This week, I decided to do something a little different in our Custom Theme of the Week series and highlight several great holiday custom themes that our property management users have created. As you may know, the vFlyer Theme Editor not only allows you to choose the colors and fonts of your themes but also to upload your own background images. The themes I’ve selected here all utilize holiday-themed background images (some of which are animated GIFs, which add a special twist) to great effect. I hope you enjoy these fun and festive flyers as much as we at vFlyer have!

• Eaton Village Apartments in Chico, CA
• Brookwood Club Apartments in Jacksonville, FL
• Canyon Ridge Apartments in Rockwall, TX
• Richmond Green Apartments in Houston, TX
• Sierra Glen Apartments in Citrus Heights, CA
• Sutter Creek Apartments in Arlington, TX
• The Californian Foutain Apartments In South Coast Metro, CA
• Autumn Chase Apartments in Bothell, WA

Thanks to everyone who made such great holiday custom themes this season. And thanks to all the vFlyer users who made custom themes this past year. 2009 saw the creation of hundreds of custom branded themes, only some of which we showcased in our blog. We’re excited to see even more branded themes in 2010! If you’re interested in having a custom branded theme created for you, contact us at support@vflyer.com.

And finally, Happy Holidays from the vFlyer Team!

Our custom theme of the week comes to us from Olga Katon at Park Place Real Estate Services in Chicago. This is one of my favorite branded themes I’ve come across for a few reasons. First, I love the look of the branding: urban, edgy, and sophisticated but also fun at the same time. Second, I like how well Olga utilizes the space of the header; she includes not only the company name and logo but also the office address, phone number, and email address. Third, all the colors in the theme work really well together.

I should note that this is the third Chicago-area company that we’ve highlighted in our Custom Theme of the Week series (the other two being Caliendo Automotive and Vranas Properties). Chicago must be a very design-oriented city! We’ll have to see if other cities (New York, Los Angeles, Atlanta, Boston…) can compete with Chicago in its output of great custom themes.

As always, 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.

Happy Friday! This week’s custom theme is from Richie Caliendo at Caliendo Automotive. I love the header image in this theme, with its classic-car look and elegant black background. This is one of the best auto dealer custom themes I’ve seen yet! Also, Richie takes advantage of our Showcase layout for Craigslist (see picture below), which has a nice big photo at the top of the Flyer to give the prospective buyer a better view of the car. The Showcase layout is one of 9 Craigslist layouts available to business subscribers when they use a custom theme. Other information and photos of the vehicles are displayed below the huge photo at the top.

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.

We’re introducing a new blog feature, the “Custom Theme of the Week”. We have so many great custom themes that our members have created using the Theme Editor and their own creativity and resourcefulness, we decided we had to show them off to the rest of the world. This week’s custom theme is from Ryan Hinricher at InvestorNation. Ryan made great use of an uploaded background image and a header image that’s seamlessly integrated with the background. I especially like the upward-pointing arrow in the logo and the contrast of white and blue between the header and background; it gives me a whole new way of thinking about what’s possible with the Theme Editor. Everyone on my team is quite impressed by this custom theme. Nice work, Ryan!

vFlyer’s Theme Editor enables any user to create his or her own custom theme and any business subscriber to upload a branded header image to a theme. It’s a great way of making your Flyers stand out from the rest, and the branding capabilities for business subscribers provide a vehicle for putting your brand front and center on your Flyers. For a useful introduction to creating and using custom themes, take a look at this series of short video tutorials on our website.

We expect to post a new theme every Friday, so keep an eye out for more fantastic custom themes. And if you’ve created a custom theme and think it should be spotlighted, let us know by emailing support@vflyer.com!

After many late nights over the last week, we completed our latest round of computer system upgrades. The biggest part of the recent upgrade was the addition of a new storage server. This new storage server will enable us to add storage as needed without having to reboot our servers. Now that this is behind us, we can be focused on adding support for more Marketplaces, more Widgets, and other cool marketing tools.

We had a fantastic time exhibiting at Inman Real Estate Connect last week. The show gave us a chance to share with real estate agents and brokers, technology managers, and other attendees all about the benefits of using vFlyer and gave us the opportunity to catch up with some longtime vFlyer members and meet other members for the first time. vFlyer members who stopped by our booth included:

Also, the winner of our vFlyer Basic Annual Subscription Giveaway was vFlyer member Tom Plant of Coldwell Banker Residential Brokerage, Wildomar, CA. Congratulations Tom!

Thanks to all of you for stopping by and saying hello!

Also, our very own Oliver Muoto was a panelist on a panel discussion titled, “The Hottest Productivity Tools.” Way to represent, Oliver!

The Inman show is a great chance to learn about, discuss, and debate the most important trends in real estate technology and marketing. We’re delighted to have had the opportunity to participate in the conference again and look forward to future Inman Real Estate Connects.

This month’s vFlyer Star is John Lockwood, broker/owner of Sacramento, CA based Elite Properties. The vFlyer Star program identifies and recognizes our biggest and most active users, supporters and advocates. (See Previous vFlyer Stars)

Elite Properties does a great job of marketing its client listings and the company itself. John and his company are actively involved in many forms of online and social media marketing including blogging and ActiveRain.

John Lockwood is truly a “power-user” and one of a growing group of users that take vFlyer to the max! John has the following advice:

A special thank you from vFlyer to John Lockwood and Elite Properties.

	Name: John Lockwood Company: Elite Properties See vFlyer | See Blog About Company: Elite Properties is a company that has been a leader in using of Internet marketing in the Sacramento area for several years. When we saw vFlyer, we knew that this would be an outstanding addition to our service offerings. How I use vFlyer: For the past several months, I have used vFlyer for all my company’s listings and provide it for my agent’s listings as well. I create thumbnail ads which link to the on-line flier on all my websites. I also use the flyer widget on my blog. I like the fact that vFlyer ads can be pasted into my main blog as well as my ActiveRain Blog, and I especially like that with about ten minutes of effort. I have a flyer that can also be used not only on my blogs, but on Craigslist, Sacramento News and Review (a Backpage sites that vFlyer supports), and that automatically gets syndicated to several other sites as well. What I Like Best: I like vFlyer so much that I recently used it in my online “listing presentation” video, which shows how vFlyer is an integral part of an overall online marketing strategy (Example) One of the interesting statistics from that movie is that during a particular period for one listing of mine, I had 91 hits in the MLS, 230 hits on Realtor.com, and over 1,000 hits on my vFlyer page for that listing. The statistics reports you can get make a great addition to any listing presentation. Usage: vFlyer Star Badge

If you think you or someone else you know should be recognized as a vFlyer Star, let us know by sending an email to blog@vflyer.com

This month’s vFlyer Star is Leigh Brown, broker/owner of RE/MAX Signature Properties. The vFlyer Star program identifies and recognizes our biggest and most active users, supporters and advocates. Previous vFlyer stars include Maureen Henry (Rockland Home Staging) and Missy Caulk (RE/MAX Platinum).

An early vFlyer subscriber, Leigh describes her firm:

A special thank you from vFlyer to Leigh Brown.

	Name: Leigh Brown Company: RE/MAX Signature Properties See vFlyer | See Blog How I use vFlyer: What I like best about vFlyer is that it’s EASY to use and produces such a professional looking product. My response from websites such as craigslist.org has improved dramatically. I also send an e-postcard to my sellers with a link to my vflyer asking them to email it to their personal email databases. My sellers enjoy being an active participant in their marketing and it’s very professional exposure for them. Usage: vFlyer Star Badge

If you think you or someone else you know should be recognized as a vFlyer Star, let us know by sending an email to blog@vflyer.com

The vFlyer Star program identifies and recognizes our biggest and most active users, supporters and advocates. Last month we featured Maureen Henry, who runs a successful home staging company in Rockland County, NY, as our first vFlyer Star. This month, we feature Missy Caulk – a tech savvy REALTOR with RE/MAX Platinum in Ann Arbor, Michigan.

I initially “ran” into Missy Caulk by following her many posts on the “blogosphere” and soon discovered that she, like Maureen, was a Flyer “superuser,” fan and online cheerleader! When she isn’t busy selling, Missy is generously sharing great tips, advice and information with other agents on the Web!

Here is what Missy has to say about her office:

RE/MAX Platinum is home to great agents, who sell more homes per agent than any other company in the area. We average 11.5 homes per year per agent in sales…Other companies in the area, average only 3 to 7…The Ann Arbor office, is like a big, happy family! We share ideas and don’t try to keep new things to ourselves. It is a positive environment to work in.

Thanks Missy! We appreciate your support.

	Name: Missy Caulk Company: RE/MAX Platinum See vFlyer | See Blog How I use vFlyer: I use vFlyer in several ways: I create a flyer and email it to all the RE/MAX agents to announce a new listing. I create a widget and post it on ActiveRain and Localism so the public can view it, when they are learning about Ann Arbor and Saline. I add comments. I then add it to my widget gallery and it keeps it current and fresh I notify my sellers of the post and send it to anyone else in my community that I feel needs to know about the new listing. I submit it to annarbor.craigslist.org and syndicate it to all the websites vFlyer publishes to. What I like best: I love it, it is so much fun to create professional brochures and be able to email them out. I love the widgets. (I learned all about them here). I was so impressed with the free offer, that I tried it and felt it was well worth investing in the product for one year. Now, I can create as many as I want. I have referred it out to everyone who asks “How did you do that?” I also use the vFlyer PDF in my homes instead of the boring MLS data sheet. One important thing – maybe the most important – is that the support is excellent. Someone gets right back to me. Once I sent a email and immediately, I got a call back. I mean within seconds of clicking “send”. Usage: vFlyer Star Badge

If you think you or someone else you know should be recognized as a vFlyer Star, let us know by sending an email to blog@vflyer.com

Every once in a while we like to identify and recognize vFlyer Stars– users who are active supporters and advocates of vFlyer in their companies, industry communities, or organizations.

Maureen Henry, who runs a successful home stagging company in Rockland County, New York, has the distinct honor of being our first vFlyer Star! Maureen is an avid vFlyer user as well as an active blogger on ActiveRain. A vFlyer pro, Maureen confessed to me that:

Thanks Maureen! We appreciate your support.

	Name: Maureen Henry Company: Rockland Home Staging See vFlyer | See Blog How I use vFlyer: I use vFlyer to post on Craiglist, announce upcoming events, and email flyers to potential clients. What I like best: My favorite thing about vFlyer are the Widgets! I also love being able to change and customize my vFlyers whenever I need to – you guys make it so easy. Usage: vFlyer Star Badge

If you think you or someone else you know should be recognized as a vFlyer Star, let us know by sending an email to blog@vflyer.com