- Posted by Admin on February 20, 2010
New research from the NAR has revealed a vastly different demographic for home buyers that begin their search online. found here
The first bit of good news is that home buyers that start their search online spend twice as much time preparing for their purchase which, arguably, points to the idea that they are more prepared when it comes to making a home buying decision. The second bit of good news is that the median income for online shoppers is higher than tradtional buyers.
Traditional Demographic:
- 51% Married Couples
- 25% Single Females
- Median age: 55
- Length of search: 6 Months
- Median Income: $57,800
Online searchers:
- 61% Married Couples
- 20% Songle Females
- Median Age: 37
- Length of Search: 12 Months
- Median income: $75,500
- Posted by Admin on January 5, 2010
There is no doubt that having a niche in larger markets is of benefit to you. Sure, there are a lot of ways to
distinguish yourself in a larger market, but few quicker than finding a particular niche that you can cater to.
A recent NAR report showed that couples are actually declining as buyers while home sales among singles
are increaasing. Let's look at the numbers:
| |
1999
|
2009
|
Couples
|
68% |
60%
|
Single Men
|
7% |
10%
|
Single Women
|
15% |
21% |
The rise in single women buying homes went up 6%. Maybe a growing trend?
That's the key though, find the trends that mix with your interests and make those your strengths.
- Posted by mikel on November 30, 2009
A common problem among real estate agents and their marketing attempts are that they hear about different marketing strategies from a medley of sources and then they try to implement them all into their overall advertising campaign. As with houses colors are very important , you may have heard that colors Blue & Brown elicits trust & honesty, Red encourages feelings of wealth, luck and confidence, whereas too much blue can encourage feelings that discourage action and Red can create feelings of danger. You may have heard that a good site needs Flash or Java and that you need a blog. What ends up happening is that your message gets lost in the translation; it is like writing a book, one chapter at a time but in a random order. Buyers and Sellers won’t remember agents that are one of the crowd. When you decide on a focused marketing campaign or theme for you, it’s important that you maintain a high level of consistency across the entire campaign. Everything associated with your business should have a common theme or feeling to it sometimes referred to as a brand.. When you look at marketing for IBM, the color blue always features prominently and the same is true for Starbuck’s green theme. Be consistent not only in the look and style of your various real estate marketing materials, but also in your ad message. What is it about you as a real estate professional that you want to emphasize? What is it that you want people to know about you and your offerings? This consistency should be maintained across everything: business cards, letterhead, envelopes, website, email, print and newspaper ads. By being as consistent as possible, you will have a much better chance at establishing your brand in the marketplace. Can you imagine how memorable McDonalds would be if every restaurant had a different color scheme or if certain Nike advertisements lacked the swoosh altogether?
- Posted by Admin on November 16, 2009
Social Networking for Marketing
Social networking is also a great way to attract new customers, but let’s be careful here. No Real Estate Agent has ever gone on Facebook, Twitter or Myspace and created a reproducible method of making money just for signing up. It simply doesn’t happen.
The problem is that it is the ‘personalities’ that make the money on these networks. That is, the people that have branded themselves for the purposes of making money on these networks. As such, I have been reminded many times by real estate SEO guru Tim O’Keefe, from Spiderjuice Technologies, “You can’t reproduce personality.” What they have done, you may not be able to easily reproduce simply due to the fact that you are not them.
Find a social networking medium that works best for you and use it often. For marketing you are more likely to use social networks external to the real estate market than sites such as Real Town or Active Rain. The reason for this is as simple as marketing itself. Where is your audience? They are far more likely to exist on Facebook than on Real Town. If you are new to social networking here is a quick overview of the big three to help you find the best fit for you.
Facebook – Facebook just recently overtook Myspace as the number one social networking site. To put this in perspective look at Alexa’s rankings for the top 100 sites in the United States:
1. Google
2. Yahoo
3. Facebook
4. YouTube (social media networking)
5. Myspace
The power of Facebook is quite apparent. You will pay a fee to list your services in the Yahoo directory, but all you need is time and tenacity to have a distinguishable Facebook presence. The disadvantage of Facebook for marketing is that it is such a closed community. You are really only viewed by the people that add you as friends. Best marketing use: Pay per click ads on Facebook can be extremely cheap. Often you can easily achieve over 100,000 impressions for less than $100 per month in a very selective market. You can also create a Facebook Group or Fan page as a Facebook option for a business.
Myspace – Myspace is the closest to what you think of as a traditional website. The big difference is the interaction between users such as chat functions and the ability to leave messages on each other’s walls. Myspace was the king of social networking until Facebook appeared on the scene. Best marketing use: Youth - Myspace has a much younger demographic that may be better for rentals, etc.
Twitter – Twitter is simply a medium wherein you post a short message (140 characters or less) and everyone that ‘follows’ you gets your message – either on your Twitter page or on your phone depending upon your settings. You can also follow other’s tweets. You may recall the use of Twitter by Iranian nationals showing the aftermath of their recent election.
Twitter was not on our list of the top five web sites in the US. It is actually ranked 13th, but you have to take into consideration the fact that there are many people that use Twitter only via their cell phone or smart phone so the numbers here may be slightly skewed away from Twitter in terms of overall use. Best marketing use: Very SEO friendly. Tweet key phrases loudly and often.
Social Networking Success
There is more to social networking than business. I recently reunited with a group of friends from third grade on Facebook and regularly see posts from cousins, aunts and uncles that I would never hear from normally. I spoke with an old friend on a business matter a few weeks ago and we picked up our conversation like we had in fact seen each other in the six year gap apart, simply because we followed each other’s activity on Facebook.
At first appearance social networking looks like a young man’s game and maybe a little scary to break into, but the single highest demographic entering Facebook for the first time is currently women in their 40’s and 50’s. Until recently my oldest friend on Facebook was 93 years old - until he passed away this spring. You are never too old or inexperienced to jump into the world of social networking! It’s good for your business and it’s good for your relationships.
- Posted by craig on July 24, 2009
by Craig Moore, VP Sales and Marketing,
AgentExcel
On a daily basis, I have clients and students ask me to what search engine tools
do I use or recommend for Real Estate Agents o use. I decided to list them for
you to review.
If you search Google for “SEO Tools”, you will likely find pages filled with
tools like the following: link
popularity checkers, density analyzers for keywords, Keyword suggestion, keyword
verification or saturation. Many of these sites are useless, so I suggest
running away from the website very quickly as these are not worth much in the
real world of search engine marketing anymore.
If you ever have any questions on SEO tools that you might be skeptical on or
that you like, feel free to
email me and ask. I am always
willing to help or learn, that’s what the internet is all about.
I have broken things down to 5 key areas.
1.
Google Tools:
a.
Google Toolbar Bar (see
my post on this)
b.
Google Webmaster
Tools
c.
Google Trends or
Google Hot Trends
d.
Google Zeitgeist
2.
Keyword Tools
a.
Google AdWords Tool
b.
SEO Book
Keyword Tool
c.
Wordtracker
d.
Keyword Spy
3.
Research, Competitive and Link Analysis Tools:
a.
SEO Quake
b.
SpyFu
c.
SEO Digger
4.
Ranking Checker:
a.
Advanced Web Ranking
b.
Google Rankings
5.
Analytics:
a.
Click Tracks
b.
Google Analytics
Let me know if you are getting great results with another tool.
- Posted by craig on June 26, 2009
As the real estate market tightened, agents suddenly got very honest with their clients and told them that spending advertising dollars in glossy monthly magazines was a waste of money. To many sellers (who think real estate agents are over-paid) this was an excuse for not spending money. Both parties are right. What you both want is for the listed property to sell quickly. Your job is to find potential buyers and show the property to them but when 85% of buyers start their search online compared to 0% did those 15 years ago your advertising needs to reflect this. Where do I advertise then? The simple response is “this is 2009 the same old advertising techniques we used in the 70's just are not as effective today”. Here's an example of a typical monthly add in a magazine (Circulation less than 30k) like "Homes & Land": Cost, for a full page ad average $500+; Results, seller sees ad and is happy, but you get few if any calls. Where as a PPC (pay-per-click) campaign might be seen by hundreds of thousands of potential clients and you only pay for the most interested of these. With a print ads, you have no idea how many people saw your advertisement. AgentExcel offers web marketing solutions that are tailored to get results, you might spend 1/3 of the money spent of a print ad but you will reach hundreds of thousands of targeted buyers per month; additionally, you will have access reports of how many people saw your ad and how many people responded (Sellers love to see this). Most listing agents know that their primary job is to market a property to sell for top dollar as quickly as possible but get lost in today’s rapidly changing internet solutions (remember a decade ago when Google was just starting out). We Can Help.
AgentExcel can help you to be more successful by stepping into 21st century and utilizing today’s resources. Contact us today Sales@agentexcel.com
- Posted by craig on May 15, 2009
There are many effective tools that can spread the word about your website available. Pay-per-click advertising with Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIN, and other Social Media Networks are great tools to reach a focus demographic. These are pieces in Internet Marketing Puzzle maze. Ideally you would devote your time and money to all of them, all of the time, but for many this is not realistic. Every Realtor® needs an Internet Marketing Strategy. A Internet Marketing plan that determines which of these tools to use, when and how to use them, and where and when to deploy your valuable resources, time and money. AgentExcel will look at your business and whether you are a multi-million dollar producer or just starting out, we can provide you with an Internet Marketing Strategy that will focus on your strength and give you the greatest return on your marketing dollars and get you more business. Contact us today to learn how to get more business from the internet!
- Posted by craig on April 21, 2009
What makes a website credible?
I just reread this article from http://captology.stanford.edu/pdf/p61-fogg.pdf and found several truths that stand up.
I found interesting that people were also finding websites more credible if they were more user friendly and if it noted that they had been a previous visitor. Does this make a website credible? You only have to look at something like Craigslist, ebay or Amazon - they recognize you individual.
Definitely, we can agree that commercial advertisements and amateurism are a definite website turn off. Although, I was surprised to see that their research noted that the younger respondents were more critical of glitches and typos.
I was impressed by the overall conclusion that there are many perceptions that the different demographic groups shared when it came to credibility. Real Estate agents must be cognizant of these facts primarily because to be successful they must reach an ever widening demographic.
- Posted by craig on April 16, 2009
Is your site CredibleBy Craig Moore
Is your goal as a real estate agent primarily focused on helping your clients find or sell property? If so, you likely want to gain your clients' trust so that you will be chosen for their continued and referral business. 
Conveying credibility through a Website is a challenge we all face, but real estate professionals are a unique case. They must convince potential clients of their credibility, experience and professionalism to such a degree that people they have never met are eager to contact them about what is likely to be one of their biggest transactions of their life.
A bio or resume can alleviate the lack of connection and increase the integrity of your site. A factual presentation of your experience can add valuable credibility to your online presentation. After all, the more credible your site, the more likely your prospects are to make contact with you.
A bio is most appropriate when incorporated into Website content, proposals, business plans, portfolios and press kits. As a bio is an important tool for presenting details about your business or yourself.
The First 10 Seconds!
The first few seconds of your online presentation are the most critical. You are attempting to convince viewers that you have what they want, so convey your expertise proudly. Ideally, your presentation should be no longer than a page, but in today's market, a one-page resume might suggest that you do not have enough experience. On the other hand, you do not want your bio or resume being boring or too long, Striking a balance is the key.
Should You Get Help?
Writing about ourselves can be a daunting task, as it can seem self-promotional or arrogant. However, there is a way to express yourself honestly without appearing arrogant or conceited: tell the truth. When information is conveyed honestly, it never appears smug. If you find it difficult to write about yourself, consider having a professional prepare your presentation. It is often much easier for an outsider to be objective about your experience, and to present it in the best light.
- Posted by craig on April 8, 2009