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Hands Down:The Best Real Estate Marketing

What is everyone else doing? Do the Opposite!

We as people, and henceforth realtors and agents tend to be sheep. I think I have even coined us as sheople in an earlier post.

What do I mean? Well we often will follow the "wisdom of crowds" without thought of consequence. Instead of finding and then doing what the very best online marketers do. Often times we make judgements based on what the majority is doing. Unfortunately, the majority does 6 home buying or listing sides a year. The full article

If it Ain't Making Leads, Then its Just an Expensive Brochure

Blogging, Websites, lead capture vs open MLs.

I can't tell you how many times a day I hear an agent or an "expert" espouse the virtues of the empowered consumer and that it really is a benefit to leave the MLS open VS forcing them to opt-in.

The biggest excuse is that the consumer will just move-on to another website.

Hmm. Lots of responses come to mind for that one:

"Whose fault is that?"
The MLS has systematically been given away by NAR itself and boards since the beginning of the net.
"So what"
Serious people do not mind giving away some personal information for the data they want. Blogs are growing at a blistering pace where anyone with a thought can publish. Do you want to see the future? Just go to MySpace. What a mess of disjointed and frenetic text. Remember the line, "57 Channels and nothing on?" Yah. The net is Cable TV on Steroids.

The future of the internet is paid content. People, will not mind paying for content from sources they trust, because they want the information they can trust. When you have a medium where anyone with Frontpage and some time can start a business, it makes it more time consumptive to get what you want. Thus, people do not mind giving their information.

I have driven millions of consumers to my own and my client websites. They all get a phenomenal lead conversion rate.

Real Estate Control Freaks

At the end of the day, a forced opt-in is about control.

Control over your business, your website and your future. The money is in your list of prospects that come from your blog, your website and IDX VOW websites.

Control is from you communicating your message to an opt in list. It comes from knowing the point of your real estate blog, or your realty website. In my opinion that is to gather names. Lots and lots of names. So that can talk with those names on your terms.

Thank You For Your Information

As Online Marketers it is crucial to understand that nature of the internet search.

By its nature of the internet searcher is to research online and buy offline.

Read that again.

By its nature of the internet searcher is to research online and buy offline.

This is evidenced by recent studies showing that 87.3% of consumers say they regularly or occasionally research products online before making a purchase in a store. This isn't real estate but human nature is human nature.

Our jobs as online home marketers is to respect that the serfer is using your data with the overt or covert intent of purchasing offline. And to jump in their path and say I have the info you wish to research, and your name and email is the minimal charge of admittance.

Here is the irony. They couldn't buy the home from you online anyway. So the purpose of the real estate website is to start a courtship that is instagated via the lead registration.

Real Estate Branding

I recently came across a request for more information on how to better brand a website. Here is my answer paraphrased.

To build a brand first, before you have the ability to capture an abundance of leads and the strategies to follow up on those leads...
....is IMHO putting the cart before the horse.

Branding is a function of eyeballs loyal to you. Not your site.

You are not selling books. And even if you were selling real estate books as an example, look at how long it took for Amazon to become a Brand name. How much Red Ink went into their branding? You are selling houses, and a home is not sold thru a shopping cart online.

In California where I am, there is 1 licensee for every 75 people in the state. Do you think there is 1 online bookstore or offline for that matter for every 75 people?

Branding is not what a website is for...at least initially. It is to capture leads.

Once you capture your leads, then the real "conversation" and "courtship" begins.

I have written a great foundation on followup drip marketing here:

It is in your follow up that you have the opportunity to create a brand and loyalty.
If you spend too much time in your website on you, then you take away from your lead capture mechanisms. Brand and Call to Action compete as elements on a page. One has to lose, one has to win.

If you want to have a brand or brochure website, then have it seperate from your lead generation website. So both can do what they are designed to do.