By Mike Parker
RISMEDIA, March 27, 2009-I received a letter recently that began, “What you have given me is a whole new outlook on real estate sales.” The letter continued, “My husband and I ran a mom-and-pop brokerage in Northern New Mexico for 25 years. We were a big fish in a little pond and our business was 100% referral and walk-in. Then we moved to Las Cruces, New Mexico (a city of about 100,000) and went from a Realtor board of 43 to one of over 600. It occurred to us that we had to do something to stand out in the bigger pond.”
“We knew there had to be an answer that would help us establish ourselves and succeed in the bigger market and after reading about how over 87% of all real estate sales begin online I started to think that online marketing might be ‘the thing.’ I worked hard at it and got myself some first page listings. After a while, though, I couldn’t keep that performance going.”
“I subscribed to an online marketing service for Realtors. I took a gamble and within 30 days of signing up I got my first lead off the subscription. I sold that lead a $450,000 home and I have never looked back.”
Two years later
“I am at the top of most search engines and I receive about a lead a day, sometimes more. I haven’t had a day off in six months. I couldn’t even answer your questions because every time I would sit down to write you, another lead would come in and I had to follow it up. I hired two new sales people to help field all the leads we get. I pay less than $300 a month for my subscription and my subscription will easily produce over $100,000 in commissions this year for me. That’s a 3,000% return on investment in a world where very few services even cover their costs.”
When I read this, I realized that I needed to speak to this broker, so I called Judith Picker at Las Cruces Fine Properties in Las Cruces, New Mexico and found her to be a wealth of good information about online marketing. Judith is no newbie, she is a 33-year Realtor. Las Cruces is a beautiful city with 350 days of sunshine, low humidity and New Mexico State University in town to keep things interesting. When I was able to finally reach her, Judith graciously answered my questions- both written and oral-and what follows is what she told me.
I learned the formula for Internet success
“I used to look at people high in the search engines and think to myself that if I could only get there, I could succeed, too. I was wrong. It takes a lot more than just getting found by Internet shoppers, you must do more to succeed. I found that succeeding is a three-step process and that not completing any of the steps relegates your site to obscurity and you to hoping for walk-in traffic again (not too likely, these days).
Those steps are:
• Your website must be found when shoppers type in exactly what they are looking to examine and it must have the information and education they want to find. Since most people don’t know me or the name of our company, I realized they had to find us under where we sell homes. If you type in Las Cruces NM Real Estate on Google, you’ll have a chance to pick my site there because I am on page one for that Google search. When those shoppers come to my site, I give them all sorts of useful information that encourages them to sign in with me, not just listings (although your listings are the most popular pages on your website, according to experts). That’s just step one: You must be able to be found by Internet shoppers when they type in what they are looking for and you must give them what they are looking for.
• As your site climbs up in the search engines, you’ll find your traffic increasing. Contrary to what you may have heard, you really don’t need a huge amount of traffic to succeed if you do this right: if you can bring 300 unique visitors to your site each month and just 5-15% of your unique visitors will register, that will keep you busy and selling houses. Step two is that you must convert a percentage of the anonymous visitors to your site into people you can farm and prospect. Some will be long-term prospects, some are immediate prospects, but whatever the case, when they register, you can communicate with them regularly and build a rapport and trust with them.
• Once they register, you must respond to them immediately. This is so obvious I feel silly even mentioning it, but I read where NAR says that about half of all Realtors respond to an Internet lead within 54 hours and the other half never responds. The half that never responds needs no further comment, but even 54 hours is just too long.” Plenty of leads and plenty of sales, all the time
About 80% of the company’s leads come from their online marketing subscription, Judith reports. “Sales continue to be strong and we recently had to add two associates to help handle all the leads we get. We follow our own advice and respond immediately to those leads and when they ask us about the market, we say this: We tell buyers it’s a great time to buy and we tell sellers that they’ll make up their loss in value when they buy on the other end. Both statements are true.”
When common sense and high technology work together, it’s a beautiful thing
Think about this: NAR says that 87% of home sales begin online. It’s also a fact that 92% of Internet buyers find their agent through a search engine and that 880 million people search Google for real estate related things monthly. You truly will not be able to function as you have in the future without bringing the Internet into your business. That’s not sales talk, that’s fact as reported by NAR.
If you aren’t getting about 80% of your leads and sales from your website, how do you think you will remain in business in the future? Judith Picker used to get 100% of her business through referrals and walk-ins. “Used to” is the key phrase. You probably used to get 100% of your business through walk-ins and referrals, too, but that’s unlikely these days. Now, Judith gets 80%+ of her business through her website, but chances are good that you don’t, because NAR also tells us that 90% of agents are unhappy with the production of their websites. Plenty of agents and brokers are succeeding every day; it’s just that they aren’t waiting for walk-ins and referrals anymore; they are going out and capturing prospects online. Most of those succeeding online have something in common with Judith Picker: they subscribe to services like ours, CompassSearch and REAL SEO, to power their success. “None of this would be happening without CompassSearch” Judith said “and we really appreciate the services Compass brings us, in addition to the many sales and leads.”
Summer is coming fast. New economic measures are slowly turning things around. Why not turn your business around and become an Internet Realtor? It’s where everyone goes to look at homes today, and it’s where 87% of residential homes sales take place.
Mike Parker specializes in online marketing services for Realtors® and real estate professionals. Obtain a free copy of his booklet that shows you what Judith Picker has that you don’t have: “REAL SEO Explained” by writing to realseo@compassinternetsystems.com. It will be sent to you free and no one will call you. To request a free review of your website to determine if it can be found by Internet buyers and if it is search engine friendly, click here and it will be evaluated free.
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