There’s always something to howl about.

In The Business Of Personal Relationships, Database Marketing Is More Effective Than SEO Marketing

Two years ago, NAR told us that 74% of people begin their home search online.  What they didn’t tell us, however, what percentage of those people write paper with the agent on whose site they began said search.

This omission is an important one.  Just because a person starts online doesn’t mean he finishes there.  If you’ve researched a product at multiple Web sites before making the actual purchase, you understand what I mean.

Every store except the last one was just a borrowed encyclopedia.

Click-throughs from a search engines are not “leads” and that’s why the NAR statistic is misleading.  Until a reader engages the author personally, the click-through is only that.

A Web site visitor that registers for free search, free reports, or free seminars is not your client.  He is a window-shopper taking home free samples.  He’s a client when he signs, and never before.

Today, the Federal Reserve will do something to the Fed Funds Rate and if history is an indicator, my Web site traffic will quadruple.  It happens every time.  It’s because I’m so high on Google for the term “fed funds rate mortgage“. 

Of the traffic from Google, not a single person will reach out to me for a “personal question” about their mortgage.  Again, history is my indicator.  I am the source of information of for a lot of people and that suits me fine.

Knowing that my clients would care about the same information, I have a planned email to my database that will do three things:

  1. Explain that the cut in Fed Funds Rate will likely cause mortgage rates to rise
  2. Introduce them to the concept of “why the Fed is taking a shower”
  3. Point them back to my Web site for a full explanation of the “shower” analogy

This email to my database will generate new business.  Once more, history is my indicator. 

The last time I saw this was when I sent my “stick people in houses” video on the same day the Fed dropped rates 0.750% out of nowhere.  The email generated much more business for my team than did placing high on Google’s page rank.

When you’re in the business of personal relationships, effective database marketing is far more productive than search engine marketing.  The calls from my database are warm leads; Google’s leads are algorithmically cold.

I’m going prove that again at 2:15 P.M. ET today.