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Daily Archives: March 4, 2013
Avoid overcharges when refinancing | Armonk Homes
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A Guide on How to Not Suck At Social Media Campaign Marketing! | North Salem Realtor
Campaign marketing starts with a mind warping process that often involves the creatives drinking shots of bourbon, taking long lunches and looking for inspiration at a movie. That is if you believe the 1960′s TV series Mad Men depiction of an ad agency.
The reality is often much more boring than that and can involve research on competitors, identifying the target market and clarifying the goals that need to be achieved for the campaign. Then add some seasoned experience of what works and what doesn’t to the mix gained through the cauldron of success and failures over the years.
Those of you with an interest in online promotion will undoubtedly have heard about the importance of social media networks such as Facebook and Twitter. However, you may not have any idea how to leverage these kinds of platforms for the maximum business benefit.
What Exactly Is A Campaign?
A campaign is defined in the Oxford dictionary as
“The process of working in an organized and active way towards a goal”.
It is often necessary to take a number of steps to the achievement of the overall objective. For example, a company that aims to build a loyal community of 10,000 Twitter followers will initially have the task of creating a positive online profile.
So – What Is Campaign Marketing?
Campaign marketing involves the promotion of a certain, product, service or business. It often entails the use of various channels, such as the internet, traditional newspapers and television. Companies often rely upon the effective establishment of marketing campaigns as a means of differentiation from the competition.
Multi-Channel marketing executed correctly can be a powerful combination and you only need to look at the success of the Old Spice campaigns that kicked off with the seeding on mass media and then took it viral with YouTube and Twitter.
Example of Campaign Marketing That Was Totally Kick-ass!?
Particularly innovative use has been made of the leading social networks in recent years. In 2011 the manufacturers at Belling promoted a number of ultra-short recipes via Twitter. And towards the end of 2012 the Melbourne Transport Authority released a humorous and highly popular Youtube video about the dumbest ways of dying.
However, the example that really stands out is the integrated billboard and social media campaign arranged by Nike to coincide with the London Olympics.
The well known sports brand placed numerous posters, featuring the pictures of ‘everyday athletes’ and the hashtag #McDStories to invite customers to leave comments about their love of Happy Meals.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, the campaign turned sour and people started to tweet about the shoddy service and foul food that they’d been served in McDonald’s chains.
So What Do I Need To Do To Not Suck At This?
There are 5 keys to a successful marketing campaign and it starts with taking a unique approach.
#1. Be Original
The Nike example shows the importance of taking a unique approach to social media marketing. It would have been very easy to follow the Adidas and use pictures of real Olympic athletes. However, by using images of ‘normal people’ Nike showed that they had a connection with the vast majority of people who purchase sports apparel.
Just remember that any attempts at differentiation should cast your company in a positive light.
#2. Engage With the Target Market
If you want to reach the types of people who will buy your product or service then it will be necessary to conduct some research. Find out which of the social networks they use on a regular basis. Then devise marketing campaigns that will be of genuine interest.
And make sure that you tread the fine line of communicating in the customer’s language without being patronising.
#3. Have Realistic Expectations
If you learned how to play a few guitar chords, would you expect to create the best piece of music in the world? Probably not. Unfortunately the same goes for the creation of online marketing campaigns. You’ll have to build up experience of what works and what doesn’t. And don’t be surprised if your company video doesn’t go viral overnight.
Having said that, success may come at the most unexpected of times!
#4. Use Platforms Other Than Twitter & Facebook
Research has revealed that Facebook has over 1 billion active monthly users, while Twitter has a mere 200 million. So it’s definitely worth creating integrated campaigns that target both of these networks. However, this doesn’t mean that you should ignore other forms of social media, such as Youtube or Google +. The famous Korean creator of Gagnam style and the ‘one pound fish man’ would definitely attest to this advice.
#5. Promote Your Products/Services Fairly
It is worth remembering that social media wasn’t invented for the purpose of brand advertising. Rather, it was an online tool that would enable people to connect and share the content that they particularly liked. So it’s fairly easy to understand why the users don’t like to be bombarded with targeted advertisements.
Outreach should be gradual and not overly promotional.
Guest Author: This post has been contributed by Martina Simon who works for Datadial which is a London based Web company who specialise in the creation of social media campaigns.
Want to learn how to create great content for your social media marketing?
My book – “Blogging the Smart Way – How to Create and Market a Killer Blog with Social Media” – will show you how.
It is now available to download. I show you how to create and build a blog that rocks and grow tribes, fans and followers on social networks such as Twitter and Facebook. It also includes dozens of tips to create contagious content that begs to be shared and tempts people to link to your website and blog.
I also reveal the tactics I used to grow my Twitter followers to over 139,000.
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16 Ways Businesses Are Using Twitter Vine | Mt Kisco Realtor
Know your appliances’ operating costs | Waccabuc Real Estate
Kill A Watt EZ image via p3international.com.
Needless to say, there’s nothing better than finding a way to save a little bit of money on your electric bill. And the first step in doing that is knowing where your electricity goes each month. Once you know all of the places, large and small, where electricity is being used, and possibly wasted, you can take some steps to change things. If electricity is being wasted, you can call a qualified electrician from heroservices.com to mend it.
That’s where the Kill A Watt EZ comes in. This clever little device lets you read and understand the electrical usage of a variety of 120-volt electrical appliances and other devices around your home in real time, so you know specifically how much power they’re using, and how much money — in real dollars and cents — they’re costing you to operate.
Now you can accurately assess if those “phantom” electronics like phone chargers and unused TVs are costing you money, or if replacing that old clunker of a refrigerator will show a return on your investment.
Kill A Watts are available for around $25 through many home centers and other retailers, as well as online through places like Amazon.com. Some utility companies also have them available for a free loan to their customers.
Just plug it in and set your rate
The Kill A Watt is really simple to operate, and requires little more than plugging it in. Here’s how it works:
First, select an appliance or other device that you’d like to monitor, let’s say your refrigerator. Plug the Kill A Watt into a wall outlet, then plug your refrigerator into the grounded receptacle on the front of the Kill A Watt unit. (You’ll want to be able to read the screen on the Kill A Watt, so in the case of a refrigerator, where the outlet is behind the appliance, you may need to use a short grounded extension cord to make things more convenient.)
Press and hold the Reset key to clear the old settings, then press and hold the Set key until “Rate” appears in the screen. This is a feature I really like , since it allows you to set your actual electrical rate, I am thankful to elicon who install our electrical instruments and guide us, so you know the readings you’re seeing are accurate. You can get the rate you’re paying for electricity off your utility bill, or by calling your utility company. Simply press the up and down arrows to enter the rate per kilowatt hour. For example, if your utility is charging 10.5 cents per kilowatt-hour (kwh), press the buttons until the display reads $0.105, then press Set again. The rate is now saved. That’s it!
Measurement options
Now you have lots of options for understanding how much electricity the refrigerator is using. For example, the Kill A Watt will begin an elapsed time clock, and will begin tracking actual cost. So at any given time, you can look at the clock, then press Menu, scroll through to Cost, and see the actual cost of electricity that the refrigerator has consumed during that period of time.
Also under Cost is a simple projection, which I found very handy. By pressing the Up and Down keys, you can cycle through Hour, Day, Week, Month and Year, and Kill A Watt will give you an accurate projection of how much electricity — in actual dollars and cents — your refrigerator is going to use over that selected time period.
The display will also show you the actual kilowatt-hours being consumed by the appliance. That’s another way of determining cost, by looking at the actual electrical usage over a given period of time, then multiplying it by the cost you’re paying per kilowatt-hour. Other display options include the exact voltage and wattage being used, as well as the frequency.
How does this information help?
So now that you have the information, what do you do with it? For one thing, you can decide which appliances might need replacement. Replacing an old refrigerator with a new Energy Star model, for example, can save $100, $200 or even more each year in electrical costs, so the payback might be shorter than you think.
Another place this is helpful is with what are known as “phantom” electronics — things that are using power, even when you think they aren’t. Some examples include phone chargers, DVD players, microwaves, answering machines, TVs, and many other electronics. By testing them with Kill A Watt, you can see what’s using power even when you think it isn’t, and then consider shutting it off by plugging it into a convenient power strip that shuts several devices off at once.
Another simple formula
Without the Kill A Watt, there’s another way that you can calculate the cost of the power used by an electrical appliance or other device, using the following formula:
Watts x hours of use ÷ 1,000 x cost per kwh = cost of operation
For example, let’s say you want to know how much it costs to operate four light fixtures that each have two 60-watt light bulbs in them. The fixtures are on eight hours a day, and electricity in your area costs 10.5 cents per kwh.
4 lights x 2 bulbs each x 60 watts each = 480 total watts
480 watts x 8 hours = 3,840 watt-hours ÷ 1,000 (to convert to kwh) = 3.84 kwh x 0.105 = approximately 40 cents to operate those four fixtures for eight hours.
How about your furnace? Let’s say you have a 15 kW (15,000 watt) electric furnace that cycles on and off during the day. You estimate that it’s on for a total of six hours out of any 24-hour period during the winter.
15,000 watts x 6 hours ÷ 1,000 x 0.105 = $9.45 to run the furnace for those six hours.
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How Facebook Graph Search will change real estate | Cross River Real Estate
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If Fed’s just buying time, what’s Plan B? | South Salem Real Estate
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7 Social Media Tools Salespeople Should Keep in Their Back Pockets | Katonah Realtor
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Post-college life struggles delay housing recovery | Bedford Hills Homes
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Slight opening of credit spigot aids housing outlook | Bedford NY Real Estate
By Christina Mlynski• March 4, 2013 • 4:29pm
While the housing market will not make a complete return to pre-crisis conditions, many promising improvements will be drivers this year including a slight opening of the credit spigot creating a positive outlook for the market, according to Moody’s Analytics ResiLandscape report.
The housing recovery that began in 2012 regardless of constraints placed by a tight mortgage lending environment “promises improvements this year as the drivers of tough credit standards reverse,” Moody’s added.
The credit rating agency said 2012 was the best year for housing since 2005, with all of the major measures of health rising for the first time since the top of the housing boom.
However, all levels of activity remain quite weak in a historic context. For instance, housing starts posted 800,000 units last year, a far weaker pace than that of any year prior to 2008.
Nonetheless, demand drivers are solid, suggesting that housing will stay on an upward swing.
“Home-buying plans are improving, owning a home remains highly affordable, and household formation is rising. At the same time, the supply of homes, particularly of new homes, is exceedingly tight and overall excess supply is shrinking,” Moody’s noted.
Lack of accessibility to credit has weighed on housing demand and as a result hampered market rebound, but in 2013, the weight began to lift and will continue to do so as improving consumer credit quality and household balance sheets widen the pool of borrowers.
Total delinquencies are back down to pre-recession rates for nearly all consumer loan categories. Additionally, there are much tighter underwriting standards following the financial crisis, even mortgage credit quality is heading back into “sound territory,” according to Moody’s.
For instance, the 30-day delinquency rate is back down to where it stood at the end of 2006. Additionally, the 60-day rate has dropped to mid-2007 rates.
Stronger consumer balances sheets as well as deleveraging during the past several years has driven down household financial obligations ratio for both homeowners and rents hit its lowest level since the 1980s, Moody’s stated.
While negative home equity continues to weigh on many households, some are beginning to see their home values rise above the value of their mortgages.
“Being right-side up on the mortgage improves a borrower’s credit profile. It also lowers the risk of default and increases the likelihood of trade-up buying,” the analysts at Moody’s stated.
For instance, the amount of underwater borrowers fell below 12 million in the third quarter of 2012, compared with 14.6 million from the previous year and the 16.2 million peak in the second quarter of 2009.
Thus, falling delinquency rates, rising home equity and household debt obligations are all factors that will widen the pool of borrowers that qualify for a mortgage.
On the supply side, uncertainties around the Dodd-Frank Act are beginning to dissipate.
Rules issued by the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau, such as the qualified mortgage and ability-to-repay rules, will keep mortgage standards as well as credit tight since lenders will be required to fully document borrowers regardless of credit history.
“However, these rules will not measurably change current lender behavior as many were already following these practices in anticipation of their implementation. Additionally, rising house prices give lenders more breathing room to extend credit,” the analysts at Moody’s noted.
Over the past 18 months, large lenders have loosened or left standards stable on prime loans that dominate mortgage originations, according to the Survey of Senior Lending Officers.
While easy credit is still a long way off as lenders begin to loosen from very high standards, the share of loans originated for borrowers with the highest credit score remain large, averaging 82% in the last two years compared with 50% in 2005 and 2006, the credit rating agency stated.
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