I love free stuff and am always thankful when I learn about it. Here are some websites that I use very often and they have helped me save time and money.

Slideshare.net

This is a presentation sharing website. You can upload just about any document or presentation and share it with others. I like to embed the presentations on my website. You can track how many times your presentation has been downloaded. It is also fun when your presentations are marked as favorites.

Google Docs

I use Google docs to store my documents online. Documents can be uploaded, saved, printed, and shared. Documents can also be converted to pdf files making them easier to send as email attachments. I got tired of certain documents being on my home computer and I needed them when I was at the office. No worries, now I just go to Google.

Picassa

Another great Google product. Upload your pictures to create slideshows. You can add text and music or voiceover. Google will also send it to Youtube. Continue reading this post

Let me start by saying that for the longest time, I was TOTALLY against “forced registration” (requiring visitors to provide their contact information before viewing the MLS). I not only did not force registration on our brokerage website, but I also wrote about why others should not do it either. In short, I was firmly planted in the “that’s a bad thing to do” camp.

Over time, I softened my position somewhat, when people would tell me that they were having success with it. I still would never do it, but I could not argue with their success.

First, Morgan Carey at RealEstateWebmasters.com told me that I needed to at least try it. Great. Nope. I still would not budge. In my heart, I thought that asking folks for their information

a) was unfriendly

b) it would drive traffic to competitor sites

c) would lower the quality of the lead

d) would result in more obscene emails from unhappy visitors

e) and any increase in # of registrations would be offset with an overall net loss in closings…well, you get the idea (grin).

As more and more people started reporting to me their successes (an example was Wayne Long, who was kind enough to share exactly what was happening on his site with me), I finally decided to TRY it. The folks that I visited with at the REW conference were helpful as well. Almost all of them had already made the transition.

How did it go?

Here are the results: Continue reading this post

One of the things that I often hear as a guy who helps guide people in their online marketing efforts is: “Help me get to the top of the search engines. I am spending WAY TOO MUCH on Pay per Click or (insert marketing venture here).”

That always concerns me to some degree. I want to take what I believe to be basic economics principles, throw them out here, and let’s see whether you agree.

Principle 1:

This is when a given geo-targeted market will have MANY channels that make up its online niche traffic potential. For example, the Louisville real estate market is accessed by MANY marketing channels (TV, radio, natural search engine optimization, Pay per Click, BuyerLink, etc.

Principle 2:

This is when the most effective first step in marketing to a geo-targeted market is to gain dominance of and HOLD a particular marketing channel WITHIN that given market. (Example: someone does PPC and gains a consistent and dominant presence there.) It helps them brand and has SOLID Return on Investment. That return on investment (since it is positive) may be higher or lower than another marketing channel, but it is YOURS. Continue reading this post

Last week Mitch Ribak, Founder of eHomesRealtyNetwork and MelboureHomeSearch.com, visited our team here in Denver, Colorado for a training and knowledge transfer exercise. Mitch and I have been keeping in touch since November 2006 after I met Mitch resulting from one of HomeGain’s Winning Agent Calls.

When I first met Mitch I was just a team of one trying to figure out this whole Internet Marking thing. I was reasonably comfortable with the website development, however I was struggling with how do I bring customers to my website and then convert them to leads then to clients and closings. A friend of mine had connected me to HomeGain’s BuyerLink product so there I was.

I had a website and some good marketing but now what do I do with it?

The same month after listening to Mitch’s presentation I had my first Internet client under contract. Yippee! I was on the running to making my first million, NOT.

With much continued effort I continued to find limited success, touching base with Mitch once every 3-4 months when I would find myself struggling the most. He would help me get over the hump then I would hit the ground running again. Continue reading this post

On Wednesday, August 20, Barry Cunningham and Barry Johnson of Real Estate Radio USAspoke with Louis Cammarosano about AgentView—its key features, how it works and why it is a valuable marketing product for real estate agents who want to have a strong online presence.

Listen to the program!:

Continue reading this post

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