We’re very excited to be exhibiting at Inman News Real Estate Connect 2008 here in San Francisco this week. We had a great time there last year and are looking forward to “RE-connecting” (sorry, I couldn’t resist) with our partners, our friends at Inman News, and our members! We’ll have a booth set up in the main exhibition hall on Wednesday and Thursday - if you are at the show, stop by and say hello! Or, if you are going to be around but don’t think you’ll make it to our booth, send an email to inmanconnect@vflyer.com letting us know and perhaps we can figure out a time to chat.

For more news and information on Inman Real Estate Connect 2008, visit Inman Connect.

If you’ve ever had your unsaved work on a flyer lost because your session expired while you were writing a long description, then you know how frustrating it can be. That’s why we recently introduced an autosave feature in the Flyer Editor and Photo Editor that automatically saves any work you’ve done on a flyer after 29 minutes of inactivity (or activity only in the description field). It’s still a good idea to click the Save Draft button every ten minutes or so in case you encounter a network problem or some other error, but the autosave feature provides added security against losing work you’ve done. 

Note: The autosave feature only applies to the Flyer Editor and Photo Editor.

As many of the readers of our blog know, vFlyer launched its beta back in Oct 2006. What many of you may not know is that we opened our private beta in July 2006. One of our earliest users of the service was Eppie AhKiong of Palazzo Realty in Long Beach, CA. Eppie was using the vFlyer service to create Craigslist postings. Over the first few months, we received not only suggestions but also great feedback from her usage of the vFlyer service.  Yesterday, we received a beautiful and tasty fruit basket form the Palazzo Realty crew with a note saying that the basket was from vFlyer’s #1 Fans.

After enjoying fresh pineapple and strawberries (some of which were chocolate coated), we took a vote for our #1 Fan.  We would like to take this opportunity to thank the community that utilizes the vFlyer service. We love the feedback and suggestions. We try to choose the suggestions that are going to benefit the overall community the most and implement those first. Please keep the suggestions coming.

vFlyer Agency now supports multiple accounts and users, giving Real Estate and other sales professionals the flexibility to delegate work and choose different service and pricing levels. Brokers can create multiple accounts, invite team members to create their own accounts, or delegate management of their listings to team members or even clients, the company said in a press release. Fees for multiple accounts can be aggregated, or agents and clients can be billed for accounts directly. Contact sales@vflyer.com for more information.

Inman News did a nice piece on the release titled: VFlyer offers more options for service levels, pricing. The article quotes Aaron Sperling as saying:

The new capabilities should benefit both brokers and agents…because brokers don’t have to pay for services they don’t need and agents can access vFlyer at a discount through subaccounts already populated with their listings.

The article also mentions some of the corporate customers using vFlyer Agency including

Classified industry analyst Greg Sterling focused on vFlyer impact on the publishing industry with his post vFlyer Turns Newspapers into ‘Agencies’. Greg says:

What’s interesting to me about it is that vFlyer now is doing/trying to do for newspaper classifieds what the local SEM firms … are doing for yellow pages publishers.

and concludes that vFlyer potentially turns the newspaper into an “agency” for local realtors and brokers who want a “one stop shop” to advertise their listings.

One of the real estate categories we support on vFlyer is vacation rentals. The Internet in general and online classifies specifically are transforming the vacation rental market by creating a global market for vacation rentals. This has led to increased competition as well as created some new opportunities.

Another trend affecting property rentals is shorter rental periods. ‘Short term’ rentals are becoming more popular with Baby Boomers who have busy schedules. U.S. workers are taking fewer full-week vacations, opting instead for shorter stays.

Higher transportation cost is changing the way people plan vacations and is creating opportunities for rental property owners. Author Christine Karpinski in her book on vacation rentals encourages property managers to advertise on the Internet and concludes that “Americans pinched by high gas prices can still enjoy a getaway close to home by staying at a vacation rental for a fraction of the cost of a hotel room.”

vFlyer allows vacation property owners and managers to quickly and easily to promote their properties on leading online market places such as Google Base, Oodle, Edgeio, Vast and others! With ski season is just around the corner, now is a great time to create real estate flyers for your vacation rentals!

Here are some vacation property rental examples on vFlyer:

• Heavenly Valley Chalet (Tahoe, CA)
• Pine Tree Lodge (Tahoe, CA)
• The Lazy Bear Cabin (Tahoe, CA)
• The Pine Tree Lodge (Tahoe, CA)
• The Hideaway (Tahoe, CA)
• Four Seasons Aviara Vacation Rental (Carlsbad, CA)

I always like to remind users about the many different services vFlyer has to offer to online sellers and real estate professionals. While most people know about our distribution platform that pushes listings and flyers to leading online marketplaces, some are unaware of the many of the other complementing services available including Watermark Plus (image enhancement), Domain Plus (single property websites), vFlyer Team and Agency (collaboration and sharing), Mobile and SMS (mobile distribution) and Widgets.

One of the goals of our blog is to continually remind and educate users on how they can make the most of our marketing and distribution platform to more successfully promote their listings, products and services.

It’s always encouraging to see users put some of this information into practice! For example, a couple of weeks ago we talked about using Watermark Plus to enhance photos of yourself and as a result a growing number of real estate professionals are using Watermark Plus for just that purpose!

I would encourage all vFlyer users to check out the vFlyer Blogregularly to find out how to get the most out of our platform, to learn and capitalize on online selling trends and technologies (such as podcasting), and to better market their listings, products or services!

Last week was our one year anniversary, and as a way of saying thank you to both users and subscribers, this week, as part of our “value” program, users that sign up for or subscriber that upgrade to an annual subscription get an additional 10% discount on their plan.

There is a lot of “value” and real savings associated with choosing an annual subscription plan over a monthly one as part of this promotion (ends Oct 22, 2007)!

• Annual subscribers get two free months, so there’s already a built-in cost savings
• Annual subscribers get 1 to 10 FREE domain names, as part of our Domain Plus launch promotion
• Annual subscribers get an additional 10% discount

Taking advantage of this offer is simple. When you subscribe or upgrade you will notice there is Referral Code link at the bottom of the plan selection screen. Clicking on the link allows you to enter a referral code (Note: Use VALUE to take advantage of this promotion).

I have always been a big fan of outdoor advertising - there’s nothing that says ‘big’ like billboard! No, we are not yet canvassing the nation with vFlyer billboards but it’s always fun coming up with billboard ideas. This is one of my favorites - because of its simplicity. I have always considered vFlyer a bit of a “Swiss Army Knife” - after all we do marketplace distribution, email, PDF, widgets, images, domains, SMS/text messaging and RSS all in the name of promoting products, services and listings for online sellers. Perhaps one of these days, we’ll get around to putting this up, and if you have any billboard ideas of your own, please do share

Drew Meyers of Zillow was kind enough to invite me to do a podcast about vFlyer, the thinking behind the 62th edition of the carnival of real estate and corporate blogging in general, one of my favorite topics. You can listen to the by podcast by clicking the icon below.

According to the SBA, small businesses represent 99.7% of all employer firms. In 2006, there were 26.7 million small businesses in the United States, according to Office of Advocacy estimates. In short, small business are the backbone of the US Economy! It’s no surprise then, that general services (used primarily by professional services) is actually the 3rd most popular category on vFlyer (Real estate is #1 and Auto is #2).

Kelsey Group analyst Michael Boland has been a big believer in the “Webification” of small and mid-sized businesses. Webification is about making it easier for small business to establish and expand their a web presence. I recently spoke with Mike about trends in the small business space and talked about what I saw as the three stages of webification. There include:

• Web presence
  Services focused on establishing a web presence for small businesses and helping them distribute information.
• Web commerce
  Front-office and e-commerce application focused on sales and marketing.
• Web applications
  Back-office applications aimed productivity, efficiency and cost-cutting.

vFlyer touches small businesses in a number of these stages. First it provide the services and functionality to immediately give small business an online web presence and allows them to build out flyers and a gallery around their products or services. vFlyer also provides a marketing platform that helps companies engage in web commerce by distributing their listings, products or services to leading online market places. vFlyer also provides small business users with web application functionality to create and manage listings, distribute marketing material via email and SMS, and monitor custom response and interaction though a comprehensive set of reporting tools.

The following are examples of the wide range of small business using vFlyer to get the word out and get customers in:

• Interior Decorator (Kenneth Bordewick Interior Design)
• Real Estate Services (Doug Reynolds – Prudential)
• Home Improvement (Golden Gate Enterprises)
• Auto Mechanic (Mobile Repairs)
• Marketing Consulting (Prevail PR)
• Translation Services (Yazmin Llams)
• Notary Public (The Document Diva)
• Photography (Don Baham Photography)
• Personal Trainer (The Event Division)
• Computer Services (DoctorMac)
• Mortgage Brokers (Tierra Funding Group)
• Auto Broker (TC Autos)
• Preschool (Little Steps Preschool)
• Traffic School (Bay Area Traffic School Online)
• Architect (FDP Design)
• Artist (Chris Ohlig)
• Insurance (Farmers Insurance Group)
• Home Stating (Primp This House)
• Wedding Planner (Monterey Wedding)

Technorati Tags: Small Business, vFlyervFlyer

Every so often we sent out a service announcement to users . These announcements tend to focus on new features and promotions as well as other important news about the vFlyer service. If you some reason you are not receiving regular service announcements and would like to, first make sure that you have selected to them (click the Account menu and look at the bottom of the Profile tab).
If you have subscribed to receive service announcement but are still not receiving them and are using a web-based email service such as Yahoo! Mail, Gmail or Hotmail, make sure they are not ending up in your junk mail or bulk mail folders. You can solve the problem by adding no-reply@vflyer.com to your list of contacts. Just in case you missed any of the past issues, you can find an archive of service announcements on our vFlyer Support Wiki or below:

• Aug 15, 2007 – Service Announcement #6
• Jun 12, 2007 – Service Announcement #5
• Apr 24, 2007 – Service Announcement #4
• Mar 12, 2007 – Service Announcement #3
• Jan 15, 2007 – Service Announcement #2
• Nov 01, 2006 – Service Announcement #1

Technorati Tags: vFlyer

Two interesting reports have recently come out that deal with the current state and trends in real estate technology and marketing. These include Inman’s “State of Real Estate Marketing 2007” report and the NAR’s Center for REALTOR® Technology 2007 Survey. Inman’s report is based on a survey of 770 real estate professionals done through their website (hence it have a strong technology slant), while the NAR’s 2007 Technology Survey solicited responses via mail from 468 real estate professionals.

NAR 2007 Survey – Technology Trends:

• 54% of real estate professionals have spent more than $1000 in 2006
• 80% of sales agents/associate brokers highly valued the technology supplied by their broker
• 65% of sales agents/associate brokers wanted more technology from their broker
• 66% of respondents have their own real estate agent business Web site
• Top 3 Sources of Leads: Referrals, repeat business and the Internet
• 79% of respondents are not satisfied with the amount of web leads they got from their sites
• 69% of respondents who have participated with lead resellers were dissatisfied

NAR 2007 Survey – Using Technology in Business:

• 28% used Internet-enabled Smartphones, 30% plan to purchase
• 19% used PDAs, 4% plan to purchase
• 72% used Cellphones, 10% plan to purchase
• 92% uses Digital Cameras, 26% plan to purchase
• 63% used Notebooks Computers, 27% plan to purchase
• 79% used Desktop Computers, 12% plan to purchase

Inman 2007 Report – Marketing Trends:

• 58% of new agents (<5 yrs in business) plan to increase marketing spending
• 47% of all brokers and agents plan to spend more to promote their services in the next year
• 31% of agents are getting involved with social networking websites (like Activerain, MySpace, i.e.)
• 27% of agents who closed more than 20 deals in the last year had a blog
• 34% of agents who plan to spend $5,000+ on online advertising/marketing in the next year hire an Internet marketing specialist

Conclusions:
Looking at the numbers and trends the following conclusions can be reach:

• In general, little has changed as far as the overall numbers are concerned. Technology usage and planned spending has remained fairly consistent and trends upwards.
• There is a strong trend among brokers to provide enabling technology to their agents. This trend is being welcome by the agents themselves. It also probably reflects competition among brokers to attract and retain top talent.
• We see this trend here at vFlyer by the number of brokers who are starting to purchase Corporate vFlyer Accounts for all of their agents or who negotiate discounts for agents who wish to use vFlyer on their own.
• One third of realtors STILL DON’T HAVE A WEBSITE – if you fall in this category get one – if you don’t know how, consider using a service like our vFlyer Domain Plus to get a web presence up quickly and easily!
• A Website alone is not enough! 79% of respondents with websites were still not happy with the leads they got – you may need to use other techniques (blogging, advertising, i.e.) and services to generate leads!
• The Internet continues to be an important source of leads, reinforcing the value of services like vFlyer and others. Agents serious about Internet marketing are hiring external resources to help them in their efforts.
• At vFlyer, we see this trend in the growing importance of virtual assistants who use, and are becoming experts on our service. The Southeastern Virtual Assistant Group, for example, recently provided free vFlyer training to their members. Agents are also using vFlyer’s to recruit Internet talent (See example – Blog SEO Writer Wanted)
• Lead resellers are probably not the answer – 53% of respondents found lead programs useful in 2006, but only 16% participated in them while in 2007 - 69% of respondents were dissatisfied with them.
• According to Inman, 60% of tech savvy agents still aren’t involved in social networks like ActiveRain – GET ONLINE AND GET INVOLVED. The numbers here (and elsewhere) show that consumer prefer tech savvy agents! Tech savvy agents also generally generate more leads via the Internet.
• Despite what some people are calling a weak housing market, a major of brokers and agents are planning to spend more on promoting their services.

Documents and Sources:

• NAR 2006 Survey – PDF Link
• NAR 2007 Survey – PDF Link
• Inman: State of Real Estate Marketing 2007 Report
• Realty Thoughts: Inman’s “State of Real Estate Marketing 2007” Report
• Transparent Real Estate: All About Inman Week

Technorati Tags: Realtors, vFlyer, Inman, Real Estate transparentrerealtythoughtsReal Estatehousevaluestrends

We are trying to better understand which email and IM clients vFlyer users use. We sometimes get asked about better integration between email, IM and vflyers so if you have a 30 seconds, please let know which applications you use.