Online marketing: The Real Estate Challenge

12 years ago

Individual Real Estate sales professionals as well as brokerages/office environments are one of my niche markets that I am attempting to break into. Although my service is not generating leads for them, rather we help them with customer retention, keeping their prospects in their sales funnel(s) and better enabling them to move more of them through their qualification processes.

We submit this can be accomplished by way of passively communicating with those prospects through SMS/Text messaging. That is, we make it incredibly easy and inexpensive for an individual sales person/agent to send out reminders about the scheduled events to their prospects (and even other agents), which ultimately reduces no-shows to showings and other events that lead up to successful closings.

There are other by-products of these reminders too, but mostly those other affects are related to customer appreciation!

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midasman09

Banned 12 years ago

Offer FSBO leads to Agents on "excusive" basis for an area.

There's a WSO offering a Software Program that gets all the FSBOs in a market area. (I'll try and find the reference) Sell the leads or sell the software. As I recall, they had Sales Templates also.

Also....make Videos of Homes for Sale using the Address in the Title (Rank Video for Address) than offer to Agent who has the listing.

Best way to do this is to find Listings on Craig's List (Dawn Marie had a WSO named OVV (Offline Video Virgin))

Don Alm

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ferriswannabe

12 years ago

Originally Posted by midasman09

Offer FSBO leads to Agents on "excusive" basis for an area.

There's a WSO offering a Software Program that gets all the FSBOs in a market area. (I'll try and find the reference) Sell the leads or sell the software. As I recall, they had Sales Templates also....

I remember this as well. I don't know the price, but I know we could get a bot program created to scrape the fsbo site, maybe a group buy? If that's even necessary, I never had one made, but I think it inexpensive.

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ferriswannabe 12 years ago

I forgot to add...

I would be using a call tracking number forwarded to the agents in the videos I described above.
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StarkContrast

12 years ago

Originally Posted by midasman09

Offer FSBO leads to Agents on "excusive" basis for an area.

Also....make Videos of Homes for Sale using the Address in the Title (Rank Video for Address) than offer to Agent who has the listing.

Don Alm

Help me understand the rationale behind this, Don. Why would a prospective buyer enter in the address for the home they want to buy? Is it because they would be driving by the place and wanted to know the details?

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ronr

12 years ago

In many states in the US a real estate agent can't share comissions with a non licensed person.

Ron

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shane_k

12 years ago

Originally Posted by PhilippeLabrie

Careful not to get yourself burned though, some countries and states have real estate laws preventing anyone besides registered to touch a commission out of a sale. Get informed & find creative ways around that.

Originally Posted by ronr

In many states in the US a real estate agent can't share comissions with a non licensed person.

Ron

The easy solution to this is that you don't ask for a % of their commissions that come from them making a sale.

You just charge them a fee for the service you provide. And the money will come from the revenue of their business.

Might sound the same or just seem like semantics but legally there is a huge difference.

Thanks
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PhilippeLabrie

12 years ago

Glad to see some action. Let's get through this...

Originally Posted by jamesfreddyc

Individual Real Estate sales professionals as well as brokerages/office environments are one of my niche markets that I am attempting to break into. Although my service is not generating leads for them, rather we help them with customer retention, keeping their prospects in their sales funnel(s) and better enabling them to move more of them through their qualification processes.

We submit this can be accomplished by way of passively communicating with those prospects through SMS/Text messaging. That is, we make it incredibly easy and inexpensive for an individual sales person/agent to send out reminders about the scheduled events to their prospects (and even other agents), which ultimately reduces no-shows to showings and other events that lead up to successful closings.

There are other by-products of these reminders too, but mostly those other affects are related to customer appreciation!

Help me understand your service... It helps remind consumers & realtors of their appointments? I agree that it must reduce the "no-shows". Is it possible to include a link to directions?

Besides that, what's the advantage of using your service instead of just sending them to multiple recipients?

Originally Posted by midasman09

Offer FSBO leads to Agents on "excusive" basis for an area.

There's a WSO offering a Software Program that gets all the FSBOs in a market area. (I'll try and find the reference) Sell the leads or sell the software. As I recall, they had Sales Templates also.

Also....make Videos of Homes for Sale using the Address in the Title (Rank Video for Address) than offer to Agent who has the listing.

Best way to do this is to find Listings on Craig's List (Dawn Marie had a WSO named OVV (Offline Video Virgin))

Don Alm

Pulling the list of FSBO's is a good idea. Same for the video except I would try to find a way to add value within the process. The fact that a video ranks has somekind of value attached to it BUT will the consumer see value?

I find that it's very hard to create compelling videos for real estate. Most people will simply pull together a video compilation of the pictures of the house, slap in some music and intro/outro text and that's it.

Tons of doing that already and when looking at either number of visits or comments, very little activity. My presumption is that theses don't add much value for the end user, therefore making the whole strategy "cheesy" and not a good long term strat.

Here's an idea: how about partnering up with the Realtor who has the home listed. Get the main features list out of him. Everything you can think of that can be of use to a buyer.

Then get on Fiverr:

1) have an intro/outro made that you'll be able to use in all the vids.
2) Have someone with a good voice go over the features (hire someone for script maybe?) and match theses with the correct pictures if you can.
3) Get on Google maps and show schools around, put that link in the video description. Same for businesses and local transportation if you can.

That shouldn't cost you very much by going through Fiverr and should add a bit of value to your video. Google is in the game of providing relevency to users, if the CTR on ANY ad online (video or text) is high it will rank better. Adding value is key to that.

You can then resell theses to local realtors or create an exclusivity agreement with a high performing local realtor.

Originally Posted by ferriswannabe

My wife will be starting the process to in order receive a real estate license next month. I hope to be able to generate leads for her from my knowledge of online marketing. Not only for her but for other realtors as well. I hope to be able to get into the real estate circle through her.

The quickest and easiest service for me right before she even starts is would be video production and marketing. I will be making a sample video soon for a real estate friend. I will produce a HD quality video with a spokesperson detailing all the features of a property. This is a very professional video, with backround music (maybe) transitions, animations, etc. Very well done, nothing cheap about it.

Then could upload to my own branded real estate video channel and have it ranked.

I'll see what attention it receives. The real estate friend is well connected to a top-dollar producer in the area. She sells million dollar plus homes. I'm guessing it would be an easy sell, and get the ball rolling on referrals.

I'm thinking of charging in the $500 dollar range per video. My cost for video production and seo should be around $125.00. I want to target realtors that work in the higher price range of course.

Your thoughts?

Read up my response about video up there. I think it's an awesome idea.

Video is exploding right now and is the future. Whenever I think about Video I remember a quote from a TED talk that said: "Written press is 2,000 years old at best but we've been using visual communications for hundreds of thousands of years."

The future is video/audio on the web...

Your challenge is to find how to create value and a video script/format that will be appealing at reasonable costs. 500$ might cut it or not I'm unsure.

Also, If I were you I would spend a lot of time thinking and experimenting on how to take advantage of the videos (produce results out of them). That's what seems to be lacking right now, plenty of people can create real estate videos but realtors have no clue on how to exploit them.

Don't forget audio either.. I'm personally the kind of person that's highly affected by music.. If you were to put the same video with and without sound in front of me the one with sound will generate emotions, the one without will be "meh". Try to find a way to get the right buyers mood up and then close a showing or somekind of call to action as they are still in that mood.

Regardless, I'm sure you'll do great, good luck!

Originally Posted by ferriswannabe

I remember this as well. I don't know the price, but I know we could get a bot program created to scrape the fsbo site, maybe a group buy? If that's even necessary, I never had one made, but I think it inexpensive.

There are but each FSBO sites will be designed differently and might require a different software for each. I operate in a bilingual environment and that's my experience. It might be different for the U.S.

I don't have experience with this strategy though so can't really comment on it but it sounds like something that would kill it.

Scrapping the data is the easy part, the success will depend on the approach of theses leads after. I would focus on providing a solution for that aspect to realtors.

Originally Posted by StarkContrast

Help me understand the rationale behind this, Don. Why would a prospective buyer enter in the address for the home they want to buy? Is it because they would be driving by the place and wanted to know the details?

I don't think using specific addresses is a good idea, I think people do this because consumers searching for a home will usually do "location" searches.

Remember the saying in real estate: "Location, Location, Location"?

The reality though is that most of them search for areas, not specific addresses or streets.

Originally Posted by shane_k

The easy solution to this is that you don't ask for a % of their commissions that come from them making a sale.

You just charge them a fee for the service you provide. And the money will come from the revenue of their business.

Might sound the same or just seem like semantics but legally there is a huge difference.

Yup, huge difference. Usually the legal definition usually uses the term: "Retribution". As in "You cannot obtain retribution from a real estate transaction unless you are licsenced."

Had that issue in some provinces, we simply worked an agreement that our client would put X$ in advertising with us for 50,000$ we generated in business with them.

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jamesfreddyc

12 years ago

Originally Posted by PhilippeLabrie

Help me understand your service... It helps remind consumers & realtors of their appointments? I agree that it must reduce the "no-shows". Is it possible to include a link to directions?

Sure, let me try.

First, yes, I think the basic service is to remind clients of scheduled events (showings for ex) and it is mainly there to reduce the "pain" of too many no-shows. However it is much more than what is seen at face value. That is, there are tertiary affects. At minimum they are reminders, mostly they are performing customer engagement in a passive manner. Considering that read-rates are huge for SMS messaging, they are excellent for engaging those prospective clients.

So, think for a moment how much is invested in filling a sales funnel of leads --- the money, the time and energy, etc all to simply keep the funnel filled with prospective clients that are moved through a qualification process. It makes sense that engaging those prospects thru this process will help reduce turnover, protecting that investment. Ultimately, this is setting up the opportunity to get more of this pool of prospects to closings.

This will be unique experience to each agent/broker, but one thing we ask them is: How many of these prospects simply disappear/go cold? It varies greatly, but numbers add up quickly when they are monetized. By increasing the process of engaging these prospects through the process, sales cycle(s) will likely see positive effects.

Besides that, what's the advantage of using your service instead of just sending them to multiple recipients?

Advantage: a single message can be sent out to multiple recipients with their unique appointment details (ie, the date/time info is inserted into the message for each individual recipient). This consolidates that activity to one session rather than performing the same thing over and over for multiple recipients -- you'd be surprised how quickly that time adds up to perform this process, and it takes FAR more time and energy manually calling clients/prospects.

James

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PhilippeLabrie 12 years ago

Is it a feature to create a drip campaign through txt messages using your system?
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- jamesfreddyc 12 years ago
  
  Originally Posted by PhilippeLabrie
  
  Is it a feature to create a drip campaign through txt messages using your system?
  
  I think it certainly could be used as such, although our pricing is not so much inline with the typical bulk "SMS marketing" and if that campaign is much more targeted (I suppose it depends upon the number of prospects in a sales funnel at any one time).
  
  While we are most often viewed as a service to send out appointment reminders as SMS messages, the larger use is for engaging customers (including a drip campaign). A dental practice will value the service differently (they are simply reminding patients of their scheduled appt), but a Real Estate professional has a lot more riding on engaging prospects.
  
  Thanks
  
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  midasman09 Banned 12 years ago
  
  How about this;
  
  1) create a "Directory" website where properties are listed by area and according to #of bdrms, baths, price area
  
  2) get a popular domain that House Hunters will Google; ex: Homes for Sale Ottawa ON dot com
  
  3) create "generic" video (I min or less) that gives info about area with Call to Action Link to website. Optimize video with thumbnail and get video ranked on 1st page for Keywords.
  
  4) You can also have ads for Mortgage Co, Home Inspector, House Painter, Plumber, Electrician, Landscaper, etc
  
  Now....even though Trulia and Zillow (and other directories) are on the first page for your Keyword (Homes For Sale City State).....they are ALL..."TEXT"! A Full Color Thumbnail (indicating a Video)....WILL GRAB ATTENTION and Clicks because, "People Love Videos!"
  
  As an example; Google "Tampa Windows" and see what I'm talking about.
  
  Thumbnails SELL!
  
  Don Alm......
  
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Lee M

12 years ago

Originally Posted by midasman09

Offer FSBO leads to Agents on "excusive" basis for an area.

There's a WSO offering a Software Program that gets all the FSBOs in a market area. (I'll try and find the reference) Sell the leads or sell the software. As I recall, they had Sales Templates also.

Is this the WSO?

http://www.warriorforum.com/warrior-...-business.html

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rugman 12 years ago

Originally Posted by Lee M

Is this the WSO?

http://www.warriorforum.com/warrior-...-business.html

Yes but it is closed.
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ferriswannabe

12 years ago

My wife will be starting the process to in order receive a real estate license next month. I hope to be able to generate leads for her from my knowledge of online marketing. Not only for her but for other realtors as well. I hope to be able to get into the real estate circle through her.

The quickest and easiest service for me right before she even starts is would be video production and marketing. I will be making a sample video soon for a real estate friend. I will produce a HD quality video with a spokesperson detailing all the features of a property. This is a very professional video, with backround music (maybe) transitions, animations, etc. Very well done, nothing cheap about it.

Then could upload to my own branded real estate video channel and have it ranked.

I'll see what attention it receives. The real estate friend is well connected to a top-dollar producer in the area. She sells million dollar plus homes. I'm guessing it would be an easy sell, and get the ball rolling on referrals.

I'm thinking of charging in the $500 dollar range per video. My cost for video production and seo should be around $125.00. I want to target realtors that work in the higher price range of course.

Your thoughts?

Thanks

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jamesfreddyc

12 years ago

To put it more succinctly, the question to ask when evaluating the value of our service: How much does is cost you for each prospect that goes cold or disappears?

If you believe your closing rate is good per qualified prospect, then that figure is high (it relates to the possible commission per prospect).

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rugman

12 years ago

I was thinking of doing videos like Don Alm was talking about in another thread. Here is the thing though - a good friend of mine is an agent in an independently owned RE company (you would think these guys would be good as they are not part of a national chain with lots of rules). They have a guy that goes out and shoots their vids for $10 an hour and does a nice job! These guys are getting really savvy to the power of the net in general. Not to say every place is the same of course. Most of the independents in my area have been swallowed up. The same friend used to be with Keller - he could barely go to the bathroom without permission never mind come up with his own marketing!

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mikeeleo

12 years ago

I think on-line marketing make profit more than of line.

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Jay Rhome

12 years ago

I agree making an engaging video can be a challenge... and that is finding a good AUDIO description of the house, surroundings and features. But we marketers tend to be more difficult than the realtors or buyers.

Two other ideas: a mobile site for ONE property. Many uses, one of which for a realtor is to get other sellers to hire him/her (additional listings) as it shows he/she will go beyond the norm. And of course many people coming by a property or a written ad are NOT in front of their computers, but are with their smartphones by their side.

An instead of a direct link to it, use a SMS code for the prospects to get the link. Makes it easy to get a complex URL as the code can be simple. Even people with non-internet enabled phones will have this info stored inside their phones for later viewing. Bonus #1: the agent contact info is also in the SMS and thus stored inside the prospect's cellphone. Bonus #2: agent gets the prospect's cellphone number, and after scrubbing against the DNC list, can contact them for a follow up.

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Jay Rhome

12 years ago

BTW Philippe when you mention "About 22% of the prospects we referred came from online classifieds website" what kind ads did you post on classified sites? A specific property for sale? The agent contact info?

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allenagilbert 11 years ago

Online marketing is an important aspect in the business world, for this many business management uses
go to market strategy and a product road-map
which delivers their unique value proposition to their target market.online marketing should be done by keeping in mind the profit potential, buying actions and decision procedures.
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- midasman09 Banned 11 years ago
  
  What about this:
  
  I've tried doing "Video Tours" of homes for sale where I'd try to get the Listing Agents to PAY for the videos. Most I could squeeze out was $150. Mostly had to go with $97 per video.
  
  What if you set up a "Directory of Homes for Sale" (Homes For Sale in Portland OR or similar KeyWords)......List the homes for Sale in areas and list by "Under $200,000" and "$200,000 to $500,000"......then have viewers Opt-In to get the Details and capture their contact info....then Sell the Contact Info to Agents.
  
  This way the Agents are Paying for Leads!
  
  So....putting on my "Thinking and Research" hat this weekend.
  
  Don Alm
  
  Thanks
  
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rishi1

11 years ago

I think it definitely may be utilized as a result, even though our own charges is actually less inline using the typical large "SMS marketing" if in which advertising campaign is a lot a lot more targeted (I presume it depends after the number of prospects in the gross sales launch from any one time).

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mrmatt

11 years ago

What constitutes a lead for you?

A live call
Just an email
A name and a number
A name, number, address and phone
Just a phone number

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Online marketing: The Real Estate Challenge

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