Two New Videos For You to Use

Robbie Stevens sometimes asks me to write and record a short video for use on various Help-U-Sell websites.  Usually these are consumer-focused pieces designed to present the superior Help-U-Sell offer and encourage viewers to seek more information.

As a new Corporate website is just around the corner (and if you haven’t seen it, it is a home run), he asked me to do two new ones.  One is a Help-U-Sell overview, mostly directed at potential sellers; the other is directed at potential buyers and presents our unique approach to helping them find their dream homes.

You can add these to your own Help-U-Sell website by logging into OMS, going to ‘Marketing and Content’ and ‘Website CMS.’ Click ‘Edit’ and select the page on which you’d like to use the video.  Scroll down and select the HTML view, then copy/paste the embed code from YouTube where you’d like to see the video.  Once you have done that a few times it is VERY easy, but I’m sure if you’ve never done it, my brief instructions seem daunting.  Give yourself 10 minutes to get as far as you can with it, then call tech support at Help-U-Sell and let them walk you through it or do it for you.

You may also email the link to prospective sellers and buyers.  I’ve included the YouTube link under each of these videos.  Here is Help-U-Sell for Buyers:

Here is the link to this video:  http://youtu.be/agkvmZYN5-8

And here is ‘The Help-U-Sell Difference’:

And here is the link to this video: http://youtu.be/sxgnCJi1CMc

Feel free to use these in any way that may help you garner new business!

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It goes without saying (or maybe it doesn’t)  that I don’t sell or give your address to anybody and the only thing you will ever get from me is a notice that there’s something new here.  Having spent the last week ‘Unsubscribing’ from literally hundreds of sites I’ve wandered into over the years, I would never do that to you.  I guess it is a little ironic that I would ask you to subscribe here during National Unsubscribe Week, but what the hay.

Armageddon Followup: How Help-U-Sell Works

I got the following comment on that last post when it was shared on LinkedIn (it is from a guy I don’t know):

“So Trulia and Zillow feel the days of the RE Agent are coming to an end? Let it be and soon sellers will find themselves perfect examples of what being penny wise and pound foolish is all about while leaving them wondering why their property has not sold! Ridiculous at best! “

First, let’s clarify something:  Trulia nd Zillow don’t want real estate agents to go away.  They LOVE real estate agents.  That’s where their revenue comes from!  They make money by selling ads to real estate agents.  Maybe in the future they’ll make money by also selling premium listing space directly to sellers, but for now it’s all about the agent.

At the same time, Zillow’s purchase of Trulia is not good news for agents.  Now the two companies don’t have to compete for agent business.  I think we’ll see a bump up in pricing as they both try to sell the same Zip Codes to the same agents.

My point was that, as technology has put tools Realtors once held as proprietary into consumers hands, the agent’s importance in the transaction has been diminished.  They don’t need us like they used to.  But, with ordinary brokers there has not been a corresponding decrease in commission rates.  Consumers still pay full fare for diminished service.  What will make Realtors irrelevant is this idiotic clinging to a pricing model that was stupid to begin with.  The moment consumers understand that they really CAN do it without paying 5% or 6% or 7% of the sales price, they will drop their friendly neighborhood Realtors like rotten tomatoes.

If you are a regular Realtor and understand that what I’m saying is true, there is something you can do now to ensure your future:  get into Help-U-Sell.  This is real estate that makes sense, that costs much less and delights consumers.  While Help-U-Sell brokers and agents do have magnificent personalities, this is a business model that is not personality driven (which, if you hadn’t noticed is what drives the ordinary real estate world).  It is driven by systems that work.

In an ordinary office the agent’s job is to build the broker’s business by listing real estate for sale.  The broker relies on the agent’s contacts and personality to establish the brand by getting for sale sings up in the local market.  The broker, therefore has to pay the agent who lists real estate huge (dare I say ridiculous?) commission splits, and that’s a cost that, without a thought, is passed on to consumers.

Help-U-Sell offices don’t rely on agents to go out and find listings.  Instead, they market for listings (what a concept!).  And because the offer to home sellers is so far superior to what ordinary agents offer, they tend to get way more than their share of listings.  And all listings – because they are generated by marketing, not agents – belong to the office . . . and that very expensive commission that had to be paid to the listing agent?  It goes away.  Now, in ordinary real estate offices, that saved commission would probably find its way into the broker’s pocket, but we do it a little different at Help-U-Sell:  we pass that savings on to the seller.  Imagine that!

But there’s more.

When a seller lists with an ordinary agent, agreeing to pay a % commission, that’s it.  Period.  When the house sells – no matter how it sells – that % is what the seller is going to pay.  There is enough commission there to compensate two offices and two agents (listing office/agent and selling office/agent), and most sales happen this way.  Fine.  But what if there is no outside broker and agent?  What if the listing office finds the buyer and we don’t have to pay the outside broker and agent?  It doesn’t matter.  The seller is still going to pay that silly % and the unused portion is going right into the listing office and agent’s pockets.  Even better, what happens if the seller, by some quirk, happens to find his or her own buyer? Believe it or not, that  happens all the time!  So how much does that seller pay?  The same silly %!  It’s so stupid!

At Help-U-Sell, the commissions agreed to at time of listing are designed to compensate 3 people, not 4 (remember, we eliminated that irrelevant listing agent because we get listings by marketing for them), so there’s an automatic savings there even if there is an outside broker and agent involved.  But if there’s NOT – the seller doesn’t pay for one.  We charge at closing based on how the home actually sells.  If we don’t have to pay an outside broker and agent, the seller doesn’t pay for one.  Are you starting to understand why home sellers love Help-U-Sell?

Look:  I don’t work for Help-U-Sell anymore.  But I believe in this model and I see it as the future of real estate.  If you’d like to talk about it with someone who has nothing to sell (that’d be me), Email me

THINK Before You QR

Remember when we all went crazy for QR codes?  I think I first encountered them at a NAR meeting about four years ago.  All the badges had QR codes so that a vendor, wanting to add an attendee to a mailing list only had to scan a code.  Brilliant!  And attendees wanting more information about a product only needed to scan the code.  The little square wonders were everywhere!

We did training on QR Codes, talked about them in the Power Hour, hyped them at Success Summit – and Help-U-Sell Brokers everywhere got on board.  And that’s a good thing; QR codes are a valuable tool . . . when used properly.

A QR Code is simply a LINK.  It is designed to take a smartphone enabled consumer to a specific webpage.  There is a lot in that statement, so let’s break it down.  A consumer accessing a QR Code is on a smartphone.  He or she is not on a PC or MAC – if they were,  we’d just send them a link.  We don’t send QR Codes via email or text because those items are most likely being read on the same smartphone the consumer would have to use to access them — which is impossible.   OR they are being read on a PC or MAC, in which case WE SHOULD HAVE JUST SENT A LINK!

Use QR Codes on your signs.  They enable smartphone enabled consumers to instantly get to the listing’s individual webpage.  Use QR codes on other forms of printed marketing, but only if they link to webpages that provide more information than what’s on the printed piece.  Don’t put a QR Code on a flyer if it’s just linking to an online version of the flyer!  Do put a QR Code on the back of your business card with the caption:  ‘Find Out About Help-U-Sell’ and link it to a good overview page on your website (or maybe to the great video overview).

Above all, THINK before you QR.  Who are you trying to reach?  How will they likely access your information (smartphone, PC, MAC?).  Is the information you are linking to going to enhance their experience or just repeat it?  And for a little QR inspiration, watch this:

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.

 

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