Category: Marketing

Lead Generation II: Digital Marketing

It’s all about the Internet.  We know that.  We hear it all the time.

Like:  89%+ of all homebuyers begin their search on the Internet.  Like:  70% of home buyers use video to tour the inside of homes before physically inspecting.  Like:  home searches on Google are up 253% over the past 4 years.

Clearly, if we are going to be in the business today, we are going to have to be on the Intenet in a lead generating way.

Job one is to be FINDABLE.  My spell checker just underlined that word in red because it isn’t a real word at all.  But it should be, especially when we’re talking about consumers being able to find you on the web.  It’s not good enough to simply be there, to have a website, even a good one.  Consumers have to be able to find you, which means your website has to be attractive to Google.

(I’m using Google here to stand for all Internet search engines.  It is true there are others beside Mother G, but let’s face it:  they are irrelevant at least and copycats at best.  If you are going to generate Internet leads, you’re going to have to learn how to flirt with Google.)

So, what does Google like?  What can you put out there that will cause your web pages to inch up in the big pack of search results?  Google likes content that is:

Hyper-Local – so intimately focused on the local market that it is like a roadmap of the area.

Dynamic – which means changing.  Static content – the pages you build and publish and then forget, – will barely raise a Google eyebrow.  In essence she looks at your static website and says, ‘Eh?  Anybody could do that.  What have you done lately?’

Credible – Certainly you are credible.  You are an experienced professional and you certainly know what you’re talking about.  But that doesn’t score points with Google.  She decides you are credible largely by the other people who think you are credible and she makes that decision based on links:  who is linking to your site, referencing it, talking about it.  If Joe Schmoe is referencing your site that’s nice – and it counts – but if the Wall Street Journal is talking about you, that’s golden.  The other criteria is longevity.  If you’ve been around, building content for months and years, you are seen as more credible than the site that just launched.

Media-rich – Google knows that we users love colorful content that moves, and nothing does that better than video.  Increasingly, content that includes streaming video is king.  To understand Google’s fascination with video, simply consider this:  Google owns YouTube.

Mobile Friendly – More than half of all home searches are preformed o mobile devices and the number is growing.  To people under 30, the phone is a computer.  Whatever you do on the Internet must translate to mobile devices, both phones and tablets.

When I look at that list, I think it says you need a blog, a good blog.  A blog that updates some aspect of your business and the local market every week and does so occasionally with video.  Your real estate website is largely static:  it does not change much over time.  Use your well written, hyper-local blog to enable people to find you and then drive them to your website.

So far, everything we’ve talked about involves improving your organic search results, those that come to you simply because you are good.  But let’s face it:  everyone in our business is working towards this same objective.  You can build your visibility and findability organically, but you will rarely beat some of the huge players aiming at the same consumers.  They have too much history, too much credibility (as defined above) and too much cloudt.  But there is another way to leap-frog to the top:  buy your way there.

Paid search results appear at the top and the side of Google’s organic results.  We all know this because we have become expert at NOT paying attention to those results when we search.  Still, these ads do produce ‘clicks’ over time (if you are offering something relevant and valuable at the other end), and those clicks can result in leads.

Google Ad Words is code for advertising on Google via those pay-per-click entries that appear at the top and side of your regular search results.  You get there by ‘buying’ search phrases consumers in your area typically use when looking for your menu of services.  Others are bidding on the same search phrases, so you’re competing for space; sometimes your ad will make it, sometimes it won’t.  But even when your ad makes it to the results page, you don’t pay until someone clicks on it.

This is where the whole offer/exchange dynamic comes in.  You have to offer something in your ad that is perceived as valuable by your target consumer.  For example:  a Free Market Analysis might be perceived as valuable.  A Free E-Book on preparing your home for sale might be seen as valuable.  A Free Phone Consultation might be seen as valuable.  It is the perception of value that causes a consumer to click.  But then what?

Going hand-in-glove with Ad Words (and any pay-per-click advertising) is the creation of specific landing pages.  A landing page should do little more than gather contact information on the consumer who lands there after clicking on your ad.  Some very short descriptive information is ok, but you sure don’t want to tell your whole story on a landing page!  Anything said on a landing page should underscore the idea that what you are offering is valuable because you’re asking the curious consumer who landed there to exchange their contact information for it.

Facebook pay-per-click works in much the same way except that your  ads look more like ads, featuring graphics and so on.

Your prescription for jump-starting the digital portion of your marketing plan is as follows:

  • Whip your website into shape.  Eliminate wordy content that nobody is reading and replace it with crisp, relevant information.  Wherever possible let video do the talking for you.
  • Build some form of dynamic content into your online presence.  A blog is a great idea IF you can and will create something fresh and original at least every week.  If that’s not something you can or will do, hire someone to do it for you (like . . . oh, yeah!  ME!).
  • Invest in pay-per-click advertising.  Begin with Google Ad Words and, in time, phase in Facebook.  Your Google Ad Word budget should ideally be $10 or more a day.  $5 a day can produce results but will take, well, twice as long.
  • Before you pull the trigger on your pay-per-click ads, make sure you have effective landing pages that relate specifically to the offers you are making in your ads.
  • Be ready to respond.  I don’t mean to imply that you will be overrun with inquiries.  You won’t.  But when a click results in a consumer surrendering contact information, you need to respond immediately.  Letting an hour or two pass by without contact will turn that ember into a cold bit of ash.

Want to talk about your digital plans?  Call me:  (619) 606-2228.

 

Billboard Bonanza!

Hey, now Help-U-Sell Family!  Get a load of this!  We have a new member in Bakersfield, CA who’s done something I think is remarkable.  Ryan Joyce at Help-U-Sell Bakersfield Equity Savers has announced to the local market that he is HERE with a beautiful billboard!

Boards are something we did quite a bit of back in  2004 – 2006 and they were effective.  Then we went through the downturn where NOTHING was effective and budgets were scaled back.  As the market came back, old ‘analog’ marketing was replaced almost exclusively with ‘digital’ marketing:  the Internet.  So Billboards – and a lot of other good stuff – were left out of the mix.

Your first marketing objective – and probably the most important one – is TO BE SEEN.  We’re doing that pretty well with SEO, Google Ad Words, Facebook and so on.  But can you imagine the power this beautiful message broadcast over a busy highway has in not only creating visibility by also recall?

As you prep for the Summer / Fall market, I hope you’ll consider billboards again.  It might just be the kick your marketing needs to crank up your listing inventory!  If  you click on the photo below, you will taken to a short time-lapse video of this board’s installation.  While you are there, why not ‘Like’  Help-U-Sell Bakersfield Equity Savers’ page?

 

Flipping on Platinum Edge

Yesterday I went to a Help-U-Sell broker meeting.  It was attended by half a dozen really strong members – good guys who know their business and represent the brand well.  At one point the discussion turned to the difficulties of listing properties at the top of the range.  As one broker put it, ‘The higher the price, the greater the resistance.’  It seems that in high price ranges, sellers who really do want to save, who love the Help-U-Sell program, don’t want their friends and neighbors to see the Help-U-Sell sign in their yards.  They don’t want to be identified as seeking out perceived ‘discount’ services.

I tried so hard to resist this notion.  I kept thinking about what Betina Grein said to me when I marveled at her ability to list properties at the upper reaches of her Stafford, Virginia price range:  ‘That’s where they save the most money!’  I tried to cling to the notion that the problem wasn’t in the consumer’s mind but in the way our brokers present the program.

But then I looked around the room.  These are very sharp people.  They work in this business with this brand every day.  They’re saying this is a problem.  I have to believe them.

So . . . there is this other Help-U-Sell brand, Platinum Edge.  By way of introduction I’ll reproduce what I wrote about it in 2009:

Platinum Edge and the Clarity of the Brand

We at Help-U-Sell have a second brand, reserved for upper end properties, Platinum Edge.  Platinum Edge has its own logo, and colors (purple and gold), and is occasionally used by a handful of Help-U-Sell brokers.  I was on my way out of Help-U-Sell when the sub-brand was devised and was only peripherally privy to the conversation that led to its birth.  Now, half a dozen years later, I’m looking at it and wondering, ‘What in the world were we thinking?’

We have Help-U-Sell:  an already well-established brand.  By well-established I mean that most consumers have heard of us and many have an inkling that we are somehow different than ordinary real estate practitioners. That is HUGE.  Really:  establishing brand recognition is a very tough task that usually takes years.  The good news is: once you have it, it tends to stay with you.  (For more about this, read ‘Marketing Warfare’ by Ries and Trout. )

To trade the power of that wonderfully distinct brand for something that is completely unknown by the consuming public seems misguided at best, even cavalier.

I know the history.  A group of our old Regional Directors got together and decided that the Help-U-Sell brand was a turn-off for high end homeowners.  It seemed to them that the reason we had little presence in the lofty price ranges was that those homeowners were, um, what’s the word?  Oh, yes:  embarrassed to have the Help-U-Sell sign in their yard!  They didn’t want the neighbors to know they wanted to save money, don’t you see?  And somehow, by simply changing the sign and the name they’d flock to us to save thousands on the sale of thier McMansions.

I guess that must have resonated in 2005.  A lot of stupid stuff did.  And hats off to Infinium for NOT re-inventing the Regional Director mess when they took control of Help-U-Sell at the end of 2008.  Today we function quite well without that extra barrier between the franchisor and the franchisee.

Last year I visited with Josh and Bettina Grein, Help-U-Sell Grein Group in Stafford, Virginia.  They have a good business, much of which takes place in the upper end of their marketplace, homes priced at $500,000 and up.  I asked how they were able to break into that market.  Bettina looked at me, puzzled, and finally said,  ‘Break in?  What do you mean?  . . .  That’s where people can save the most.’  Period.

I don’t think we needed Platinum Edge to sell high end properties.  I think we needed passion, pride and belief that what we have works – three things that were in rather short supply in 2005.  Consumers are psychic:  if you stand before them with doubt and trepidation, they sense it and respond accordingly . . . if you’re not proud and passionate about what you’re doing, you might as well stay home.

Today our group is like a hungry, happy pack of wolves.  They are so deeply into Help-U-Sell, into saving consumers money, into doing it differently and better that it’s almost part of their DNA.  It’s as if  a whole new species of  REALTOR is loose on the planet, a mutant strain that has evolved in response to changes in the (consumer) environment.  It’s stronger, faster, smarter, clearer and more effective.  While all the old dinosaurs in the forest are slowly turning into crude oil, this new breed is taking over.  It’s Survival of the Fittest and we’re certainly up to the challenge.  Platinum Edge?  That’s just a hat-tip to the old Tyrannosaurus we used to be, our clunky, addled, awkward, embarrassed former incarnation.  Today Help-U-Sell comes in just one color, and it’s the color of passion and love:  RED.  Let’s Hunt!

As strong and as passionate as my point-of-view in this post is, I have to question it when a handful of great Help-U-Sell brokers say something different.  And truth is, there are a few brokers who still use the brand and swear by it, Ed and Julie Wright in Mission Viejo, for example.  Is it time to dust off the Platinum Edge brand?  Time to freshen up the logo?  Maybe adjust the colors?  Would you use it?  If so, how?  Or do you hate the idea?  I really want to hear from you.

How to Price Your Home to Sell

Robbie has asked me to look at creating a consumer video about pricing.  It would be something Help-U-Sell brokers and agents could use to emphasize the importance of proper pricing and to describe the process.  I started reworking the script I used for the longer broker/agent training piece we did for Help-U-Sell Pro-Coach Univeristy and have shared what I have done so far below.  Please take a look and give me some pointers.  Bearing in mind that we want to be a brief as possible, what other things ought to be included in such a video?  Is the price trend information too complex for public consumption?  Your help is appreciated!

Pricing to Sell

I’ll let you in on a little secret:   pricing is the single most important thing you’ll do to ensure the salability of your home.  All the marketing in the world can’t cause an overpriced home to sell.  An army of top salespeople can’t cause an overpriced listing to sell.  Overpricing means your home sits and sits until either the market catches up to it or you reduce it back to where it should have been from the start.  Unfortunately, if you start out too high, you’ll miss the most important marketing period for your home.  Here’s why.

At any given time, there are a certain number of people looking for a home like yours in a neighborhood like the one in which your home is located.  Let’s  call them your ‘Best Buyers’ –  these are the ones who will recognize the value of what you have and will be willing and able to pay top dollar for it.  It might be a few people or dozens of them.  The moment your property hits the market you have the opportunity to be in front of the largest number of these ‘Best Buyers’ you will have during the course of the listing.  Yes, more will trickle in as time goes by, but the initial weeks of your time on the market present the greatest opportunity to reach that larger pool of buyers who are already looking.

Now think about those people out there looking for a house just like yours.  They’ve already looked at dozens, even hundreds of houses on paper and they are probably a little tired of the process. What they want to do when they look at new listings (like yours) is to quickly narrow the field, eliminate anything that does not meet their basic needs,  and then investigate the few that might work for them.  This narrowing and eliminating process usually involves three things:

  1. Location – is the house in an area they’d consider
  2. Beds and Baths – are there enough
  3. Price – is it within a range they would consider

If any one of these three items does not match the buyers criteria, the home is eliminated from the list of possibles.  Now you can’t do anything about the location and the number of bedrooms and bathrooms is pretty well set. The one thing you can control is price.  And you want to hit the market with a price that is within the range of market value so that you end up on the list of possibles for the largest number of ‘Best Buyers’ who are in the market at that moment.

There are three things to consider when setting a price:  the price of similar properties in the area that have recently sold, the trend in prices, and the current competition.  The data is readily available, however, you are wise to rely on the information provided by your Help-U-Sell broker.  What’s available to the general public is often confusing and sometimes inaccurate.  We use the most up-to-date and accurate database in existence.

Sometimes, there are enough sales of similar properties in the previous six months to give an indication of value.  At other times, we may have to look back a little further.  But it is always important to remember that you are looking back in time at prices.

For example, assume you have a comparable property that sold six weeks ago. That’s the date the sale closed.  The actual date the buyer and seller agreed on a price was probably earlier – at least a month and most often two months or more earlier.  So when you look at comparable sales, remember that you are looking back in time three to twelve months.  To arrive at a proper price for today you must anticipate and adjust for the trend in prices.

Are prices rising in your neighborhood?  How much?  How rapidly?  Or are they declining?  And how does this information factor into your decision about pricing?  If prices are rising rapidly and you base your price on recent sales, you could be underpriced from day one . . . or the opposite could be true!  These are the things your Help-U-Sell broker will help you weigh as you establish a range of value for your neighborhood and then a proper price for your home within that range.

So far we’ve been fairly scientific in our discussion of pricing; but there is another side to this process and it is not scientific at all; it’s emotional.  We love our homes.  We work hard to make them comfortable and welcoming.  We decorate and improve them to reflect who we are.  Even if we’ve outgrown them, even if they no longer meet our needs, the value we place on our homes can still get strangely tangled up with the value we place on ourselves.  While self-esteem is a marvelous thing . . . it really has nothing to do with the price and salability of your property.   It is very important that you understand the moment you put a for sale sign in your yard your house stops being a home that reflects who you are and starts being something very different:  a product.  A product that has to compete with similar products for the attention of buyers in the marketplace.  I know that sounds cold, but it is the right attitude for a home seller – as opposed to a home owner.

Please, don’t go fishing outside the range of value for just a few thousand dollars more thinking you can always come down.  You’ll miss that pool of buyers in the marketplace looking for a home like yours right now!  And please don’t cling to an unsupportable price because your house has been so special for you and your family.  It’s a product now. It has to compete on every level including price.

RE-Targeting

How big is your target market?

How often to do you touch your target market with marketing?

What share of the listings are you taking in your target market?

These are all good Help-U-Sell questions.  Our success has always come from geographic target marketing.  We always begin with a serious marketplace analysis.  We look for those pockets in the market with higher turnover, with 4% – 5% being acceptable and more than that being exciting.  Then we hit those target households hard, with simple, easily understood marketing pieces.

All of that changed when the market went into the tank.  When turnover rates plummeted because houses simply weren’t selling, when it became more important to have a ready, willing  and able buyer to work with than a seller, the targeted, rifle approach to neighborhood domination went out the window in favor of a shotgun blast spread over a much wider geography.  We were no longer attracting business from 5,000 – 12,000 households.  Now we were serving 40,000 or 50,000 (or trying to).

But here’s the thing:  it is not possible to target market to 50,000 households.  It’s just too expensive.  If you did a monthly EDDM outreach to that big a group you’d be spending about $15,000 and running the wheels off your car.

Instead, what you end up doing with a broader geography is trading on the name, the Brand.  A certain number of people in that broad geography already have some familiarity with your program, understand that you can save them money, and will reach out to you if they know you are close by.  These are the home sellers who contact you even if you don’t market.

It’s almost impossible to build market share on that.

This is a challenge to you:  put down the shotgun and refocus.  Do your market analyses.  Find the 5,000 or 7,000 homes in your broad area where turnover is highest.  Pick one and do it right.  Do a monthly EDDM there, crank up a Facebook and/or Google campaign.  Put out your blitz signs.  Faithfully do arounds and just listed/just sold postcards (remember: arounds are around someone else’s listing).

6,000 homes x 5% turnover = 300 sales.  Get 10% of that and watch your business explode!  Once your signs are prominent and you  have listings to market around, you can begin to pare the expensive initial marketing and expand into an adjacent target.

This is how we do it.

 

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