Real Estate Marketing SEO Blog

Google gets your real estate advertising dollars

Thanks to http://google.weblogsinc.com for this one.

Google never gives its forcasts out to the public.

Howver, the San Francisco Gate claims to have obtained “internal Google Documents” that purport to predict a startling growth-of-advertising curve, in the teeth of bad press over click fraud, out-of-control clickthrough rates in search advertising, and a general plateau effect. Citing 280,000 advertisers this year, the “internal documents” forecast a surge to 378,000 in 2005, and a doubling by 2008 to about 652,000.

Real Estate advertising

Only 4% of Real Estate advertising is going into the internet. This is appalling when 78% of real estate buyers and sellers begin their search online. (NAR).

It is even more ironic that CAR has found that the average Internet home buyer looks at six houses and takes only two weeks to purchase, compared to the traditional real estate buyers that look at 15 houses and take seven weeks to purchase.

The California Association of Realtors also found that internet real estate leads are the best source of real estate leads overall, second only to yard signs.

The internet is only a medium. However, it is a medium that is attracting most of your real estate prospects. And as the GenX'ers start buying real estate, it will be more and more necessary to figure out how to make a successful internet marketing campaign.

So why is only 4% going online? Personally I believe part of it is fear of the unknown and not knowing where to go for help.

At Spider Workz, we are offering you a white paper called the 5 Steps to a Successful Real Estate Website.

A warning though, it is not for the newbie agent. If you are new to the business and do not have an established track record, please don't waste too much of your resources online. You should spend most of your time marketing "old school", while establishing a future budget.

I will have a piece soon that will explain in detail the process of getting from the newbie stage to an online guerilla realtor soon.

Thanks to Bernice Ross of the RealEstateCoach.com for inspiring this article.

Cost Per Lead

I found a terrific resource proving that search is the cheapest cost per lead generator out there. The source from this chart is Piper Jafray

While search is shown to be at .45 a lead, direct mail is $9.94.

You always have to look at these numbers relative to the other relation. But it is revealing nonetheless.

Meanwhile excentric millionaire Mark Cuban, owner of the NBA Team The Dallas Mavericks, has started his own search engine called Ice Rocket.

Mark is a blogger too.

Best Time of Week to Email

Two recent studies from eROI & Return Path as reported at Marketing Sherpa show that that Monday is the best day for email campaigns.

Both studies also found reponse rates best at 10:00 AM every day of the week but Tuesdays when noon is best.