Before blogging many of us non-techie type Realtors purchased template websites. 800 or 900 pages of unoriginal, real estate related drivel that was duplicated onto every site they sold. They spoke with us about SEO and our eyes rolled up into our heads until we purchased premium SEO packages from them with promises of top search engine placement and lead generation; which of course rarely occurred.
We placed IDX home search (more money) on our websites and had a choice. Either put up a form for the consumer to fill out to capture the leads, or just open it up, let them search freely and hope that they were so grateful that they would contact us – yeah right!
So where was the lead capture? How did we justify the expense of these websites against the lack of return on investment (ROI) from them?
We were in the throes of a hot sellers market; leads were coming in from signs, ads, marketing and advertising, word of mouth; who cared about the stupid websites? Who had time to even think about them? We were too busy selling real estate! But we continued to pay for the useless sites because we knew we needed an online presence to prove to potential sellers that we had the ability to promote their listings online. The truth be told, it was mostly crap. The websites delivered a few hundred hits a day, probably mostly from other Realtors, and generated very little business, even for the better sites. Todays blog sites are delivering thousands of hits daily. More hits = more leads; more leads = more closed sales; it'a a no brainer folks.
Fast forward to the end of the Sellers Market and the dissipating incoming leads, we began to pay attention to our online presence and how we could improve it to generate leads. Many of us discovered blogging and learned that blogging was a fantastic enhancement to a weak online presence. For many it became their only online presence. We learned all we could about blogging and started to write our little hearts out. For some a few leads dribbled in for others – still nothing. Ever wonder why?
Do any of you remember taking classes on putting together marketing pieces for your real estate business? Do you remember hearing the instructors stressing the placement of “calls to action” on every single piece? Did you forget how important that was? Do you know that without calls to action that you are pretty much wasting your time? Do you know what a call to action is? You do realize that real estate blogging is a form of marketing, don’t you?
Some months ago I added a footer onto all of my posts. Many blogging purists were horrified and called it spam. I call it a brilliant business move! Have you seen those pretty blue buttons at the bottom of my consumer posts? They are hard to miss. They lead directly into my lead generation system, which of course has a lead capture and an automated drip system attached to it. After considerable research into the many different lead generating systems available to us I realized that none of them had the potential to deliver the way 1 Park Place did. I was right! I am able to track where my traffic comes from on the back of my Long Beach Real Estate Blog. I have a pretty good hyper-local blog site so the bulk of my traffic is search engine driven, but who wants all their eggs in one basket? AR and Localism provide a fair amount of traffic that comes in straight off of those little blue buttons, as do many other sites which I have a presence on. Do you have a footer on your posts? Is it leading into a home search with a lead capture attached to it? Is it working for you?
Recently I found myself drowning in leads I could not follow up on, I needed help fast. I now have 2 buyers’ agents working those leads. Yes you heard that right, my little Long Beach Real Estate blog is now providing more leads than 3 agents can keep up with. Still wondering where the leads from that website went, I sure didn’t see them.
Many real estate agents turned to purchasing leads. Has anybody ever wondered where these companies get the leads? I have given this a lot of thought. Consumers weren’t comfortable signing the forms on Realtors IDX websites; are you telling me that they are going to fill out forms on big sites that are going to sell their leads to the highest bidder in any given zip code? Do you think a buyer or seller is OK with a company assigning their business to any old real estate agent who is willing to pay? These companies say that they get a lot of traffic and that people sign in. They say they run PPC (pay per click) ads to promote traffic to their sites so they can corral the traffic and sell you the leads. Where else are they getting those leads from? Do you ever wonder? Don’t you think a buyer or seller would prefer to deal directly with a local Realtor that they know and trust? Consumers tell me they have been reading me for months when they contact me, the trust factor has been built. These companies that sell leads just can’t compete with that, why give it up to them?
Do you understand how the search engines work? Say you join a bunch of social networks and everybody is contributing real estate related articles, Q & A’s, information on forums, etc… all with keywords leading back to their local areas in the hopes of pulling in leads. The power the networks have gives them the ability to pull you up in your local area very quickly. But the networks are so powerful that your contributions can easily propel the social networks to drown out your own online presence; you gave it to them by contributing your local keywords to their system. How many social networks do you belong to? The invitations come into my email at the rate of dozens a week. I don’t even look at them anymore. It is overwhelming. Imagine if all of them were at the top of the search engines in your market. How would you get there? You would be pushed down by your own social networking efforts which empowered them to fly right by you and render you irrelevant.
I am not saying that all social networking is bad, if I believed that I would not have a presence on Active Rain. What I am saying is that you need a plan. You need to pick your positioning carefully and you need to manage it. In order to manage it properly you need to learn how it ticks.
Why would I purchase leads in my city via zip codes? Most of the agents who follow up on those leads are not successful. Most of them couldn’t capture a client. My blog is so prominent in my area that lead is probably going to find my site anyway. Why would I contribute to their service? That client contacting me directly is much more powerful. It has never been more critical for real estate agents to develop an online lead generation resource.
What are you doing to generate leads in this market?
Speaking of contributing to vendors services, why the heck is Brian Brady writing on the Homegain blog? Why would any real estate professional, or lender contribute to that blog? Brian you and I have had many conversations about lead providers and vendors. We have discussed empowering real estate professionals to generate their own leads and connect directly with consumers, isn't that why you originally set up the Unchained Conference to begin with? That is the basic premise of blogging; isn’t it? Why are you contributing to a platform where they say that blogging is a waste of time? Why are you playing kissy-kissy with these people? Why are you contributing to their cause? It goes against everything you stand for, you hate technology vendors. What the heck are you doing bro? Sumptin ain’t right here, you are being inconsistent with the very principles that you so vehemently promote. You are not listening to me so I am calling you out on this, I hate you being there.
Hard to miss - aren't they?
Parked, with popcorn in hand!