Tight Budget? Market Realtor Website in Usenet Rooms

With a little bit of ingenuity, you can be without excuses even when the marketing budget is tight. Your spectacular California-website-design expenditure may have emptied your pockets for the moment, but you will recoup by sending people to your website for real estate.

A no-cost way to peak interest is by posting information including your realty website URL in a newsroom on the Usenet. That’s right. Not the Internet but the Usenet. (See* instructions below.)

The Usenet was not created as a sales tool but rather as a place for the exchange of information. So when networking on the Usenet, keep in mind that you will do best if you are conversational, interested in what others have to say and find out which groups may be interested in the information that you have to offer. Think casual. Think fun. And add your expertise to the mix by posting messages.

Newsroom rules usually allow a person to post a message that may stay up for approximately 30 days, depending on the person’s Internet Access Provider and the amount of space allotted on its server. This form of “advertising” will draw out your secret agent!

You see, there are unspoken rules to the game. People do not want you to be a high-pressure salesperson. If someone is offended by your commercialism, they are quick to tell you by posting a “flame”. A flame is electronic hate mail (email) that is sent in retaliation for some form of “spam”. Spam is inappropriate advertising on the Internet. It is often associated with posting a message around the Usenet, hoping for orders. So, it is best to only post appropriate messages that apply to the interests of the group.

And you will only know the unspoken rules (culture) of a specific group by spending time with them. You can also search for specific groups by entering keywords at http://groups.google.com/googlegroups. Google News will bring up a list of related postings; click on a posting to see which group it comes from. Always spend a bit of time with that group before you post.

If you are creative, you can effectively use baiting techniques. For example, you are a Colorado realtor and have a piece of property on a mountainside where a group is planning a hike. You could comment, “Oh, there’s a really cool ranch for sale at the end of that road!”

Postings appear in order, first by the symbols over the number keys, then numbers then letters. That’s good to know when you title your message. And when you post a message, you are also able to post a signature file at the bottom with your website URL and other contact information.

*Instructions for downloading news group software:

Download News Group Reader Software (no cost) from a place like http://www.tucows.com or http://www.download.com

There are options but you might try the NewsXpress News Reader by first creating a directory in your program files (c:\ProgramFiles/News) and copying the file to this directory. The download will need to be unzipped using the “Compression Utility.” (If you do not have a compression program, that can also be downloaded for free.) And to make it easier to use, create a shortcut to your desktop.