HomeGain recently published a survey of the Top 10 Most Effective Marketing Strategies For Real Estate Agents. There were some surprises in there. (Mostly for me, the apparently sustained use of print and direct mail.)
But then I got to thinking about it… I started examining how many in the real estate community market their wares and it reinforced something that I have been working on.
Last week I got to go to both HomeGain Nation 2010 and the RE/MAX Convention. In both places I got to talk with SUCCESSFUL agents who are thriving in today’s turbulent times. The common thread among them? That their marketing methods were cost efficient in both time and money in a)starting conversations and b) in bringing folks to a position where trust could be built.
Russell Shaw uses radio. He has a PROVEN system of starting conversations with the leads generated from those advertisements. He knows how to convert those leads into listing clients.
Mitch Ribak knows how to convert buyer leads from the internet traffic generated by HomeGain into conversations and into commissions.
Our source in Louisville? Search engine marketing. Do we have an effective way of converting over 7,000 leads from a status of “not a lead” to a closed commission? We have been working at increasing our closing percentage (so far successfully!) and it boils down to creating conversations. This has been a weak area for us, but I think we are nailing it down now. (And the numbers to date this year back that up.)
The Cluetrain was right. Markets are conversations. Marketing is about generating those conversations. And in my opinion, sales is about CONVERTING off of those conversations.
Why does direct mail still work in the eyes of many as indicated in HomeGain’s survey? Perhaps it is because it brings leads to an agent in a fashion where the agent is familiar with HOW to get them from lead to client. All of the leads from online sources matter not at all if no one becomes a client. There is no reason to search engine market anything if you are not able to turn the leads you generate into $$$.
So what are your plans in terms of marketing for 2010?
Do you have a system set up prior to launching your marketing weapons on how to translate your marketing efforts into sales success? Or do you have a SOLID method set up to test and tweak that system?
I would love to hear from you on both counts. 😉
Robert Worthington says:
I’ve read an article that said lead conversion was the new seo. Anyways, what I am going to try is when a lead registers I have the secretary look up the name and phone # and then email drip them of course but also snail mail drip them, and finally bang on the door or call them! Your thoughts Eric? Maybe I can get away with that cause I don’t have 7k leads annually
March 12, 2010 — 1:52 pm
Mark Madsen says:
>> a)starting conversations and b) in bringing folks to a position where trust could be built.
I wish I could find the video right now, but I watched something in the past couple of months about copywriting for SEO that addressed these two points.
The speaker said that we have to enter the conversations people are having with themselves if we want to demonstrate that we truly care about their needs.
March 17, 2010 — 9:57 pm
Wayne Long says:
I agree that there are a lot of ways to be successful in Real Estate.
I did notice that the HG article is really about the perception of Realtors about what is the most effective marketing campaign as opposed to actual data that compares various marketing methods.
It may be that the Realtor perception about marketing effectiveness may not match true effectiveness… Thoughts??
March 21, 2010 — 7:02 am