Want to Make More Money? Brand yourself as THE Local Expert.

Want to Make More Money? Brand yourself as THE Local Expert.

Kendra Todd and KTG Technology Director, Sam Ingersoll, share the Inside Scoop on how to make more money - more easily. Need some help with your website? Email sam@q2results.com or call (484) 842-0062.

WARNING! This is a work in progress : ) and we haven't filled out all the details.  Would you like to be notified as we share more of our strategies? Comment below and we'll let you know.

"What good is having a strong brand if it doesn't result in more clients and more income?"

I. Choosing a Niche Market
You may not be able to develop a national "tv celebrity" brand, but you can brand yourself as The Expert for one or more niche markets.

I.A. Types of niche markets to consider?
Consider geographic markets like towns, school districts, and subdivisions. Interest niche markets include luxury homes, REOs, investment properties, and first time home buyers. Demographic markets correspond closely with interest niche markets and might include Seniors who are retiring, baby boomers who are downsizing, or young professionals.

Each of these has their own wants and needs, as well as methods of communicating and working with a real estate professional.

I.B. Is the market worth targeting?
It may not be. Analyze the number of transactions that took place in a town during the last year.

• Modify that number by what you think the market will do this year.
• Look at the top agents who did 60-80% of the transactions.
• Subtract the number they did - they will probably do the same number this year. What is left?
• Divide that number by 12. That is probably how many transactions you have a chance of getting if you completely dominated your market.
• If not, what is a reasonable number for you to compete for. There you go.
• Your strategy should be built around going after this number of transactions. Is it worth the time and expense?

I.C. What do real estate consumers in that market want?

• Is this a tech savvy market where instant communication is expected?
• Is it a market full of Baby Boomers who are downsizing and want solid investment advice?
• Is it near a University where professors and students are moving in and out every year?
• Do families with children move into the market for the local schools?

I.D. Are YOU the right fit for them?
Now ask yourself, "Will I connect with the people in this niche market?"

You may not at all.

If you don't think you will, then do not target it. You could try and fake it, pretending to be someone you are not, but in our information economy - Authenticity matters.

Everyone is so bombarded with sales pitches and so sick of lies of business leaders and politicians that trust is in short supply. The reputation of Real Estate Agents according to one recent public is lower than lawyers so your prospects will be acutely aware of, and watching for, any signs of dishonesty.

Wouldn't you rather work with people who like you for you anyway?

II. Key Messages
When targeting a niche market, many real estate agents buy a geographic domain name and throw up a website. The best strategy is to figure out your key messages to that niche market and let those inform the structure of your website and it's graphic design.

II.A. Their Wants
You can have the slickest brand possible but if you don't quickly connect to the wants of real estate consumers who go online, you're brand is probably communication, "I don't care that you want to look at photos of homes....go on someone else's website," and you've lost them.

COMING SOON!
Our recommendations on THE BEST LEAD CAPTURE HOME SEARCH SITES.

You also need to carefully consider how much information consumers in the target market want. There is a huge difference between giving a huge amount of information which some consumers will use and appreciate vs overwhelming a different consumer segment that just wants to look at photos and contact an agent.

Are you going to communicate, "This experience will be easy and fun?"

Or, are you going to communicate, "We are going to analyze statistics and employ all kinds of strategies in an intense process to get you the perfect home at the lowest possible price?"

II.B. Results
Wouldn't you like to hire an agent who is "better" than other agents? Wouldn't you like to compare the "results" of agents? Most agents don't track their own statistics or communicate their own results well, much less have results that are better than other agents.

Having many Listings and Sold Homes is a good way to present yourself as a Local Expert. You should post yours on a prominent place on your website. If you don't have listings you can certainly borrow a friend's. You can also highlight listings using your IDX/home search solution if it allows doing so. If you want to look really impressive - and it doesn't violate any regulations - you can take Screen shots of million dollar properties from Google Street View or Bing Balloon View and rewrite the descriptions so you don't violate copyright laws.

Can you put together statistics that PROVE how you are better than other local agents?

"James sells homes on average 45 days faster then other agents in his market and for $34,000 more."

Isn't that headline more effective than "We Sell Homes in _____."

For many consumers, time is more valuable than money. Can you demonstrate how your business model, methods of communication, or technology solutions will save them time?

"Our use of Webinars as part of our Virtual Kitchen Table process saves our clients an average of 25 hours of time per home purchase."

Isn't that statement better than, "We make home buying easy!"

II.C. Trust
Once you have potential clients attention based on the Benefits you offer, the next thing they are going to say to themselves is, "Can I believe anything this agent says?" If you have photos of homes and statistics, you've answered this question about 50% of the way.

Another way to answer this question and build some trust in what you say about how you work is to tell stories on your website or in your promotional materials. People process and remember stories more vividly then they do statements. A headline that a website visitor might view as sensationalistic can start to appear surprisingly true if you follow it with a real story, for example, about your work with a couple who did sell their home for more money and with less stress.

Lise Howe has a nice story here which underscores her expertise. This story could be MUCH better if it had a photo to capture attention AND the font was bigger to make it more easy to read.

A testimonial from a happy client in a niche market isn't quite as good as a personal referral but, if done right, can come pretty darn close. A great idea is to buy a little Flip Video camera or even use your laptop with a webcam and ask for a video testimonial right after a client's closing. Testimonials do NOT have to have slick production values. In fact, there is evidence that amateur videos sell more products than sophisticated videos because they seem more authentic - and trustworthy.

Here is how Kendra uses Testimonials. (We are working on getting Videos.)

As discussed, statistics can build trust, but so can "peer pressure." Which agent would be perceived as more trustworthy - an agent with photos of 200 facebook friends on her home page or an agent with none? Which agent would be viewed more favorably - an agent with a headline on his website that says, "400 families this year have trusted us to help them find the perfect home," or a headline that says, "We can help you find your perfect home." Again, communicating with specifics exactly what you do is a very powerful strategy.

II.D. Connection
Similar to "Trust", people like to do business with other people that they have some kind of connection to. This is why asking yourself if the potential clients in the niche market you are targeting are a good fit for you is so important. Can you connect with them?

On your website you can help them develop a personal connection to you through your blog posts. This is where you really do need to share stories about your life, interests, and family. A law student moving into the area might really like that your husband is a well connected local attorney. If you are a Mom and you write on your blog about your attendance at your children's schools then Moms who are potential clients will likely connect more easily with you.

We know many agents who write personal stories on their blogs, who report that people say, "I feel like I already know you from your blog and facebook posts."

II.E. Community
A good way to burnish your credentials as a Local expert and build trust is to share stories and information on your website about the target market. Schools (because families have children) and Restaurants (thanks to the food channel) are good topics. You can demonstrate your real estate expertise by writing about market statistics, homes that sold, and new construction projects.

A great source of all this information is the Local Market Explorer plugin for Wordpress. This application draws in data from Zillow, Walkscore, Education.com, Yelp, and even photos from Flickr (many of which you can use on your website) and places it in one page. Just scan the information for inspiration AND specifics and rewrite it. Or, pay an inexpensive freelancer to do this for you ; )

Here is how we use the Local Market Explorer plugin.

Finally, a great way to say, "I'm Local" is through the design of your website. Many wordpress themes allow you to easily add a custom background image or header easily. You can find many large background images of landscapes that match where you live or go to webshots.com and ask permission from a local photographer to use one of his or her images.

III. Focusing Your Website & Navigation Strategies
A focused website reinforces your brand as The Local Expert. A website with TOO much information can dilute it.

III.A. Simple Menu vs. Tons of Pages

Coming Soon

III.B. Process Menu

Coming Soon

III.C. Numbers, Questions, and Eye Catchers Produce More Clicks

Coming Soon

IV. Communication & Lead Capture Elements
The purpose of your website should be to help you earn more money. It can't help you if you don't make it easy for prospective clients to contact you and get them to give you their contact information.

IV.A. Phone &  Email Forms
You have a choice - to be available or not available. Your phone number in a Prominent place (usually top right of the header) and in a BIG font says, "I'm available for you!" Phone numbers hidden on "contact us" pages do not. There's proof. Big phone numbers will get more calls than small phone numbers. You will get more calls if your phone number is at the bottom of every page of text. Make it BIG.

Same thing goes for Email. Do NOT hide the email form on a contact us page. Put it at the bottom of every page of text with an invitation to email you or comment. Put it at the TOP of your sidebar. Do you want people to contact you or not? Make it easy easy easy for them.

TIP. People read websites from top to bottom, left to right. The most visible area of the page is your logo in the top left, your header area, then - here's the key - the LEFT top of the sidebar. It's a good place to put anything that you want them to do i.e. Fill out your email form, call your phone number or fill out your lead capture form.

Here is the only contrary thought to that excellent piece of advice. People are used to signing in to Google and Yahoo accounts in a box at the top right sidebar area. So more websites are putting key information here. Putting key information here also allows the focus on the visitor to be on the main image in your body text area.

So you choose. Highlight your Page content or Highlight your lead capture/email contact form.

IV.B. Social Networking

Lots of "social media gurus" talk about using social networking accounts to connect with potential home buyers and sellers.  Subscribe to this page and we'll fill you in on this later.

You can also use social media to give you "Credibility" as someone who many other people trust.

Click on www.PhillyRealEstateAdvocate.com Scroll down and take a look at the Twitter followers. Wow. The owner of this website must be pretty good since he has all those followers. Of course, nobody really knows if these people are following the site because it has great content or because they are just internet marketing types who follow everyone. It still looks good.

You can also do this by putting your Facebook friends photos automatically into your website using a Wordpress plugin.

Here's another clever way to use social media. On www.Kenwood-Forest.com we put the social media icons at the top right sidebar together with a Testimonial quote.

IV.C. Live Chat

Live Chat on your site gives visitors another way to contact you. The more ways they have to contact you, the friendlier your brand will be and the more people actually will contact you.

An easy way is to use the www.Meebo.com chatbox. It's free. If you want to use a more sophisticated paid solution that has analytics, try www.Zophim.com. With Zophim you can monitor and respond to guests through your Google Chat or other chat on your smartphone. How cool is that!?!

IV.D. Offers/Calls to Action

If you want these lead generation elements to work, you need to make them constantly visible.

Colorful buttons in sidebars like on www.KendraToddGroup.com should include Call to Action text AND "action verb" buttons.

Placing your offers and forms in the most visible locations is really important. These include teh top of the sidebars, after the first paragraph or two of text (above the fold so to speak), and at the end of a page of text.

More people will fill out a form if it is IN a page you are reading then if they have to click a link to go another page.

IV.E. Forms

Customize your forms whenever possible. As for contact information at the END of the form, not the beginning. Use conditional logic functions of premium forms like www.GravityForms.com and www.FormStack.com to only show a small part of the form at a time.

Click on this page to see a great example of how our forms use "Conditional Logic".

IV.F. Drip Email Services

Many premium forms like GravityForms and FormStack, or those used by CRMs like Batchblue.com can also be connected directly to Email Drip services. Several like www.MailChimp.com give you up to 500 contacts and 3,000 emails for FREE.

V. Graphic Design
Bad graphic design can destroy your brand. Fortunately, between Wordpress Themes and inexpensive freelance help, you can look like a million bucks without spending more than a few hundred.

V.A. Best Wordpress Themes

We like the FrugalTheme for Wordpress. You have full design control over all the options WITHOUT needing to know code. You can create a graphic design and then chop it up to fit the framework of the theme without needing to do expensive psd2html coding.

For the Kendra Todd Group we designed www.KendraToddGroup.com to focus on the Corporate Brand. We wanted to look slick. Another site we are using it on is www.JamesAHarner.com. On this site you can see how we have created an extra wide design to fill the browser window AND turned most areas of the design Transparent so the large background image shows through. With Frugal you can get very creative.

Another Theme we like is the StudioPress AgentPress theme. (This is a child theme of the parent Genesis but you don't need to get into that yet.) What you need to know is that it has a very slick slider at the top AND a great way to highlight your Featured Properties and Blog posts on the home page. Here are a few sites that are under-construction but already using it nicely: www.PAHouseQuest.com and www.eastbayhomes.com. Do you think the guy on the East Bay Homes site looks serious or scary? Does that matter since he is an author?

Here is an older version of an AgentPress website that is built for a Subdivision. Notice the same graphics that are used on KendraToddGroup.com. They look nice.

Do you want to establish yourself as The Local Expert in a specific community and feature homes for sale and/or your sold homes on the home page. AgentPress is a great way to go.

Here's another theme that could be used for real estate by the makes of AgentPress. It's called the Mocha theme and has soft colors and a sophistication that might work well for -- dare I say - women agents. http://www.studiopress.com/demo/mocha.html

V.B. Color, Fonts, and Font Size

Use a bright orange or red headline font to increase readership of your pages. Bigger font size is more easily read and so is read more completely. Use Arial or Times New Roman at 14 or 16 pt font size. Use one as the headlines on your site and the other for the body text.

V.C. Slick vs Interactive vs Personal vs Community Focused

Slick = www.KendraToddgroup.com
Community Focused = www.pheonixrealestateguy.com

V.D. Great Design on the Cheap

Coming soon. You don't have to spend a lot to look great.

V.E. Be - or at least Appear to Be - an Author

This may be the #1 way to create a brand that establishes you as THE Local Expert. Most buyers and sellers would like to hire the best agent...one who is an expert in their community. You may BE an expert but you should APPEAR to be one as well. How do you do that?

Be an author. If you are an author, people will presume that you are an expert. So will the media and you might even get on TV or Radio.

Would you like this kind of Publications flyer to distribute to your clients? Subscribe or Call (484) 842-0062

V.F. Buttons They'll Click!

Take a look at the Buttons on www.KendraToddGroup.com. Notice how they all have a big headline, call to action, and then an action verb button within the button. These get clicks.

www.PAHouseQuest.com has what we call "Credibility" buttons. These are buttons that feature a Book Cover AND a offer/call to action. Would you like to use Buttons like these? We can ask the website owner if he will share.

These next sections are critical to helping you earn more money - more easily. Comment in the area below and follow the comments and we'll notify you as soo as they are ready.

VI. Content That Convinces
- Page Structure (Benefits vs Stories)
- Better Video Tricks
- Block by Block Mapping
- The Inside Scoop

VII. Attracting Visitors through SEO
- Basic Elements & Plugins that do it
- Content Optimization (Commit to it)
- MLS Listing Data (dsIDXpress Plugin strengths and weaknesses)
- Must Have SEO Plugins (Customization, Internal Linking, External Linking)
- Content Distribution/Marketing (Plugins, Services, and Outsourcing)
- Using Facebook (School vs Town Fan Pages)
- Google Local/Maps

VIII. Creating Unlimited Niche Market Websites
- Wordpress 3.0 and WordpressMU
- Designing for Duplication (cloner plugins)
- Semi-Automated Niche Site Conversion (best wordpress plugins)
- Content Writing Made Easy (using Local Market Explorer, outsourcing USA vs Overseas)

IX. Converting Leads to Clients
- CRMs and more - Coming Soon

WHAT DO YOU THINK?