NAR Says 'Typical Member' Does How Much Business From Their Website? Are You Joking?
Bob,
Has really got me going with this one. Of course my own fault for NOT BEING TYPICAL and only doing 8 transactions a year and having time to read an 84 page report. I am thinking that the powers to be that run THAT organization need to rethink where they put our money and it should not be to trying to justify their existance by publishing reports that tout their failure to be of use to us.
Nikesh recently forwarded me the NAR Member Profile 2011. This is the results of a study performed by the National Association of REALTORS® in January of 2011. The results were published in June of 2011.
I'm sure many of you have seen this report. Your dues go to pay for it so I would hope you at least took a minute to browse through the report and see how you stack up against the 'typical REALTOR®' as reported by your trade association.
There are a number of interesting results in the study, heck it's 84 pages long with lots of pretty graphs so there was bound to be something interesting, right? As I was reading through (and I'm not done, this particular stat forced me over to my blog because it was so shocking) something immediately jumped off the page for me.
On page 24, the NAR reports that:
"The typical member brought in 3 inquiries and 3% of their business from their website"
WHAT? Really? In 2010 the 'typical member' of NAR only had 3 inquiries from their website and as a result, that's where 3% of their business came from? This is jaw-dropping to me. I can't even begin to understand this number. I'm searching my brain for an explanation. Maybe someone else has one for me?
We all know that we can make statistics say anything we want and most studies should be observed with a cautious approach, but those numbers border on pathetic in my opinion. Previously in the report, the NAR says that the median number of transactions an agent did in 2010 was 8. It's been 18 years since I took a statistics class, but if memory serves me, the median is the point at which half of the respondents were above the number and half were below the number. So half of NAR members did over 8 transactions in 2010 and half of NAR members did under 8 transactions. They use the same measure when reporting on website inquiries and business from a members website, median.
Which means half of REALTORS® got over 3 inquiries (now we're getting somewhere) and half got under 3 inquiries (yikes!). Then half of REALTORS® got over 3% of their business from their website and half got less than 3% from their website.
So let's look at that 'typical REALTOR®' in terms of how often they generate a transaction because of their website. If the 'typical REALTOR®' does 8 deals a year, that would mean 3% of 8 would be .24 deals per year as a result of your website.....or, one deal from your website every 4 years. If you are a 'typical REALTOR®' I pray that you get a ton of referrals or repeat business because your website is doing you a major disservice.
I have a few guesses at why the 'typical REALTOR®' website is generating only 3 inquiries per year for it's owner.
- You do absolutely nothing to drive traffic there. Your website is a billboard in the desert.
- Once consumers do land on your site, you have no way of converting that traffic into an 'inquiry'. You give them so much information they have no reason to reach out and contact you.
- Your 'mousetraps' (the ways we get them to give us a name, email address and/or phone number) are non-existent.
- It could be that your website is invisible to the search engines.......or at least the listings on your website are invisible.
- It's probable that you are not investing anything in driving traffic to your website. I'm convinced the 'typical REALTOR' spend $0 on marketing their website via Google Adwords or any other paid traffic sources.
- The 'typical REALTOR®' is not using a blog to drive traffic to their website, and if they are, they aren't doing it in the correct fashion.
I swear we already had this webinar on the agenda (for a survey ActiveRain is releasing this week) when I got this NAR report in my hands, but if you are anywhere near the 'typical REALTOR®' you need to join me to discuss the importance of a strong IDX website for your business and more importantly how to select an IDX to meet your online marketing needs. I promise you, not all real estate websites are created equal.
Of course, we all know that ActiveRain members are not your 'typical REALTOR®' but I bet a few of you still could use some help upgrading your website so that it's an important part of how you generate and close business. 80+% of consumers are going online to find homes for sale, yet very few of them find the 'typical REALTOR' when they do.
It's not all bad though, the 'typical REALTOR®' seems to do a pretty good job with lead conversion. In four years (the amount of time it takes the 'typical REALTOR' to close one deal from their website) the 'typical REALTOR®' would have gotten 12 inquiries. Converting 1 in 12 leads is decent in terms of internet lead conversion. That being said, I'm sure they would just as soon get 12 inquiries per month and make their website a real source of business not just an afterthought.
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