I had the pleasure of attending KW Mega Camp This year (crappy photo above to prove it!)

I saw some very interesting things, but most interesting was a session about SEM vs SEO. Having about 8 years of experience myself, SEM/SEO are a topic near and dear to my heart.

Overall the session was informative, and kept things basic for the crowd. They demonstrated a few strategies about building “free leads” with organic traffic generated by local focused blogging, and high volume “paid leads” from Facebook and Google search.

Overall the consensus is the usual that everyone should understand…

• SEO = FREE with lots of time.
• SEM = NOT FREE, but faster results.

I spoke with a lot of agents about the session, and it seemed that most were just as confused as ever about what to do in the world of search marketing.  I gave them all my pro tip; so it here it is for you…

HIRE SOMEONE.

It’s really that simple. I see so many agents go round, and round trying to figure out blogging strategies, social marketing techniques, keyword optimization, and the list goes on.  There’s nothing wrong with  learning a few strategies like how to post your listings on Facebook, or the basics of optimizing a blog post.  However running down the search engine rabbit hole for many folks is almost certainly a path to failure.

Ask yourself a simple question.

“Did over 50% of my business come from sphere, referrals, and word of mouth last year?” 75%?

If the answer is yes then why the hell would you want to change that now? If being an SEO master has not been a significant factor contributing to your real estate success, then I doubt it’s ever going to be in the future.  Of course this does not excuse you from a world that is continuously beginning to revolve around online presence.  Having a solid SEO, SEM, and Social marketing strategy is now more important than ever, and this is why it’s important that you hire an expert to manage this part of your business. Key emphasis on the word part. As a business owner delegation, and management should be your primary skill. Understanding that you can’t be fully hands on in some parts of your business is what every coach/speaker to is trying to help you understand.

“But I’m broke! I need to DIY this”

Totally understandable. If you’re not getting any results from anything then maybe focusing on 1 skill like social advertising could be a viable option for you to generate leads.  If you’re already doing well, but are a total penny pincher consider that losing focus on the overall goal of your business (to close deals) is likely going to cost you a lot more in the long run than hiring an expert.

A Few Expert Options

• Technology Platforms: Many technology platforms include SEM, SEO, and Social marketing services as a part of the platform. This can take on a huge amount of the load when it comes to online marketing, and free you up to focus on the brand portion.
• Local Agency: I highly recommend you consider this option if you’re not using a tech platform. This is going to give you the ability to have a real conversation, stay involved at a high level, and get a high degree of attention for your dollars. Most local agencies, especially quality content marketing ones will also be able to assist you with your brand story, and other aspects of your online presence that greatly matter. A tech platform + a local brand agency could even be the ideal outsourced marketing team.
  • STAY AWAY from anyone who solicits your business online! I’ve always thought RE sales people would have a nose for BS, but I can’t believe the amount of folks who sign with cheap/scammy SEO firms from a spam email. Don’t do this, it could cause more harm than good.
• In House Hire: This is a fantastic option for a larger team/brokerage or a fast growing business, but it’s not for the faint of heart. A huge mistake is to look at your bank account, and then hire the cheapest person you can find. Look for proven experience, and understand that one person is likely not going to be able to do everything you need in house.
  • Hiring a Marketing manager for example is step 1. Step 2 is buying them all the optimization tools they need, and enabling them to grow what will become a marketing team.  If this isn’t where your business is in terms of GCI than the agency route may actually be cheaper, and cause fewer headaches. Even the best marketing managers are going to be “managing” a growing number of vendors. I can’t stress enough that if you aren’t willing to invest in a person, and their success then you have no business bringing them on.

TL;DR RECAP

• If you’re not an SEO/SEM expert then don’t try to start now. Focus on Real Estate.
• There are many hiring options consider what’s right for you.
• Don’t be cheap. Losing focus on what’s important is always what’s more expensive.

Discussions around online content creation in the real estate space are continuing to grow.  From basic SEO related tweaks to the topic of identifying, and using customer personas with research.  Recently I attended a panel at BoomTown Unite that discussed the topic of personas.

Towards the end of the session questions started to arise around the execution of actions to be taken upon doing persona research.   From two literal opposite sides of the room questions about two different strategies were shared…

1. “So if my website focuses in on 1st time home buyers…won’t that hurt me in areas like luxury?”
2. “I’m building separate websites, and domains for different types…”

The idea of customizing your website to focus more on a particular demographic or persona makes sense, but seems kind of scary.  We wan’t to develop a specialty, but we don’t want to shut out opportunities.   This is why building personas, and doing research can take  time and consideration.  On the other hand we can use more of a Coca-Cola Company type of strategy, and build/buy/reinvent separate products to fit, and match multiple personas. This immediately seems like the no-brainer way to go, but when we don’t find ourselves with Coca-Cola budgets; we realize that building one name is hard enough.  Building 2, 3, etc. is more difficult.  Our overall presence to convert leads into relationships could suffer.

Approach From The Opposite Direction

What makes the up in the clouds concept of building personas even more difficult to execute; is that agents often try to start with an already difficult form of communication…advertising.

You’ve identified that “luxury” buyers are who YOU want to focus on, and begin adding that shiny platinum touch to your website.  You then start writing article after article about “luxury buyer tips”, and “things rich people like”.  What often happens is it comes off a little weird, and most people think they’re in the wrong place.  Customized content, and ads can be done well, but a highly effective broad approach is easier to scale.

Instead of adding personas to a long list of lead generation tactics; turn it into a conversion strategy.   I met with a client who discussed a rebate program aimed at active government employees.  This is a fantastic example of personification that builds the overall brand, but makes a key demographic feel special.  There will be information about the program on the clients website, but they don’t have to change the core experience.  When a lead is identified as a government employee they will get a different customer service experience than others.

Attracting leads with personification alone can be tough, but customizing their experience based on their needs is what every helpful sales person does naturally.   Look into your database, look up past clients who purchased luxury homes.  Who else fits their profile?  Has the same requests?  Or even lives in the same neighborhoods?  Tag or label these people, and begin thinking about what the common factors were in those successful deals.  Use this knowledge to customize their client care experience.  This could be something digital like email send times or something personal like how you converse with them.   This approach is simple, low cost, and repeatable.

Look To The Hospitality Industry

Hilton Hotels gives it’s Honors members shorter lines, and remembers their wifi settings.  Delta gives card holders a free checked bag.  Air travel is a “well they all land in Seattle so I’ll go with what’s cheaper” kind of business for many consumers, and airlines handle this accordingly.

What Delta, United, and even Spirit (the ultimate discounter) know to be true is frequent travelers spend more money, and have different priorities.  Paying more for a seat or simply staying loyal to a carrier is the end goal for the airlines.   They use incentives like short lines not only as a way to entice a valued customer, but to also identify them in the first place.  They’ve even gone to the source of the money itself; the company credit card as a way to build a relationship that stays with you even when you’re on the ground.

Another TL;DR Recap

• Personas aren’t just for lead gen. Think about client service.
• Client service programs done well can also generate leads.
• Use incentives, and research to identify, attract, and convert customers into loyal ones.

This is a follow up to my post about real estate lead quality.

Most agents are converting online leads to sales at a rate of around 2% (-Inman study).  I’ve seen 1-5% considered to be the industry norm for quite sometime, which leads me to ask… can it be better?  I’ll cut to the chase, and say YES we can do better.  Looking at the real estate industry as a whole, I see an oil and water marriage of sales process, and marketing technology.  Put bluntly, I think a lot of teams are running  models/processes that could be more efficient.   Whether you’re simply looking to go from 2% to 3% or want to take a team well above the 5% margin here are a few concepts I think will prove themselves effective at any level.

1.  Understand what your lead types are, and where they come from.

The word “lead” gets thrown around a lot in the real estate industry, and can typically mean anything from a request for a property showing to a person who simply “liked” a page.  Do an analysis of your lead gen systems, campaigns, website, etc.  Consider what actions are occurring in order to bring this person to your attention.   Here are a few examples…

• Property inquiry: User requests a showing.
• Squeeze form: This is one of the most common online lead capture methods.  User must create an account to proceed.
• General inquiry: Think “contact us” emails, and related general forms.
• Request for info: CMA’s, ebooks downloads, etc. The user asks for information to be delivered.

Next consider the sources of your lead generation.  Even if all traffic points to one squeeze form it’s worth noting where that user likely came from.  Portals, Google, and Facebook are typically the norm here.

2.  Define what “prospect-able” leads are for your business.

Give most agents a name, email, without a phone number and you’ll likely watch them squirm.  If the majority of their sales training, and prospecting tasks revolve around using the phone/dialer then why would we expect anything else?

Building an effective real estate team/brokerage requires people to take on dedicated roles.  Agents can’t do it all.  We see the agent-centric models of the past few decades fledgling already.  If we want to hold agents accountable, and set achievable goals then we must give them leads that they can effectively prospect with the resources they have.  The team leader or marketing dept needs to handle those that are not.   Unfortunately there is no one size fits all metric for “prospect-able” leads.  This is likely a conversation that a team/company needs to have, and decide on.

Some football coaches will say “if you can touch the ball you can catch it” others might say “it’s the QB’s responsibility to place the ball in a catch-able position”  Whatever side of the coin your company sits on make it a point to create a lead profile that agents can work with, and set expectations from there.  A quick list of potential variables to get started…

• Name (real or fake?)
• Email (valid or no?)
• Phone (valid or no?)
• Financing? Pre-approved?
• Time frame?
• Geographic location?
• Desired Price point?

When I see agents moan about lead quality or claim they can’t prospect a lead it’s usually, because of the info or lack of info provided in one or a few of the above variables.

My observations have been that most teams consider a valid name, phone, email is enough to give to an agent, but what do the agents always say?  “Not pre-approved, too far away, or low price point. I can’t work these”   This is where conversations need to happen…

• “if a lead is too far away then where exactly is the threshold for distance?”
• “Should agents only be talking with pre-approved/qualified leads?”
• “If a lead asks to go on a showing for a $90K property what needs to happen?”

3. Create  Processes Based on steps 1 & 2.

Let’s get one harsh reality out of the way…  After looking at steps one and two one might think that all they have to do is change up their lead gen to yield only “prospectable” leads their agents want.  This is where headaches can occur, and a lot of money gets left on the table.  Creating one process to rule them all, and trying to force the uncontrollable isn’t effective.  The smart money is in creating multiple processes for all the different scenarios.

Here are a few examples…

1. Lead: Joe Smith, (123) 555-6543, Joe@gmail.com.  “I would like to speak with an agent about 123 street”

Process: Attempt call within 5 minutes.  Identify if pre-qualified or cash buyer.  Setup showing.  If no answer use 21 days of gain until appointment set.

2. Lead: Micky Mouse, No phone, joe@gmail.com (valid email), registered via squeeze, viewed 22 foreclosure properties.

Process:  Smart-drip enabled.  added to investor email list.

Very rough example above, but I just wanted to demonstrate that even with a lead that doesn’t fit prospecting thresholds there is still work to be done.  Often the question is who needs to do it.  Who contacts these leads?  Who is monitoring them?  Who is creating content get them prospectable?  When a bad lead turns good who makes that next contact?  These are the questions teams have to find answers for in order to create effective processes.

This is where the ISA model has proven effective.  Often ISA’s handle the initial prospecting of leads, and pass off workable prospects to agents.  Where I think smart teams will take things further is in the formation of dedicated marketing roles that are building campaigns to market effectively to all lead types.  This is being done already by some, and plenty of coaches recommend a dedicated marketing role to high volume teams.

Lot of info covered today so here’s another TL;DR recap…

• All leads are not equal in value.
• All “leads” are not “prospects” Define who is who.
• Who’s responsible for what? Roles and responsibilities are crucial to efficient team building.
• One process does not fit all.  Have the conversations. Test, and implement different processes for different scenarios.  This will keep everyone moving, prepared, and accountable.

Referencing “The Jerk” is a hobby of mine.

The leads are weak…  I’ve been in the business of generating leads for over a decade now, and I can firmly say that no matter the industry, the product, or the type of advertising being used there will always be a group of people caught in the endless loop that is the search for quality.

The principal itself is one that makes sense

“I have to invest a lot of time into qualifying/converting leads so I want ones who are worth my time”

However it’s just beyond this realization that many businesses real estate or otherwise fall into the abyss.  There seems to be a continuing cycle…

1.  Analysis Ad Nauseum: We start looking for any reasons to down grade the quality of our existing sources.  Price point, phone, email, time frame, and basically any one who is not ready to buy a luxury home with a cash offer today.

2. The Blame Game: Whether our ads are self managed or managed by someone else we are determined to find the “source” of the poor lead quality.  This usually leads to blaming the person buying your traffic, where you buy your traffic from, or some combination of both.

3. Let’s Break Everything: Once the blame game starts it never really ends.  Even if we subside our blame for awhile we ultimately come back to the Analysis Ad Nauseum, which leads to the blame game, which then brings us to the decision to quit, cancel, and just start all over again.

This three step process doesn’t just apply to online sources, it’s a cycle that’s repeated itself in all forms of lead generation for quite some time, but the additional data of online traffic puts it on steroids.  I’ve watched hundreds of people do this, and I myself have been a victim to this vicious  cycle more than a few times in my career.

What’s so dangerous about this process is that it causes perfectly rational business people to do things that make no sense at all.  They cancel valuable services or burn bridges.  They stop using proven methods for generating success, and worst of all they abandon days, weeks, months, and even years of hard work.

So is lead quality important?

Absolutely! Generating quality leads/traffic is crucial to any business.  Where things really get hairy, and the Analysis Ad Nauseaum begins is in the measurement of quality.  It’s easy to measure things like CPL (cost per lead) or volume of leads.  What’s difficult is determining things like  time frame, price point, valid info, and overall willingness to close.  This shit is pure black magic, and I often see people grasping for straws, and anecdotes  when entering the Blame Game step.

Then What Can I Measure For Quality?

Contact Information:  This is a huge indicator of quality in any form of lead generation industry.  Take a credit card app for example.  Those kids who want you to sign your life away for a T-shirt at your local university will usually review your app for bullshit information or missing fields, because for them no credit check = no pay.

When it comes to numerically measuring quality of contact info we need to keep a few concepts in mind.

WE CAN:

• Check formatting: Does this phone # have enough digits?
• Check for bounce: Did my welcome email bounce or fail to send?
• Check for complete: Is a field empty?

We Can NOT:

• Ensure this number belongs to this person
• Ensure this email is the primary address  for this person. Double opt-in is what my Yahoo! account lives for
• Know what exactly they are thinking.  Buyers are liars.

Now you might notice that the things we “can not” do are typically the things our agents/selves want from us the most.  This is where we need to get our heads on straight, and start thinking about what we can realistically change.  Putting a phone field, even one that’s required with a format validity check isn’t going to stop a person from giving you the # to Domino’s.

Here’s a basic way to think logically…

If X% of valid formatted phone/emails are received then Y% will actually belong to those people.

Measuring X is pretty straight forward, and can be automated.  Y requires intensively consistent, and persistent prospecting from agents.  (lol and pigs that fly)

Simply put, when measuring a traffic or lead generation source focus on X more than Y or your head will spin.

Quality Improvement Continued…

Traffic Sources:  In a previous post I mentioned some top sources for generating leads.   Again when it comes to improving those things  that are tough to measure such as willingness to close or price point what we have to do is simply use some common sense.

• Zillow/Portals = Property inquiry.
• Google = Searching for something about real estate.
• FB = Clicked on your FB ad, because it generated some form of interest.

All of the above are very different, but common sense says will be fairly reliable sources of quality traffic.  Resist the urge to “Break Everything”, and abandon these bread and butter tactics.  Just because you got a bogus lead or a few strings of FYOU@gmail.com’s isn’t a valid excuse to give up on any of the three core places people start their online real estate experience.

Capture Methods: “The Consumer is not a moron, she is your wife.” – David Ogilvy.

Looking at a lot of the capture/advertising tactics used by some; I get the impression that the real estate industry has a very low expectation of intelligence from their potential clients.  Donald Trump might be an actual presidential candidate, but that doesn’t mean that people will fall for your stupid tricks.

Require a phone number?  The consumer probably expects a phone call.  This may deter them from completing the form in the first place.  Those who really want whats behind that form (that’s a good sign), but fear sales pressure will likely provide a number known by Tommy TuTone.

The moral of the story here is evaluate your capture methods. Make sure that they are straight forward, and set proper expectations.  Over use of the word “free” when something is not free is an example of this in bad form.

A quick note on adjusting/optimization: Optimizing for lead quality makes even savvy marketers do stupid things.  Refer to the Can vs Can Not of quality measurement, and you’ll know what changes to make, and what results to track.

Quality Tips For Quality Leads:  Let’s wrap this up with a few main pointers…

• Stick with what works.  Results ARE typical is what we want to shoot for.  It’s usually the obvious.
• Don’t try to change things you know you can’t control.
• Don’t try to change things to try and change the things you can’t control.
• Play the numbers: You’re gonna get bad leads.  Deal with it.

Stay Tuned for a follow up to this post on qualification, and how to “deal with it” the smart way.

Brian Ostrowiak™ Ugly Graphic

Building an asset.  Something often talked about in real estate as a “long term” goal, but few know how to take action towards on a daily basis.

Let’s face it, most of the people reading this blog that sell real estate are working towards not having to sell real estate.  What we are working towards is to build a business, and selling or leveraging that asset as our exit plan.  Even those who love to sell, and work with clients on a daily basis will understand the reality that in order to truly build more wealth we have to build a team, and expand our operation beyond ourselves.

Fast forward a decade or two, and pretend the day has finally come that you want to sell the biz, and cash out.  What do you have of value to sell?  More importantly how is your business valued?

“My Brand” probably comes to mind when most people are determining what their unique value is.  “I’ve built a brand that people know, and trust”.  I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt that your brand really is well known, and trusted.  However if you want me to put a price on that how do I go about doing so?  What metrics would I use?

Monthly Active Users

Step outside the real estate world, and join the tech community.  What’s the number investors are talking about?  What’s the thing that makes an app like Instagram worth billions of dollars?  Monthly Active Users.  Facebook has a lot of smart people, and plenty of capital to hire more.  Instagram was a fun app that a company like FB could easily duplicate.  Why did they buy it?  Simply put Instagram has 300 million active users.(at the time of purchase)  Purchasing Instagram, WhatsApp, and other apps enables FB to gain technology and massive audiences. (aka subscribers)

Jumping back to real estate… Web presence is very important.  What investors/buyers/appraisers are going to be paying more attention to are the numbers of people actually engaged with the web presence of a brand.  Simply put even if you’ve sold thousands of homes, and have built up a large database of past clients; what is of value in your business is the number of people who are still contactable in that database, the numbers of people loyal to your brand, and the number of prospect-able users engaged with your web presence.

Acquire, Nurture, and Maintain

So much focus is placed on traffic and lead generation.  We want to capture leads, add them to our database, and nurture those opportunities.  Long term follow-up is typically though of as an offline tactic after the lead is acquired. Generating active users requires maintaining our database online.

Your website is not a net, lasso, or bear trap.  It’s not just a vehicle to grab people out of the internet, and spit them out into your spreadsheets or CRMs.  For the user your web presence is a huge part their interaction with your brand.

When I look at the web presence of many brokerages and teams I often see a scattering of tactics in piece meal.  They have a brand.com site, often a simple 5 pager.  They have one or several “Lead Gen” sites xyzhomesforsale.com, they have blogs, they have “SEO” sites thisveryspecificlittleneighborhood.biz, and a variety of started and abandoned social media pages.  In most cases the over arching brand of the company is not well represented between these properties, and even worse they come and go.

This creates a huge problem down the road.  Leads are “captured” by these various properties, and placed into a CRM or multiple lead management systems. This capture, and offline follow up mentality implies that once you’ve got the “lead” it’s yours for life.  Back to the tech example; if Instagram generated 300 million users & their contact data, but only 50,000 were uploading/liking photos wouldn’t that drastically change their value? Absolutely.

SOI is not a new concept, and most smart RE pros know that SOI and referrals are a huge source of business.  The key problem I’m addressing here is that maintaining contact with SOI is not being done by many or at best requires a very manual approach.  This can greatly limit the scale of the business.

What is required to stay top of mind?  For many it’s personal quarterly/monthly follow up (probably the most effective), for others it might be simply maintaining thousands of dollars in branding ad spend.  The real power of a well put together web presence, and subscriber base is that you can maintain contact with a much larger group of people with fewer resources.  The transfer of this subscriber base, and the properties involved is also much easier.  This makes your business more valuable, and enables us to over time distance ourselves to do other things.

This is why when we look at our database we need to start asking a few basic questions…

• Are these people returning to my site?
• How many people were “active” or “engaged” with my brand in the last 30-90 days?
• How the hell am I measuring that?
• What tactics am I using to ensure that people stay engaged before, during, and after a transaction?
• If I called these people up would they answer? Would they remember my brand?
• What type of effort do I want myself, my agents, and my team putting into certain types of users?

Quick Start

Here are a few tips to get started answering those questions…

1. Take inventory of your subscriptions: We know how many leads our sources are generating, but what % of those people are staying engaged? Investigate what channels work best for keeping people in orbit when they clearly state they aren’t ready.

2. Define Your User Base:   Engaged or active users can be defined in a variety of different ways to suit a variety of purposes.  Consider these three user types.

• Active Client
• Past Client
• Qualified
• Unqualified

Decide for yourself what a reasonable expectation for engagement for this user type might be.  Obviously our past clients won’t be onsite every 2 days, and the active shoppers might engage on a daily basis.  The goal here is to prevent cases of drop off.  If a lead registers on our site, and never comes back or is unresponsive it’s likely that we’re not doing a good job on getting them subscribed.

3. Merge your subscriptions together: Your MLS powered site might generate tons of leads, Youtube is a great outlet to generate content, and lots of people use Facebook soooooo…. Upload your cold leads into Facebook, and share your Youtube videos with them in a custom Facebook audience. There are far more ways to communicate with your database than call, text, and email.

TL;DR

• The value of a web property is largely based on the number of people engaged, and the level of that engagement.
• The value of a real estate database is also largely based on the number of returning, referring, and contactable clients.
• Highly engaged users have a greater lifetime value than those who are not.
• Real Estate teams are over focusing on generating new prospects, and letting old ones fade away.  This hurts their business in the long term.
• I’ll be revisiting this topic often.  It’s important.

There are a few books that have shaped my understanding of the world, and this is one of them. If you don’t own a copy. Buy one.

Time is an incredibly valuable resource.  Creating more of it is what most teams, and brokerages that are looking to expand are trying to do.  This is what brings most to implementing various forms of automation into their growth strategy.  Many who discover the power of automation also eventually stumble into the catastrophe of automated error.

“Difficulties arise when we do not think of people and machines as collaborative systems, but assign whatever tasks can be automated to the machines, and leave the rest to people.” – Don Norman.

Norman also discusses the relationship between people and calculators. The human + calculator is  a perfect combination; allowing us to do more by eliminating common errors and solving the problems we can’t do in our heads.

1. Automated Communication

Many an agent has made an embarrassing blooper when it comes to arranging automated communication.  The most common ones I see…

• Message was sent too many times.
• Message was sent to the wrong people.
• Message was sent at the wrong time.

Our tendency is to let the machines handle the mundane tasks so we humans can solve the most complex ones.  Norman discusses this in his book, and in a nutshell this relationship is sometimes backwards.  In the above common errors what went wrong is not the sending of the message, but the when, who, and why it was sent.  Sending messages is easy, but knowing the who, what, when, etc. is what is complex.

Consider flipping this around in some cases. In a previous post on Smart Prospecting I demonstrated how to use technology to automate the determination of who to prospect, when to prospect, and what to talk to prospects about.  All the human has to do is send the communication or make the call.  This is a relatively simple task, and one that can be done with a reduced amount of error.

What I see being done more often is the total opposite. We setup our long term communication plans to drip our leads for the next year.  This frees us up from having to send hundreds of prospects the same message over and over.  However by using technology that tells us the who/what/when to send, and tools like mass email; we can accomplish the same thing with lower occurrences of error, and better insight into what is happening in our database.  As Norman discusses in his book the errors of automation often go unnoticed until it’s way too late.

“Should I quit using drip plans?” Of course not.  Can you really email a confirmation instantly? Can you truly respond to certain requests at all hours of the day? Nope. This is where automation can be our friend.  Just like the calculator relationship… If long division isn’t your strong suit then use the calculator to do your divisions.  If you can’t be there at the right time consider automation to help you accomplish this.

2. Mass Communications

Second to  automated communications where I see the most errors occur is in mass communication.  What mass communications (such as mass email) automate for us is the task of sending a communication to multiple people.  Sending an email to 10,000 users is a very simple task, but where the complexity occurs is again in the who/what/when, and where to send the communication.

We’ve all had the brain fart of hitting “reply all” before, and what do we exclaim afterwards?

“I didn’t mean to send this to those people or that many people” 

Creating lists of people to receive tailored communications is not an easy task.  Let machines help you do it.  Let them analyze the user activity, let them do the math on numbers of visits, or the amount of time it’s been since the last communication.  When the machine has assisted you in creating the list you desire then it’s usually a simple act of hitting “select all” to ensure that your communication goes out to that list.

Don’t Use Robots To Work For You.  Use Them To Do Your Work Better.

Just so we’re clear… Automated communications are a great tool.  Mass Communication is essential to any modern marketing program.  What agents/brokers need to think about is striving towards that oh so perfect human + calculator relationship.  How can we use technology to assist us in the complex tasks we’re most likely to mess up?  That’s the question we should be asking.  I see many working hard to transfer as much workload as possible to robots, and frankly the end result is bad marketing/sales being distributed with machine like efficiency.  Collecting large amounts of useful data, and letting machines help make sense of it all is what the large real estate businesses of the future are going to master.

If I could pick one metric to fully eliminate from the real estate industry it would be CPL. (Cost per Lead)

This metric has caused thousands to waste millions of dollars, structure their businesses poorly, and waste countless hours of time.  Long before entering the RE industry I worked as an affiliate marketer.  I get paid $X per lead, and my cost is $Y per lead.  The difference was my profit.  I can attest first hand that living, and dying by the magical CPL is a pretty horrible way to live, and run a business. (that’s why I got out of that racket).  Now let’s get into exactly what’s so messed up about this CPL business so we can all join the road to recovery.

1. Your ROI is Ridiculous:

I hate you guys.  As an affiliate marketer I used to spend thousands of dollars per day, and was lucky to make a 25% return on my spend. (usually it was negative %) Today I see brokers spending $500 per month; that’s $16 per day folks, and making ROI’s in the several X,XXX%.  According to the NAR 2015 Member Profile less than 2% of you spent more than $15,000 on marketing last year.  That’s just absurd.  Now I’m not saying you should max out that credit card just yet, but if you’re getting a steady return on an investment with a traffic source like Adwords or Zillow then your focus should not be on reducing CPL.  It should be on spending more!  Yes the law of diminishing returns will come in to play here, but with your average ROI; worrying about going from $8 per lead to $14 is just stupid, and short sighted.

2.  How People Buy Homes .vs. Supply and Demand.

Here’s probably the only 2 things that a real estate professional needs to understand about Search Engine Marketing (SEM).

1. This is how online home shopping works.

• City: Charleston, SC = 1,317 homes for sale
• Area: James Island, SC = 273 homes for sale
• Neighborhood: Bayview Farms = 4 Homes for sale

City –> Areas –> Neighborhoods. This is the cycle every online shopper goes through.  More people start their search at the City or Area level than at the neighborhood level.  Many Agents understand the concept that the person who is more at the neighborhood level is further along in the process, and plausibly more likely to buy.   Again MANY agents understand this, and because traffic is fairly proportional to the number of results an economics 101 situation occurs.

Lots of advertisers + Little searchers = High Cost. 

Google gives zero shits about the cost of the homes being advertised.  “Luxury” keywords do not command a premium because the properties are mansions.  All that matters is that fewer people search Luxury, and lots of realtors advertise luxury so the cost per lead is high.   Over the past few years those of you advertising online have probably noticed an increase in cost per lead.  No Zillow & The Google are not out to get you; it’s just that the market is doing better, and more agents are willing to buy advertising.

3. Comparing Pineapples To Peanuts:

Apples and Oranges doesn’t do it justice for how far fetched I’ve seen agents/brokers compare traffic sources, and lead gen systems. Simply put using the same examples we saw before; If you want to go after luxury only or further along leads then you’ll have to pay.    I see agents debating on where they should be spending money between Zillow, Adwords, and Facebook all day long; when those sources aren’t even on the same planet as each other.

Want the best advice? All of them.  Day one in the real estate biz?  Probably Zillow.  Have a growing team of hungry agents to feed? Probably Adwords.  Have a good mobile presence, and have well sorted system for working online leads? Now add in FB.

What makes this issue so complicated is the varying CPLs. Zillow is way more expensive than adwords, and even more so than facebook..   Throw CPL out the window, and what do you really have?

• Zillow: People inquiring about specific properties.  People under the impression they’ll talk to an agent.
• Search: People are searching for something specific.  This could be a house or just browsing a city.
• Facebook: People were bored at work , and aimlessly looking for something to capture their attention.

Think of it this way, and it’s pretty clear that zillow/search are a solid way to get in touch with active shoppers.  All of them have the potential to feed you tire kickers, but some more than others.   I love FB ads, and it’s a fantastic lead gen source, but I’ve noticed a lot of folks going full tilt on FB for nothing other than lower CPL.  Frankly they don’t have the teams in place to handle that volume of tire kickers.

So to wrap up my little rant…

1. Focus on what your business needs from lead gen not just the costs.
2. There will be competition, CPLs will fluctuate. Don’t base your business model on them.
3. All Leads are not created equal.
4. Your ROI is crazy high.  Focus on selling, prospecting, and team growth and you’ll make a lot of money.

Want to build a database of long term subscribers that can’t wait for your next post? Follow this simple rule.

You Are Discussing The Topic And The Topic Is Not You.

In other words what’s your opinion on the matter?  Search the terms 1st time home buyer guide, and Google yields over 263,000,000 results.  Every single major financial or real estate related online publication or product has written a guide for a 1st time home buyer.  Type in virtually any neighborhood in the USA, and no doubt you’ll find several guides of spun up content written by SEO monkeys.  Consumers are as aware of this as you are.

“But my content is HYPER-LOCAL!” -everybody

Hyper local is not enough. Stuffing your  article with obscure long tails isn’t helping either. These days the only real thing that any local professional has to offer of any differentiation  is the same thing that everyone else has…

Their professional opinion.

Consumers turn on their TV’s and log on to their favorite websites everyday not just to get the raw information, but to get the editorials behind that information.   No local agent is ever going to beat CNBC, FOX, or Zillow when it comes to delivering national numbers, trends, or raw information on homes for sale. What the local agent does carry up their sleeve is the ability to take that information, and translate it into “hyper-local” content.  If home prices are up 4% last month nationwide what are they doing in my neck of the woods?  More importantly is now a good time to sell my property? This is the mindset of the consumer, and while the talking heads on TV may offer the information, what they don’t provide is a channel for the average person to ask “but what about me?”.

If you want to keep subscribers coming back, and build trust in your brand here are just a couple ways to take content that’s been done to death for “SEO” value, and make it stand out.

• What have YOU seen trip up 1st time buyers?
• How have YOU helped saved someone a ton of money with the right loan?
• How have YOU helped a young couple weigh the pro’s and con’s of a new construction?
• What do YOU do to help get the maximum value for a listing?
• What do YOU think the new Taco Bell means for the neighborhood? (Mas Queso?)

Remember the odds are that your client is already going to ask not just one, but several other people “what they think” about a number of decisions that need to be made when buying or selling property. Make sure that you are one of those people by offering your expert opinion in your content.  After all our goal of content creation is not to simply generate traffic or interest, but to build lasting relationships with our subscribers.

Recently I conducted a  boring little exercise.  I sat down and read through 200 Zillow reviews. It wasn’t scientific, it wasn’t very organized I just jumped around from market to market reading good and bad reviews from a variety of different agents/teams.

My purpose? Lots of people can sell real estate (at least one deal), but what does it take to be highly recommended? More importantly what are the words people use to describe agents they are most likely to recommend?   I wanted to identify these words, look for patterns, and consider what technology can help a sales agent exhibit those qualities.

Survey Says…

Here’s the short list of words and patterns I saw most commonly used.

• Details / Detail Oriented
• Organized
• Knowledgeable / Local Knowledge
• All the extras
• “Kept me calm”
• “Overcame Hurdles”
• “made it very easy”
• Professional
• Always Available

If you’re currently involved in any form of sales profession none of the above should be a surprise.  The people want a pro; not an amateur.  People want someone who is confident in the process, knows what they are doing, and is a shoulder to lean on. The home buying/selling process is not very complicated, but it’s not simple either.  Shit happens; there are potential deal killers around every corner, and the best RE pro’s are often the ones who are seen as able to overcome adversity with ease.

So now that we know the qualities of a highly recommended sales agent; what can we do to make sure we exhibit the above qualities?

Build Complete and Accessible Database Profiles: 

Details and organization basically go hand in hand.  These two even have a lot to do with whether or not an agent is perceived to be professional.  There is a LOT of tech out there that want’s your money, and just as many opinions on whats best as there are agents.  I’m not going to make recommendations so we can focus on how to use the technology properly.

Profile Descriptions: Stupid simple, and highly underutilized.  Here’s an example… Find a contact in your phone you haven’t spoken with in over 1 year.  Now can you answer…

• Who is this person?
• How did we meet?
• Married? Single? Kids?
• What type of home do they live in?
• When did they last buy/sell?
• Where do they work and what do they like to do?

The more distant the relationship the harder it is to answer these questions.   The longer between the time you last spoke the harder it becomes to remember. Start throwing hundreds of online leads into that database that we’ve never spoken with, and suddenly things get very tough to keep track of.

This is why when we discover any form of attribute about a person that would be relevant in a future conversation business or personal we need to take the action of adding it to their “description” in our database.  (Fact: All CRM’s on the market, and your iphone have this feature. no excuses).  Descriptions also don’t have to be limited to just words.  They can be pictures, social media profile links, etc.

Get It On Your Phone: Note taking is a tedious process even with the best tech.  Some naturally are great at it, and others struggle. (I do) Accessibility however is what evens out the playing field.  We can write down every little thing we know about a person, but what good is it if when they call us we can’t find it?  Or it’s just too much to read?  Again this is where mobile technology is making us all faster, and better at what we do.  We must make sure that whatever notes/descriptions we have on leads or past clients are accessible on our mobile device otherwise it’s worthless.

Communication Logging:

Want to look like an unorganized ass? Forget to call someone back.  Again the higher the lead volume, the further the distance, the harder it becomes to keep track in our heads.  This is why technology that allows us to log any, and all communications is extremely important.  Sometimes we can automate the process other times it requires a manual entry.  Either way the important thing is again that we have a system for logging, and that the information is easily accessible.

Josh Cunningham from Rokrbox came to our office recently, and discussed how his very organized team of ISA’s handles outbound calling for our clients. One thing his team does that really stuck with me was after every single call they log what they need to talk about next.  That’s a tiny detail that can make a big impact.  Half the reason we scan our brains to remember what we talked about before is so we can speak in the present.  Pick up this tactic, and make it a habit.  Make sure that you not only log communications you’ve made, but you’re also scheduling future ones with a topic or goal in mind.  This allows us to avoid dialing a prospect only to say “soooo just wanted check in…”

Use RPR!

Realtors Property Resource is a freaking kick ass tool!  One of those qualities we talked about before “Local knowledge” RPR takes care of a big portion of that, and it’s available on your mobile device. I’ve heard from colleagues that RPR is a pretty underutilized resource, which frankly blows my mind.

Nothing is going to replace actually having local knowledge of what it’s like to live in a particular area, but again having all those stats and details in your head about every house on the block isn’t easy to do.  When speaking with a past client or current prospect how quickly can you give them all the info they need?  Again the key here is a balance between deep knowledge, and accessibility.  Every time we have to say “let get back to you on that” we set ourselves up to leave the conversation, which is always a deal killer.

I’m not going to go into details on RPR tactics for this post, but I will simply recommend that you…

1. Take the time to explore RPR’s tools
2. Practice using them
3. Practice using them with a script!

We already practice handling objections, but how often have you sat down to practice with your phone “oh that house on 123 street? Let me pull those numbers for you”  The same way a pro mechanic can pick up a tool, and start using it like it’s supposed to is what your clients expect of you when it comes to tools like RPR.  Fumble with it, and you’ll look foolish.  Get the info they wanted quickly, and you’ll look like a star.

This applies to all of the things we’ve discussed above. Practice, practice, practice not just what you’re going to say, but what your going to do while on the phone or in person. Go through the motions, build the reports, pull the data, and you no doubt you’ll continuously find ways to improve your process.

image courtesy of wikipedia.

The real estate industry has recently discovered a revolutionary communication tool….The text message! I’ll resist the temptation to waste space with snarky comments about how agents are behind the times on tech, because frankly I don’t think that is what’s responsible for this late adoption. What had to happen to get agents to start using text messages in their prospecting was a much slower social evolution.

Even at my age (30 sob) I had a relatively reserved etiquette on when texting was appropriate. However seeing just how damn efficient text messaging makes communication allowed me to overcome any of those reservations, and I think that’s what has finally happened for the highly personal business of real estate. The use of text messaging for prospecting is pretty obvious place to start, and is gaining traction quickly, but what else is out there?

Quick and Effective Feedback

Text alerts have been around for awhile, but they are continuously growing in popularity in instances where users wish to prioritize the alert they are receiving.

Imagine if Amazon tried calling you? From an unknown number? How many times would it take for you to pick up the phone just to hear “Your package is here.” Even worse what if they left a voicemail? Ugh. Everybody hates deleting those.  Email notifications serve the same purpose, but these days even light email users have more messages than they can effectively sort through.

Real estate is a service based business.  Clients rate, and recommend their providers based on how well they feel they have been serviced.  Like other service industries response times and feedback matter.  If a client asks a question they want the answer quickly.  They also want feedback on the things they did.  “I just submitted my paperwork. Did you receive it? There are other buyers out there, and I really want this house. Did you get it? How about now?”

The higher the pressure is in the situation the more the customer will request feedback for reassurance.  The question for the real estate industry is… How can we use text messaging to improve that?

Create your own Mechanical Turk.

In the late 18th century a machine called “The Turk” was constructed that could play chess. Napoleon and Benjamin Franklin were among the famous statesmen who played the machine, and lost. The secret however was that while the machine could move pieces across the board; there was no mechanical brain inside. The operators were actually some of the best chess players in the world.

To this day we still remember The Turk. Why? In a day where we try to make our automated tasks look as though they’re being performed by humans, the opposite fascination also occurs when we see a machine do something that only a human should be able to do. People love technology that’s helpful as much as they love people who are helpful.

Thanks for the history lesson, but what does this have to do with real estate?

As mentioned before quick, and effective feedback is very important. Text messaging accomplishes this, AND offers increased flexibility in WHO can communicate with a prospect.   A very simplified example being that a client has the agents phone # saved, but not the office or transaction coordinators. Transaction coordinator needs a client signature, but can’t get a hold of the client so guess who gets blamed? The agent.

Automation is supposed to make things easy, but creating automation is actually quite complicated. I see agents goof up all the time trying to make themselves look like superheros using automated response tech.  This is where the mechanical Turk can really come into play.  Why wait or rely so heavily on tech to create that quick response time when a human could do it more effectively?  Get your transaction coordinators, assistants, interns, and other support to help you provide fast, effective feedback in a consolidated system.

• “XYZ Realty: Your Offer Has Been Sumbitted”
• “XYZ Realty: Your Home Is Live On The MLS!”
• “XYZ Realty: Contract Changed Your Signature Required”

These are just a few of the possibilities. Some of these things could be setup to happen 100% automated, but why wait?  Any person who has access to the information could be using text messages to communicate the information to the client, and templates can help insure that the personality of the brand remains consistent.  Think of all the little things that go on in a real estate transaction that occur without the client’s presence. Think of all the things you ask of them, and how often are you able to give them a very satisfying “thanks you’re good to go”.    If your transaction coordinator or assistant does this stuff already then leverage the high open rates of texting to help them get the message across even faster, and keep your brand present during the transaction.

Clients know and love technology as much as we do.  They’re also not stupid.  They know we run a business, and they know we’re not a superhuman.  What they care about most is that we’re doing everything possible to service them. Whether it’s an automated system, a human sending a text, or a personal phone call as long as it gets done, and they’re in the loop we’ll be the person they recommend.

A very special thank you to my favorite NPR podcast Planet Money for enlightening me to the Mechanical Turk, and being the inspiration for this post.  Click the link to listen to the story, and see how Amazon turned an army of people into a better web experience.