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Active Rain is #7 of Top 10 Marketing Secrets!

10,000 real estate professionals were surveyed in a recently published article. It seems that we are all ahead of the curve just by actively participating in Active Rain!

The purpose of the survey was to understand how Realtors are spending their marketing dollars:

•· How much they are spending?

•· How their marketing mix is structured?

•· What online and offline channels they are using to contact prospects, existing clients and other pros?

Top 10 Marketing Secrets:

1. Direct mail, newsprint, email and online marketing are the popular marketing channels for real estate professionals.

2. Agents spend 10% of their gross income on marketing - 4% on direct mail and 6% to online/web/email channels.

3. Sphere of influence is still the number one way to get new business.

4. Email is used for customer retention and follow-up. Direct mail and online marketing are used for customer acquisition.

5. 67% of real estate professionals are now part of an online social network.

6. LinkedIn and Facebook are the top two networking/social platforms.

7. ActiveRain.com and RealTown.com are the top two cited real estate blogs.

8. Realtor.com, Craigslist and corporate/brokerage Web sites are the three most popular listing sites.

9. Whether mailing or emailing, Realtors typically hit 200-400 local contacts.

10. Realtors need to touch their market at least 18 times a year to forge solid memory of their names and faces.

As you can see, Active Rain was the #7 marketing secret, but we already knew that, didn't we? Feeling connected to others in our industry is not only good business, but it's good to keep a positive outlook!

To read this article in more depth, please click here.

lmo

For more information please contact Lara O'Keefe at 972.838.9156 or visit Hunter's Creek.

Posted by Lara O'Keefe (Hunter's Creek, Melissa) on 11/05/2008 09:44 AM

Comments (42)

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42 Comments on Active Rain is #7 of Top 10 Marketing Secrets!

NOV

2008

Very cool! Should be higher on the list, though, right?

There are 118K members...that's only about 10% of the REALTOR population (at least for now) so yeah, it does seem like a secret, doesn't it.

Thank you for sharing the information. Take care.

Very intesting, I did not know about Realtown...thanks to you I joined!!

Courtney - we should definitely be higher on the list!

Ron - excellent point. At least we are a step ahead.

Cindy - you are welcome. Thanks for stopping by.

Konnie - that's great. I need to check it out too.

Great insight - thanks for sharing! There are only so many hours in the day.

Very interesting information...thanks for this.

Thanks for sharing this information - very informative to monitor my own activities.

NOV

2008

Great info -- I after reviewing my sales over the last two years, I would say that my sphere is the #1 driver of new clients.

I love activerain! That is great information!

67% of real estate agents are now part of an online social networking site. I dont know about that. I think the number is probably less than 10%. But thanks for definitely sharing this information with us. Have a great day. Great post.

I get a lot of useful information that is helping me with my business from activerain members. Nobody from my office is on activerain or participates consistently.

I agree with Lanre, it's not even close. In our market alone, less than 5% are consistently involved in social networking online. If talking about having a profile somewhere on a website, maybe the latter could be true, but being actively involved pertaining even just to checking on that profile once a month is much lower than that estimate. I know a lot of these numbers have flown around lately but those numbers are highly inflated.

For those interested, feel free to check our top 135 real estate social networks list and see who's on those networks. You'll quickly find it's a very small %.

Overall, besides that point, everything else you mentioned is right on. LinkedIn is the most popular network but still lags behind in traffic internationally by a wide margin compared to myspace and facebook. There's no doubt however that trend will reverse as linkedin is widely viewed as a more professional network. Case in point, this post by Brad Andersohn.

Craigslist is definetely the most popular site for real estate and anything else for that matter of fact when it comes to providing or selling a service/material. I urge everyone to take part in that. As far as corporate listing sites, as of now, zillow and trulia still rank higher but i do know prudential is starting to gain a lot of momentum with their national listing site as it's being aired heavily on several networks on tv.

Excellent post and a great insight for realtors as far as their responsibilities to their customers and consumers alike. This is definetely feature worthy!!

Keep up the good work associate!

Thanks for the info, didn't know about RealTown.com

I was always told that the number of times you need to be in front of a market was less than 18 times per year...thats an interesting figure...basically you almost need to be sending something out twice a month...does anyone do that now?

Thank you for the info, very informative. Will check out realtown as well. More juice to us, please :-)!

Darla - I'm with you. There are only so many hours in the day and we don't need to spread ourselves too thin.

Li - I'm glad you enjoyed it.

Kenneth - I hope it helps. We can all learn from watching the success of others.

Kerry - you are living proof that the sphere works!

Amy - I'm glad you found the info helpful :-)

Lanre, I think they include Realtors with active web sites in that number. I agree, I don't believe that 67% are active participants in social networks. They should watch and learn!

Thank you for adding me as an Associate :-)

Lara~ Thanks for sharing the list. I learn so many new things here in the Rain everyday! Vickie

Morgan, there is alot of great advice and help available on AR. You are already setting yourself apart by actively participating!

Nathan & Everard, thanks so much for flagging this as a featured post! It's my first one and I really appreciate it!

Also, thanks for taking the time to comment and add more helpful information to this post. These are all great tools to help our business grow.

Lastly, thank you for adding me as an Associate and for your words of encouragement via email :-)

Jon - I hadn't heard of RealTown either. I need to take some time and check it out.

Sonja - that number does sound high, but I guess it couldn't hurt if you include cost effective ways like email and blogging.

Eva - you're welcome. The more Google Juice the better!

Vickie - sharing is what this place is all about. It seems like there is at least one new thing to learn every day.

Well, that's very interesting----I'm still amazed at how many Realtors have no concept of blogging.

Thank you for your post. Its interesting to read that direct mail is still popular with Realtors. Aloha Julie

Lara,

no problem. I'm glad that the flagging feature still works. Feel free to reciprocate anytime :)

btw: realtown is not #2 by a longshot. Check out trulia voices before you go to realtown. localism gets more traffic than realtown. realestatewebmasters is another option for those looking for traffic. As mentioned above, reference to our top 135 list for more sites.

wannanetwork.com and zolve.com are my other 2 picks.

Lara,

Thanks for sharing. It is always interesting to me to see how others are spending their money and what marketing is working and what marketing isn't.

Diane - I was recently introduced to blogging by a coworker. It seems that it's up to us to spread the word.

Julie - I think that direct mail is popular in conjunction with other forms of media.

Nathan & Everard - thanks for stopping in again. Helpful info too.

Lara:

I think it is interesting that number 2 is where it is. I don't see that many agents doing it. Maybe 10% if that in my market. Do you think they respond with what they think they should do rather than what they actually do.

Richard

Lara, thanks for that information...I love statistics and numbers! I personally have found that Active Rain and Craigslist have been my two greatest sources of clients and leads. My worst is my sphere of influence- only four transactions this year from that category.

Thanks for the good info, Lara! I love posts like this as they point out some new venues and let me know what people are thinking.

Interesting that online spending is now more than direct mail and print. Thanks for sharing this, Lara!

This was good info. Thank you

NOV

2008

I saw this post yesterday and wanted to read it, but got side-tracked with work, so today I had to come in here and search for it...I'm glad that I did. Very informative. Does make me realize though that I should probably pay more attention to my LinkedIn and Facebook accounts.

Joshua & Kathy - I hope the info was helpful for your marketing budget allocation.

Richard - you make an excellent point. Maybe they responded to the survey saying that they commit 10% of their income to marketing when they really invest less than that.

Christine M - it's great that AR & Craigs List have helped you sell. Surprizing that your sphere has not been as strong. It probably goes in cycles.

Matt - you are welcome. AR is a great place to share and get ideas!

John - it makes sense that Realtors invest their marketing spending in the best venue at the time.

Kevin - I'm glad you found it interesting. Thanks for stopping by.

Christine W - I'm glad you came back to read it. Invest time when you can, but work should come first :-)

Lara,

That's good to see the Rain up there, although I actually thought it would rank even higher. Maybe in the next survey then.

Always nice to get confirmation that we're on the right track!

I am glad to hear that we're ahead of the curve here on Active Rain, especially since I find it so enjoyable.

NOV

2008

Lara- I think AR is the #1 secret simply because while I am not a Realtor, none of the other "secrets" surprise me or aren't used/ known by as small of a RE population as AR is in my opinion. (with possible exception of linkedin... but thats not a true go there for RE kind of site like AR).

AR is definitly the #1 secret of my field because I think I am about the only lawn/landscape specialist that is fully dedicated to just that aspect of the home on this amazing site and it has helped me expand my business as well :-D

Esko - we have no where to go but up :-)

Terri - we are definitely on the right track!

Christine - it is an extra bonus that we enjoy participating.

Chris - you are way ahead of your competition by being on AR. Don't be surprized if they start copying you once you're rich & famous :-)~ Glad to see you back.

Lara- Shhhhh, I don't want to be famous LOL Yeah I will be taking quite a few breaks from the rain for a while I think to play Uncle in alot of my free time like I have been doing this past week since my sister had her baby on the 1st :-D

NOV

2008

Congrats Uncle Chris! That's awesome. I'm an Aunt amd it's great to be the fun one and buy them cool toys.

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