The Arcane Science of Lead Conversion (Really has Nothing to do with Real Estate)

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: read more

Posted by Pat Kitano on Jul 04, 2008 under Leads, Guest Bloggers

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Melbourne and Brevard County Florida Real Estate Market Update

Mitch Ribak of Tropical Realty of Suntree, Florida provides mid-year update

Mid-year Brevard County Real Estate Internet Marketing Numbers are in!

Well it’s been a crazy year so far here in Melbourne, Florida and my real estate agents have been as busy as ever. Even though the real estate market is terrible here in Brevard County, Florida, Tropical Realty of Suntree is holding its own and is neck and neck with two other companies for first place in total closed transactions.

As most you out there, I’m sure you are showing a ton of customers just to get one home buyer. They are certainly taking their time making their home buying decisions. Where are those old glory days?!

Since I’m always talking about Internet Marketing, Lead Capture and Lead Conversion, I figured I would share with you our stats for the first half of the year. There are two reasons I want to share this info.

Firstly, I am proud as a father of my Agents and my staff (my kids). They have worked their tails off this year to keep their careers in line. They don’t want to hear about a bad market, they are making the best out of it. In fact, we wrote 35 homes for sale contracts this month which is a new record since our opening in 2005!

Secondly, I want you all to see the possibilities of what happens when you really dedicate your business to Internet Marketing. And yes, HomeGain’s Buyerlink program is a big piece of our success. Gone are the days where I spend two hours each day managing my keywords. So thanks to my awesome Agents and thanks to HomeGain for having the BuyerLink program!

Ok so here is what we got: read more

Posted by Mitch Ribak on Jul 03, 2008 under Regional

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Use Hyper-Local Real Estate Statistics to Inform Your Clients

One of the most difficult aspects in today’s market is getting consumers to understand the difference between national, local and hyper-local real estate trends which could vary dramatically depending on your location.

More importantly, a client’s perspective in the market will in large part determine their expectations for a transaction. Many home buyers today feel that the water has run completely red with blood and many buyers believe that they can steal a home with this new found leverage. Many are excited about the possibilities and have heard the news reports about buying homes for 60 cents on the dollar.

If you don’t convey to your clients up front that this is not likely to be the case, you will have problems getting buyers and sellers to agree on a price at which the home could be purchased.

Understanding your hyper-local market, even within your city and being able to convey how that translates into accurate expectations for a client has never been more important than it is today.

Being an expert in your market is paramount to building trust and in turn clients and it’s your responsibility to understand and be able to convey the difference to help educate them.

Knowing what is happening on a hyper-local level, will help you be the local expert, build their confidence in you and help you close sales. read more

Posted by Ryan Ward on Jun 26, 2008 under Market Trends

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Don't believe everything you read – Call your Internet real estate leads!

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. read more

Posted by Mitch Ribak on Jun 19, 2008 under Best Practices, Leads

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