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Connect Consumers With REALTORs? Guess What? That's What HomeGain Does.

By Brian Brady

Commercial Real Estate Agent with Matthews Capital Markets NMLS 2415712

May 22, 2008 12:58 PM

"What Web 2.0 is about is connecting consumers directly with REALTORs. Guess what? That's what Home Gain does" said Louis Cammarosano, General Manager of HomeGain.com at the Bloodhound Blog UNCHAINED Social Media Marketing Conference, sponsored by Zillow.com. Louis was challenged by Greg Swann about the price of the "leads" and held up well under fire.

Louis quoted me by saying Home Gain is "another arrow in your quiver"

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Louis Cammarosano

Smaulgld LLC - Hampton, NH

Smaulgld

Brian With you in the room, I was able to concentrate and get the "arrow in your quiver" quote correct. Later in the day I gave a tv interview and I kept saying "you need many quivers in your arrows"

May 22, 2008 01:30 PM

Tom Burris

NMLS# 335055 - Baton Rouge, LA

Texas/Louisiana Mortgage Pro - 13 YRS Experience

If you don't like the price of the leads..... generate your own.

May 22, 2008 02:19 PM

Louis Cammarosano

Smaulgld LLC - Hampton, NH

Smaulgld

Hi tom

That was exactly the point I was making. At bloodhound the participants were taught how to generate their own leads for free.

I added that free isn't really free-it takes up a lot of your time, time that you could be spending with customers instead of time trying to get them.

The other point I made was there was a volume limit to the number of leads you can get through social media as not all home buyers or sellers come directly from google where your blog might be found or if they do, not all consumers are interested in agent blogs.

Many homebuyer and sellers on the internet also click on the paid search ads on Yahoo, google and msn, where homegain advertises. They also come directly to HomeGain.com as well as the sites of over 300 or our traffic partners. This is more exposure than a single blog can garner BUT it does cost money!

Recently HomeGain also added agent blogs to part of the marketing support we give our agents. HomeGain agents can blog directly from HomeGain.com

You can see them here: http://www.homegain.com/realestate-blog Some of them are starting to move up the google rankings...

May 22, 2008 02:29 PM

Brian Brady

Matthews Capital Markets - Tampa, FL

858-699-4590

I want to make a point here- get rid of Home Gain...if you can. Lead generation is the be all and end all of this thing of ours. If you can generate "conversions" less expensively than Home Gain, you should. I calculate their conversions to cost about $70. Here's my math:

$700 buys you 500 hits. 500 hits gives you 70 inquiries, resulting in 7 customers (someone closing within 120 days). Those are good numbers and cheap customer acquisition costs.

If your time is billed at $100/hour and you can find 7 new customers in 7 hours, get rid of Home Gain. If you can't beat that, use them.

May 22, 2008 03:59 PM

Louis Cammarosano

Smaulgld LLC - Hampton, NH

Smaulgld

Brian You are missing a point. In your example what if you want 14 customers? You probably would have to use BOTH

May 22, 2008 04:03 PM

Louis Cammarosano

Smaulgld LLC - Hampton, NH

Smaulgld

Brian

I might also add your example only went through the economics for one of our products - buyerlink.
What about another of our products Agent Evaluator where you pay $29 a month and only pay 27% of our commission if you close a transaction.

Close $25,000 worth and your referral fee drops to 25%. Close $50,000 and you are at 22%

It takes 5-10 minutes to propose to the leads we send.

May 22, 2008 04:06 PM

Brian Brady

Matthews Capital Markets - Tampa, FL

858-699-4590

You are missing a point. In your example what if you want 14 customers?

Louis, you're relentless. Okay, I'll go to step two. Get the 7 customers organically then use HG and hire buyers' agents.

The best part of the Buyerlink service is that you can turn it on and off and regulate your inbound customer acquisition.

May 22, 2008 04:11 PM

William Johnson

Retired - La Jolla, CA

Retired

I was a previous buyer link customer and I am considering the service again. But first I wanted to be sure that my site, my perspective and long-tail were clear and fully functional and then augment that progress with a regular flow of leads that could more easily become committed to what I offered.

Often the message we put out is not clear, does not ansswer the question for the Internet Empowered Consumer of "What's in it for them". Surprisingly it took me longer to get that clear than I expected. But I am capable of learning and now proceeding along that path.

Thank you always for you insight and commitment to excellence. You bring a great deal to the community.

May 22, 2008 04:34 PM

Brian Brady

Matthews Capital Markets - Tampa, FL

858-699-4590

Thanks, WJ.

May 22, 2008 04:38 PM

Louis Cammarosano

Smaulgld LLC - Hampton, NH

Smaulgld

Brian doesn't just draw conclusions, he asks the questions, gets answers and then asks more, THEN he makes conclusions. You can trust Brian's advice as its based on his own superior insight AFTER he has done the interrogation/investigation.

May 22, 2008 04:41 PM

Ginger Moore

Wilkinson & Associates Realty - Gastonia, NC

Hi, interesting blog. was looking for lead generation. Thanks Brian. thank you for sharing!

Jul 16, 2009 05:13 AM