April 12, 2008
Here is a great marketing idea that involves images enhanced with Watermark Plus and flyers: Creating a set of before and after images and including them in your vFlyers as an effective way to show-off your business skills.
A growing number of small business owners are using vFlyer to promote their businesses. Whether you are in the construction, home staging, health care, landscaping or provide other professional services to consumers or business, using before and after pictures helps communicate qualities that are otherwise difficult to “illustrate”, things like attention to detail, quality of work and the ability to deliver great results to prospective customers – try it today.
Tags: small+business, marketing, watermarks
February 19, 2008
This week’s Watermark Plus image of the week comes from John Baker of the Lithia Internet Sales Center. Like other Internet-savvy auto dealership marketers, John uses Watermark Plus to add sales information to images that could help take them off the lot! It’s no surprise that Watermark Plus is so popular with auto dealers! Image merchandising has been used by auto dealers in automotive classified advertising magazines such as AutoTrader, Trade Magazine, Dupont Registry and Zoom Photo Ads. Watermark Plus takes the process online and allows car dealers to merchandise photos for free in a few simple clicks and then use them in online classifieds!
February 15, 2008
Some real estate agents have put Watermark Plus to particularly good use! By simply combining the photo of their property being listed with their own personal photo and an eye-catching message (Just Listed, Price Reduced, i.e.), they can make their property photos really stand out!
October 21, 2007
I always like to remind users about the many different services vFlyer has to offer to online sellers and real estate professionals. While most people know about our distribution platform that pushes listings and flyers to leading online marketplaces, some are unaware of the many of the other complementing services available including Watermark Plus (image enhancement), Domain Plus (single property websites), vFlyer Team and Agency (collaboration and sharing), Mobile and SMS (mobile distribution) and Widgets.
One of the goals of our blog is to continually remind and educate users on how they can make the most of our marketing and distribution platform to more successfully promote their listings, products and services.
It’s always encouraging to see users put some of this information into practice! For example, a couple of weeks ago we talked about using Watermark Plus to enhance photos of yourself and as a result a growing number of real estate professionals are using Watermark Plus for just that purpose!
I would encourage all vFlyer users to check out the vFlyer Blogregularly to find out how to get the most out of our platform, to learn and capitalize on online selling trends and technologies (such as podcasting), and to better market their listings, products or services!
August 29, 2007
It has often been said that a picture is worth a thousand words and there isn’t anything nicer that a flyer or listing with a great property photo (obviously a great price is nice too!)
I have always been impressed by the number of quality photos I continue to find on vFlyer! Here are some of my recent favorites:
More and more real estate agents are opting for professional photos as it is becoming easier to find reasonably priced photographers. For those who choose to take their own photos, here is a great resource (Photography For Real Estate) dedicated to covering tips and techniques for real estate photography - that is worth checking out! So whether you choose to to take photos yourself or you prefer to hire a professional photographer – remember – make every pixel count!
Technorati Tags:  Photography, vFlyer, Real Estate
August 27, 2007
Some people don’t realize you can use Watermark Plus for plain old simple image hosting. Simply upload your photos and make sure Graphic Type is None and the Text field is left blank! We’ll upload your photo and host it for you (for free) – another great use of Watermark Plus.
You an access the hosted image by clicking Get HTML and using the URL in your IMG (image) tag. So for example:
Uploaded photos are stored in PNG format. Unlike JPG, which is a lossy compression technique, PNG uses lossless compression – meaning no data or quality is lost – and as a result you get a higher quality photo with only a slight increase in size (5%-25% more than a GIF file).
Here are some image hosting examples:
Note: Photo uploaded by subscribers don’t have the “Image Enhanced by vFlyer.com†branding
August 7, 2007
Most people use Watermark Plus to enhance pictures of items for sale such as homes and cars, but recently I have noticed more and more people using Watermark Plus to enhance photos of themselves. By adding a marketing, sales or personal slogan, these pictures can you show you in your best light! Online sellers, especially real estate professionals, know that personal photos can be a powerful marketing tool!
Try it today! simply upload a photo of yourself and add your personal marketing or sales slogan (or your contact information) and make your photo even more powerful! Here are some other great examples:
Technorati Tags: Photos, vFlyerphotoshopwatermarkblingreal estaterealtorimageszillow
July 12, 2007
A growing number of vFlyer users are using their Watermark Plus images in their flyers to achieve great results! We designed Watermark Plus to work well both as a stand-alone service for enhancing and merchandising images as well as in combination with flyers as part of our vFlyer platform!
As a result we made it very simple to combine the two. To add Watermark Plus images to a new or existing flyer, go to the Photographs section. Next, add a main or gallery photo. Then select Image Gallery as the source and pick an enhanced image from the drop down list.
Here are a couple more examples of how users are combining the two unique services together:
July 10, 2007
Since the launch of Watermark Plus, the quality and number of images enhanced and merchandised by the service has been on the rise! This week’s images are a great example of the quality photos users are uploading and enhancing! If you haven’t tried Watermark Plus, try it today. You don’t even have to register to use it.
June 28, 2007
This week’s Watermark Plus image come from Cindy Jones of RE/MAX Allegiance
of Burke, VA. I choose simply because of its quality, simplicity and the clarity of the message! More and more real estate and auto professionals are using Watermark Plus to embed important sales and product information into their photos.
If you haven’t used Watermark Plus yet, here are some great examples and ideas of what you could be communicating about your listing: Price Reduced, For Sale, Pending Sale, 2 Tee Ptarmigan, Easy to Show, Just Listed, Front View, $199900 3/2/2, Rented, Sold, Open House, Your Relaxing View, Ocean View Acreage, Great Ocean Views, 2 Family Rental Income, Make Offer, and Gas Saver.
Here are some previous posts on Watermark Plus:
June 21, 2007
Since the launch of our public beta of Watermark Plus, a number of users have asked us why some photos have an “Image Enhanced on vFlyer.com†inscribed in the lower left-hand corner of the photo and some don’t so I wanted to quickly explain the difference. Photo created by vFlyer Personal (free) users have the inscription but photos created by users who are subscribers (vFlyer Starter or above) don’t – hope that explains it.
June 18, 2007
In addition to real estate and auto, motorcycles are another popular category on vFlyer! Last week we started highlighting flyers on the blog, this week I ran into a couple more Watermark Plus images I wanted to share. This weeks image comes from Jason Siegel of Honda Northwest. Jason has been using vFlyer for a couple of weeks after seeing us on Craigslist.
June 12, 2007
Since we announced our Watermark Plus service, hundreds of users has tried it! Here some examples of the results (click to see a large version):
Today we launched the public beta for a new service. Watermark Plus is an image enhancing service offered as part of vFlyer that allows users to merchandize and enhance photos and images by adding text, graphics, logos and watermarks to them - quickly and easily. The service allows online sellers to:
- Protect photos by adding visible watermarks and logos
- Enhance photos to attract interest from buyers by adding sales, product and pricing information
- Brand photos and include contact information by adding company logos or personal photographs
If you are looking for ideas on the type of information you can overlay on your photos, here are a few:
- Attention grabbing graphics (stars, banners, ovals, i.e.)
- Sales information or Call to action (“Call Nowâ€,â€Special Offerâ€, i.e.)
- Product information (“Price Reducedâ€,â€Just Listedâ€, “In Stockâ€, i.e.)
- Contact information (phone number, url, i.e.)
- Corporate branding and logos
- Personal branding and photos
- Watermarks (transparent)
The photos you create can be used on flyers (see example), online classified and auctions sites such as Craigslist and eBay (See examples), collateral, PDFs, and email.
Here are some example of what is possible using Watermark Plus (Click for larger image):
Free! – No Registration Required
During the public beta, we have decided to make Watermark Plus FREE! You don’t even have to register to use it. Simply upload your photo and you are ready to go. When done you can download your photo without registering. You will only need to register if you want us to host your photo for you!
Tell your Friends about Watermark Plus
As part of our beta program we would like to get as much “real world†feedback as possible so if you know anyone who can benefit from this service, do let them know! Also check out our Support Wiki for other Watermark Plus resources include demos and examples.
June 11, 2007
For me the most interesting part of merchandizing (or merchandising) has always been the advertising, design, point-of-purchase displays, and in-store promotional aspects of selling a product or service. Unfortunately a lot of this is sadly missing when it comes to promoting products and services online. Classified ads listings, especially real estate and auto listings, are an excellent example of this.
A lot of sellers are satisfied with simply leaving it up to the marketplace to help their property, product or service get noticed - but this isn’t always a great strategy. To illustrate my point, I took screenshots of two popular marketplaces that are representative of most listings of this type:
It is obvious from the listing format that the first thing people look at are the photos, in fact I wrote on the importance of good photos in a previous post. In the post, I pointed out that viewers consistently found photos - a powerful visual element - to be the most important feature for those searching for homes online.
Unfortunately there is only so much you can with a photo! Maybe you have the world’s best looking property, maybe you don’t, but what next? Here is where a little merchandizing can help!
When we started vFlyer, one of the things we wanted to do was to provide a service that allowed people to create attractive visual presentations that helped them differentiate and draw attention to their listings, products and services - vFlyers allow you to do just that! Pouring through real estate and auto magazines looking for potential beta customers, however, we came across another complementary idea - merchandizing online photos!
I am sure the last time you picked up your local real estate or auto magazine you noticed the stars, banners and other attention grabbing graphics that agents and dealers used to draw attention to their listings. Headlines like “Just Listed”,”Price Reduced”, and “No Money Down” immediately providing additional information about the listing. Obviously it works - so we decided it would be a good idea to provide the same kind of merchandizing help online!
Earlier this year, after meeting with a friend of the company (Munjal Shah, co-founder of Like.com/Riya and previously Andale - one of the first successful image hosting services for eBay sellers - later acquired by Vendio) we decided it was time to empower online sellers to merchandize photos as well!
Tomorrow we are launching the public beta of Watermark Plus, our photo enhancing and “merchandizing” value-added service. It’s still in beta, so please be patient as we continue to add more advanced features and functionality to the service. The service is FREE - you don’t even have to register to use the service (unless you want vFlyer to host the images for your) - So try it today!
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