Using their website as a model, Tork Motors put together a really slick custom theme:

As is the case with most web design, the background really makes the look of this site. But finding a background image that tiles seamlessly can be quite a challenge. Here, the machined metal background from the Tork Motors website is carried straight over to the vFlyer Theme Editor, and used to great effect.

The header image is a simple banner with the website address and Tork’s logo tilted just slightly inward, adding some interest to the flyer’s header. Throw in a full set of well-lit bike shots, and you’ve got a visual experience that’s bound to appeal to motorcycle junkies everywhere. Nicely done!

When it comes to capturing leads, two contacts are better than one. Nobody likes getting sent to voicemail; now, with two phone numbers, email addresses and faces on each flyer, prospects are twice as likely to reach a live person. Co-listing agents, we heard you! You can now feature both agents equally across your vFlyer account. In addition to name and number, include your email address, profile photo, and member association logo—all the details you need to share with potential clients.

And now, the all-new social media toolbar. In today’s industry, social media has become fundamental to successful online marketing. At vFlyer we’re committed to empowering users in this new space, and the social media toolbar does just that. Are you active on popular online networks like Facebook, Twitter, or YouTube? Show off your social media savvy with recognizable icons linking directly to your various profiles, and automatically displayed across your vFlyer account. Drive traffic to your blog, convert prospects into fans, and let your clients and prospects get to know you a little better.

For more information and instructions on both new features, please take a look at our help center.

This is just the first of a series of enhancements coming to the vFlyer service in 2011, and we hope you’ll find the new features useful. Thanks to all of our fantastic users who continue to come up with great ways to improve our service—please keep the feedback coming!

If you’re reading this post, you’ve probably heard plenty about social media. You’re most likely aware that it’s an incredible phenomenon, privy to some fantastic tales of success, and evaluating your role in it all. Here at vFlyer, we want our users to be equipped with the knowledge and tools to succeed online. To that end, we’ve put together an article outlining some best practices for social media marketing. We call it “Social Media 101 for vFlyer Users.” Below are some of the highlights. To read the full article, head on over to vFlyer’s help center.

Think of your web presence as a house in the midst of a block party. Inside your house are your friends and family – your existing customers. You want them to have a great time; you want them to feel welcome, special, and happy. But you want your party to be the biggest and best on the block! People walking by (casual internet visitors) need to see how much fun your guests are having and want to come inside. Social media can help your guests have more fun and attract passers-by to join the party.

An effective web presence should include the following components: a website, blog, Facebook Page, and Twitter account. Your website is the center of everything, and the end destination for the traffic you attract. Your blog is your official company voice, and your Facebook and Twitter accounts are outposts in the raging rivers of social media. Start with this basic framework, then gradually add more as needed.

The content built on this framework should address the following questions: Who are you? What do you do? and What’s happening now? Your content should also offer visitors something they want, be it news, inspiration, humor, advice, or resources. Most importantly, keep your content fresh! Even if your readers are just a select group of friends and family, get in the habit of creating new content. One day, thousands of visitors will traffic your site, and you’ll need to serve up fresh content to keep ‘em coming back for more. Fresh, clean content! Not a bunch of ads or a six-month-old blog post.

Online, one should be bold enough to write about something already covered by 100 other bloggers, real enough to state his or her true intentions, and outgoing enough to friend, follow, and comment on anything and everything he or she finds interesting.

Finally, focus on yourself! This may sound selfish, but I think Chris Guillebeau got it just right: your message is what people want to hear. If I’m interested in what somebody else has to say, I can follow somebody else. I’m following you because I want to hear what you have to say, so say it!

Genuine humanness is what we all respond to online, so here’s another piece of advice: throw all the social media advice you receive, including our article, right out the window, and just be your own crazy self on the internet. Nobody’s made it very far without ignoring at least most of what they’ve been told. In any case, let us know what social media strategies work or don’t work for you – we’d love to hear about it.

vFlyer Voice enables vFlyer business subscribers to record narration for their flyers over the phone, making the process as easy as recording a voicemail greeting. Here’s how it works: you simply enter your phone number to receive an automated call from our system, follow the instructions, and record your narration. You can listen to your recording and re-record if you want. Record narration in two ways: image by image, or for the entire photo slideshow. In the first case, each photo is accompanied by a different segment of narration, turning your landing page into a step-by-step walk-through of your property, product, or service. The second option plays one narration through the entire slideshow. This lets the viewer explore the photos at his or her own pace, and is especially effective if you want to give just a brief introduction to your product or service.

For real estate agents, vFlyer Voice is comparable to a virtual tour: a multimedia presentation designed to give internet visitors a strong impression of your listing. Whereas some virtual tours are full of photo effects, slick transitions, and cheesy background music, a flyer equipped with voice narration offers a more direct approach. Home buyers want to know exactly what the house is like, inside and out. To this end, vFlyer Voice is a powerful tool. Combined with clear, well-lit photos, a few words of narration give viewers a complete picture of the home, minus all the fluff. Click the image below to see (and hear) a good example of a flyer that uses vFlyer Voice:

In short, use vFlyer Voice to make your flyers your own. With all the competition online today, people respond best to ads with a little personality. So grab your phones, practice your pitch, and try recording some voice narration for your flyers today! Or learn more about vFlyer’s complete online marketing solution here.

Great job, St. Pete Powersports, and congratulations for being the first motorcyle dealer to wear the Custom Theme of the Week crown.

Want your own branded theme but don’t have the tools or the time to make it yourself? We can help! Contact support@vflyer.com and we can have one of our designers create a beautiful branded theme for you for a nominal fee.

The moment you sign up for a vFlyer account, you are instantly given a live, stand-alone website called an Account Profile. This page serves as your listing inventory, displaying links to all of your published vFlyer listings in real time and making it easier to cross-sell your listings to prospective customers. For many vFlyer users, the Account Profile becomes their website, and there are several things that users can do to optimize their Account Profiles:

• adding contact information, a photo, company logo, a description of the business, and (for business subscribers) links to external sites
• applying a custom theme to it (again, only for business subscribers). This is especially effective if you have a custom branded theme such as this one.
• adding search and sort functionality, which enables prospective customers to more easily find listings that fit their criteria
• mapping a domain name to it, made easy through our Domain Plus service

Your Account Profile is, by default, also integrated into your flyers through the “More Listings” or “View Other Flyers” link, another reason to make it look sharp.

So that’s the skinny on the Account Profile. If you want a more detailed tutorial on how to set it up, here’s a new video we added a couple weeks ago:

Setting Up Your Account Profile

The GCC’s custom theme matches the branding on its website perfectly. I love their logo and the font they chose for the header text. Also, using different shades of green is a nice touch (and fitting!).

As I’ve said before, branding is key in online marketing. vFlyer’s Theme Editor provides an easy and effective way to incorporate your branding into your listings. Try creating your own branded theme today, or contact us and we can have our in-house designer create one for you.

WIth that, I’m happy to announce that this week’s Custom Theme of the Week goes to Mike Davis at The Car Store in Everett, Washington. His theme has a really nice header image that he modified from the header on his website and that has a nice balance of text and images. I like it because it provides ample information while looking very professional and well laid out. I also like that the colors in the theme all work well together.

Another great thing Mike does is he uses his custom theme on his Account Profile, making a very nice looking inventory website. This is a very useful feature of vFlyer for auto dealers.

We’ll be back in two weeks with another Custom Theme of the Week, so if you have a custom theme or have seen someone else’s and think it should be celebrated, drop us a line at support@vflyer.com.

If you haven’t yet created a custom theme, take a look at this series of short video tutorials on our website to get started. And if you would like a custom branded theme of your own but don’t have the tools or the time to create one, contact support@vflyer.com. We may be able to assist you in building a custom theme.

We’ll be back next Friday with another Custom Theme of the Week, so if you’ve created or seen a custom theme and think it should be spotlighted, drop us a line at support@vflyer.com.

Great custom theme, Richie!

Once again, for a useful introduction to creating and using custom themes, take a look at this series of short video tutorials on our website.

We’ll be back next Friday with another Custom Theme of the Week, so if you’ve created or seen a custom theme and think it should be spotlighted, let us know by emailing support@vflyer.com.