FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
Q. Who are the members of the Global Land Consortium?
A. Each of the members of the Global Land Consortium is a top resort / residential developer in Central America and/or the Caribbean. All have built top-quality developments and established sterling reputations among their peers and the public for vision, integrity, and professionalism.
For the next three years, membership in the Consortium will be limited to no more than 50 developers throughout the region. As membership expands, current members will be consulted to assure that they are comfortable with potential new members wishing to join the Consortium.
Q. How does the Global Land Consortium differ from other organizations currently attempting to market offshore properties?
A. The primary difference between the Global Land Consortium and other organizations that may seem similar is that the Consortium is actually run by and for the developers who make up its membership.
Other international lifestyle and offshore publications are broad based companies having a variety of profit-making functions, only one of which is selling their marketing services to developers. The sole function of the Global Land Consortium is to help developer members sell properties and garner leads. As such, the Consortium is singularly focused – and effective.
In addition, the Consortium’s efforts on behalf of member developers is ongoing – 24/7/365. With its Caribbean Life Club member micro sites, outbound e-blasts (three to five per week), newsletters, blogs, conference representation, onsite advertising, seminars, and more, the Consortium is constantly promoting member developers’ properties and programs to hundreds of thousands of prospective buyers in a highly polished and professional manner.
Q. What is the relationship between the Global Land Consortium and the Caribbean Life Club?
A. The Global Land Consortium, made up of Central American/Caribbean developers, wholly owns the Caribbean Life Club, made up of hundreds of thousands of prospective buyers throughout the U.S. and Canada. Simply put, the Consortium serves its member developers in reaching out to the Club’s prospective buyers.
All of the benefits of Consortium membership revolve around helping member developers sell properties and garner top quality leads. The benefits of Club membership revolve around helping individuals and families throughout the U.S. and Canada want to buy property in Central America and the Caribbean.
To learn more about the Club, go to CaribbeanLifeClub.com. Suffice it to say here that the Caribbean Life Club creates a sense of community among its hundreds of thousands of members living throughout North America. That sense of community helps them feel part and parcel of “The good life at a great price” in the countries where Consortium members have their developments.
The Caribbean Life Club continually informs and excites its members about opportunities to be part of the growing expat community in Central America and the Caribbean. It extols the virtues of the people and places Club members will enjoy south of the U.S. border. It creates a feeling of belonging, helps eliminate “separation anxiety” – and lays out the welcome mat to the developments owned and operated by Global Land Consortium members.
Q. How much does it cost to for a developer to join the Global Land Consortium?
A. The annual fee for full membership in the Global Land Consortium is just $2,000. In addition, Consortium members agree to share their inactive lists (potential buyers who have not made a purchase within the past year) with the Consortium.
Q. What are the benefits of Global Land Consortium membership?
A. Among the benefits of Global Land Consortium membership are the following:
- All Consortium member developers will receive continuous Caribbean Life Club outbound e-marketing exposure to a pool of more than 200,000 prospective buyers – more than half of whom have already expressed a direct interest in purchasing properties in Central America.
This assures that every member development is guaranteed continuous marketing, providing them with solid leads whenever a Caribbean Life Club member responds -- and, providing them with solid profits whenever a property is sold at their resort development, or to one of their leads.
- Each developer also will be aggressively marketed on the Caribbean Life Club premier website homepage, on the Club website country pages, and on the Club’s website development-specific microsites.
This will be accomplished through banner, button, and shadow box advertising on every page. Plus, it will be factored into the video presentations and into the Club Live Chat call-in online opportunities.
The Club website will specially designed to be “Community Oriented,” meaning that it will be built as a turn-to, interactive site for anyone interested in learning about – or commenting on -- life in the Caribbean and Central America.
On the Club homepage, country pages, and development-specific pages, all articles and blogs will feature instant Comments sections, as well as the appropriate links for Twitter, Facebook, Text Blasts, and E-Sends. Events at featured developments will be front and center. And opportunities for Caribbean Life Club members to interact with developers – in chats, tweets, and Skype-type phone hook-ups (audio and video) will be part of the daily mix.
The point is to create “stickiness;” to keep Club members coming back -- and referring others -- because they feel they are an important part of the Caribbean Life Club Community. Plus, they will be made to feel that they are actually “Remote Residents” of the developments featured on the site.
Plus, as an added Community Orientation bonus, each development will be featured on the Caribbean Life Club YouTube Channel.
- Additionally, each member developer will also benefit from the Global Land Consortium’s highly pro-active public relations program. This will be accomplished in two ways.
The Consortium has a list of nearly one million journalists throughout the US, broken down by topic (travel, entertainment, lifestyle, business, investment, etc), by medium (print, TV, radio, online), and by reporter by name. In short, through GLC, developers’ messages can be delivered to every reporter in the US.
Each week, the Consortium will send news releases, backgrounders, reprints, feature stories, blogs, and such to members of the media according to area of interest. Because Consortium principles have a combined total of nearly 40 years of successful PR experience, they have the expertise and the contacts to produce results. Consortium member developers’ information will be featured in the Consortium PR sends.
Plus, as a member of the Consortium, each developer will have the opportunity to send specific news releases to select media for a minimum fee far below outside news release deliver services. In addition, Consortium professionals will assist in writing and editing developer releases at no additional cost.
Most news release services charge at least $1,000 for each release – and many charge additional fees for the list rental and deployment. So, when a Consortium member developer accesses the Consortium PR service just twice in the course of a year, the developer will more than pay for the full cost of Consortium membership!
- The Consortium will provide member developers free Social Media Marketing and Search Engine Optimization for their Caribbean Life Club microsites.
The Consortium will also provide developers free consultation on upgrading their own websites at a steeply discounted price. Much of this can likely be accomplished online. When necessary, Consortium web experts will work onsite for up to three days for travel and lodging expenses only.
- Each developer also will have the opportunity to place a variety of promotional materials in the Caribbean Life Club’s Caribbean Life Dream Kit, a major promotional product to be aggressively marketed nationwide in the US via TV, radio, direct email, and outbound telemarketing.
The Dream Kit will contain some $10,000 worth of Caribbean/Central American discount offers, free and reduced-price weekends, free and reduced-price vacations, free videos, restaurant coupons, etc.
The Kit will sell for $39.95 – and all members of the Consortium will receive a portion of the profits on an annual basis. Plus, each member will receive all leads generated by Caribbean Life Dream Kit marketing.
- The Consortium currently works with one of America’s leading telemarketing firms to conduct outbound telemarketing to sell the Caribbean Life Dream Kit and special offers from Consortium member developers.
The special offers from Consortium member developers may include (though not be limited to) “Chill Weekends,” vacation contests, bargain pricing on properties (both for sale and rental), seminars and conferences, and various other promotional products and opportunities. Because of the Consortium’s special relationship with the leading telemarketing firm, members will receive substantial discounts on all calls. Consortium telemarketing experts will handle all logistics.
- All developers will be invited to participate in Consortium sponsored conferences and seminars free of charge. When the participation involves exhibition space, the cost of the space will be passed on to the developers with no Consortium mark up.
Consortium member developers will provided lists of all attendees at conferences and seminars at no charge.
- In the second quarter of 2012, the Global Land Consortium will begin airing short-form (30 and 60 second) and long-form (28:30) radio and TV infomercials. The infomercials will offer a special Caribbean Life Dream Kit containing exclusive offers and promotional materials provided by developer members who have underwritten the infomercials.
Participating Consortium members will have the opportunity to buy into the infomercial at a variety of levels. Four members will have their properties featured at length (up to five minutes) in the infomercials. Up to 12 members will be featured in the “testimonial beds” leading into the Calls to Action (CTAs). And an additional 15 members will be cited in scrolls and banners in the infomercials.
The infomercials will be produced by the award-winning Consortium principal responsible for the scripting and direction of three of the most profitable infomercials in television history.
Participating members will receive all leads from the infomercial as well as a portion of the profits from the sale of Dream Kits.
It is safe to say that were a developer to hire the services of the principles in the Consortium on a fulltime basis, it likely would cost a minimum of two to three million dollars a year – not including expenses. As consultants, the team would cost a hundred thousand-plus a month. But, because of the economy of scale, the cost is minimal.
Developer members of the Global Land Consortium will receive all of the above benefits – and much, much more! – for just $2,000 and the voluntary submission of their inactive leads. In all likelihood, this amount will be more than offset by profits from the sale of Caribbean Life Dream Kits alone. When such benefits as lead generation, product placement, and outbound marketing are included, the return on investment could easily provide a 25 to 50-fold yield.
Q. What is the Global Land Consortium’s discounted, members-only “Conference Representation Service”?
A. The Consortium provides its member developers steeply discounted booth representation at international conferences attended by prospective property buyers throughout the United States.
At each conference, the Consortium’s Caribbean Life Club booth will showcase members’ developments both through print materials and videos. And booth reps will be well-versed in answering questions about what makes each development special.
Perhaps, best of all, Consortium member developers will share in the costs and pay only a fraction of what they would pay to do any single show by themselves. The greatest benefit is that then all participants will share in all the leads reducing your cost per qualified lead to just pennies.
Q. Will additional Global Land Consortium benefits be added in the future?
A. Yes, Consortium principals are already working on additional benefit packages including steeply discounted member developer representation at conferences throughout the United States and Canada. And, of course, the Global Land Consortium is eager to further expand its benefits menu in response to recommendations from its member developers throughout Central America and the Caribbean!