Wednesday 26 March 2008

Free Promotion on OverseasCafe.com

If you are an agent and you want to promote your wares to the highly focussed audience of overseas property visitors you will find on the OverseasCafe.com website then there are a few things you can do to make sure people find you.

Firstly, get listed. It's free and at least you've got a foot in the door. Simply click the Register link and choose to list as an agent. Fill in your details and once you have been passed by Admin that's it, you've got a presence on the site.

Of course a presence on the site isn't everything, because there are hundreds of other agents there as well, you need to promote your Unique Selling Point (USP). To be seen you really need to have content on the site, preferably reasonably regularly. Content can be in the form of press release articles, news, advice or exhibition dates.

Press release articles include information on releases of new product, new phases coming on-line, promotions, price changes, etc. This information can be uploaded to the site directly from your account, simply log-in and click on Articles at the top of the page, then click on Add a News Article. Once the content has been passed by Admin your article will appear live on the site.

You can also present news articles to the site. These could involve details of changes to tax or legal rules, local news that would affect potential property buyers, etc. This information will have to be submitted by email to info@OverseasCafe.com. It will be uploaded with full credit to your company in the News section of the site.

If you have upcoming exhibitions or seminars around Ireland these can be promoted using the Exhibitions link at the top of your page when you are logged into the site. Once passed by Admin your exhibitions will appear live on the site.

Finally, you can upload property to the site for free. When logged in, click on Properties at the top of your screen and then on Add Property. This will allow you to upload your property details singly or in bulk.

All the above facilities are COMPLETELY FREE, but if you want to stand out from the crowd you will need to consider paying for some advertising on the site.

The cheapest method of promotion is to invest in some Premium Properties which appear at the top of all searches on the site. When logged in you can fund your account by following the Purchase Property Clicks link on the Properties page. Once you have funded your account you can change as many of your properties as you wish to Premium Properties (edit the properties and click on the Premium Property option, properties can be allocated and changed as you wish once funds have been assigned to the account). This will bring your properties to the top of any searches conducted on the site improving your visibility greatly. Remember to make the names of your properties representative of what you are selling, this will increase traffic greatly.

If you really want to be seen on the site and wish to brand your company on the Irish market then banner advertising comes highly recommended. Companies with banners on the site receive multiples of the amount of clicks as those who don't proving that, if people can't see your brand very obviously, they are less aware that you exist. When you have a presence they will associate it with other information and properties you have on the site which greatly increases the chance that they will visit your site and ultimately invest in a property or service with your company.

To upload banners to the site, log in and click on the Manage Banner Adverts link half way down your home page. Here you can upload banners to the site and dictate on what parts of the site you wish them to appear. It also allows you to calculate how many days the amount you propose to spend will last on the site for the pages you've specified. It is an extremely flexible system as you get to control exactly how much you spend and where you spend it.

When you are considering banner ads on the site remember that the more focussed they are the better they will perform. We recommend three step GIF adverts (these flash three consecutive banners of information to the potential audience, you can see examples of these on the site). These adverts can introduce the company and its logo on the first banner, a specific product or property on the second banner and the sales pitch on the third banner. It is a very efficient method of promoting your message to the highly focussed audience you will find on OverseasCafe.com.

You can also choose a package option, where we will suggest a range of ways in which your product can be promoted on the site and in its monthly newsletters. For full details of the packages available simply email info@OverseasCafe.com and we will forward details to you.

If you've problems with any of the above please feel free to contact info@OverseasCafe.com and we'll be glad to help you in any way we can.

www.OverseasCafe.com

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