Keys to Internet Marketing
Over the last few years of working with Realtors with their Internet Marketing I have come up with some critical keys to success, with regards to the Internet. Not listed here is what I deem the very most important…education. Let’s face it; the biggest obstacle that you face as leaders in your industry is battling the lack of education of your prospects and clients. The worst is when you have a repeat client that questions your knowledge and your suggestions. You have proven to them multiple times that you know what you are talking about and you have to re-educate them on real estate. It’s like when my 5 year old little girl asks if we have apple juice in the fridge and I tell her no but she decides to check anyway. Much the same way you have to keep proving your professionalism to people you thought you did in prior transactions, you have to keep earning their business. Have you ever lost a referral to someone else?
So lack of education is a battle we all share. I constantly have to educate my prospects and clients with all the new technology in this new field and how it will translate to the real estate world. The one constant that has showed up in many polls and surveys is that the Internet consumer is far more educate about what they want to purchase than someone who doesn’t use the Internet. Almost everyone is using the Internet these days to research purchasing decisions. Where they are get that information is what you as an agent want to control. The worst is taking a client that is misinformed and telling them that they are misinformed and then trying to prove it without seeming to much of a salesperson. I am a believer in if you don’t know about something you either have to educate yourself or trust someone that has.
So in this post I want to start with the first element to having success online and keep in mind that there are 3 elements to this and without doing all 3 you will find it difficult to have any measurable success using the Internet.
#1 is Design
This may seem like a no-brainer but you would be surprised to see all the sites I have come across that an agent had designed because it’s what they deem as a good design. What you have to consider is that you may find your site easy to use and navigate, but is it that way for everyone else visiting? The global stat is that you have about 8 seconds to engage the person visiting your site. Imagine your visitor as a bull and you are a rodeo cowboy you have 8 seconds or that bull is getting a new rider the next time around. You have 8 seconds or that bull will get a new rider. If that bull bucks you before those 8 seconds then you have virtually no chance of winning the rodeo. (Pretty good analogy and I have never been to a rodeo.)
That is why a templated site may not be as personal as custom designed one but most templates will be in a fashion that is user friendly. Most people when they visit a website they read left to right and top to bottom. Keep that in mind when you do your navigation placement. Remember 8 seconds.
You also want to keep things simple. This doesn’t mean plain, boring, or drab. What this means cut the fluff and keep in mind what you want your clients to find. I know you want them to remember you but online success in real estate means people are looking for homes first and then an agent second. CAR released a “Tech Survey” that you should be able to find and one of the more surprising finds was that the “Bio” section of most real estate websites was clicked on less than 2% and sections that showed listing and MLS data was clicked on around 70%. I don’t remember the hard numbers you could find them in that survey. Couple those numbers with the number 80%; this is number that was reported of how many people go to the Internet to begin researching for the home they want to buy.
So what does this tell you? That your prospects will read about you later…they want information on listings first. That is what your design should center around…homes, listings, and properties. Forget about all the fluff of having a cool “flash” intro, who watches those things anymore anyway? I don’t, I immediately start looking for the skip intro button. By the way that “flash” intro usually takes up your entire 8 seconds.
I could probably go on and on about design but I can save some of the finer points to it all for later.
One final note on design…there has been a lot of buzz about “Web 2.0” this is simply in design terms is a style of website and if done right it is a powerful concept.
Coming soon element #2 Lead Capture.
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