Marketing SEO Blog

You are What You Where

I picked up on an interesting marketing lesson while reading a recent May 2006 of Wired. In the article, Rise of The Neo Greens, the author quoted a UC Davis educator. Ken Kurani learned when studying hybrid car owners that the cars were purchased not... Read more →

Other Industries Teach Us

I have always used other industry data to help lead us in dominating in the real estate and mortgage industry which comprises most of our client websites. By looking at other markets we can take inferences that lead us to understand new opportunities and solidify hunches.... Read more →

Google Basing the MLS II

Well it seems that as soon as I posted my mls.google.com story about Google Base, I started seeing similar takes in the real estate industry and elsewhere. Read more →

Google Real Estate Video Ads

Google Adwords has been using more and more Pictures for their famous contextual advertising service. But they also are using video. As shown here in this clip from a newsmax.com article.

You literally can play the video within the article without it opening up in another page.

Any ideas how to use this to your advantage? I can think of several and I will be revealing them soon in my Guerilla Real Estate Coaching Club.

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Reciprocal Link Request & Automation

You can imagine with all the website marketing campaigns that we manage, we get hammered for link requests. This has got be one of my all time favorites, and a good reason that many people like myself do not take automated requests for reciprocal link... Read more →

Predictions for Online Real Estate 2006

Get the insider track on 2006
....online real estate marketing predictions

Happy New Year! everyone. I just posted my predictions for the new year. Check it out.

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Internet Marketing News

Paid Local Search Advertising The paid local search advertising market will nearly triple to $907 million in 2006, according to research firm Borrell Associates. In its annual study of the local online ad market, the company also found that spending on local search will far... Read more →

Internet Real Estate Sales

The California Association of Realtors released its "2005 Use of Technology Survey" Tuesday during the "Tech Tuesday" opening session of their Centennial Realtor Expo in San Diego. The survey found that 33 percent of realtors' business is coming from the Internet.

While just 33 percent of their business comes from the Internet, 67 percent of realtors reported that the Internet extremely or very important in the marketing and promotion of their business and 61 percent of realtors post listings to their own Web site. Other results of the "2005 Use of Technology Survey" found that 90 percent of realtors have a high-speed Internet connection at home, an increase from 82 percent a year ago and 71 percent in 2003; and 46 percent of realtors use e-mail as their primary form of communication with their client.

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From real estate lead to closed sale

A recently completed report on home sellers and home buyers(Hebert Research for HouseValues Inc.), shows that home sellers take on average 9.3 months from the time they begin researching until they sell.

It takes home buyers 16.7 months, on average, to research and buy their next home. 

The study aslo found that:

• First-time home buyers invest an average of 20.5 months in the entire home-buying process, the study also found.
• Before even thinking about selling, consumers can take up to four years subconsciously collecting experiences related to their home, including current and future desired requirements, features and amenities. These experiences compound to bring the home sale to the forefront of consciousness, triggering an active research phase.
• Once the research phase has been initiated, it takes sellers an average of 9.3 months to sell – 5.5 months in a pre-research phase, 1.4 months for the active research phase, and 2.4 months for the active selling phase.
• The majority of sellers – 52.1 percent – take one day to select an agent.
• Buyers, like sellers, often take up to four years collecting experiences related to their current home, and potential future needs.
• It takes buyers nearly a year and a half – 16.4 months on average – to buy from the time they begin thinking about a purchase.
• Once the research phase for buyers has been initiated, it takes an average of 16.7 months to buy – 7.1 months in the pre-research phase, 5.5 months in the active research phase, and 4.1 months in the active buying phase.
• Forty-four percent of buyers take more than six months thinking about desirable homes and neighborhoods before actually searching for listings. The average buyer then spends more than four months searching for homes.
• First-time buyers take an average of 20.5 months on the entire home-buying process.
• 61.8 percent of buyers select their real estate agent within just one to three days.

  The survey also explored the reasons why consumers choose their real estate agent:

• Consumers use agents for three main reasons: paperwork/legal work; negotiations; and access to listings.

• Buyers and sellers tend to choose an agent based on experience, honesty and past relationships.

These numbers vary greatly from other studies say such as in California which found that :

• Internet buyers spent an average of 5.8 weeks considering buying a home before contacting a Realtor®, nearly three times more than traditional buyers, who spent 2.1 weeks in this stage of the homebuying process.
• Internet buyers spend 4.7 weeks investigating homes, and neighborhoods, before contacting an agent, while traditional buyers spent 1.6 weeks.
• Internet buyers took only two weeks before selecting a home ,while traditional buyers took seven weeks.
• Because the Internet allows buyers to preview homes, a typical Internet buyer only viewed 6.2 homes with their agent, while traditional buyers visited 14.5 homes.
• Nine out of ten Internet buyers found their agents through an online real estate listing site; 60% found their agent through Internet search engines such as Yahoo! or Google. (note I am not sure that google is a real estate searchengine) 12% used agents they had worked with previously. (I would take this to mean that the online exposure buys you loyalty)
• Traditional buyers found their agents through for-sale signs (47 percent). Half (47 percent) found their agents through agent advertising. One quarter (26 percent) of agents were referred by friends and family, and 19 percent had a previous transaction with their agent.
• Internet buyers typically interviewed only one agent (71 percent) -- the first one who responded to them. Traditional buyers interviewed a median of three agents, and 37 percent interviewed four or more agents.
• A whopping 47 percent of Internet buyers said they selected their agent because of responsiveness, while only 42 percent of traditional buyers chose their agent for that reason. So half will pick you just for showing up.
• 22 percent of Internet buyers and 21 percent of traditional buyers choosing agents they felt would be the most aggressive on their behalf.
• Internet buyers are more likely to be first-time buyers, they are younger, wealthier, better educated and more likely married.
• All first-time buyers typically spent four weeks considering buying a home and four weeks investigating homes for sale before contacting a Realtor. They then spent three weeks previewing eight homes with their Realtor.
• All repeat buyers spent three weeks considering buying a home, and only two weeks investigating homes for sale on their own. They spent five weeks previewing ten homes with their Realtor.

"The Internet is enabling consumers to research and gather information well in advance of actually buying or selling," said Ian Morris, HouseValues CEO. "This research shows that real estate agents are critical to the transaction, but are chosen late in the decision-making process, and very quickly. The takeaway for real estate professionals is to be first, fast and frequent in their communication with consumers, and that often means delivering value and information many months in advance of an expected transaction."

Ian Morris says 74 percent of consumers now begin their home research online, yet only 10 percent of real estate marketing budgets have followed them there

Comments:

Being able to generate leads is not enough. Generating email campaigns that last overtime that shares your personality and stacks value on top of value will win over prospects and keep you top of mind when it comes time to choose. And according to the data they choose quick. Your job is to get out in front of the decision process early. You do this by capturing their name and courting and segmenting them until they are ready to move your relationship to the next level.

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Google Adwords

Google just released its Google Toolbar 3 Beta. Some pretty cool tools that I will not mention.

However, there is one tool that should bother you. Especially if you are paying for your search results thru Google Adwords.

As Danny Sullivan says:

When a user lands on a page with "trigger" content, he hears a little pop (the same sound used when a pop-up is blocked by the toolbar). The AutoLink toolbar button lights up. When the button's active, the user can click or use the drop-down arrow to get a menu. If he clicks, links are added to the page. If he uses the drop-down menu, he'll see those links in the menu rather than on the page itself.

Since we are in the real estate business this is bothersome. We deal in addresses. I do not think you want people clicking off your listings, especially after you spent $3.00 to $15.00 a click to get them there.

For Google to alter your content is just wrong and GREEDY.

This is an idea Microsoft gave up on after much BIG BROTHER name calling.

This is no different and the silence is deafening. Some how google gets a pass as this pristine idealistic company run by a bunch of coolguys, and a few pimple faced cool geeks.

Spider Juice Technologies serves Realtors by building targeted real estate websites, Top Search Position Marketing, Blog Marketing, Real Estate PR, IDX/VOW web sites, and Lead Conversion.

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