Archive for real estate marketing
Free Market Price Chart from Altos Research
· CommentsIf you’re not familiar with Altos Research, you should remedy that situation today. Altos Research provides detailed, real-time real estate market statistics to consumers and real estate professionals.
As consumers get more sophisticated, and differentiating yourself in the marketplace gets more difficult, providing market statistics, and knowing how to interpret them, is an excellent tool.
I didn’t know until recently that you can use one of Altos Research’s charts for free. Altos doesn’t provide information for every market area across the US, but if they’re in your market, you’ve got a golden opportunity.
A sample of the free chart is shown at the right. This one is for San Jose, California. It shows the median home price in San Jose over the last 12 months, and it is updated regularly.
Looks like San Jose prices have taken a beating. But, as you know, the only way to make informed decisions is to have valid information on which to base those decisions.
If you’re interested, you can check if Altos provides data for your market area and get a free real estate market price chart for your market area.
You can also get more information about Altos Research’s complete real estate market statistics for real estate professionals.
Note: In case you’re wondering, I don’t have a business connection with any of the vendors I mention on this blog, except that I do partner with Point2 Agent and Blackwater/Compass to provide client services. If that changes, I’ll let you know. In this case, except for thinking Scott Sambucci is a pretty great guy, I have no relationship with Altos Research.
Real Estate Database Dilemmas
· CommentsIf you’ve been in real estate for a while, you’re undoubtedly aware of the problems there can be when you’re trying to manage a contact database.
Depending on your technology setup, you could have contact information spread out over numerous databases:
- The database for your website
- The database for your IDX MLS provider
- The database for your contact manager
It’s a difficult situation. I really wish industry providers would get together and come up with standards that would make consolidating information much easier. After all, look at the Internet! Lots of people had to agree on lots of issues to make it work.
The problem is made even worse by the fact that, in my humble opinion anyway, no one vendor has put it all together yet. Some IDX MLS vendors offer websites, but they aren’t the best. Some website vendors offer contact databases, but they aren’t the best either, and the list goes on.
So, looks like we’ll just have to put up with the problem of where to store the contact information that should really be centralized to be effective.
One thing I was very happy to see is that Top Produceer has removed the “frame busters” from their forms in Top Producer 8i. So, if you are a Top Producer user, you can now frame forms into your website.
No consolidation required - anyone who completes a form on your website will go directly into your Top Producer database.
I’m so excited.
As you may know, there are a number of foreclosure websites that charge a fee to provide information about foreclosure listings. Now, there’s a new kid on the block and they’re providing quite a bit of information for free, along with the opportunity to display listings on your website.
The website can be found at ForeclosurePoint.com, and you can get information about their service for real estate professionals called BrokerOffice. According to the website information, you can display the listings from ForeclosurePoint.com while preserving the look and feel of your site. The illustration looks like the listings are framed, but that is not stated specifically.
Visitors to your website need to register to view the foreclosure listings, and the site also states that:
- [You can] Provide extensive, real-time details of property addresses, property specifications, estimated bids, satellite photos and more.
- Potential clients are directed to you to learn more about specific properties.
It sounds interesting – if the list of foreclosures is accurate, and if there is a reasonable way to get the listings displayed on your site, and if the contacts really are directed to you exclusively.
You need to complete a contact form to get a company representative to contact you to learn more about the specifics.
If you decide to contact ForeclosurePoint.com, please let us know more about the details!
What Does Direct Response Marketing in Real Estate Look Like?
Now, let’s talk about what direct response marketing should look like. By the way, I got tired of stealing Michael Russer’s terminology, so instead of irrestible offers, I’ll talk about compelling propositions – thank heaven for thesauruses.
To do direct response marketing right, you first need a compelling proposition. You need to motivate your target audience to respond to your marketing in order to receive something that they perceive to be valuable. The proposition doesn’t have to be a $1000 check, but something that is valuable enough to be worth taking the trouble to complete the action you’re requesting.
In the example of the TV ad, making the requested telephone call will get you a product that will solve a big problem for you. And, the TV ads often go even further – convincing the audience that if they call quickly, they’ll get even more of the wonderful product. Of course, according to my research, that’s not true. I once checked one company’s website hours after I saw their TV ad, and the 2 for 1 offer was still prominently displayed. So, don’t go crazy with this offer!
Once you’ve identified your compelling proposition, put it on your website. Set it up so that the visitor will have to sign up to receive it. I think immediate gratification is best. So, I’d set it up using an autoresponder. The prospect provides their name and email address, and the valuable information is instantly sent to the email they provide.
Similar to the earlier examples, the key here is that you have to be able to track the response you’re getting. If you’re sending out postcards or doing print advertising, for example, there is a fairly significant investment involved. It’s critical that you calculate your return on investment so that you don’t end up doing a promotion over and over with no idea whether it’s worth it.
Track the Results!
There are several advantages to using your website for the response. First, people are much more likely to drop by your website as opposed to calling you directly. Second, tracking results with a website is easy.
Let’s say that you normally have this compelling proposition on your website. Your site visitors can reach the compelling proposition using a button on your home page and a tab on your menu. That’s fine for normal traffic. But, when you’re doing a direct response marketing piece, make one more investment - purchase a domain name that is directed right at the page where the offer is located.
Then, whenever you do marketing to drive traffic to that offer, post the special domain name you purchased in your marketing piece. Since I’m sure you’ve arranged to have in-depth traffic statistics available to you on your website, you can easily track the response to your marketing by checking the traffic to that domain name.
DON’T FORGET TO COMPLETE THE POLL IN THE LEFT COLUMN!
The results so far are pretty darn interesting!
It’s been a couple years since the last time I wrote about direct response marketing. Boy, time really does fly!
Direct Response Marketing – Overview
If you do direct response marketing, you’re including a call to action in your marketing initiatives that encourages your audience to do something very specific. For example, you’ve seen those crazy product commercials on TV that encourage the audience to call an 800 number for a special offer – usually only for the next 10 minutes!
That is a direct response ad. Make this phone call – get something valuable in return. It’s direct contact between the consumer and the advertiser. It’s different than a more traditional ad. Traditional television commercials don’t use direct response principals. You’ve never seen a TV commercial for corn flakes that displays an 800 number that can be called to order two boxes for the price of one!
Does direct response marketing work? I guess it must since they keep producing those types of commercials. The key is that the advertiser can tell if it’s working because they can simply count the number of calls received by that 800 number. And, the advertiser can tell if they’re getting a reasonable return on investment, too. They can compare the revenue generated by the phone calls to the cost of the TV ad.
What Does Direct Response Marketing in Real Estate Look Like?
I’ll start this discussion by describing what is not direct response marketing. I received a series of postcards from a local real estate agent. If I had to give them a name, I’d say they were “image” pieces. The content talked mostly about the agent; the path the agent had taken to come to be a real estate agent and so forth. Written in type so small I almost needed a magnifying glass. One part of the card did contain somewhat larger type and offered this call to action:
- Ready to buy or sell your next home? Call [the agent] for a copy of her personal brochure to learn more about her successful approach to selling your home.
The italics were on the postcard, not my idea. I guess the agent thought that receiving a copy of a personal brochure was the irrestible offer that would get people to call. And, if you looked at the card very closely, you’d finally notice that her telephone number was printed in very small letters at the bottom of the card, in a color that blended so well with the background as to make it almost unnoticeable.
I’m not sure if this agent thought she was doing direct response marketing, but I certainly hope not. Needless to say, a search for her name related to real estate in Georgia produces no results!
So, what does direct response marketing in real estate look like? Stay tuned for part two!
