Web 2.0 – Changing Your Marketing Approach
Comments(1) Are you still using traditional marketing tools to generate prospects on your web site? Well the world is changing as far as web marketing goes and you need to make sure that the strategies in place in your office keep up with the changing trends and web savvy consumers. There is no problem in getting leads from your web presence, the big problem that you will face is converting those leads to business. In Australia approx 30% of all email leads generated by the 2 major portals go unanswered, that is , no response at all from the agents who receive them. The other factor is agents who receive leads from consumers with false names, incomplete email addresses etc and those who really don’t want to do business for the next 12 months or so.
So using traditional thinking with these prospects is doomed to fail, traditional thinking dictates that we ”do business right away” and generally someone considering selling or buying in the next 6 to 12 months is classed as a poor lead or a tyre kicker.
The psychology of Web marketing is entirely different. The typical Web buyer or seller begins the home-search process up to 12 to 18 months prior to moving. The major portals research also indicates that over 39% of their traffic spends up to 9 to 12 months researching properties and constantly revisits the sites looking for and researching properties. The same can be said for the seller, up to 33% of all visitors to real estate portals are vendors looking to find an agent to market their property. So to cope with this situation, you must have a system to stay in touch on a regular basis or to motivate them to visit your Web site or blog repeatedly.
Using web 2.0, agents can now use the tools to communicate better or more effectively with these consumers and constantly be top of mind, so when the decision to buy or sell is made, you are the agent of choice. Email campaigns have being hampered by the large amount of spam mail over the past few years and have very quickly lost there effectiveness to the new web savvy consumer, who really wants to and does use the social networking sites as a form of communication. Whatever solution you come up with it, it is most important that you stay in front of your target market on a consistent basis.
So what are those tools?
1. Blogging – This allows agents to provide additional information and post updates on their market. Set up a blog that reflects your area and constantly work that blog, advertise it in all your marketing as well as maximise your readership via RSS feeds. Syndicate your blog to other sites that help drive traffic to your blog.
2. Podcasting – Deliver your message in the recorded format and allow consumers to download information on a regular basis. Create a series of interesting podcasts, based on information that vendors, consumers and landlords or tenants will find useful. This week alone, my podcasts have been downloaded over 210 times.
3. Video Profiles – This includes your office and properties. Upload to youtube,realestate.com.au,domain.com.au and your own web site and actively market these in your listing presentations. Read my earlier post about video and it’s impact on perceived property values. http://mikeandrewrealestate.wordpress.com/2008/10/16/property-videos-increase-percieved-property-value/
4. Use the social networking sites such Facebook and myspace to market yourself. Create user groups and invite people or your customers to join your group. You can even market to employer groups via these sites.
Those are just a few thought starters for you, if you would like to know more about these ideas, then come along to the Domain Power Breakfasts in Qld, tomorrow at Toowoomba, Wednesday Maroochydore on the Sunsine Coast and Bundaberg next Wednesday. I’ll be presenting all these ideas and discussing how you can really use web 2.0 to it’s fullest extent.
Another great idea is to include something that will keep your readers coming back to your blog or web site, so lets try this experiment. Have fun with this link, this game is Iphone compatible and I’m sure, like me, you’ll have a lot of fun with it.
http://www.psychicchicken.com/
If you would like additional information on anything included in this post, send me a comment or better still come and see me live at the breakfasts over the next few weeks. Information is listed below for you.
http://mikeandrewrealestate.wordpress.com/2008/10/17/domaincomau-power-breakfast-location/
To encourage users to use web 2.0 bookmarking sites and bookmark your site add additional buttons and links to your site. It is a simple way to get your users to promote your website for you. Adding buttons such as “Add This”and “Digg It” etc to your website that will enable them to create a bookmark to some of the major web 2.0 bookmarking sites. Since I have added these sort of links to my site I have noticed an increase in traffic to my pages as well as creating additional entry places for users to access my content.
