Archive for September, 2008
There have been other posts on this blog about focusing your real estate web site on a specific niche. The typical response to that is, “But, I’ll be losing out on all the prospects who don’t fit in that niche.”
Getting past that issue will help you increase your real estate marketing effectiveness on the Internet.
Bernise Ross wrote a great 3-part series on Inman News about specializing in a niche market for your online marketing. She quoted many of the concepts used by Michael Russer, the undisputed king of real estate marketing on the Internet.
Some of the key points in the series of articles include:
- Research a prospective niche to make sure there is enough activity to support your business. She cites a couple of good examples of how that works.
- Make sure your website is immediately recognizable to your selected niche prospects. Don’t be shy. Make sure the design of your site generates a reaction in your target prospect of “This is the site I need!”
- Drive targeted traffic to your site. Bernice describes what we call Web-Centric Real Estate Marketing, for example, integrating your direct mail pieces with specific offers on your website.
- Make your site interactive. Bernice also identifies some great ways to get people involved. For example, if you have a geographic niche, invite people to visit the site to rate local restaurants.
Keep in mind that people who visit your site will determine whether they’ll adopt your site as their real estate research headquarters. Getting a healthy percentage of visitors in a niche to do that will get far better results than taking a shotgun approach and targeting only the “undecideds”.
How Time Blocks Will Increase Your Sales
· CommentsIf you’re familiar with time management concepts, you’ve probably heard of “time blocks” or setting aside specific times for specific activities. It has been proven to work to make people more productive.
In fact, you need to work on a task uninterrupted for 45 minutes in order to make headway. Any less than that amount of uninterrupted time, and you will continue to take one step forward and two steps back (I used to teach time management in another life 
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Setting aside time to do specific tasks can make you more productive. But, incorporating that concept with the results of the MIT Lead Response Management Study can also increase your sales!
The MIT study was focused on answering one central question. Simply stated, it was: When should you call web-generated leads for maximum results?
Non-Time Block Results from the MIT Study
While this article is about using time blocks, there are some very important results that should be reviewed before diving into that topic.
When it comes to responding to leads from your website, time is critical. The MIT study found that:
- The odds of reaching a lead via telephone decrease by over 10 times in the first hour
- After 20 hours, every call you make actually hurts your ability to make contact.
Therefore, the most important thing you can do to convert real estate website leads is contact them immediately after you receive notification. And, that has implications for connecting your website to your cell phone via text messaging, and a whole host of other issues. For now, suffice it to say that you need to contact Internet leads quickly. And, you might as well save your time if you’re past the 20 hour mark.
Time Blocking Opportunities
Where do you follow up with leads? If you’re trying to contact them at work: When do you follow up with leads or prospects? Do you set aside a certain block of time in your schedule? Do you do it when you can grab 5 minutes – maybe while you’re grabbing some lunch?
If you’re not blocking time for that important task, you’re undoubtedly losing business.
The MIT study came up with some interesting results that can help you determine when you should be blocking time for lead follow-up. Here’s what they found:
- Wednesdays and Thursdays are the best days to call since you’ll be most likely end up actually talking to a lead or prospect. Thursday turned out to be almost 50% better than the worst day, which was Tuesday.
- 8-9am and 4-5pm are the best times to call to make contact with a lead and to qualify a lead. The worst time to call is – you guessed it – 11am-2pm, or right around lunch.
The Summary
So, what do all these great statistics mean to you?
- Set up a system so that you are notified as soon as someone contacts you from your website.
- Call leads as quickly as humanly possible after they’ve made contact – within the first hour is the goal.
- Don’t spend a lot of time trying to reach a lead if you’re calling 20 hours or more after they contacted you.
- Set aside a block of time on Wednesdays and Thursdays to follow up with prospects between the hours of 8-9am and 4-5pm.
Time blocking – such a simple concept – who knew?
Well, first there was Gustav, and then there was Ike. Here in the Atlanta area, we missed most of it. Got some rain, which we needed, and there was some local damage due to the strong storms. But, in general, we were lucky. In terms of the storms, anyway.
But, if you’ve been reading the news, you know that the Houston area was hard hit, and the refineries there are still trying to get up to full speed. And, where does Atlanta get its gas? You guessed it.
State of Georgia officials don’t have a firm estimate of when things will get back to normal, but it might be sometime next week. Officials are urging people to stay calm and not deplete the supplies that are remaining. Like that was going to work!!
One local station owner got a delivery of 3,000 gallons last Saturday. By Sunday morning it was all gone. Way to go folks – staying really calm, that is.
This is getting crazy. There’s a question on Yahoo answers that asks:
- Is the Atlanta gas shortage a pre-marshall law test to see how people will deal with shortages?
- What????
Well, if it is, we’ve failed. There are long lines at gas stations to buy overpriced gas. In the city, there are traffic jams around stations that have gas. The president of a company that delivers fuel to stations said that “We’re not out of fuel. There is enough fuel in the system to keep it going. There’s not enough fuel for people to start topping off their tanks, hoarding fuel, filling up every day and unnecessary road trips.”
So, what are we doing? Topping off tanks, hoarding fuel and filling up every day. It’s just like the empty grocery shelves right before a big storm. That has always given me a chuckle here in the Atlanta area. A “big snow storm” might leave snow on the ground for a day, maybe two.
How many loaves of bread or gallons of milk can one family consume in a couple days?
I’m luckier than most, because I use my car very little. I did try to find some gas today. The four stations I visited had none.
So, I guess I’ll have to go foraging again tomorrow. Maybe I’ll save gas and call ahead!
Another View on Internet Marketing Success
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Mike Parker, my partner in crime, or at least SEO, has just published an article based on an interview with a mutual client. Gary Nagle shares his experiences with having a website for several years without much success, and the things he did to turn that situation around.
At this point, more than 80% of Gary’s business comes from his website – and many of his clients are relocating. In fact, there are a few clients he never met until the closing, but he finds that he can establish satisfying relationships via telephone and email.
Learn more about Gary’s experience as an Internet REALTOR® – something that has even given him more free time!
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Promote Your City’s “Walkability”
· CommentsWe all know that walking is good for us, but now you can promote your city’s walkability on your real estate website or blog. And, if you market in an area that is laid out well for walking to various locations, you can give your visitors an idea of what’s in the area.
In fact, if you visit this page on WalkScore.com, you’ll be able to get the script you need to put a WalkScore map on your real estate website or blog. Here’s an example from a Walker’s Paradise in Seattle, Washington.
It’s a pretty handy tool. And, if you’re in a good area for walking, the map would be especially interesting to people who want to move to a new part of town, or those who are relocating.
There are links back to the WalkScore site, but the WalkScore folks have made the map even more attractive to add to your site because the links open in a new window – that means you won’t lose your visitors because it will be easy for them to find your site still open in one of their browser windows.
There are also instructions on the page referenced earlier for customizing the map. But, if you’d rather not figure out how, the basic map you see above looks pretty good!
Enjoy!
