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Growth Leader III: Just the Stats, Maam.

By
Real Estate Agent with Homesmart

In last week's adventures of Growth Leader Boy, discussion in the comment stream about the new product from Market Leader steered into the realm of traffic source. There was some question as to whether the traffic to the agent's site was the result of organic searches versus paid advertisement. I am pleased to announce that the answer is "yes."

Before I go any further, I would like to state the following caveats. For starters, unless you are an agent interested in reading up on the potential for growing your business through lead-generation, or are a Scottsdale homeowner eager to be mystified by my seemingly endless resources for finding you buyers (yes, you can touch me), you might want to skip this one. This is a test of the emergency buyer locating system. In case of bad market, break glass and collect viable leads. We will resume posting of our regularly scheduled consumer-based Real Estate info after this brief message.

For the inevitable questions to follow, no, I have not converted a lead to a sale yet. For that matter, I have yet to make face to face contact with a prospect as a result of my efforts. I do have an ever increasing volume of registered prospects, with many receiving listing alerts for properties that fit their parameters, so I feel pretty darn good about the likely eventuality of reporting success. I would hazard that the majority of the site visitors have listed their purchasing window as 3-6 months away, so this is proving, at least in my case, to be more of a long-term strategy than immediate. That's okay, I'll need business in the future, too. I envision a snowball rolling in from the wintry reaches of the Midwest, Canada and East Coast as we Arizonans welcome our frozen friends to our sun-drenched March pool parties.

Focusing on where the leads are coming from, the following stats were cut and pasted directly from the "Vision" portal of the site which offers the user several administrative tools. The links at top show some of the other functions. In this case, I was simply interested in tracking stats and determining from where my hits were coming. You'll notice the notation that this report only tabulates the organic traffic patterns. The colonel's secret recipe for paid advertisement stays in the bucket.

________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Prospect Count  
The following chart shows the number of prospects who have registered on your website over the past six months.
July 2008 August 2008 September 2008 October 2008 November 2008 December 2008
0
0
0
3
25
10
July 2008 August 2008 September 2008 October 2008 November 2008 December 2008

Syndicated Listing & Organic Traffic Results
The following report ONLY shows the results of your syndicated listings and "organic" (free) traffic. It does not include traffic from your paid advertising because of the proprietary nature of its sources. A yellow highlight means the link has now or in the past produced one or more prospects. If you run your own online advertising campaigns, use this report to determine which campaigns drive the most traffic.

Timeframe Yesterday This Month Last Month 2 Months Ago 3 Months Ago 4 Months Ago 5 Months Ago 6 Months Ago    

More Info

More Info http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=mls+4024589+&btnG=G oogle+Search&aq=1&oq=mls+ 1 0
More Info http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&rls=com.microsoft%3A* %3AIE-SearchBox&rlz=1I7SUNA_en&q=Ginger+Lin+ 1 0
More Info http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&rlz=1G1GGLQ_ENUS294&q =Scottsdale+Adobe+Ranch+Villas+HOA&start=10& 0 0
More Info http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&rlz=1T4ADBR_enUS290US 290&q=JAY+SCOTT+rEALTY+EXECUTIVES 1 0
More Info http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&rlz=1T4DMUS_enUS266US 266&q=mls+4060067 1 0
More Info http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&rlz=1T4GGLR_en&pwst=1 &q=john+mihlik&start=20&sa=N 0 0
More Info http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&safe=active&rlz=1T4AD BR_enUS272US273&q=shawna+sexton+dpr+realty&s 1 0
More Info http://www.google.com/search?q=3034485+scottsdale+az&rls =com.microsoft:*:IE-Address&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF- 1 0
More Info http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=navclient&aq=t&ie= UTF-8&rlz=1T4DMUS_enUS296US296&q=mls+%234062 0 0
More Info http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=navclient&ie=UTF-8 &rlz=1T4DKUS_enUS265US265&q=Keller+Williams+ 0 0
More Info http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=navclient&ie=UTF-8 &rlz=1T4DMUS_enUS296US296&q=mls+%234062507 1 0
More Info http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=navclient&ie=UTF-8 &rlz=1T4GGLR_enUS297US299&q=Nicole+Cline+McC 0 0
  Totals  11 0

_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Growth Leader continues to funnel me prospects on a nearly daily basis. Stay tuned to find out when I will actually produce a sale and how many generated prospects it takes me to get there. Until that day comes, I will continue to break down the site, feature by feature, while juggling flaming swords on roller skates. You do not want to miss it! For more information on Growth Leader, be sure to click the icon so generously provided at the immediate southwest portion of your monitor. We know you have a choice in lead-generation review providers. We here at Slaybaugh, Inc. thank you for flying the friendly virtual skies with us.

Comments(23)

Jennifer Lew
DocuSign, Inc. - Seattle, WA

Hi Paul!  Thanks for the update.  A lot of people are not aware that traffic is driven to the website via both organic as well as paid advertisement.  Great topic to share.  I'm inviting our Director of Advertising to share some of his insights around traffic sourcing.  Stay tuned! 

Dec 08, 2008 08:02 AM
Anonymous
Not Yet Licensed

I know when I walk into a car dealership that I'm not going to tell the guy that I want to buy today.  Self defense.

Oh man.  Have you read Russell's classic?!  :)

http://activerain.com/blogsview/639926/The-sign-said-OPEN

 

Dec 08, 2008 08:05 AM
#5
Anonymous
Charlie Cole (Market Leader)

Paul, I felt like your post was a great one to dip my first toe into the Active Rain pool (or shower). You allude to the 'Colonel's Secret Recipe'... Well, I suppose that would make me the Colonel.  As the Director of Advertising here at Market Leader, one of my goals is to send you the best converting traffic possible.  We are continuing to develop relationships to get you more and more organic traffic, as one of the things that can help your organic rankings is being linked to by other pages... having another credible web source that gets lots of traffic point to your website and say "Hey! Go Here!" is adored by the major search engines.  We will continue to develop relationships like this to (hopefully) move you up the organic ranks.

Ideally, your prospects will come from a good mix of Paid and Organic traffic.  If you want my honest guess right now, 90%+ of your prospects are coming from paid right now, because it takes a while for your page to be indexed and move up the natural search rankings. 

I am excited to see your prospect #'s... I feel confidant you'll see some success.  As we continue to have this product evolve, we will to continue to adapt the page to maximize conversions coming from both paid and organic traffic.  As one of the early adopters of this platform, you'll get to be a part of helping us figure out how to do that, and please continue to blog with questions/comments you want addressed.  I may not get to all of them, but I'm going to try as to poke my head and comment more and more.

 

Charlie Cole, Director of Advertising, Market Leader

Dec 08, 2008 08:35 AM
#6
Bryant Tutas
Tutas Towne Realty, Inc and Garden Views Realty, LLC - Winter Garden, FL
Selling Florida one home at a time

Interesting stats Paul. I know you guys aren't paying but I wonder how much it would have costs you to get those 38  names if you were? As a contrast one of my international partners has been running an ad on a couple of niche European websites for about a week and in that time has sent me 28 buyers. All from Europe and all looking to buy investment homes. The first one arrives in Florida next week and has 250k cash to spend.

I am loving reading about this system. It would be interesting to have a side by side comparison with Homegain and some of the other similar sites 

Dec 08, 2008 09:09 AM
Paul Slaybaugh
Homesmart - Scottsdale, AZ
Scottsdale, AZ Real Estate

JL - Absolutely.  I've had a couple that were searching from afar, but have opted to move elsewhere (people can be foolish sometimes).  Despite the loss of immediate business potential, they were quite appreciative and pledged to hold on to my name and number should they ever need an agent this way.  Just increased my sphere of influence by 2 ;)

Jennifer - I think I see this Director of Advertising of which you speak ;)

Bruce - I did read that one.  Russell is great.

Charlie - I'm honored to be the recipient of your first AR comment.  Thank you for looking in on my experience and lending your vision to the discourse here.  Looking forward to bearing the fruits of your labor.

Bryant - That would make for an interesting comparison.  Congrats on the results of that rather ingenious marketing campaign.  We've tried that here with a focus on Canadian buyers with mixed success.  As for the cost, I was quoted in the $450-500/month range for my market.  I believe it fluctuates from region to region, but don't hold me to that.

Dec 08, 2008 01:15 PM
Anonymous
Not Yet Licensed

As for the cost, I was quoted in the $450-500/month range for my market.

If you can lock up the whole city of Scottsdale, that sounds attractive.  I'm going to keep bugging you about the fine print - for your own good.  :)

Dec 08, 2008 01:27 PM
#9
Paul Slaybaugh
Homesmart - Scottsdale, AZ
Scottsdale, AZ Real Estate

Bruce - Fine by me.  Always good to have someone covering your six ;)

Dec 08, 2008 01:30 PM
Patrick Canavan
Keller Williams Realty - Yorba Linda, CA
Orange County Real Estate Voice

Dia Duit Paul - Realistically you will probably close 1 a yr. Thanks for the updates and hope you will start closing soon.

Dec 08, 2008 02:54 PM
Don Rogers
Keller Williams Realty Chesterfield - O'Fallon, MO
Realtor, Broker, CDPE, GRI, OnullFallon MO & St Charles County MO homes

Paul,

I thought that LEADS was the name of the game here and being ready when they are.  From the looks of it 38 leads are not a bad start.  Growth leader is not available in our area yet so all I can do is just read about it.

Thanks for the update sir.

Dec 08, 2008 09:26 PM
Paul Slaybaugh
Homesmart - Scottsdale, AZ
Scottsdale, AZ Real Estate

Dia Duit Patrick - Sure hope to exceed that modest prediction!  Hoping my experience with Growth Leader is more productive than yours proved to be with the old product.

Don - The leads are rolling in at a good pace for me, it's now just a waiting game (kind of, it does require followup action on my part) to see what portion morphs into actual business.  Stay tuned for more next week.  Same Bat time, same Bat channel.

Dec 09, 2008 01:02 AM
David Ernst
Beach Bum Properties of Florida, LLC - Palm Harbor, FL

Hey Paul,

Congratulations on your traffic so far on Growth Leader Vision. I was actually a Realty Generator Customer for 2 years. Market Leader acquired the product/service they call Vision from Realty Generator. Realty Generator was a Broker tool and the cost was prohibitive for an individual agent. Market leader has scaled the product down to an agent level.

To answer your obvious question, yes, we did close business from Realty Generator, it worked and it paid for itself as an investment. The Customer Relationship Management system that allows the customer access to MLS data, recommends listings, does automated follow up and promotes your listings to customers who are searching for similar properties is the best I have seen in the industry hands down. What I found as a Realty Generator Broker is that experienced agents made things happened in the system while newer agents struggled with it. If you really watch what the customers are looking at on Vision, you can anticipate what they are thinking and really add value to their search.

When I found Growth Leader after having a very positive experience with Realty Generator I signed up immediately. It fits perfectly into my web strategy. What I have noticed about Growth Leader is they are learning about the product as we are. They need to get a better handle on being able to document where the leads come from. They do a great job on the organic leads but they can't tell us how many leads came from the advertising we are paying them for. It would also be beneficial to us (and I think they could make more money) allowing us to set our territories by zip code and to approve the keywords they are using to drive traffic to our sites.

I firmly believe you have chosen(as I have) the best Internet lead generation product/ service out there but bear with Growth Leader as I don't think they have yet developed the support that Realty Generator provided.

Good Luck, and keep in touch.

 

Dec 09, 2008 11:58 AM
Paul Slaybaugh
Homesmart - Scottsdale, AZ
Scottsdale, AZ Real Estate

David - That was perhaps the most productive and appreciated comment I have received on one of my Growth Leader posts.  Nice to hear from someone with not only familiarity with the product (from a position of consumption), but one who has had success with the technology.  You have spurred me to redouble my efforts with the Vision portal.  Thank you, sir.

Dec 09, 2008 01:03 PM
David Ernst
Beach Bum Properties of Florida, LLC - Palm Harbor, FL

Paul,

No Problem. If I can answer any questions let me know.

Dec 09, 2008 01:32 PM
Anonymous
Not Yet Licensed

They do a great job on the organic leads but they can't tell us how many leads came from the advertising we are paying them for. It would also be beneficial to us (and I think they could make more money) allowing us to set our territories by zip code and to approve the keywords they are using to drive traffic to our sites.

Thanks David,

That's a very interesting perspective.  Have you closed any transactions with Growth Leader buyers yet?

Respectfully,

Bruce

Dec 09, 2008 02:10 PM
#17
David Ernst
Beach Bum Properties of Florida, LLC - Palm Harbor, FL

Hi Bruce,

I have only used Growth Leader Vision for less that a week, so no is the direct answer to your question. I used Realty Generator(same product , different company) for 2 years and it was better than break even for my brokerage. I think we could have done better but looking back in hindsight I would not allow new agents to "fly solo" on the system, I would pair them with an experienced agent. The experienced agents were very effective at engaging the customers. They had local expertise in terms of demographics, schools, local attractions and quality of life that the newer agents could not bring. I feel if I had Senior agents involved on every lead, we would have closed even more business and made a large profit on the leads.

The bottom line is it is a great system but you can't get away from being a local expert in your market. The internet consumer is way more sophisticated than his predecessor of even 5 years ago so just staying a web page ahead of them is not going to work. This is the nature of my comment about setting zip codes and keywords in the sentence you cited above; we are the local experts, Growth Leader needs to work with us to determine the best advertising and coverage model, not try to go it alone with a generic approach to all markets.

Dec 09, 2008 02:45 PM
William Johnson
Retired - La Jolla, CA
Retired

Hi Paul, I received notice that site for me up and alive but the IDX function is not on as yet. As of this morning anyway. I am fascinated with your post and content. I did attend the Vision 101 training and await 201 so to be announced. So I expect that I should be receiving some activity later this week as my site become fully functional. . The name of my site is " servingsandiegoinlandnorth ". Careful not to make tis a link but that is it if you want to look. I haven't done anything on the site as yet but I presume their must be a profile link somewhere?

Dec 09, 2008 03:39 PM
Anonymous
Not Yet Licensed

Growth Leader needs to work with us to determine the best advertising and coverage model, not try to go it alone with a generic approach to all markets.

Hi again David,

I agree.  "One size fits all" is usually a big red warning flag that something scary is heading your way.  :)

Dec 09, 2008 04:02 PM
#20
Jennifer Lew
DocuSign, Inc. - Seattle, WA

Hi David,

Thank you for your thorough and honest evaluation of RealtyGenerator and Growth Leader.  I am pleased to hear that your experience with our broker product was so positive that you chose to sign up with Growth Leader immediately. We are excited to offer RealtyGenerator's proven technology to agents through Growth Leader.  As we continue to refine Growth Leader with the help of our customers' feedback, you will see improvements in some of the areas that you have called out.  In fact, you'll be seeing changes here shortly when we launch our next Vision upgrade on 12/18.  Thank you for your commitment to our products and please continue sharing your suggestions with us.      

Dec 10, 2008 05:50 AM
David Ernst
Beach Bum Properties of Florida, LLC - Palm Harbor, FL

Hi Jennifer,

If the Realty Generator guys were still around they would tell you that I was the products biggest fan as well as its biggest critic. I see this as a "Real Estate of the Future" product and I would say Growth Leader is ahead of the curve and I look forward to them staying in the lead. Most of all I would like to see you partner with your customers to leverage their local expertise in the future releases of Vision. Having worked in the software industry for many years I know that it is difficult to accomodate everyone and you have to build standards around the least common denominators of your development requests. But I believe that with Growth Leaders assistance Vision Users can do a better job of anticipating keywords an end user would search by and by allowing definition of keywords at a more granular level you will most likely be able to get more for our monthly budgets due to there being less competition for page 1 placement.

Thanks for your post and thanks again to Paul for starting the blog.

Dec 10, 2008 11:50 AM
Judy Greenberg
Compass - Long Grove, IL
Compass- Long Grove -Buffalo Grove

Thanks Paul and David into your insight!  I am going to go look at my organic clicks right now.  I didn't even know you could do that! 

By the way Paul, not to change the subject, but have you used the vision mobile yet? 

Dec 14, 2008 11:27 PM