XSites Boot Camp: Class Homework

Due to the "track-style" nature of the XSites Boot Camp series, where one class's materials are designed to roll into the next, below is a summary of the most important tasks from each session's lesson. Treat this as your "homework" for the week leading up to the next session so you'll have it top-of-mind during the other classes and be ready for your next assignment. There are links to appropriate pages in our user's guide throughout to ensure you can easily get refreshed on how to perform these tasks.

Session 1: JumpStart Your XSite

Add your photo under User Management. If you have multiple users you may wish to do the same for their profiles as well.
Optional: Enable Mobile Notifications to receive leads via text on your phone. This won't be necessary, however, if you will be checking your e-mail from your phone regularly already.
Choose a theme you like and personalize it with your logo, photo, and/or a custom header image so you are happy with your site's general appearance.
Select some of the Provided Content Pages. Only choose those that apply to your business and will help your prospects.
At least customize the text on your homepage to make it more accurately talk about who you are, what you do, and where you do it. However, be brief and just familiarize yourself with how to make changes. We'll focus on this page more in Session 2 next week.
Optional: Add Dynamic Content. Only use content that directly relates to the page you add it into. Also, be sure that it directly relates to the intended audience for that page.
Organize Your Pages. If you have a lot of audiences, organize your menus around those different audiences. If you have a few audiences, organize your content by category. Use fly-out menus and button separators liberally.
If you haven't already done so, either register a new domain name or attach an existing domain to your website.
Setup a Google Sitemap so you can check in with Google periodically and make sure they are still paying attention to your site (and see what they are seeing).
Embed a lead capture form on at least a few pages so you can be familiar with this process for Session 3.
Setup a "vanity" e-mail address (branded at your domain, not at Hotmail or AOL). Our CertMail feature can do that for you.
Optional: Consider using a program like Outlook to manage your e-mail. You can use Outlook to manage your CertMail and other e-mail accounts all in one place.

Session 2: Brand Building and SEO Boosting

Personalize your homepage. Include your specialties (and create links to where visitors can read more) and be specific with your coverage area.
Optional SEO: Research best words to use with Google's Keyword Tool. Use these in your page titles and descriptions as well.
At least use GhostWriter on sub-pages, but consider customizing them manually. Manually create testimonials and personal profile pages (bios).
Make sure your contact info is easy to find (including on your bio/personal profile pages).
Customize your site footer with images and links to professional memberships and designations (BBB, EHO, local chamber of commerce, etc).
Start up a blog and create some social media profiles. Blog about once a week (2-4 paragraphs) and update your social profiles with links to your blog and occasional "general" posts.
Link to legit organizations, get listed on Yellow Pages, trade links with colleagues, and get them to connect with you via social media.
Watch the Social Media: Beyond The Hype recording to learn more about blogging, social media, and other ways to spread the word about you and your brand online.
Create a Google Analytics account to track your progress.
Advanced: Watch the Top 10 Free SEO Tips video to learn more tips and tools you can use to improve your site's rank.

Session 3: Part 1 - Capturing Leads

Talk TO your prospects. Use the words "you" and "your" a lot.
Avoid using the words "we", "me", "us", "our", and "I". This helps personalize the tone of page to your prospect and makes it easier to avoid talking AT your prospect.
DON'T spend a lot of time talking about how great and unique you are on the home page. Most agents do this and you will blend in. Reserve that for your staff profile page and use the home page to get customers engaged with your site or into the appropriate places in your site.
Lead different groups of people into separate areas of your site. For instance, you would want to lead relocations to a different place on your site than investors.
Pick one thing (a "call-to-action") that you want someone to do on your home page and tell them to do it ("click here"). This should solve a "pain point" of theirs. It may be to go one step deeper into the site. Or it may be to fill out a form or call you. Just be sure that it's specific.
Each page should have a goal - part of the "funnel" that drives people to contact you.
Offer solutions to the problems your prospects face in the form of an "opt-in". Offer something for free. Guarantee something like privacy and professionalism.
Include embedded or dynamic content lead capture forms on several pages. Be sure that your form offers something relevant to the page in which it's embedded.
Create a custom lead capture form offering some type of solution to a specific problem.
Try to keep your offers as high-value as possible. Generalized offers like "Got a Question" are useful as catch-alls but do not provide any real tangible value for the majority of your prospects.
Make the offer easier to find (use bolding, pictures, and headlines to attract attention).
When requesting additional information (particulary contact information), be sure to explain why you need it and how it benefits your prospect if they give you that information. In general, however, it's best to ask for less information, not more.
Consider offering newsletters, area reports, and other "special services".
Consider enabling the Home Price Index or Industry Reports features (and create custom reports for visitors to request).

Session 3: Part 2 - E-mail Marketing

Contacts: Create contact groups to help classify your contacts.
Contacts: Gather your contacts. If necessary, export them from your contact management software.
Contacts: Import your contacts. As necessary, merge them into a group.
Planning: Review the XSellerate ad library. Look for highly relevant ads you can use or modify for your target audience.
Planning: Decide who you're going to e-mail. Make sure you don't lump unrelated contacts together.
Planning: Decide how often you're going to e-mail your target audience.
Pick a target audience, pick a campaign that provides them with value (information, good feelings, services, etc), then make sure your ads make it clear why they're relevant to that audience.
Whenever possible, tie campaigns to events that occur TO your prospect or that will have an impact ON your prospect.
Limit scheduling campaigns "by date" to those that are directly tied to an event (birthday, holiday, sale, contest, etc). Otherwise, use "interval based" scheduling.
Mix HTML (pretty) ads and plain text (basic e-mail) ads in your campaigns.
Mix informational ads (like newsletters) and free service ads with true "sales" ads. At some point you must ask for the sale, but it shouldn't be every time.
Use plain imperfect language in plain text e-mails (at least some of them) instead of using sales-heavy marketing lingo.
Wherever possible, greet the prospect by first name. Our Merge Fields in XSellerate can make this automatic.
As a rule of thumb, remember that it's always better to e-mail fewer people who are more likely to respond than to e-mail a lot of people that are not likely to respond (just to catch those that will).
Make it 100% clear WHY you are e-mailing someone in the first few contacts you have with them. Otherwise, they'll flush your e-mail.
Make sure there is a call-to-action in the e-mail that effectively says "do this" (the next step).
Build and activate your campaigns.
Be sure to use print ads and offline marketing as a compliment to your online efforts.
Track and revise your efforts continually.

DON'T...

Use too many fonts, font sizes, font colors, or highlighting.
Underline, bold, or italicize more than twice in a paragraph.
Require contact information that you do not ABSOLUTELY need.
Use auto-responders UNLESS they completely fulfill the offer on your site (e.g. send back the requested free report).
Force prospects to fill out a lead generation form without perfectly establishing the benefit for the prospect to do so and the exclusivity of your offer.
Cast too wide of a net with any one page, form, or e-mail ad.
Speak with a generalized or sale-sy tone.
Send generalized or untargeted e-mails out to a large "crowd" of unrelated people with the intent of "hitting" the right ones.
Limit your campaigns to just "sales" e-mails. You must provide clear value to the recipients for them to succeed.