How effective are the different marketing options out there for you as a real estate professional? What are other Realtors spending money and time on that you aren’t…but perhaps should be?

Over 600 real estate agents and brokers completed the HomeGain Realtor Marketing Survey this month, giving us insight into this year’s top marketing strategies for acquiring new business.

Top 10 Effective Marketing Strategies for Realtors*:

1. Referrals (Scored 8.9 out of a possible 10)
2. Leads From Broker (6.0)
3. Events (Open Houses, Fairs, etc.) (5.3)
4. Featured Listings (5.0)
5. Email Campaigns (4.7)
6. Postcards/Mailers (4.6)
7. Social Networking (4.3)
8. Craigslist (4.2)
9. Online Lead Generation Services (4.1)
10. Print Ads (4.0)

* (1 = Least Effective /10 = Most Effective; Final scores are rounded up or down)

Surveyed agents indicated that they think referrals is the most effective strategy for acquiring new clients, with a score of 8.9 out of a possible 10 for effectiveness, compared to 8.7 earlier this year. Similarly, they also indicated that they will continue to focus on referrals as their leading marketing strategy for the remainder of 2010.

The next two most effective strategies were new additions to the survey results — Leads from the broker and events, which includes open houses, fairs, etc. Craigslist was also a new addition not seen on the previous two surveys.

The survey revealed the lowest most effective marketing strategies, in order: Craigslist, online lead generation services and print ads.

Five marketing strategies that did not make the top 10 most effective marketing strategies list, in order of score highest to lowest were: outdoor ads (4.0), YouTube / video sites (3.8), blogging (3.6), banner ads (3.4), and pay per click (3.1).

2010 Marketing Goals

Surveyed agents indicated that they would like to focus on top marketing strategies — referrals, leads from their brokers, and participate in more real estate focused events.

Top 10 Marketing Objectives for Realtors in 2010**:

1. Referrals (Scored 8.8 out of 10, most likely to use)
2. Leads From Broker (6.2)
3. Events (5.8)
4. Email Campaigns (5.4)
5. Postcards/Mailers (5.0)
6. Featured Listings (5.1)
7. Social Networking (4.8)
8. Craigslist (4.8)
9. Print Ads (4.6)
10. YouTube / Video Sites (3.7)

**(Cumulative Averages, 1 = Least Likely to Use / 10 = Most Likely to Use)

Five marketing methods that did not make Realtors’ top marketing objectives for 2010, in order of score highest to lowest: online lead generation (3.6), blogging (3.6), banner ads (3.4), outdoor advertising (2.7), and pay per click (2.3).

HomeGain conducts regular surveys of Realtors, including the HomeGain Home Improvement Survey and the quarterly HomeGain Home Prices Survey. The 2010 1st quarter HomeGain Home Prices Survey results will be announced in two weeks.

HomeGain’s AgentEvaluator marketing program helps Realtors build their referral pipeline.

AgentView online marketing program provides real estate agents with several of the top 10 most effective marketing practices for reaching potential new home buyers and sellers in an all-in-one, exclusive and ad-free platform.

Used to be not having a net was a sign of your proficiency. Back in the day before a thousand people got killed an hour in television dramas, people looked to other means to get their “need for a buzz” satiated. Who can forget August 7, 1974, when high-wire performer Philippe Petit amazed the residents of lower Manhattan by going for a high wire stroll between the twin towers of the World Trade Center. Without a net.

It’s different today. Now we watch things like this every day on TV, and, after the person falls to their death, we see close ups of the gore as CSI teams come in and prove it was actually murder, not a gust of wind that caused the latest victim’s demise. The thing that used to make these types of events so thrilling was the fact that the deed was done …

Without a net.

Nowadays, circus unions ensure that nets are in place to protect the safety of the participants. The thrill is gone because the potential of possible demise has been replaced with the theatrics of flawlessly executed maneuvers done with ever increasing degrees of difficulty, outlandish costumes or a combination of both. It’s just not the same.

There is still, however, an arena where participants still perform their death defying acts without a net. It happens every day, and it’s far more common than many realize. The arena is real estate, and the performers are …

Realtors.

A strange thing happened a few days ago. Someone tried to send me a fax. It’s not that I don’t have a fax machine. I have a really nice one, in fact. I just don’t use it anymore. There’s no need to. Continue reading this post

Bad photos seem to be a part of many a real estate agent’s marketing plan. You’ve seen the fuzzy, blurry or pixilated pictures. My personal favorites are the ones that have the real estate agent’s rear view mirror in the picture and then, to no one’s surprise, it will be the only photo on the listing.

It took me about 1 minute to find this one (shown left).

The disregard of the most important marketing piece that we as agents have full control of boggles the mind.

A decent camera is cheap from a business perspective and 10 minutes to get out of the car and take a few pictures seems well worth it to me, but, that’s obviously not the case for all amongst us.

A decent camera is cheap and an appropriate camera is not cheap, but is still inexpensive for the ROI. The pictures are certainly worth the expense though. I enjoy photography so I take my own photos. If you aren’t into taking your own photos, let a professional handle the work load for you.

Locally, you can get 25 high resolution photos and a virtual tour for about $100. It would take anyone 3 or 4 hours to get out the property, take the photos get them back and edit them so the time involved to hire a pro may be worth it.

I’ve seen a lot of bloggers over the last few years offer up opinions about what you need and what you don’t need if you want to take great real estate photos and most don’t have any idea what is required to take them. If you don’t use a digital SLR camera, you won’t have the capability required to take exceptional photos of your listing.

To shoot the interior of a home, you need a true wide angle lens, but not a fisheye.  A wide lens will keep straight lines straight and allow you to see a whole room. Continue reading this post

If you don’t know it yet, you soon will understand that real estate is a tough business.  As an independent contractor, no one is watching out for you; except you.  I would like to offer some words of wisdom and advice to the newby Realtors and others that I wish had been given to me back when I started my real estate career five years ago.

Having a real estate business is just like any other business.  You must protect your information including contact lists.  It is tempting to utilize all the tools that your brokerage may offer to stay in touch with clients and do marketing campaigns.

However, you should know that companies may take that information and use it for their own benefit if they choose. If you think your brokerage is above that, I recommend getting something in writing before you use the company products, computer and email.

It is easy enough to avoid the entire issue with a few simple practices:

1. Own your domain name.
2. Have your own website with an independent company that specializes in real estate products to host and maintain it.
3. Have an email address that is not managed by your brokerage.
4. If you want the convenience of a secondary company email, do not give the address to clients or publish the address on any websites. Continue reading this post

I’m not sure if it’s the real estate downturn, but my phone has been blowing up with online advertising vendors lately.  I monitor my advertising revenue very closely, so I ask a lot of questions when talking with their salespeople.

Salespeople like to throw around big numbers to entice you to buy, so it’s important to ask for the proper metrics when analyzing different potential advertising sources.

Here’s a breakdown of what you should measure, and what to ask:

1) ROI (Return on Investment) is the bottom line number that you need to use after you have given an advertising source long enough to perform.

ROI is simply how much you’ve earned on an advertising source divided by how much you’ve spent.  So, if you’ve earned one $6000 commission from Website A, and spent $2000 advertising there, your ROI is 3:1.  You’ve earned $3 for every $1 you spent.  Most advertising sources won’t track their customers’ ROI because there are so many “real world” variables that can create different results for different buyers – predominantly how well each customer can convert.

2) Conversion Rate is the number of leads you get per click.

If you have different types of leads (contact requests, registrations, property info requests) then it’s best to track the bottom line conversion rate, and then crunch it down to conversion rate for each lead type.  So, if you get 100 visitors in one month from a traffic source, and you get 5 registrations, 2 contact requests, and 3 property info requests, then your conversion rates are as follows: Continue reading this post

One of the questions that I get from REALTORS all of the time while consulting is something like this…

“Do I need to worry about ranking in Yahoo and MSN as well as Google?”

“How much attention should I pay to Yahoo and  MSN?”

While the questions vary slightly, the meaning is exactly the same. Each search engine is different. It is one thing to rank really well on one search engine. It is another thing entirely to rank on two (or more). In the past (before Bing and Yahoo announced that Bing would be powering Yahoo), the answer was splendidly easy. Just worry about Google. The rest do not matter. They simply do not have enough market share to matter.

But what about after Microsoft has spent over $100 million advertising Bing as the “decision engine”? What about once Yahoo is powered by Bing? Will they have enough market share to matter then?

A couple of insights are helpful. The first of them is to know how to get a monthly snapshot of the search engine market share. Continue reading this post