create connections with people who can promote your products credibly in the foreign market: languages and cultural issues here are very relevant.

Extending your reach to international real estate markets

1.It is an informal platform where you can meet other real estate professionals from other countries without having to talk about business from the get go

2.You can interact more easily using the integrated chat, videos, photos, comments and blog posts (linked on Facebook) so to create a story around yourself and allow the foreign real estate professionals to become familiar with you

3.Approximately two thirds of Facebook users are outside of the US, therefore you have a very big audience

4.You can collect some initial information about other people from their profile so that you have something to talk with them already in the initial contacts.

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One of the key concepts that you’ll get from some real estate experts I that you should start from your own back yard, meaning first get familiar with the market you have close at hand and then spread your reach gradually as you go, moving further and further.

International real estate businesses are built through partnerships

It is definitely a best business practice if you are considering doing some major rehab work. It is such a labor intensive activity that you need to get a solid understanding and control of the activities by either being involved directly in the work or monitoring very closely those who are performing it for you. Therefore you don’t want to add long travels in the initial burden of learning the trade, learning your market and building your team.

But when you bring it to an international real estate perspective, you rapidly see that you can’t really use the “back yard” concept because your investor or buyer will not be familiar with your specific market and therefore will have no specific interest in it but she will rather look from the best market that can provide her the best return with the minimum effort.
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Last week end I have been to a real estate event in Tampa where different real estate “gurus” were promoting their own investment strategy. I was struck by the energy of Nick Sidoti, who runs around shouting at the audience and throwing real money at you to make sure he gets your undivided attention (I did manage to cash 3 bucks in the process). Aside from the unusual but effective presentation style and aside from the fact that Nick self proclaims himself as “crazy”, his strategy seems to make sense also for an international real estate investor.

Nick Sidoti has some unique landlord investment strategies

He has found out a way to secure high rental values by providing special need housing to some types of handicapped people as well as to high end students and retired veterans. The basic concept is to provide fully furnished apartments with full utilities and basic housekeeping provided as part of the rent. You provide a quality of life that is similar to that of an hotel, and at the same time the convenience of an apartment or house. The higher rent comes from the ability to accommodate more than one tenant per unit and get each one paying separately.
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When dealing with special need tenant, like veterans or handicapped people, you get paid directly by the government and the tenant stays in the property for a long time since there are not so many alternatives available on any given market. There are no delays in the payments, most of the maintenance is performed by the government workers taking care of these special people and you can get much more return for your investment with less involvement.

Since it is a very special type of market, you must be thoroughly familiar with the requirements of the government agencies you would be working with and you also need to conduct a very different type of marketing as compared to what is required for regular landlording. I have personally checked with him about the feasibility of this strategy for foreign investors, and he has assured me that these special programs can be performed also by property owners that are not US citizens. You would require naturally a local structure to provide management, but this would be the case also with a local investor.

Nick Sidoti has been involved in real estate investing since 1979 and he has been lecturing for more than 20 years, therefore this is not a new strategy by any means and its longevity adds credibility to it. His conclusions after over two decades of observing other investors is that some people get it and some just don’t (how to make money) So his motto is: “Are you really getting it?” I think I do now.

Roberto Mazzoni