The Things They Never Taught Us About Online Lead Generation

Most Real Estate agents who think about Online Marketing are unfortunately, still missing the boat with their websites. It’s sad, when you consider that many write checks into the multiple thousands for a site that looks nice and functions beautifully, but fails to do the one thing that advertising and marketing is supposed to do – bring us business! Why? Because the majority of real estate agents are doing the thing they’ve been taught to do their entire marketing career – get as many eyes on their face as possible! So, the consumer goes online to search for what? HOMES! PROPERTY! Not agents… In fact, 96% of them are looking for property. They type something into their search engine (according to NAR, 80% of buyers did this in 2006) relating to a property search, and up comes thousands of general real estate agent websites. They all look something like this: “Hi, I’m Amy, your real estate professional! I’m dedicated to making your experience a good one. I do everything in every town in the state in which you’re looking for a home. Call me today! I’ll value your home for free!” There’s a pretty picture of “Amy” and another pretty picture of a mansion. Maybe there’s a place to search MLS for homes. If the agent paid enough money to have someone do a really good job getting them high on the list in organic searches, they’ll be overtaken next week by someone else and the process will start again. Or, they’ll be overtaken by the “800 lb gorillas” that have been doing big real estate websites for years. Beasts like Realtor.com and the like have great big budgets for Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and name recognition that no single agent can match. Then, there’s Pay Per Click Advertising, which is a handy tool, but seemingly too expensive for most agents who are competing with the big dogs. That’s right, who wants to pay $3-$8/click for someone to look at their picture and read their blurb? No wonder many sales trainers tell agents that Internet leads are low-quality and a waste of time! These trainers don’t have enough guts to figure out how it really works, and off they send these agents…to the misery of door knocking and cold calling. At the end of the day, what do we have? Tired, Burned-out real estate professionals who are looking for another job and an annoyed consumer base that’s wondering why on earth these “Dumb Agents” are still bothering them with irrelevant marketing! Still, we have even more agents paying BIG bucks for their shopping carts, bus benches and postcards galore. They ignore the low returns on these projects because they feel like they’re doing something, and it’s less painful than having doors slammed in your face or the cops called on you for stalking your favorite farm area. So, what’s an agent to do? Have we all missed the boat? Author of “Untold Secrets of Online Agent Marketing”, Jaime Richards, says “If we slow down and look around us, its obvious where the success has always been in Real Estate. Our fears keep us from doing the exact thing that will make us successful. Some of the most historically successful agents and companies such as how Sotheby’s used to be and how Cabela’s Trophy Properties™ is now, are doing the things on a national level that we should be doing ourselves.” Jaime’s book, found at www.onlineagentmarketing.com is a fresh and different approach to how agents can change their online approach or start a new one that emulates these successful models. Her book is structured for the Non-technical and is very simple to follow. Her experience comes from the trenches. Almost every single piece of business in her first year with her website, came from Online Leads she generated herself. The resulting commissions were close to $200,000. Jaime’s been asked many times why she would share her information with her “cut-throat competitors”. “The Reality is”, she says, “that if everyone would apply these concepts, there would be less competition, more camaraderie, and the consumer would benefit tremendously. We’d also all be spending a lot less money and time on prospecting and advertising.” Jaime’s book was released on 9/22/07 in electronic format and it is available exclusively at www.onlineagentmarketing.com. With her book, she’s found a small circle of vendors willing to offer deep discounts to agents that read her material. These vendors found that agents that were familiar with her concepts were more successful with their products and better referral business for them. “Though the discounts I negotiated are somewhat dependant on the MLS system in each agent’s area, at a minimum, the book pays for itself almost 4 times over just with those offers.” Jaime says that agents should really be paying less than $400/month to advertise, spending all of their prospecting time taking care of managing new leads and providing exceptional service. She thinks they should be seeing 1-3 new leads a day from their website. They should also be closing a minimum of 1-2 deals a month off of their website, which should grow as a referral base grows. “It’s not just about having a website. It’s the approach you take with it, and the intelligence that you apply to it. You should be a great marketer, not a great web developer.” Lastly, remember that you deserve to enjoy the fruits of your labor and work your business in a way that you enjoy.

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