Online Real Estate Technology

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/

Just thought I’d advise you of the forthcoming breakfast sessions that Domain.com.au are putting on for clients in the next few weeks, with myself as presenter. I’ll be covering the latest information on the internet as well as covering topics such On Line Reputation Management, Blogging, Vlogging and Podcasting and how you can make these tools work for you on line, as well as looking at why you should implement an on line marketing strategy for your office that covers the next 2 years.

Here’s some of the topics I’ll cover,”How would you like to dominate Google in your area?” Like to know more? Like to learn how to do this for free? 

Like to know how to make your properties perform better on line without having to buy product?

Like to know what Impact the Iphone will have on the real estate search?

Like to know what the future holds and where the current trends are heading?

Well here are the dates below, let me know if you would like to attend. I’ll post the venues for you shortly once they are confirmed.

Tuesday 21st October Toowoomba

Wednesday 22nd October Maroochydore Sunshine Coast

Wednesday 29th October Bundaberg

Wednesday November 12th Perth WA

In writing this blog, I test out new syndication sites so that I can show you in my training presentations, the tools to distribute your blog or podcast and I’m always on the hunt for new sites to add my blog or podcast. Well this is just to let you know that my series of podcasts has now been added to podcastblaster.com and you can get them by clicking on the link below:

http://www.podcastblaster.com/directory/podcast-49183.html

I spent Thursday and Friday last week chatting to some real estate agents in Sydney about blogging, and on a number of occasions they mentioned to me the potential for readers to leave nasty messages or disparaging comments on their blogs, and this was the reason why some of them did not want to start blogging.

Well lets clear up the confusion on this, a blog is not a forum. Forums are where people are encouraged to leave comments on a business or service, and we know that in most cases these comments can be negative. I’ve even been driven to add my comments to these sites on occasions. As an example, I’ve been searching tripadvisor.com, planning my holiday, and because of user comments on service or standards of hotels, I’ve changed my choice of hotel. Blogging is not a forum, blogs allow you to publish information on any issue you feel relevant or to add advice about real estate etc, it is your personal communication tool. Your readers can add comments on your posts and request information on any issue that they feel is relevant to their area, their life or business. If you get comments from readers, which you should encourage, these are captured in the backend system of your blogging program and you get to vet or moderate these comments first, so no comment hits your blog without you approving it. If you don’t like the comment delete it, simple!!!   

Set up your blog as a tool to communicate with prospective buyers or vendors and make sure you provide good quality information on your blog. The other roadblocks put forward are, “I don’t have time” or ”I don’t have time to commit to this, I’m already very busy”. Well one word of advice, ”MAKE THE TIME”. You commit as much or as little time to blogging as your schedule allows, but remember, blogging will allow you to publish information that can be accessed from anywhere in the world, by your clients or readers. Publish your blog address on all your listings on realestate.com.au and domain.com.au, promote it on your own web site and emails and publish on all printed material that leaves your office.

That means you will have as part of your on line strategy a digital communication tool, that allows you to instantly update your clients or prospects with information that might just lead to you being the chosen professional against your competition, now wouldn’t that be nice.

I’ll cover in the next post, On Line Reputation Management, this will cover how you protect yourself from unwanted or negative comments from consumers, this is a slient business killer, and you need to know how to protect yourself and your business.

I’ve just finished a seminar presentation with my friends at Century 21 at their International Management Academy, and like most working real estate agents today they are having to work harder to attract buyers and sellers. The theme of my presentation was blogging and podcasting as a means of communicating on a more personal level with the internet consumer. Blogging and podcasting is an extension of your personal approach and allows you to discuss real estate issues and/or in fact, any issue that you believe relevant to your market as well as offer your opinion and request interaction from your readers. It’s difficult to get this personal approach across on your property listings as you have to market the property, get the property and relevant information across and try and generate the lead, all in a succinct and efficient way.

By using blogs and podcasts as an addition to your on line marketing strategy, you can add the personal touch to your on line presence. The online search process can be a very impersonal one and to be able to provide the personal touch as part of that process, to me is the very essence of why, as a working real estate agent, you need to embrace blogging.  

Real Estate is a personal business and effective networking is just a part of doing business, and I don’t believe the internet should replace this, use your blog or your podcast to create this personal space and networking on the net, it will pay dividends for you. 

The same approach should be taken with your podcast, look on this as the portable blog, when creating your podcast look at the value of the information you are providing, imagine you are talking face to face with a prospect and/or client, and record your podcast with this in mind. The success of both your blog and your podcast will depend on the quality of the information provided, it’s about quality not quantity.

Good luck and please let me know your comments or thoughts on this post

Listen to this post as a podcast:

Blogging & Podcasting – Adding the Personal Touch to Your On Line Marketing Strategy

Hi All, I’ve got the dates and locations organised now for the seminar roadshows for September and thought I would share them with you, if you would like to come along I’ll be covering new technology for real estate, blogging and podcasting and how to set them up and how to maximise your searching on google, as well as showing you how to make your property listings perform better on the internet as well as a segment on On Line Reputation Management, which is essential to you and your business in todays digital world. I’ll also cover social networking sites such as facebook and myspace and how you can use these sites to market you, your brand and your properties. The dates and locations are as follows:

1. Tuesday 9th September Greek Club & Convention Centre 29 Edmonstone street South Brisbane
2. Wednesday 10th September Oatlands Golf Club Bettington Road Oatlands Sydney NSW
3. Thursday 11th September Melbourne Bowling Club 138 Union Street Windsor Victoria

To register contact on 1300 662 203, realestate@kaplan.edu.au, visit www.kaplanprofessional.edu.au or complete the registration form below and fax back to 1300 360 834.

I’ll look forward to seeing you there if you can make the seminars.

I’ve just finished a presentation for my friends at Century 21 Australia about setting up blogs to provide interesting and updated information about the market, their products and listings etc to help further promote themselves and their vendors/clients properties to the on line world, and also how real estate agents can benefit from blogging in their local community’s. I’ll be presenting these ideas and suggestions at workshops for real estate agents in Mackay on the 1st September and followed up by 3 day long presentations on the 9th September in Brisbane, 10th September in Sydney and 11th in Melbourne, all sponsored by Domain.com.au.

If you would like to attend please let me know via my blog and I’ll forward information on venues etc, in the meantime here is an interesting read on marketing your blog. Once you have set up your blog, you’ll need to include good content and start to market your blog via your listings, press and internet advertising.

Getting started is probably the hardest part, the rest is quite simple, good luck.

http://www.mytechopinion.com/2008/01/marketing-your-real-estate-blog.html