AIM: Apartment Internet Marketing» Free Resources

Facebook – At Last – Get Something Back!

Steve Lefkovits — Fri, 01 Apr 2011 05:04:29 +0000

Apartmentguide.com Giveaway
Your friends at Apartmentguide.com – and we at AIM – want to see every single one of you at the Apartment Internet Marketing Conference May 2-4, 2011 in Huntington Beach.
Win a Free Trip to AIM 2011!
So Apartmentguide.com and AIM are giving away an all expense-paid trip to attend AIM 2011 for one lucky winner of our Social Engagement Giveaway. Here’s all the loot that’s up for grabs:
Free admission to AIM ($695 value); Two complimentary nights at the Hyatt Regency Huntington Beach Resort and Spa ($398 value); $1,000 in cash for the winner’s travel expenses

Post on Facebook to Enter to Win Here’s how to enter the contest. All entries must be posted by April 14 at 5PM PDT (but you’ll want to post much earlier than that): 1. “Like” the AIM Conference Facebook page if you haven’t already at http://www.facebook.com/AIMConference 2. On the AIM Conference Facebook page’s wall, nominate yourself or a friend by posting a photo and entertaining reasons why you – or your friend – would be a great, active participant in the conference. Or post a video of less than one minute that tells why you’re the best candidate. Or why your boss wasn’t going to let you go. Please just use the word “Apartmentguide.com” in your post so we know you want to be considered. 3. Ask your friends and colleagues to vote on your submission by hitting the “Like” button under the photo or video. We’ll ask the whole community to vote on the best post too. You can’t win if you don’t get the most “Likes” 4. The posted entry with the most “Likes” by 8AM PDT on April 15 will be declared the winner! The person featured in the post will win the free trip to AIM 2011!
Contest Rules Like all things these days, we have to have some rules. Here’s they are: - Attendance at AIM and eligibility for this conference is limited to employees and staff of companies that own and/or manage apartment communities. Employees and contractors of AIM, Joshua Tree Internet Media, LLC, Apartmentguide and Primedia are not eligible to win. - Any taxes and obtaining permission to accept the prize are the responsibility of the winner. - Already-paid registrants are eligible to win and will be credited and refunded as necessary. - In the event of a tie, we will conduct a coin toss as a tie-breaker. - The administration of this contest is the sole responsibility of AIM. Please don’t call your Guide rep to ask if they can “put in a good word” for your post. - All decisions made by AIM and its employees with regard to the administration of the contest are final – good or bad. The referee is the referee. - All submitted content is licensed without limitation by the contributors to AIM and Joshua Tree Internet Media, LLC for unlimited use now and in the future to promote AIM. - Entries must be received by Thursday April 14 at 5PM. - Voting ends at 8AM PDT on Friday April 15. - Offer void where prohibited.
Good luck! Get started now and post on the AIM Facebook Page!

First AIM 2010 Videos Posted

Steve Lefkovits — Thu, 27 May 2010 18:22:41 +0000

Just a quick note to notify folks that the first three AIM 2010 session videos have been posted for your viewing and reviewing pleasure at http://www.apartmentinternetmarketing.com/2010-conference/.

We will add videos periodically as our editor polishes them up. The first three are:

- Marketing for Third-Party Managers (Panel Discussion)

- Where Do Leads Come From? Multi-Source Lead Attribution (Gary Angel, Semphonic)

- Mobile, Local and Real-Time Search ( Greg Sterling, Sterling Market Intelligence)

Each video is about an hour, so set aside some time to listen and enjoy. Videos may only be available for a limited time, so schedule your viewing time with yourself soon!

Apartment Marketing in a Recession – 10 Free Resources (Part 2)

Conor — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 00:24:39 +0000

Need a better Internet presence but your 2009 budget looks more like 2002?

In Part 2 of this post, we’re reviewing FIVE MORE FREE TOOLS to help you cut the fat out of your online marketing budget. We will also be demonstrating how to successfully use many of these tools at the AIM 2009 Conference, held in Denver from April 29-May 1, 2009. Register now for AIM 2009 and save money.

Web Pages and Sites

Get a no-cost web page in minutes with WordPress. It’s a hosted, free service blogging platform and a content management system for static websites. It’s a flexible and powerful tool that can may be customized using dozens of free design templates, and hundreds of useful plugins that allow you to do just about anything. WordPress is also search-engine optimized, and the content is automatically submitted to blog search engines. While they are no substitute for custom pages that include industry-specific functionality and content, they’re great for limited purposes or to test ideas. Or for landing pages for special offers. Blogger and LiveJournal also offer free blogs, but have fewer options for managing a static website. Consider setting one up in advance as part of a disaster recovery plan for staff and resident communications. Register a separate domain name just for that purpose (“JoshuaTreeApartmentsRecovery.com”) and point it to your free blog page so you’re ready to go.

Email Auto-Responder with Custom Messages

Google’s free Gmail now provides a free email auto-responser that sends customized responses based on sender, recipient, email keywords and other factors. Users can create a series of canned responses, and then pick which ones go out in reply to which keywords. It’s not artificial intelligence, but then again, it’s free. If email lead management is a trouble spot in one or two communities, setting up a Gmail response might bridge the gap until your budget comes back and you can seek out a more robust solution.

Video Uploading and Syndication

TubeMogul and VidMetrix are free services that distribute your videos to dozens of hosting sites, and provide a rich suite of analytics about user engagement – for free. TubeMogul uploads to Google Video, MetaCafe, MySpace, AOL, Yahoo!, Revver, YouTube and about 15 more. Vidmetrix distributes to about the same video sites, plus about 40 more, but unless you want to be on Freevlog.hu, the Hungarian social video site, you’ll want to be selective.

CRM – Customer Relationship Management

Sugar CRM is the pre-eminent open source CRM software available. If you have considerable programming and implementation expertise, and not much money, you can use the free version of this software to track your prospect communication in your own hosted environment. Starbucks and Honeywell use the same software. But don’t say we didn’t warn you. This is a major project. And all of the stuff around the basic software isn’t free. To add to your confusion, there are at least nine other open source CRM solutions available. Click here to see the complete list.

Design Resources

Open Source Web Design is a portal containing pre-created web templates and web design elements that can be used by anyone for no cost, provided you comply with the terms of the creator’s license agreement. Colourlovers.com is a social media site where designers upload color palettes – sets of colors that work well together – that users may freely adopt for use in their web sites, flyers, brochures and other visual media. For those of us who like to be creative but can’t pick color combinations, Colourlovers can be a great design resource when you have to go it alone.

Missed the first five tips in Part 1 of this post? Click here to see them. (Or just scroll down).

Please share any resources of your own that may be useful to others, and consider using the money you save to register early for the AIM 2009 Conference: http://aimconf.com/register.