Pay-Per-Click, Step-By-Step

We all know that carefully planned pay-per-click advertising works.  It can effectively drive traffic to your website, where, if it is handled properly, it can turn into leads. We saw an example of that this morning on the Tech Time Tuesday Webinar, where Jack Bailey increased traffic to his office website by almost 1,000% over a four month period. ,due largely to his pay-per-click campaign on Google. Using Ad Words, he brought roughly 15,000 visitors to his website.  One of his ads – the one offering a free market analysis – had a 31% click-thru rate!  That’s crazy good!  And, assuming some of the traffic is converted to leads, some of which actually buy or sell real estate, the cost can be very low.  Really, Jack’s budget was $12 a day – a little less than $400 a month.

But, how do you do this?  How do you proceed step-by-step to take advantage of this Internet Marketing Bonanza?  Here’s how:

1.  Decide what kind of lead you are seeking.  Are you looking for Buyers or Sellers?  What kind of Buyers?  Buyers interested in Foreclosures?  Buyers looking in a specific neighborhood?  Buyers with little down payment money?  Sellers with equity?  Upside down sellers? Sellers in a specific geographic area?  Step one is all about getting very specific about your target.  The more specific you set your pay-per-click parameters, the more efficient your campaign will be.  In short:  you’ll attract fewer clicks from customers you don’t want (out of the area, just looking, unable to buy and so on).

2.  Build a landing page on your office website where people who click your ad will ‘land.’  A good landing page should address exactly what the ad mentioned.  If it was the offer of a free Market Analysis, that’s ALL that should be on the landing page:  just the contact information capture form and a tiny bit of verbiage explaining what will happen when they sign up.   Some experts say you should keep your branding, both personal and company, to a minimum on a good lead capture landing page.  The idea is that people may sign up online for something they perceive to be of value if they don’t associate it with an ordinary Realtor or real estate company.

3.  Decide where you are going to advertise.  Google is the 800 pound gorilla here.  If you choose this, your ads will appear when people who fit your demographic parameters search for the keywords and phrases around which you build your campaign.  Don’t overlook Facebook.  Their pay-per-click ads have been effective for many, and their targeting process is very specific.  And don’t forget:  not everybody searches with Google.  Some use Bing, some use Yahoo.  You may find more cost effective alternatives if you just look around.

4.  Design your ad.  Keep the verbiage to a minimum.  Stick to exactly what you’re offering. Use Google AdWords to determine which real estate search terms are most common in your area and build your campaign around them.   While Google pay-per-click is all words and links, Facebook allows you to include a photo or graphic in your ad.  If you’re using a photo, note that. sometimes it’s the quirky photo that catches the eye.  **TIP:  Include your phone number in your pay-per-click ad.  Some people will call rather than click, and you don’t pay if they don’t click!

5.  Set-up and budget your campaign.  You’ll set three ‘maximums’ when you initiate your campaign:  your total budget (the maximum you want to spend for the entire campaign), your daily maximum, and the maximum you’re willing to pay per click.  I mentioned Jack’s campaign:  his total budget was right at $1,500.  He was willing to spend up to $12 a day.  I don’t know what he agreed to pay-per-click, but what usually happens is the vendor (Google or Facebook or Yahoo)  will give you a range in which you should bid.  Let’s assume it’s $1.10 – $1.53 per click.  The higher you bid, the more frequently your ad will appear . . . until you hit one of your maximums.  When I’ve done pay-per-click, I’ve set my bid on the high side of the middle of the range.  By they way:  some clicks will come in at less than your bid; it all depends on how competitive the environment around your key words is at that moment.

6.  Track your results.  Conceptually, this step is number six.  But Chronologically?  You probably ought to move this to first.  BEFORE you do anything with any marketing, pay-per-click or otherwise, you must set up your system for tracking results.  How will you capture and track the leads that come in via your Internet contact form?  What about those leads that choose to pick up the phone and call?  And how will you get your staff to take all of this tracking as seriously as you do?  (I’ve always been a big fan of boiling in oil and/or burning at the stake for slackers, but the choice is yours).

7.  Manage your campaign.  Everyday, take a look at your results.  How many leads did you create?  What key words or phrases pulled the best?  Which keywords could you pause or drop from the campaign?  And so on.

Now it’s soapbox time.  This is the moment when all of us need inventory.  Listings are so low right now and the Listing Agent is in control.  This is happening because increased buyer activity as begun to push prices slightly higher – something we haven’t’ seen in years.  Homeowners are very curious right now about what their homes are worth.  They’ve seen the uptick in values and are wondering if they’re still upside down.  Now is the time to do a pay-per-click campaign aimed at these people.  How about a pay-per-click ad that simply says:  ‘Find Out What Your Home Is Worth Today’ . . . leading to the free market analysis page that’s already set up and is available on your office website.

So, let’s do it.  Do steps 6, 1, and 3 – get it all organized – and then call Tony in Sarasota.  He’ll be happy to help you finish the task.  And if you want to run any marketing ideas by me, I’m energized and available.

Eight Things You Can Do To Get A Listing Today

Can you get a listing today?  I’m waiting . . . can you?  Let me rephrase the question:  If you were to be hung by the neck until dead at sunset if you didn’t get a listing today, could you get one?  I thought so.  Getting a Listing is something you can DO in real estate.  You can’t force a sale, you can’t force a closing . . . but you can DO a listing.  You can get one.  It is always in your power.

And today, more than ever, a listing is precious.  Inventories are so low right now and prices are inching (and in some cases, racing) upwards.  Multiple offers abound and the person with listings is in the driver’s seat.  But listings are also hard to come by.  Many potential sellers are sitting back, noticing the upcreep in prices and thinking: ‘If I just wait a few months maybe I won’t be so upside down . . . ‘

So, what can you do TODAY to get a listing?  Here are 8 ideas:

1.  Call all of your past clients.  It’s a simple dialogue:  you need their help.  Inventory is drying up, buyers are frantic to find something.  Have they heard of anybody thinking of selling?  I would be surprised if you didn’t uncover at least 1 listing lead for every 20 calls.

2.  Call all of your fence sitting, luke warm potential sellers and heat them up!   They’re not doing themselves any favors by waiting.  The bargains are disappearing rapidly and while they’re waiting for a few percentage points gain in equity, they’re missing opportunities.  Here – use this set of graphics from Help-U-Sell University:

3.  Pull all the expired listings for the LAST 12 MONTHS – that’s right, a full year’s worth – and drop them a note about the improving market, the scarcity of listings and the fact that you can save them money!

4.  Choose one of your buyer clients who is hot to trot but having trouble finding a suitable home.  Working with them, isolate the one or two perfect neighborhoods for them.  Then make a flyer with their photo and some humanizing detail,  saying they’re looking for a home in that neighborhood.  If you’d like to sell, contact Help-U-Sell.  And put your ETM on the back.  Deliver it however you’d like:  snail mail, Excel’s mailbox stuffer program, slide it under the doormat . . . although if you’re trying to beat the hangman at sunset, you’d better stick to doormats.

5.  Follow Kurt Steffien’s lead:  start cultivating probate attorneys.  They are certainly interested in being heroes to their estate clients, and will see your money saving (estate preserving) offer as a way to accomplish that.  In other words:  they get it.  And if you get one and do a good job, it’s not just one listing, it could be many.  For months and years to come.  Really.

6.  Work with Tony to build a landing page on your website to capture contact info on people wanting to know what their house is worth.  Then create a QR Code for it.  Have flyers made with nothing more than the QR Code and the words:  ‘See How Much Your Home Is Worth Today.’  Put them all over the place.

7.  Call every FSBO in the area and ask:  ‘If I were to find a buyer who made an offer that was acceptable to you, would you pay me a commission?’  (I know, I know . . .you guys usually choke when you have to say that word, but in this case it will serve you better than ‘Low Set Fee.’).  The answer will almost always be yes, because they’ve usually made the same deal with every other Realtor in town.  Quickly calculate what, say, 3% is (let’s assume it’s $4,500), and respond: ‘So if I find a buyer who makes an acceptable offer you’ll pay me 3% which is around $4,500 dollars, right?  Let me show you what I can do for you for just $3,950*.  I mean – I’m Help-U-Sell – you get my complete full service program for less than you’d pay some agent just to find you a buyer.  For $3,950*, I’ll help you refine your pricing (if necessary), do all the marketing, get you on dozens of websites, qualify all interested buyers, help you weigh the pros and cons of every offer and calculate your net proceeds, process all the paperwork and handle the details all the way to closing.  How’s that sound?’

(*Or whatever your Set Fee is.  By the way:  Commissions, whether percentage based of set fee, are always negotiable.)

8.  Call Jack Bailey and ask him what you should do.

This is July 5.  The longest day of the year was, what?  A week and a half ago?  So you’ve got a few extra hours of daylight to get it done.  Go on now:  get out there and don’t come home until you have a signed listing agreement in your sweaty little hand.

 

 

The Buyer Questionnaire

Sometimes the best ideas are sooo simple . . . and sometimes they seem so obvious.  I am frequently amazed that, somehow, I managed to miss them.  I get the ‘Big Duh’ reaction.

That happened a few minutes ago.  I was reading a brief article in Inman News by  Alisha Alway Braatz about working with buyers.  I’d give you a link, but it was premium content and requires a subscription – one that I have – to view.  (Parenthetically, I think it’s well worth the cash to become a premium member.  Inman is far and away the best source of information for the real estate industry today.)

Ms. Braatz mentioned that she had a downloadable Buyer Questionnaire PDF on her website and she asks buyers to get it and complete it before their first face-to-face meeting.   The questions aren’t magical:  they are the kinds of things you’d likely ask during the  meeting.  Things like:  why are you planning a move?  How long have you been looking? Are you working with other agents? Do you need to sell your current house before you can make a move?  If you found the perfect house today, is there any reason you couldn’t proceed with a purchase?  What are the five most important features you are seeking?  What areas are you considering and why?  Have you been pre-approved for a mortgage?  And so on.

The point about the questionnaire is this:  it sets a tone for your meeting and subsequent relationship.  You take this house hunting business seriously and you go at it with a plan.  That is so different from you competition.  You’re setting the stage for a loyalty commitment by taking leadership before you even meet this prospective buyer.  And also:  this may be the first time your buyer(s) have really focused on what they’re trying to accomplish.  There may be features and issues in the home buying process that, until now, they haven’t talked about.

The questionnaire Ms. Braatz uses is 3 pages long.  That might be a bit much.  Might be.  I’m sure they are all great questions that will provide clarity and direction.  I just worry a little about overwhelming buyer prospects by making the task look bigger than it needs to be.  But there’s only one way to test that:  do it.

So, Robbie, Tony:  if we come up with a standard questionnaire that all of our brokers could use, is there a way we could store it online and make it available on all our broker websites?

And Jack Bailey:  What do you think of this idea?  If you like it, I can think of nobody better able to put this kind of questionnaire together:  are you up for that?

(Click HERE for a link to a sample Buyer Questionnaire)

Personal Marketing

I was there in the 80s when the concept of Personal Marketing was born.  Re/Max had swept into the industry and turned the spotlight squarely on the the agent . . . the agent who did exactly what every other agent did, who had the same tools, the same program.  That was the problem:  how do you market something when what you have to market is exactly what everyone else has to market?  The answer was:  you don’t.  You don’t market what you do.  You market yourself.  You become your own brand.  And over time you create a belief that, while what you do isn’t all that different, who you are is.

Here:  think about cars for a minute.  Think about Dodge cars.  in the 80’s there was nothing at all spectacular, different or unique about Dodge cars.  That was pretty much true about all American made cars in the 80’s.  Now try to think like a Dodge dealer:  you’ve got the same product every other Dodge dealer has.  You have essentially the same financial deal with the manufacturer that every other Dodge dealer has.  You have the same pool of salespeople and service people to pull from, the same financing avenues. There is absolutely nothing unique or different about what you have to offer. How do you sell more Dodge automobiles than the other dealer across town?

Cal Worthington was up to that challenge.  He pretty much quit marketing Dodge cars and started marketing Cal Worthington.  He did crazy stuff:  did a commercial while wing-walking on a bi-plane, dressed up in a gorilla suit, made a pitch while skydiving, ate a bug, ‘stood on his head ’til his ears turned red,’ and so on.  Usually in his commercials, he’d introduce his dog Spot, who was never a dog at all.  It was a tiger once, a lizard, a Killer Whale, even a Hippopatamus.  I can still hear his jingle:  ‘Go See Cal! Go See Cal! Go See Cal!’   And people did go see Cal.  I’m not sure how many people trusted Cal or thought he was up to anything more than negotiating the best possible deal for his dealership.  But people wanted to go see that crazy guy . . . personal marketing works.

In the late 70’s The Personal Marketing Company was born and brought this concept to the real estate business.  It was the right idea at the right time. Agents who, like Cal, who had the same Dodge as the guy  across town, had the same tools, same procedures, same methods for making sales, were hungry for a new twist on marketing.  As Personal Marketing gained traction, we watched the real estate company logo on the For Sale sign shrink and shrink until it became the fine print at the bottom.  We saw the agent’s name and photo become larger and larger.

The Personal Marketing Company was largely about product.  They had all kinds of newsletters and postcards to sell to agents that would accommodate their individual branding.  But in the 80’s Hobbs and Herder showed up to teach people how to market themselves, and that’s when everything really shifted.

Remember a month ago or so?  I did a post about an amazing open house I encountered.  There were dozens of directionals, all with pink flourescent flags on top, all featuring the agent’s branding leading to the house.  Along the route there were companion bus benches.  It was impressive.  But while I was writing the piece, I wondered what company this person worked for.  It wasn’t clear on any of the signage.  The signs were pretty unique:  all pink and green, but the only name on them was . . . the agent’s.  So I went to her webiste and there it was, burried in the fine print at the bottom of the page:  she worked for Keller-Williams.  The message to the consumer is clear:  my company has nothing special to offer.  We’re just like everyone else.  But me?  I’m special.  You should be doing business with meeeeee.

Today, my buddy, Ken Kopcho sent me a video from the Tom Ferry Organization.  He’s promoting his ‘Success Summit’ coming up later in the year (How the heck did he end up with the same name for his annual meeting as ours?).  Here: check it out:


The ideas are good.  But it’s all about personal marketing, marketing who you are, not what you do.  It works and I approve for Realtors everywhere.

But Help-U-Sell people are not generic Realtors.  We really do have a unique system that works.  The consumer experience is completely different with Help-U-Sell.  In short:  we have something real to market.  We don’t have to create a fictionalized persona to grab the interest of consumers.  All we have to do is distribute the message that:  We Are Here, People Use Us, It Works, and They Save Money.

Somewhere close to one of Cal’s dealerships was a Honda dealer.  Who knows who the owner of that dealership was:  that’s not what they were marketing.  They were marketing a product that was different.  Their ads said:  We Are Here, People Buy Our Cars, They Don’t Break Down, They Get Great Mileage, and Our Customers Are Happy.

The Wall Street Journal lists the top 20 vehicles in order by unit sales.  For 2012, year to date, they show Dodge with one vehicle in the top 20:  the Ram Pick-up.  114, 630 have been sold so far this year.  Honda has three cars in the top 20:  Civic, Accord and CRV.  Total sales for those vehicles is 384, 736 units so far.  Love you, Cal, but guess who won the war….

The point is this:  Help-U-Sell people, yes:  do market yourself.  Be personable.  Be likeable.  But remember why people do business with you.  It’s not because of the gorilla suit you wore last Halloween.  It’s because you are unique, you have a program that works, your brand means something and the Help-U-Sell consumer experience is superior.  THAT’s something to market.

 

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