Last week FrogPond.com launched FrogPond TV, a marketing tool (great for real estate professionals) that keeps the viewer informed on current business topics in a concise and enjoyable format.

Susie Hale, founder of FrogPond.com and wife of Bob Hale of the innovative Houston MLS caught up with Louis Cammarosano at Inman Real Estate Connect San Francisco last month for an interview that would accompany their kick off announcement of their new product, FrogPond TV. During the interview, Louis talks about the pre-launch of Homegain’s AgentView that was released earlier this week.

Here’s the FrogPond TV interview with Louis Cammarosano:

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I recently read an excellent article published by Baylor University, “Lead Generation: What Really Works”, which articulately discusses lead generation. The three categories the writers included in this article were lead generation, conversion of the lead to an appointment, and closure of the appointment to a transaction.

One of the studies I found particularly interesting was finding out the extent that real estate agents and brokers take to keep records of their lead generation efforts. And for those who keep records, how detailed the records are that they keep.

For “conversion to appointment” only 23% of the respondents reported their records as Moderately Detailed or Extremely Detailed. With a mere 32% reporting moderately or extremely detailed for “closure to a transaction”.
With a reported 17% of the respondents marketing budget allocated on the Internet or Website activities, unfortunately, or fortunately for us, the online world remains this big black hole. And, without keeping detailed records, it shall likely remain this ominous, monstrosity, money pit for many but it doesn’t need to be this way.

HomeGain’s BuyerLink does a great job of tracking your advertising budget. I’ve been using BuyerLink for years now. The concept is that it’s up to you to keep on tracking your results from the initial lead generation, to conversion through close.

Regardless of your preferred marketing method, they discuss how are you attracting your leads? Are you “seeking” or “attracting” your leads? In today’s tough market the survey results reflected that more seek oriented (60/40) for highest lead conversion in a tough market.

Of the leads generated 58% were buyers and 42% sellers. Many brokers, including myself, consider home buyers a premium in this Continue reading this post

One of the things that I find fascinating in the real estate business are referral fees. I hear REALTORS upset about them and always trying to lower them. I know, with the financial pressures of today’s market, this may sound weird, but I LIKE THEM.

Before you throw something at the screen, let me explain.

In today’s buyer’s market, EVERY buyer side that you have is a result of someone or something. It is the result of a marketing channel that you have invested in. Maybe it is your internet presence. Maybe it is HomeGain. Maybe it was the time you spent on a press release that attracted a buyer or investor. Maybe it was a radio ad.

Whatever it was, you invested in it in one way or the other. I find it amusing that REALTORS often do not pay THEMSELVES a REFERRAL FEE and use it to build up their market presence.

Even if you invested time instead of money into your lead that turned into a buyer, the only way to get more time is to eventually use some of that money to buy back the time either in that market channel or in another one that you deem will generate more ROI.

How do I know this works? Our brokerage did it. Continue reading this post

The problem with online marketing for real estate professionals is the reality that learning online marketing has little to do with real estate practice. Remarkablogger confirms one of real estate’s online marketing principal missions – lead generation and conversion.

If visitors don’t take actions that result in profits, you are wasting your time.
You can do all the SEO work you like, but if nothing happens when visitors show up, you did it for nothing. You can pay tons of money in advertising, and you have thrown away every penny if nobody buys anything or signs up for your newsletter. You can write comments on other blogs and work through social media to attract visitors, but if those visitors just bounce right back out of your site without doing what you want, you’re leaving money on the table.

Mastering the tricks and vagaries of effective online lead generation are beyond the scope of 99% of real estate professionals. The industry knows this, and online real estate applications have historically aimed to simplify or automate online marketing presence for agents: Continue reading this post

I read an article today that Realtor.org put out talking about the 6 best practices of online leads. The author is a great guy and knows his stuff. However, he misses the boat on this one.

He spends a good amount of time discussing how important it is not to call your leads. This is completely wrong. As most of you know my Internet program through either 100MPH Marketing or my eHomes Realty Network, the reality is if you are not calling your leads which supply a phone number, you are letting buyers and sellers slip through your fingers.

The worst thing you can do is not make use of the information you are given to help your customers buy their home.

Of the over 20,000 people we have in our database, I can probably count on one hand the amount of times a person who supplied their phone number to us that was upset when we called.

In fact this is what we normally hear: “You are the first Realtor to actually follow up with us.” They are very excited and happy to talk about their real estate needs!

When I first started figuring out Internet leads back in 2002, I didn’t make phone calls. I only corresponded with people that contacted me. My first year of Internet Marketing I sold over 50 homes, but more importantly I lost more than 50 sales by not making phone calls. Continue reading this post

Mitch Ribak of Tropical Realty (a HomeGain Advisor and a contributor on this blog) is the special guest on HomeGain Radio.

Mitch gives advice to real estate agents and brokers for how to get leads, especially via the Internet, and how to convert a higher volume of leads into clients.

Listen to Mitch’s advice for real estate agents:

During the call, Mitch mentions how HomeGain’s marketing program, BuyerLink has helped deliver more consumer traffic to his website and boost his business.

To hear more HomeGain Radio interviews, plus find real estate articles, survey results and more, visit our Media Center!

Mitch Ribak is the Broker/Owner of The Mitch Ribak Real Estate Team, Tropical Realty of Suntree.

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