Dream House Beacon

April 2008

In This Issue

· What’s Your Reach?

· Featured Virtual Tour and Give-Away Winner of the month!

· Technology Updates

· How the Midnight Ride Applies to Marketing

Contact Us

Dream House Photography
P.O. Box 2868
Virginia Beach, VA 23450

Order a Virtual Tour
(757) 831-0829

Click Here to Email Us

Useful Resources

DHP Website

Find Out More About us and How Online Marketing Can Make A Difference in YOUR Business

Our Price Plans

How Affordable Can Online Marketing Really Be? Click Here To Find Out.

Testimonials

Find Out What Others have to Say About Our Services.

Forward this email to your friends so they can register to win a free virtual tour or one of many prizes that we give away every month!

Q: What's the difference between outlaws and in-laws?

A: Outlaws are wanted.

Q: What’s the difference between dogs & cats?

A: Dog looks at human and thinks: "My hero, my friend, my buddy."
Cat looks at human and thinks:"My can-opener."

April 5, 1614
American Indian, Pocahontas, marries
English colonist, John Rolfe in Virginia
 
April 7, 1947
Great American ‘Assembly-Line’
innovator Henry Ford died at age 83.
 
April 8, 1974 

  

  
Henry ‘Hank’ Aaron hit his 715th home
run against the Los Angeles Dodgers,
breaking Babe Ruth’s record.
 
April 11, 1970

  

  
Apollo 13 mission began.
 
April 14, 1865

  

  
President Abraham Lincoln was shot
by John Wilkes Booth at Ford’s
Theatre, Washington DC, while
watching ‘Our American Cousin’.
 
April 18, 1775
Midnight ride of Paul Revere & William
Dawes in Boston Massachusetts.
 
April 23, 1564 & 1616
William Shakespeare died on the same
date of his birth at the age of 52.

What’s Your Reach

What makes consumers love your website and stay loyal to your product? Research shows that customers have a more upbeat attitude toward a site when their online experience is engaging and enjoyable. Enjoyment is a top reason why consumers browse on the web in the first place!

When potential customers become engrossed in your site, they view being on your site as fun and not 'just work'. If their experience is enjoyable, they return for more. This process makes them more loyal to the site, your business and the services you offer.

What creates this captivation?

You gain loyalty when there is entertainment, interaction and control.

• The site entertains customers. Customers don't want to be bored. They want their experience to be an enjoyable escape rather than a burden.
• Customers have the ability to interact directly with the content on your site. Customers need to be entertained and enthralled by a form of media to stay focused and bond with your company.
• Customers feel they have control over the search. If the navigation is too complicated for the average user to master, they won't return to the site. If customers can't follow the site navigation, they will lose interest in their search and, perhaps, your company and its products.

Make your company's website more appealing by adding sharp visuals and engaging PowerPoint presentations which can be streamed to play on your site. Market to customer's emotions with the use of compelling audio and engaging media!

Check out some of our PowerPoint presentations here: Advantage

Featured Virtual Tour

Give-Away Winners

This month Dream House Photography is starting up a monthly Give-Away where some lucky realtor will win a FREE virtual tour! Here are some pictures of the day we awarded her prize!

Marketing Tips

AutorunMax - Create Your Own Interactive CD’s

Dream House Photography is always looking for solutions to help you be a successful business person and this software is an excellent tool for your business.  The AutorunMax software is great for creating your own interactive CD’s and it is easy to use. 

In a very short amount of time you will be able to create a customized sales CD complete with sample tours, sales brochures, web links, and your contact info all accessible from an interactive menu.  With the click of a button you can burn your project directly to CD.  Add a label onto the CD and you have a professional looking interactive sales CD. 

You will need to purchase the Business version of AutorunMax 2.0 so that you can publish your projects for business use. 

To view a video tour of the software go to http://www.autorun.com/site/index.php and click on the product tour.

Technology Updates

This section is here to help keep you informed on all of the upgrades and advances in our technology. As a Real Tour Vision Certified ProviderTM, we have a team of technicians constantly working to keep your technology one step ahead of the competition. This means you will always be using the most up to date software and marketing tools. If you ever have any questions about the many services that we provide, please give us a call at (757) 831-0829.

Dream House Photography Celebrates 100^th Virtual Tour

Completing our 100^th tour for Marion Swain of Coldwell Banker Professional Realtors, Marion was pleasantly surprised with her FREE virtual tour, balloons and a gift basket for her to enjoy after a long and hard days work of selling homes four her clients. Dream House Photography in celebration of their 100 Virtual tour in just under a year were glad to do the tour for free and through in the extra benefits to Marion since she is one of our first clients that has been an key part of Dream House Photography’s success in their first year.

How the Midnight Ride Applies to Marketing

This month marks the 233^rd anniversary of Paul Revere’s and William Dawes rides. From a business perspective, this ride was most interesting when looking at the effectiveness of both of these gentlemen’s messages. They both had the same exact message to deliver. So why it is that Paul Revere was not only more successful at delivering that message but is also most remembered for it?

Both men had very important news that needed to be delivered to many people in a very short period of time. If you look at this from a marketing perspective, their message was urgent, relevant to the people to which it was being delivered and at a time that people would be sensitive to the message.

Same message, same method, same time …completely different results.

According to the book, The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell, the difference was in the way that Paul Revere was connected to his community. He was a man who was very intensely social. As Gladwell wrote: “He was a fisherman and a hunter, a card player and a theater-lover, a frequenter of clubs and a successful businessman. He was active in the local Masonic Lodge and was a member of several select social clubs.”

(Interesting point to note here is the question: was Paul Revere so social because he was a successful businessman, or was he a successful businessman because he was so social?)

As Gladwell’s book points out, it isn’t that Paul Revere knew everyone; it is that he knew whom to alert to aid him in alerting the others. He knew, as Gladwell puts it, ‘whose door to knock on’ to get his message spread as quickly as possible. Paul Revere was most likely alerting people such as the head of the Masonic Lodge, the head of a fisherman’s club, and various other well-connected people. While Dawes, being a man of normal social circles, simply spread his message to everyone as he rode through town.

So the question is; are you Paul Revere or are you William Dawes? Do you take the time to connect yourself with different organizations in your local area? Do you invest the time necessary for your business to thrive in creating your own social network?

You may never have to ride through town contacting everyone with an urgent message at midnight, but getting to know many people in different types of social networks can do incredible things for your referral network and ultimately your success.