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Tag Archive: Real Estate Marketing
Information Fatigue Syndrome – Trends Analysis
Is it possible that you have Information Fatigue Syndrome? Sounds scary doesn’t it? Well, in Stefan Swanepoel’s book Trends Report 2009 he accurately describes the problem:
“…in most cases we don’t have any method for comparing and processing the information to determine what is and is not valid. This overload is strongly affecting our ability to make sound and rational judgments.”
Sound right to you? It did to me, I think we experience it every day and witness the affects especially in the real estate marketplace. Buyers receive so much information that they develop analysis paralysis and can’t process the information into action.
Consider these statistics from Yahoo user groups:
*# of emails sent in 2008 – 210 Billion per day
*Projected number in 2012 – 419 Billion per day
*The average corporate user receives 156 messages per day.
*It takes approximately 2 hours (19%) of your day to file, sort,
and respond to emails.
*50% claim to have symptoms of “Information Fatigue Syndrome”,
an overwhelming feeling of being faced with an incomprehensible
amount of information.
*63% believe they may miss out on an opportunity if they log off.
The take away from these kinds of numbers and emotions is simple:
“Remember, your customers are most likely on overload and are searching for someone to make sense of it all. Your goal is to determine what they want and then give it to them.”
Swanepoel suggests several ways to accomplish this:
1) Think like a customer – who are they, what do they want, how do they get their information?
2) Think Differentiation – “You need to be different and that means the service you offer has to be different.” Websites are like fishing, “you are going to have to add a lot more to your bait than just a couple of pictures or a video. You need pertinent, valid and timely information focused on your customers’ needs…”
3) Think Service - Customers already have a plethora of information, they want new and relevant information about lifestyle. “If you accurately provide that information to them via your participation in consumer facing websites or social networks and then follow it with an ongoing dialogue, the creation of a solid in-house database will result. The most effective way to counter information overload is to become your customer’s solution…”
4) Think Communication - The websites of most REALTORS® suffer from a failure to create, maintain and communicate actively and effectively. In other words, we are not meeting the customers’ expectations. Consider the results of a survey by the California Association of REALTORS® in 2007-2008:
* 27% of first-time buyers expected an instant response.
* 52% expected it in one hour.
* 60% in within 2 hours
* 90% before the end of the day
* 48% of all online leads are NEVER RESPONDED TO AT ALL!!!
The goal is to become a trusted resource for pertinent analysis and not just information, do it right and the word will get out faster than you believed possible. This is a great market to be the “go-to” person for all their real estate questions and needs.
DF
Your Data…..Use It or Lose it!: The Rest of the Story Series
I always admire real estate agents that are using their current resources to generate new business. You know, the type of agent that is looking ahead and proactively ASKING for more business. Lots of times we assume that past clients, friends and family know we are real estate agents so, of course, they would think of us first. The truth is people love to be asked so the more you ask the better chance you have of hearing.YES!! The rest of the story is spreading the positive news; people are getting enough of the negative stuff. We need to start taking more responsibility for our own “press”.
One agent that is doing both very effectively is Burton Cagen in the Tempe office of John Hall & Associates. Right after the New Year Cagen bundled up community sales and median price statistics from the Arizona Republic, his client’s 1099′s, their year-end rental statements and a great letter and sent them out to his landlords around the world. The letter encourages his clients to look at the statistics and quotes, amongst other sources, the Today Show as well as the Arizona Republic. Cagen found a simple yet effective statistical analysis on the John Hall intranet and used it to his advantage. The analysis compares overall median prices against the 2003 medians rather than the usual 2006-2007 medians. The five (5) year holding pattern more nearly matches Cagen’s investors’ profiles and shows an increase in value rather than a decline. That mailing will be followed up with emails on particularly good deals for Cagen’s investors. This more proactive approach is working for Cagen, “I realized midway through last year that I needed to try new prospecting techniques. I needed to be more proactive and not let my past clients, landlords and sphere of influence forget who I am and what I can do for them.” Using his database of more than 1,700 names he mails post cards, newsletters and uses phone calls, both of which increased his business exponentially.
No picture is all rosy, Cagen explained that financing maybe a hang-up if an investor has more than four (4) mortgages but absent those minor issues and with 20% to 25% down investors can still get some smokin’ deals. “Not only that” says Cagen, ” but sellers are getting more and more realistic every day.” Burton Cagen’s new listings are testament to his aggressive pricing strategies and his business increase in general benefited from his proactive prospecting. So can yours!
DF
Twitter, Tweet-up, Tweeting – WTH?
Maybe you’ve heard some of these terms and have wondered what the heck? You may think they sound more ridiculous than the first time you heard the word google. But don’t let the funny names fool you, the website Twitter is HUGE and is getting HUGE-R. Barack Obama uses twitter to communicate with 165,000 people instantly. The Scottsdale Police Department uses twitter to broadcast road closings and other public notices. All of Arizona’s news stations share links to stories and monitor twitter to find late breaking news, pictures and eyewitnesses. The focus of this post is to help the beginners understand what twitter is, why it’s growing and the best ways to participate – according to the experts.
Does search engine optimization matter to you?
I recently attended the Arizona Real Estate Blogging Network meeting at the Scottsdale Area Association of REALTORS®. The topic – search engine optimization. The attendees – about 70 folks (10 of which were John Hall agents) interested in internet marketing, specifically how to make their websites show up on page 1 of google.
Real Estate Buyers Like Pictures
Don’t take my word for it – read the Point2Agent study or check out the newly designed realtor.com. Why do you think realtor.com made ‘Sort by number of photos’ the most prominent sort link? These real estate websites have a ton of data to study and it all says the same thing – home buyers want to see pictures.
I’m not talking about 1 picture of the front of the house. I’m not talking about 1 picture of each room, the backyard and the frontyard. I’m talking lots of pictures. Each year these studies come out they find home buying consumers researching properties online are more interested in listings with more pictures. Of course they view the properties longer when they can scroll through the shots of the house, but they are also more likely to view the ‘Listing Details’. One more time? Your Listing Detail page is viewed more frequently on properties with more pictures.
Now of course there are limits, both on your side and on technology’s side. Spending days loading 100′s of pictures on each listing is unnecessary. 25-35 pictures seems to be the amount needed to get the best traffic. But don’t be disappointed when all your pictures don’t show up on all the listing syndication partner websites, like realtor.com. Some of these sites are in business to make money – from you. They’ll charge you $$$$ if you want more photos to display. However, your pictures will show up when an ARMLS agent sends their clients an email of possible listings and yours is included. You know all those automatic searches in flexmls that send out emails when new listings are added or edited? Bingo! All your pictures go with it.
87% of agents use digital cameras. So, you’ve got the technology needed to do this – at no cost. Get out there and take some pics, upload, and label them. You may even find the more you take, the better you get!
How should real estate agents start marketing with social media?
Your business is based on generating and converting leads. The best of the best of the best (Sir!) will tell you without leads is without business. The intended result with all prospecting online or off is to be in mind when anyone you ‘touch’ thinks of buying or selling real estate. If using the internet and social media (smart) is part of the plan, keep reading. If not, keep reading anyway – chances are you’ll have a change of heart soon. So here it is, my picks of the best recommendations from the 2008 NAR Conference in Orlando. Remember, these sites are intended to socialize with others. Lose the fear. It’s just like going to a new social event, you may not know the people but if you engage chances are you’ll develop new meaningful relationships.
Join meetup.com, search for local groups, and request to join the ones of interest. Tread lightly. Don’t go stomping around any new site saying how you REALTOR® this and you REALTOR® that. They won’t welcome you. OBSERVE how people communicate and remember it’s more important to be interested than interesting¹.
Participate in yelp.com. Get into your local neighborhood’s section and write reviews. You need to get a login, add all the information they allow and start reviewing local “stuff”. You can connect with others that are writing local reviews. When participating in social sites like this, compare it to offline social gatherings² and act accordingly. When you show up at an in-person social event do you stand on a chair and shout the fact that you are a REALTOR® and if any one needs to buy or sell they can call you? No. Treat all these online sites the same as you would treat an offline gathering.
Use search.twitter.com to find people talking about things that interest you – whether it’s your hobbies, neighborhoods, or local events. Join the discussions. If you find a void, fill it. You need a twitter account for this. Sign-up, follow some local people, make sure you say hello, and observe how the conversation happens. Don’t be scared to tell people you’re learning – chances are they’ll offer to help. Twitter is an excellent website to develop your internet voice². You can only write short comments, so you learn to make your point quickly. Again, tread lightly.
Flickr.com (a photo sharing website) is an excellent tool to showoff your community. Take pictures at the fair, of local landmarks, or beautiful scenery. Post the pictures, title them, add them to local groups. Ines Hegedus-Garcia from Miami has created a local group and she encourages people from her community to add pictures of Miami. She then highlights the best picture of the week in a blog post. Of course the photographer whose picture is selected is thrilled and tells all their friends to check it out. Brilliant. Photography may be your passion and something you really enjoy. Teresa Boardman from St. Paul MN uses flickr to post pictures from around her town. If you look at enough of her pictures you’ll want to move there too. But it’s not soley for relocation, the locals regularly check out her photos, and some of them ask permission to reprint them on their own marketing materials. These are both great ways to use the tool. Whatever you do, DO NOT just upload your listing photos – no one will return – ever.
These four sites can be used hyper-locally. Use them to control the web presence of yourself and your neighborhood. To repeat, the best way for beginners to learn is to OBSERVE. If you have questions, ask. Have fun! If you get more joy out of creating newsletters – stick with it. You have to enjoy what you do.
¹ Dustin Luther’s Mom aka “The Blog-Grandmother”
Free tech tools to help with your real estate marketing…
On the bulletin board next to my desk I have an on-growing list of login names and passwords for various websites. There are a plethora of tools being shared on the web these days, most of them cost nothing, aka $FREE.99. I’m going to share 3 that could be useful in your real estate marketing. 2 of the 3 are used to draw in your readers or website visitors, they are interactive, empowering your future clients by giving them some control over the material. The third tool (which is actually listed first) allows you to customize your marketing materials like never before.
Our Net Works Better!
We are excited to announce that John Hall & Associates just added some new logos to our ”Online Exposure of Listings” flyer we provide our agents! Maybe you’ve heard of them?
All John Hall & Associates listings show up on these (and many more) websites automatically at no additional charge to our agents. There is no extra work or maintenance needed.
The Lange's wrapped their ride!
Check out the Lange’s car wrap! He told me he already got a listing appointment from it. (Sorry about the cell phone pic…)
Designated Broker Office
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