| Start
Locally
You can spend plenty of money and time
gaining presence for yourself on the web, but the best place to start is
with web sites specific to your own geographic marketing region.
Why? Because when people plan a move, they know their relocation city
long before they hunt for a home or Realtor® there. So you want to have
web "presence" in sites providing consumers information about
your local region.
Thinking like the
consumer. Most Important.
In web advertising, think like an online
consumer. Consider how you’d react if you worked for Boeing in
Seattle and your boss tells you that you’re being transferred to San
Clemente in South Orange County, California to be president of a
recently acquired subsidiary firm.
Build Links from
Community Specific Sites
How soon would you be on the web
checking out San Clemente and all the nearby cities to learn about the
local schools, cultural activities, golf, civic and social clubs, etc?
When you did, you’d soon learn that within 10 miles of San Clemente
are other cities in which you could live, too—Dana Point,
Laguna Niguel and San Juan Capistrano. You’d find that though similar
in size, each of the four cities has its own very distinct character and
history (http://www.sjc.net/history/index.html) as revealed on the many
web sites there (e.g., http://www.san-clemente.com)
providing community information.
You might think, "Hmmm, maybe I
should also look at a county-wide site, in case they, too,
have city pages. And you’d find that major cable companies, among
other firms, have county sites: http://www.ocnow.com
and http://www.inorangecounty.com.
You drill down in them, and YES there is considerable additional info
on the four cities that you’re exploring.
As you continue studying each city, you
become aware that several Realtor® sites keep popping up within these
community pages. You know that you want a local Realtor® to represent
you, as the buyer, when you visit the area in person to find a home, so
you click on one of the Realtor® links.
When the Realtor®’s site appears, you’re
thrilled to see that it offers links to each of the cities you’re
considering. Best, each city has all the information that you, as a
relocating buyer, would like to see about that city. The
information is exactly what you sought and not just some tourist info on
"what to do, where to dine, stay, etc." You need data that a
relocating home buyer needs. And there it is, compressed onto a
single page for each city. You think, "Wow! This Realtor® has already
served me well. I better bookmark her site."
E-mail is the Internet
Communication Tool
Later, when showing your spouse the
cities, you call up the bookmark for that helpful Realtor®. Her home
page headline and an interior "How To" page (http://www.debbieferrari.com/search.html)
say she’ll help you find homes in her area even before you
arrive in person. So you fill out her e-mail form called "What Are
Your Needs" and describe your desired home.
She e-mails you back a half-hour later
giving you the MLS numbers of five home matches she’s already
found. And, she even attaches to her message a file (from the MLS)
containing the actual photos and descriptions of the five homes. (What
service!) You find that two of the homes look perfect and you tell her
so. She answers that she’ll go out now and take digital camera images
of the two homes, inside and out.
In the meantime, she invites you to click
on her home page link called "Search for Homes" which takes
you to her own password-protected version of the major MLS search
engine, Homeseekers.com. You go, from a home page link, to (http://www.citynet.homeseekers.com),
enter her password, (OC SFERRDEB) and look at scores of additional
homes in the four cities—just to be sure.
An hour later, you get another e-mail
from her. The attachment shows a dozen views of the two homes that you
liked, inside and out.
One of them blows your mind---your DREAM
HOUSE personified! You e-mail the Realtor® back and tell her you’ll
fly down Saturday to see it. You do, you love the home even more, make
an offer and it’s accepted. You just bought a home the new hi-tech way—using
the web and a web-savvy Realtor® to save time and wasted trips. But the
only way you noticed her above many other Realtors® was because you
kept finding her everywhere! Her links and banners and tile ads
seemed pervasive in local community and county web sites (along with
appearing high up on search engine summary pages.)
Thinking like
consumers pays off
What does this scenario teach us? That in
order to gain any share of sales from buyers (95+% of your online leads)
you need to be where THEY go to study communities, homes and agents. Of
course that means that your web site must contain excellent
community information specifically designed to appeal mostly to home
buyers. Don King, (http://www.donking-homes.com)
RE/MAX of Rancho Bernardo, San Diego, says, "When people move to
this area, they have no idea what our various sub-communities are like.
So, besides extensive links to San Diego metro information, I also give
them virtual tours of six North County inland communities so they can
contrast and compare. Visitors tell me they really appreciate this
service."
Links vs. Content
Improvement
Thus, in online marketing, your first
choices are free and paid, links and banners, in local-community and
county web sites. However, some Realtors® feel that this approach may
be subordinate to simply further improving your web site’s content.
Tim Muetterties, (http://www.skibear.com)
Tim Muetterties Realty, Arnold, CA (the Sierras), says, "I would
rather spend time and money on making my site the best it can be and
then promoting it and my company through other [traditional]
advertising, rather than pay for banner ads, etc. I get quite a few
people asking me to link them to my site. As long as their site is
beneficial to my site and my clients, I will offer to exchange free
links with them."
Be where consumers
look for homes
After local sites, the next best place to
be is where consumers routinely look for homes. These are
the major MLS search sites, such as Realtor.com, Homeseekers.com,
HomeAdvisor.com, Homescout.com, Listinglink.com, Cyberhomes.com and
several others.
Did you know that when pages showing your
home listings appear in some major MLS search sites including
Realtor.com, your own name and contact information is displayed only
if you have bought a web site or a link from that site? If you haven’t,
your listing shows only the name and contact information of your broker’s
office, not you.
Conversely, other MLS sites such as
Homeseekers.com and HomeAdvisor.com automatically display the
listing agent’s name and contact info on each listing, even if no
extra money was paid. A boon for listing agents.
Enhancing Your MLS
Links
Additionally, in virtually all MLS
search sites, you are not included for your city in their "Find a
Realtor®" function unless you have paid them for an enhancement.
In other words, if a buyer is searching for homes in a major MLS search
site and suddenly decides to contact a Realtor® to represent him,
instead of working solely with the listing agent/office shown, you won’t
be found unless you have paid to be there. Yet, since MLS sites
are where most consumers go to look at homes for sale in your city,
it’s almost essential that you do be there. A quandary, indeed.
Most MLS search sites could do a far
better job in the way they display Realtors®. For example, "Find A
Realtor®" lists are usually alphabetically displayed. So if your
name begins much after "E" you are not likely to come up on
the first page shown for a medium-sized city. Realtor® Zelda Zilch
would be foolish to pay to be among the long list of agents because who
would ever drill down to her? So, before buying presence in MLS sites,
seek one that rotates pages of Realtor® displays according to
alphabet, as does Realtor.com. Only these give each agent equal
exposure. If enough of us demand a better "agent-finder"
function in MLS search sites, we may get it. Meanwhile, if you want to
be a dominant Realtor® for your city, you’ll buy enhancements
in as many MLS search sites as you can afford.
Links on Other Real
Estate Sites
You can also get free or very
inexpensive links (eg. $50 a year for five cities in
RealtyTimes.com) to your site in many other places consumers look,
by-city, for realty information and agents. Prominent among these is the
huge International Real Estate Digest (ired.com) offering a free link in
a long agent list per city, or, top-of-page position for only $100/year.
(See http://www.ired.com/usa/ca/ca-oc.htm). A link in Real Estate
Library (Relibrary.com) costs $60/year. Hurry and you can get top
by-city position for free at the new RealEstateABC.com.
Link Popularity Helps
Your Search Engine Results
Go to http://www.mmgco.com/top100.html
and enter your site’s URL into the legendary "Web Step Top
100," a free index of the best free places to list
your web site. You should enter your URL anywhere a free link to your
site is offered. Why? Because many search engines now rate sites partly
on their "popularity," on how many Internet pages point to a
given URL. Learn more, and check out your own site’s popularity
at: http://www.linkpopularity.com.
Traditional
Advertising, too:
How do you meld online promotion with
your traditional advertising? Bob Taylor, (http://www.bob-taylor.com),
Harnsberger Real Estate, Los Angeles, says, "First, you put your two
web addresses, (e-mail and web site), on everything bearing your
phone number. Consider doing farm mailings, ads, door hangers, etc. that
invite homeowners to your site, but tell them why it’s worthwhile
to visit. At holidays, tell them to visit and create free e-mailed
greeting cards at your site from a link to: http://www.bluemountain.com.
Fire Ants a problem in your area? Offer eradication and life-saving
information. Your link? http://www.cdfa.ca.gov/pests/fire_ants/new/index.html.
You get the idea. Select web site content that people want! Then
use traditional media to tell them what you’re offering--ideally,
something unique."
Small Town Advantages
If you market in a small town like Allen
Hemphill (http://www.allenhemphill.com),
Hidden Valley Realty of Hidden Valley, (near Mt. Palomar, San Diego
County) you may have a greater advantage than metro Realtors®. With
fewer competitors, you can make your site THE local repository for
community information. Hemphill says, "It’s scary to move to a
new community. Any site there that can ease the trauma of buying or
selling a home, moving a family and getting accustomed to a new
community is a useful site."
Hemphill gets many residents to visit his
site by periodically publishing "profiles with photos of local
residents. Doing so gets the featured resident and friends to visit my
site." Hemphill uses "URL Riders" on his yard signs,
e-mails a timely newsletter and buys local newspaper inserts to create
awareness of his site’s ever-changing offerings.
Technology Changes, So
Keep Up
George and Jeanette Hutchinson, (http://www.conejohomes.com)
are with Fred Sands/Brown Realtors®, Westlake Village. George says,
"Technology and the web reinvents itself so fast that we need to be
thinking not only about our current strategies, but constantly look at
new ideas in advance. It is exciting to see all of the individual
Realtors® suddenly appear on the web; signaling acceptance by our
members that technology is important to their business. Realtors® using
templated, look-alike pages will, however, have to start thinking about
how they can distinguish themselves from the pack. Meanwhile, forward
thinkers are finding niches and methods to create competitive
advantage."
Combining the Web and
Traditional Marketing
How do you blend traditional with online
promotion? An effective web marketer gains a dominant online position geographically.
He packs his site with local content in a format valuable to home buyers,
and secondarily to sellers. Then he promotes his web site in his
community through a combination of print and online, free and purchased,
ads, links and banners. Of 15 web-savvy agents polled for this
article, virtually all say that their percentage of money spent on traditional
versus web media will shift from 60%/40% now, to 40%/60% by
June, 2001—only two years away. (How much are you spending
right now for online marketing?)
In CAR’s 1999 Membership Study (http://www.car.org/aboutus/annualhighlights/memstudy/index.htm),
53% of Realtors® polled said that the Internet will produce more
business "for the technologically advanced Realtors®" and 44%
believed that "technology will separate agents based on
technological abilities."
How Important is the
Web?
When asked, "What will happen to
those Realtors® who just don’t "get it" about the impact
the Internet will have on their profession/industry in the next few
years?" most Realtors® polled for this article responded as did
Tim Muetterties: "I suspect they will be forced into other
professions because they refuse to use the computer and take advantage
of the opportunities that the Internet offers."
Allen Hemphill simply says, "They
call it ‘retirement.’" Does that scare you? Never fear. Even if
you got started today, you’d still be at the threshold of
Internet marketing for real estate professionals.
by
Debbie Ferrari
- Debbie sold $5 million in 1998,
just from the Internet
- Her Realtor web site is rated #1 by
Orange County's main newspaper
- Debbie is a Broker and 25 year real
estate veteran
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