The best leads I get at PropertunityKnocks.Com are direct inquiries in response to my vids. And now on HeyCentralPa I’m going to take a stab at not measuring a real estate internet marketing campaign’s success by the daily number of “Mickey Mouse” and “Heywood Jablome” registrations.
In tomorrow’s episode, I’ll hedge my bets by begging for e-newsletter subscribers via AWEBER, but for today, I’ve grabbed a 30 day Dwellicious Pro trial and integrated it into the Hey Central Pa Property Search Page.
What’s everyone think? If our content is plentiful, dynamic, and populated with not so salesy lead capture elements, can we forgo an IDX integration? Can we get them to hang around just because they like us?
Is this Real Estate Tech Blasphemy?
I don’t know, but the Dwellicious integration could be interesting. I mean, the content better be darn good, right… because we’re telling people to go search elsewhere?
Will I be able to get agent contributors on board with this strategy?
Might I have a squabble with fee seeking local MLS boards on my hands? (Have there been any MLS v. Dwellicious run-in’s nationwide?) Or has the real estate search + social bookmarking experiment not yielded enough adopters to even be seen as any kind of threat?
ShortWoman says:
No IDX or property search on my site. I point to my broker’s search. Why should I pay lots of money to compete with Realtor.com? Besides, part of my value is to sort through stuff so my clients don’t have to.
April 20, 2009 — 10:50 pm
James Boyer says:
HMMMM, I think if your going to be sending anyone to a IDX it has to be your own. In my opinion the consumer gets lost very quickly when you send them off site for their actual search. For me, sending the consumer off site, will be 100% to my own IDX, If my broker wants traffic at his/her IDX let him/her generate it on their own.
I think this will be a interesting experiment Ryan, though my guess is that it will be the same result as I had early in my real estate life where I was mailing out recipe card farming mailers. People did not think of me as a Realtor or real estate agent but they thought of me as the recipe guy and did not think to call me at all when they decided to interview Realtors to sell their homes. I had to be much more overt with the message to actually get results.
Good luck with this Ryan, it will be interesting.
April 21, 2009 — 6:10 am
Eric Bramlett says:
IMHO, not for long. At least, not the people you want to hang around.
I’m not sure what the stat is up to now, but I know we were all impressed with the “77% of all home buyers start their search online” a few years ago. Methinks these home buyers are searching for real estate online to find listings. If you’re not providing listings, they will bounce.
I want buyers stuck to my site like glue, and drip marketed to remind them to come back. I don’t want buyers looking elsewhere with the hopes that they’ll like me enough to come back.
BTW – I measure the success of a marketing campaign by the total number of legitimate leads (real contact info.) It’s a solid metric, in my experience.
April 21, 2009 — 8:11 am
Eric Bramlett says:
One more opinion. Social searching is a fantastic concept, and I hope we’ll see it develop into something real. However, I don’t see dwellicious ever taking hold, in it’s current inception. Here’s a screencast of me scrolling through the dwelliciuos instructions after signing up: http://screencast.com/t/XA0sIu7ZE6W
40 seconds just to scroll through (not read) the instructions. Because dwellicious is a new concept, it’s absolutely necessary to read and understand the instructions. While a small % of users may trudge through it, understand it, explain it to their friends & agent, and use it, most will simply bounce and go look for listings. Again, my opinion, but it’s based on a few years of online real estate marketing experience (and closed transactions.)
April 21, 2009 — 8:20 am
Sean Purcell says:
Pretty interesting Ryan. I found that my clients were not “loyal” to my IDX feed anyway and cancelled it. They look all over the place. They stay with me because they were referred or because they like my Wall St. background styled advice. On the other hand, I don’t deal with a too many internet leads that come over from my web site (although that will probably change). I wonder if the fears expressed above are a bigger deal when the lead comes to an agent anonymously over the web? It might be a more tenuous relationship and in that case sending the clients back out to other sites may lose you clients. Of course, one could argue those are clients you’d rather lose anyway.
How does Dwellicious work on the nefarious scale? You know what I mean: Trulia and Homes.com and so forth are actually stealing the agents’ thunder online. Does having your clients and their dream lists on this site come back to haunt the average agent?
April 21, 2009 — 8:29 am
Curtis Reddehase says:
You mean I wouldn’t have to sift through umpteen bogus phone numbers,email addresses etc. While what we have now serves it’s purpose there is always a better mouse trap on the drawing board. It will be interesting to see what comes of your experiment.
April 21, 2009 — 8:37 am
Ryan Hartman says:
Thanks for the comments guys. I’m not really thinking that the Dwellicious will stick..I’m with Eric on the “small number of users” front and have actually seen Dwellicious’s effectiveness from an adoptability perspective first hand. Over the past few months…something like 25,000 visitors and 2500 or so registrations via the Diverse Solutions IDX at PhiladelphiasRealEstate.Com.
Sign Ups through the DS Dwellicious Link = 5!
Return users = 1!
Truth is…I threw this one up as a conversation starter…and something to pit against my theory that aweber type auto responders and blog broadcasts are a much more effective lead capture/incubation strategy.
At the end of the day I’m guessing HeyCentralPa will be integrated with the(no registration required) idx solution of whatever lucky broker eventually sees value in this thing. I’m really just getting started…laying framework for the “network of hyper local niche pages” thang…
April 21, 2009 — 9:34 am
Scott says:
I agree with Sean. Home shoppers were not loyal to my IDX and end up searching somewhere else without sending me their contact info. Pretty annoying. Also, my IDX shows all of the listing agent contact info which I see their point for doing so but I don’t agree with it.
April 21, 2009 — 11:20 am
Sue Zanzonico says:
I think its too soon to judge the results but its definitely an interesting trial.
At the end of the day, it is my opinion that you need a user friendly IDX on your site with your name in front of a client’s face as much as possible. They want to see houses so if they’re not finding them on your site, they’ll definitely bounce. Even if you pull in an agency’s IDX, you may be able to brand it and it’ll be effective.
April 24, 2009 — 4:32 am