Thoughts on Prospecting and Search Engine Marketing

There were a couple of good articles posted on the Realty Times website this week.

The first involved The Seven Deadly Sins Of Real Estate Prospecting. Author, Jim Gillespie, does a great job of listing what you should be looking for when prospecting - such as making a good impression, making multiple contacts through mailings and follow ups, asking for referrals, and targeting the right prospects - those people you want to work with.

The second was an article on What You Need To Know About Real Estate Search Engine Marketing. Author, Jordan Glogau, writes that according to NAR, 72% of all people looking for a new residence start online.

One fear that seems to be prominent among those in real estate is that the internet will cut out the middleman (disintermediation) and connect buyers with sellers without the help of agents. Glogau doesn’t believe this is going to happen and quotes an earlier article by Blanche Evans “everyone else will adjust to a marketplace where real estate agents are hired for their expertise at handling transactions, rather than their lists of homes for sale.”

This is an optimistic statement, since so many agents still market their listings vs. themselves and their expertise. For example, agents and brokers still spend $3 billion annually on house ads - you know, those ads in newspapers and property books that show a number of houses, oh and by the way, this agent comes with this house. That’s where personal branding becomes critical in marketing - you’re marketing you and your skills, not the listings you have.

Or perhaps I should rephrase that - you’re marketing what you can do for your clients and what’s in it for them. What unique value do you provide that your competitors don’t? Remember, this is about them, not you. People only care about ‘what’s in it for me?’ When I say you are marketing you, what I mean is that your differentiating factor will come from your unique combination of your personality, your background, and your specialized skills. And your marketing can’t be a ‘been there, done that’ approach - if every one of your competitors has similar materials and says the same stuff, your marketing isn’t working!

While it’s true that nearly 90% of those who use the Internet for a home search end up using a real estate broker in their deal compared to 79% of non-Internet users (according to a 2003 NAR study), ForSaleByOwner.com is estimating that the number of FSBOs will rise from 20% to 25% in 2004. But I digress…

Glogau points out that according to Overture’s statistics, over a million people put in the search term “real estate” in October of 2003. When you take into consideration all the add ons people may search for in addition to “real estate” (such as Pennsylvania real estate, Philadelphia real estate, etc), a conservative estimate may be around 4 million per month.

So, of course, you want a piece of that 4 million searchers pie because if the dot.coms have taught us anything, it’s if you build it, they won’t necessarily come. And preferably, you want to attract people that have a need for what you provide. You may have the greatest Philadelphia real estate website out there, but if your visitors are looking for California properties, they most likely won’t be using you.

Glogau addresses 2 components of search engine marketing - optimization and pay per click - although his coverage is spotty at best. Yes, optimization is important for websites, but updating your site content frequently is going to get you a higher ranking. Optimization is also far more trickier now that Google recently changed its algorithm and many sites lost their rankings (if you want a much more in depth tutorial on search engine optimization, visit SearchEngineWatch.com’s Search Engine Submission Tips and Clickz.com’s ongoing coverage of Google’s changes, Google Dance Syndrome Strikes Again.)

And then there’s Pay Per Click, which Glogau also gives little explanation of. If you’re going to take this approach - and I highly recommend that you should along with your optimization techniques and frequent updating - check out SearchEngineWatch.com’s Up Close With Google AdWords.

And finally, I’m sure you’re wondering how the heck you go about budgeting for this stuff. Clickz.com published a great article on Maximizing SEM Revenue in the New Year earlier this year.