Tag: Marketing (page 1 of 2)

June 11, 2012

An Effective way to gets lots of pages indexed to your real estate web site

by Al Lorenz

Realtor, Media Mogul

I’m cheap on spending money on real estate stuff from vendors promising all kinds of things, whether it is leads or exposure. But, I went ahead and tried out a real estate search utility that is setup for WordPress. There were three reasons I chose to do it: 1) They would program it to work with our itsy-bitsy MLS at Lake Chelan (no other vendors, IDXPro, etc. support such a tiny market). 2) Each listing in my MLS, and every saved search I did, became a page indexed to my web site. 3) They are less expensive per month than my current vendor with no setup fees.

Sure enough, I now have 4380 pages indexed to my site in little old Chelan. I’ve moved up one spot in the top 5 Google results in a week. I do have a nice real estate search for browsing properties with a photo type of interface. The vendor is Spot-on Connect.

I have saved a bit of money in that they replaced part of what my former vendor did. However, I haven’t been able to shut off my older IDX service because their searches allow more user choices to create more specific searches. Yes, there have been a few bugs, but the Spot-on people have been pretty quick in fixing them.

I’m even getting search traffic, for searches like “9607 sr 17, coulee city, wa 98851” coming to my web sites that did not arrive before.

I wouldn’t plug a vendor normally, but I’m getting fond enough of this approach to hope Spot-on connect survives and prospers.

Like many things, the service hasn’t been everything I could wish for, but it is a pretty effective way to get your SEO juice up if you use WordPress. If that and the ability to have beautiful custom neighborhood searches, like the one pictured above appeals to you, they are worth checking out. This is one of the better things I’ve done for improving my web page ranking, ever.

November 17, 2011

Snow you can get outside with!

by Al Lorenz

Realtor, Media Mogul

Greg posted a photo of snow, showing it as a great closing argument for Phoenix. As usual, he’s right! We had our first snow of the year at Lake Chelan and I just have to share it! While Greg has a great point about the snow, take a look at these beautiful scenes. For many, snow doesn’t mean being indoors at all. Some of us like the snow!

The first snow means no lawn mowing for months! People were out all over town enjoying the beauty of the day. With the right equipment, it is hardly a hassle at all to deal with a little snow. I have a big driveway, but a snow blower on the front of a tractor clears it quickly.

Arizona is a popular spot this time of year, even for folks from our area. The snow does make walking more challenging. This is not Seattle, and we have efficient plows that clear the roads, although they too are more of a challenge than dry pavement. But, it is beautiful and we could not do our skiing, snowmobiling, snow shoeing or just playing around in all the white without it. I just had to put up a few pictures for the other side of the story when it comes to snow! With that, enjoy the warm Phoenix weather!

August 30, 2011

What Willie’s Roadhouse taught me about being a Niche Biche.

by Teri Lussier

Rust Belt Realtor

Yes, yes, I’m late to the SiriusXm party I admit it, but we recently got rid of a car with a cassette player, so that should tell you a lot. Honestly, the only thing I knew about satellite radio was Howard Stern so you can’t really blame me, can you? But that’s the past. Now that I’m here, can I tell you how much I love it? I do! I love it! A channel of nothing but Broadway show tunes? What, are you kidding me? My gay clients and I have sing-alongs, but that’s not why I love it. Here’s why I love it: It’s specialized. I don’t know how many channels there are altogether because I only listen to two. I flip between OnBroadway and Willie’s Roadhouse. I’m not interested in Spa, POTUS, or Hair Nation (If you’ve ever met me you know I live in my own private Hair Nation, thanksanyway), or any other of the bazillion channels available, each so freaking specialized and focused that it blows my mind! On the way from OnBroadway to Roadhouse, I have to pass Prime Country, Outlaw Country, Bluegrass Junction, and The Highway. No thank you, I’m not interested. I want my Roadhouse. I want my George and Tammy, my Johnny and June, and a little lite Texas Swing thrown in to mix it up. I’ve been laboring under the false impression that C&W was C&W but no, not even close. And each radio station taps into one tiny segment of the entire car-driving radio-listening population, each driver getting their own unique radio itch scratched in just the right place- it’s ecstasy. Pure unadulterated radio ecstasy. But this is a real estate blog so let’s talk Realtor talk.

Last week I was referring a lead to a Realtor and she informed me that I’m too quick to limit myself to one area. Not really true, but I remembered Ryan Hartman’s post that gave away the blue print for a broker’s market domination plan. You should go read it, I’ll wait. Done? Okay, see where I’m going with this?

You know how much you love Read more

November 5, 2010

I don’t play Farmville and I don’t disagree with Brian Brady!

by Al Lorenz

Realtor, Media Mogul

But I do question whether prospecting using facebook is the most efficient way to prospect. I’m sure everything Brian Brady said is correct, he’s just that kind of a guy! I’m also a one person office and time spent trolling facebook for leads isn’t as quick as calling up expired listings in my area, or working the internet where buyers are looking for homes!

For me, there are just quicker ways of getting calls from interested buyers than slogging through my facebook friends’ friends, tracking down phone numbers and calling them. If there was some clever tool to just get those folks names and numbers (Greg has probably written one), with some sort of a relationship graphic so I have something to chat with them about, count me in on the calling. I don’t mind cold calling. Expired listings are quick to get and easy for me to call. They can be pretty productive too.

I spent some time playing on Ebay’s classifieds today. I’ll tell you how that works out when I know, but being where buyers are looking usually works pretty well for me.

So, I’m not disagreeing with Brian, I’m just wondering, like apparently the Zillow CEO is, if facebook is worth the time. I haven’t found it to be the most productive way to do business prospecting.

“We’ve taken a number of swings at social (networking) that have not paid off. We might have invested less,” said Spencer Rascoff, chief executive of Zillow.com.

His site has some social networking features and some integration with Facebook and Twitter – mostly as a result of following the conventional wisdom that any vertical could benefit from a social emphasis.

What Rascoff discovered, however, was that real estate is one area that truly doesn’t lend itself to social.

“In our category, we have not found it to be a social experience,” he said. “When you’re looking to buy a home, your network is small – it’s you, your spouse, and your real estate agent. You don’t tell your 300 friends, ‘I’m looking at this house.’ And especially in this market, Read more

September 4, 2010

I can do better than this

by Damon Chetson

Raleigh Criminal Lawyer

A year ago last week I had just passed the bar. Today: some 90 clients later with some excellent results for those clients, and some excellent results for me not only in building a law practice, but in learning what I need to represent my clients effectively.

I started last year with a WordPress, a domain, and a dream. My wife was freaking out: you need to go “network”, by which she meant go to mixer-type bar events to meet other lawyers. I’m not the “networking” type.

I spent later September and all of October and much of November building out my website, and figuring out how to get it to the top of Google. I took to heart some of the concepts here – you should get people to your website, and get them to stick on your website by writing decent content.

That website, as I’ve written elsewhere, has produced more than 90 percent of my businesses. In a way, that worries me to be so heavily dependent on the web. In another way, it doesn’t given that the web isn’t going anywhere and other lawyers aren’t really cognizant of how important it is from a retail law perspective.

So atop (or close to atop) Google I sit, dominating keywords like criminal lawyer raleigh and raleigh criminal lawyer and on and on.

I’ve done it by brute force. Creating content and creating links to that content. I’m limited in what I can do in terms of soliciting – meaning, I’m not allowed to “solicit” – but I’m not limited in what I can do to try to build up my reputation online.

But now I want to make it better. I want the right people – people in need of a lawyer – to be compelled to call me. I also want the website to be able to sort the wheat from the chaff, so that people who have questions, but don’t want to hire a lawyer, can find their answers without picking up the phone.

I need new ideas on what to Read more

August 1, 2010

The Holy Grail of Real Estate Marketing: What Actually Works?

by Jeff Brown

Real Estate Investments Broker

The only thing this marketing ignoramus can say with unshakeable confidence, is that marketing ain’t sales. The rest I’m not all that sure about. Though to be fair, the more I read, the more I’m confused. So many of those who put bread on the table giving marketing advice, disagree vehemently with each other on so many aspects of their trade. But that’s true in most disciplines, right?

Anywho, the more I read, observe, and try to understand about real estate marketing, the more I wanna ask the one question I think is almost never asked.

Is your marketing, whether in-house or from outside, producing bottom line, as in ‘your banker is happy to see you’ kinda results?

Since I generally couldn’t market my way out of a wet paper bag, I tend to use what works, discarding the rest. I suspect some of what I have discarded, failed due to my poor execution rather than bad marketing advice. Though Lord knows, I’ve paid for some pretty worthless counsel. Here’s what’s on my new menu.

Direct mail

Warm calls following direct mail

Blogging

IDX on company website

Seminars directed at ‘house’ agents — i.e. Rainmaker concept

What’s the Holy Grail of real estate marketing?

For my sake, let’s not make it too complicated. It’s marketing that predictably delivers wicked good bottom line results.

Did I say results? I meant results measurable in terms of increased bank deposits, not mountains of ‘leads’. Man, if there’s a marketing term that’s pretty much lost any real meaning these days, it’s ‘lead’. I’m surprised there isn’t a statue somewhere in homage to the lead. If there was any justice, it’d be the statue sportin’ the most pigeons.

Let’s really trash what seems to be the prevailing concept of leads while we’re at it.

Have you noticed how most marketing people want you to base the success of any real estate marketing system they tout, upon the quantity of leads, instead of increasing sales? Don’t get me wrong, they tell us sales will go up, but for the most part they’re sellin’ ways to generate leads. To be fair, their logical retort is that Read more

June 15, 2010

Killer Real Estate Videos That Won’t Kill Your Budget

by Sean Purcell

Real Estate Renaissance Man

Yesterday I put up a post on Marketing Videos and Real Estate. My plea was for more creativity and less facts. My point? An agent who gets creative and starts using video wisely might just take down the Goliath agent in their neck of the woods. The very first comment, from Tallahassee Realtor Barry Bevis, got me to thinking. He said: “Quality at a price is the struggle… Without going “Hartman” I can’t figure out how to make a good video at a reasonable cost.” I quickly sat down and jotted out a half dozen video ideas, then put the pad down and walked away. When working with creative ideas, I usually find it’s a good idea to let them breathe for a while and come back later. Often times, after rereading them, you discover even fresher and better ideas. No such luck today though… you get the original ideas and all their rough edges. 🙂

The goal here is to throw some ideas out and have the genius that is BHB add a lot more. If we’re lucky, this could turn into a “mini-library” of video marketing ideas for real estate agents temporarily running low in the creativity tank and staring at an empty screen. For me, it’s all about latching onto an aspect of the house and then running a little wild. Oh, and I love to steal already well-established ideas from the big boys.

VISA Take-Off #1 – there are a number of ways to shoot this. Show aspects of the house that shine and do the voice-over: “View of the mountains, $10,000; Jacuzzi tub in your masterbath, $3000; and so on. Then come in with the conclusion everyone knows: “Owning your own home, priceless.” The key is what you show during that line: Young husband carrying beautiful bride across threshold. Or, husband painting vertical, purple stripes in the living room while the kids nod approvingly. Or, an exterior evening shot of the house with every window warmly lit while we see the sights and sounds of a fantastic party going on inside. Single site web address appears at the bottom of the screen.

VISA Take-Off #2 – Same idea, but a child’s perspective (especially Read more

June 14, 2010

Video Killed the Real Estate Star…

by Sean Purcell

Real Estate Renaissance Man

I love marketing. I love the opportunity presented by a brand new marketing campaign to be creative and stand out from the day-to-day noise of everyone else. Unfortunately, most agents don’t share my zeal for marketing. At least, I assume they don’t; how else to explain the mind-numbing dreck I see every day. Whether by email, on Twitter, over Facebook, online; even on flyers! (When there are flyers.) Most agents seem to have attended the Detective Joe Friday school of marketing: “Just the facts, ma’am.”

Video affords us a new form of communication. It includes multiple modalities that can reach – and interest – many more people than an equivalent, uni-dimensional form of communication. Some people are predominantly visual, some auditory and some kinesthetic. An email loses two of those groups, so does a radio spot. But with video we can reach out to all three groups; we can create terrific visual, we can add sound and we can tell a story that creates emotion. But even with all that going for it, there is still a limit on effectiveness: us. In the computer world there is a maxim: garbage in, garbage out. That can be true of video marketing too, but let’s give it a positive spin. Here’s the maxim I suggest:

CREATIVITY IN, CASH OUT

I expect some might find that a little too crass, but never forget: the ultimate goal is skinnin’ cats. In any case, my point is creativity. Believe it or not, a marketing piece for a listing does NOT have to include all the details; that’s what the single site is for, right? A marketing piece, and especially a video marketing piece, has as its purpose one real objective: TO STAND OUT FROM THE NOISE! Be memorable, make someone laugh; if you’re really creative: go viral. This serves the dual purpose of generating interest in what you’re marketing AND generating interest in you – the best damn agent that viewer has ever met. Now that’s getting bang for your marketing buck.

Neither of the following two videos is about real estate. Nor, really, are they much about their product. But they are creative, they are memorable and they are viral. Look at what Read more

January 26, 2010

Finding versus Discovering

by Don Reedy, San Diego, CA

Realtor, Renaissance Man

Take me home

Do you still buy magazines and books? Or are you hell bent on reading everything on the internet? Do you love statistics? Has Google Maps got you salivating for bigger and better satellites? Do you love good graphs better than sex? Is a bigger IDX better? Do you want to be completely plugged in, connected, always on line?

Well it turns out that I guess I’m more dog than human sometimes, especially when it comes to what makes a great web presence, and how best to graft a marketing strategy. I’ve spent some time today, you see, smelling other dogs beeeeehinds, and I think I’ve picked up the scent of something y’all might want to bury for a rainy day.

The scent I’ve picked up is either the Finding or the Discovering scent. I think it may be important to think about these two concepts as you put together your marketing, for your Web presence, and maybe more importantly, your belly to belly presence.

Turns out, you see, that people are still buying magazines. Though through the internet we can get all the information on who’s doing what to whom, how they’re doing it, why it shouldn’t be done, and where we can go to get more information on everything we just digested, people are still buying and reading magazines. Wonder why?

Turns out that people simply like to discover things, not just find them. Magazines, you see, lie around waiting for just the right moment to spring into our consciousness. Sure, you want the 4 bedroom, 2 bath home in Elevado Hills, with view, pool and lots of land, but sitting in front of an agent’s IDX (even the good ones) just isn’t the same as opening “San Diego Magazine” and seeing a home just like the one you imagine living in. Or you’ve been watching the statistics from a great blog site or newsletter from Brian or Scott or Mark or Tom on rates and terms and the market in general, and you’re educated and knowledgeable because of this. Read more

January 21, 2010

They are Smarter than you, Better than you and they Know More than you

by Scott Schang

Mortgage Systems Samurai

I’m a mortgage guy. Mortgage guys (and gals) will often talk about how highly they regard and respect the professionalism and expertise of Real Estate Agents, and they paint thise adoration with a very broad brush.

Real Estate Agents have a big ‘ole brush as well as they sing the praises and glory of how efficient, communicative and quickly Mortgage folks do their job to ensure a speedy and worry free transaction.

(The sarcasm should be about waist deep by now)

And you know what? (this applies to both groups) They are Smarter than you – at marketing to their services to thier prospects, they are Better than you – at doing their job, and they Know More than you do – about their business (most of the time!). Here’s the kicker….we have the exact same clientele.

Here’s a question: What can you learn from someone that’s not in your line of work that will make you better, smarter and cause you to innovate?

A couple of years ago I read a book called the Medici Effect that quite effectively makes the case that true innovation is realized at the intersection of different disciplines. There are no new ideas, only new ways of looking at things that already exist…maybe just not in your world.

If you think about it, mortgage types and agent types are different disciplines. Some people can pull off both and make a good living at it, for the most part however, these are two different personality types.

The very best in one field of the Real Estate profession is rarely the very best in the other field as well. We’re not talking about having competence in either discipline.

I’m talking about being cutting edge, innovative, kick-ass, gonzo marketing fools. This isn’t vanilla agent or loan officer stuff we’re talking about. I’m talking about raising the bar and being a thought leader in your market.

For the past few years I have belonged to Vistage, an Executive Coaching and Business Leadership group that promotes “better leaders – decisions – results”.

My group is made up of 12-15 CEOs from different businesses and industries and we meet once a Read more

December 8, 2009

Should I Touch You or Contact You?

by Sean Purcell

Real Estate Renaissance Man

Yesterday in a marketing Mastermind Group with a half dozen agents, a bit of confusion arose over two of the primary principles I use when developing their marketing campaigns. The question was new to me and that means it might be new to some of the readers here at BHB.

Earlier, we had discussed the parameters of an effective drip campaign on those we already know: friends, family, past clients, past prospects, and so on. I call this group your S.O.I.L (Source of Income List) because we want to grow a very robust referral business from it. Gary Keller, in his outstanding book Millionaire Real Estate Agent, refers to this group as METs and suggests you touch them or drip on them 33x per year. I have “adopted” this philosophy wholesale and – as with most of the concepts in that book – find it applicable to agents no matter where they work.

A little later, I mentioned that statistically speaking, 80% of all business happens after the fifth contact. This is not real estate specific. It’s more of a universal rule borrowed from the direct marketing world. (You may notice I do a lot of “borrowing” and “adopting”… most great marketing is based on ideas stolen from another industry or product. Take a look around outside the world of real estate. You’ll be amazed how many great ideas you find.) While discussing this idea, one of the agents asked why we need to touch our sphere 33x when most of the business is going to happen after the fifth contact. Great question because it illuminates one of the basic misunderstandings in marketing.

When you drip on your sphere – touch them regularly – you are practicing Epiphany Marketing. This is very similar to branding but, in my opinion, more effective. It’s designed to generate referrals and is on the very edge of what we can accurately call “marketing”. On the other hand a true, honest-to-God marketing campaign revolves around a specific concept (hopefully a USP) and is designed to carry people along a well-lit path until they inevitably reach the decision to Read more

December 4, 2009

Embarrassing Confessions & Marketing Memory

by Sean Purcell

Real Estate Renaissance Man

Two quick confessions:

I can’t throw a baseball.
I’m pretty sure I just scared a potential client away.

I used to be able to throw a baseball. I played little league and pony league with some success. There weren’t any pro scouts putting radar guns on me or anything, but I played right up until high school and I was regularly elected to the all-star team. (Although looking back, it probably helped that I was much bigger than all the other kids and threatened to show them my Bruce-Lee-super-fist-of-temporary-death if they didn’t vote for me… Nah, I’m sure it was my prowess inside the foul lines.)

Anyway, in high school I discovered my true calling: shot-put. After that, I didn’t have occasion to pick up another baseball until my boys started playing just a year or two ago. That’s when I discovered that I now had all the throwing grace and accuracy of a little girl. You see, by my estimate I probably threw the shot – over the course of my competitive career – 15-20,000 times. That pretty much wiped out any skill I ever had for throwing a baseball. On the other hand, it created a near perfect shot-put technique that I can still demonstrate even now… as I enter my peak “mid 40s” athletic years. (These are a lot like my peak “mid 20s” athletic years, only everything is now done while carrying around the extra weight of a small child. It’s actually quite impressive if you think about it…) Think about it or not, I can still summon dynamic and purposeful form because of a powerful adaptation called muscle memory.

Earlier this week, as I was parking my truck, I noticed a car stopped in the middle of the street. The driver was craning her neck to jot down information from an agent’s For Sale sign. She then pulled up two houses and stopped again to take down information from another agent’s For Sale sign. By this time I was walking down the sidewalk; I veered in toward the middle of the street and approached her on the drivers’ side. “Hi,” I Read more

September 22, 2009

Making the Numbers in Real Estate Marketing Add Up

by Sean Purcell

Real Estate Renaissance Man

In a recent Bloodhound post about Twitter (only Brian Brady could write the third post in just over a week on the same subject and generate so many comments!) there was a comment on marketing numbers that so intrigued me I felt compelled to respond in a post rather than a comment. It’s been my experience that many of us do not accurately calculate the numbers when it comes to our marketing. This should really come as no surprise – numbers and especially statistics can be beguiling and even misleading. But if we’re not tracking and calculating our marketing efforts correctly, we’re just shooting into a dark room hoping we’ll hit the target.

The numbers quoted (or maybe it was just the idea) are credited to Larry Kendall, but they provide an interesting opportunity to work a real world example of marketing in general and Twitter specifically. For this exercise I am pulling some examples from the actual comment, but just about every one of us has made this type of calculation before. I follow each with a slightly different view.

I want 50 local people that I can really connect with (on Twitter). If I have 50 people and they each know 50 people, I have a pool of 2,500 people. Not quite. It means you have the potential to reach 2500 people, but it’s unlikely. For the purpose of calculating marketing numbers… you’re reaching 50. This is akin to speaking at a seminar filled with 50 people from the neighborhood and assuming you’ve reached all 2500 people in the neighborhood – you haven’t. If, on the other hand, you send a direct mail piece to all 2500 people in the neighborhood, then we say you’re working from a pool of 2500 potential clients. Is it realistic to think all 2500 read that mailing? Of course not. But our expected conversion numbers take that into account. The expected conversion numbers are simply based on a pool of 2500. A pool of 50 will generate no usable statistical model from which to base a marketing campaign.

If the *normal* turnover rate in my local Read more

April 14, 2009

Ladies and Gentlemen….Lower Your Prices By Making things Products…

by Chris Johnson

Instigator, anthill kicker.

I’ve been a freelancer, mostly, since November of 2007. (I closed about 4mm in loans in 2008, mostly 1st quarter). I’ve built websites, blogs, I’ve set up CRMS, and I’ve created landing pages, and sold a variety of e-books. I created an ill fated subscription service, (got it up to 30 members, then remembered the things I hate about loan officers) and I’ve built a ton of websites, done a ton of writing, and had an utter blast. I’ve delivered sometimes, f’d it up sometimes, and learned more faster than I ever have at any period of my life.

One of the things I learned…and that Dan Kennedy would freak out about is that lowering your prices means more profit, more relaxation, and better, happier clients with a chance to succeed. I used to charge people about $2,000 per blog. And I’d do a reasonable job with the blogs. I’d spend time training people in what WordPress does, I’d train them in how to post, I’d share my analytics with them, and I’d go through it. But for $2,000, you gotta have value. So people would continue to call. The service I offered wasn’t worth $2,000 to them, they felt like something MORE was needed. And honestly, they were right.

I had more time sunk into support and followup than the stuff that I was charging for. So, I thought some more about it.

And decided to lower all of my prices on everything I do. Because if you’re only charging $700 or $800 it’s a far different situation than $2,000. People can afford it, and it’s easier to meet that expectation. They have a level of indifference about the outcome because, honestly, $700 bucks isn’t going to make or break most months for most people. You can increase value by adding more information (videos etc) and it’s a BONUS and not an ENTITLEMENT.

To do that, though, ya need a defined process. The blue ocean thing: everyone was using the Thesis framework for blogs, why not make ’em look cool? I mean really cool? Take away the option from the customer, sell a Read more

Tag: Marketing (page 1 of 2)

An Effective way to gets lots of pages indexed to your real estate web site

by Al Lorenz

Snow you can get outside with!

by Al Lorenz

What Willie’s Roadhouse taught me about being a Niche Biche.

by Teri Lussier

I can do better than this

by Damon Chetson

The Holy Grail of Real Estate Marketing: What Actually Works?

by Jeff Brown

Killer Real Estate Videos That Won’t Kill Your Budget

by Sean Purcell

Video Killed the Real Estate Star…

by Sean Purcell

Finding versus Discovering

by Don Reedy, San Diego, CA

They are Smarter than you, Better than you and they Know More than you

by Scott Schang

Should I Touch You or Contact You?

by Sean Purcell

Embarrassing Confessions & Marketing Memory

by Sean Purcell

Making the Numbers in Real Estate Marketing Add Up

by Sean Purcell

Ladies and Gentlemen….Lower Your Prices By Making things Products…

by Chris Johnson

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