RISMEDIA, June 4, 2009-I can almost hear the groaning from here: “Oh, sure! I’m wondering how I am going to stay in the business and he’s telling me that I can double my sales in the next 12 months! I’m not one of those super agents with an unlimited budget and my broker feeding me every sale that comes into the office! I’m a real person, a real agent, with real worries as to how I am going to make it in the next 12 months. How about focusing on someone like me and telling me what normal agents do in this kind of marketplace! Not someone in a hot market, but someone in a hurting one-show me someone with those credentials and maybe I’ll listen!”
Ok, consider this: Steven Pearson is a five-year agent with Coldwell Banker in La Quinta, California. His market-the desert area of Southern California-is so bad that it is starting to come back to life because the bargains are just too good to pass up-prices are down as much as 50% in some cases. In 2008, when an estimated 30%+ of agents quit the business, Pearson sold 10 homes from his online presence, which he started working hard on in the beginning of 2008. He’s already exceeded that in 2009, and will easily double his 2008 production now that his online marketing is maturing and getting stronger daily. Here’s how he does it, and here’s how you can do it, too.
Building an Internet Presence
When Pearson came into the business in 2004, he immediately acquired a website and waited by the phone for the buyers to come to him. Fortunately, he also worked hard at being a traditional Realtor; open houses, cold calling, all that. It’s a good thing he did so, because his online marketing was a bust. In 2005, 2006 and 2007, his website “never provided me with leads, let alone sales.”
Despite this, Pearson beat the odds and stayed in the business-unlike the 90%+ of new agents who give up within their first year. As Pearson kept reading about how the Internet was becoming the place where 80%+ of home sales began, he knew that he had to make the transition to being an Internet Realtor or miss out on 80%+ of all residential real estate sales. He also knew that succeeding online was the single most important thing he could do to assure his future in the business, and that he shouldn’t try to be a FSBO in a field he knew nothing about: Online marketing services for Realtors. He decided to follow the lead of other successful Internet Realtors and to seek professional marketing help.
“I realized that my job is to sell homes, not to learn how to market on the Internet,” Pearson says. “I realized, also, that this was too important to try by trial and error: I needed my efforts to work right out of the box.” Within four months of partnering with his online marketing services company, he sold his first home online. Proving that was no fluke, shortly thereafter, he sold a home to a developer from Canada who found him online and closed escrow in 16 days-with the developer at home in Canada!
“I knew then that I had made a good investment with my $3400!” Pearson laughs. “In fact, I am so far in the black with my return on my investment on my online marketing that I’ve been playing with house money for the past year and will continue to do so far into the future.” Subsequently, that developer sent Pearson additional referrals-none of which Pearson would have ever even met had he not been a presence online!
Analyzing Pearson’s Success
In the past 12 months, over 3,700 “unique visitors” (someone visiting a website for the first time) have come to his website. About 60% of those visitors are from California; the other 40% are from all over, with 10% coming from Canada (who account for about 20% of Pearson’s business in the past 12 months). He also receives many visitors from Washington State, Texas and New York State (although he has visitors from all 50 states and 23 foreign countries). But it is only necessary to view the facts about where those visitors came from and how they found Pearson to understand how his online marketing investment has helped him succeed:
Of his 3,700 unique visitors:
- 20 were referred to him by his local MLS;
- 60 were referred to him through Trulia;
- 6 were referred by Realtor.com;
- 2106 were referred to him by major search engines (65% by Google).
(That’s only 300 visitors each month-you do not need huge numbers of visitors, just the right information for those who come shopping that incents them to register with you.)
“Every time I analyze what my online marketing services have done for me, I am so grateful that I started them in 2008, “Pearson said. “That’s what brought over 57% of all visitors to my website over the past 12 months. Now, I have a presence all over the world. People who are looking for properties in La Quinta, Palm Desert and all the other desert communities are able to find me online.
“Because I have learned how to incent them to give me their address and contact info, I can build a relationship with outside buyers before they ever arrive to look at a particular property in person. Trust is very important in the real estate business and being an Internet Realtor allows me the opportunity (through instant response and communication) to build trust with prospective clients before I even meet them in person. They quickly learn that I will be honest and forthright (as well as prompt and thorough) in my dealings with them and that is what allows me to continue to build my business. Everyone who ever signs into my site is in my database and I market new listings to those people all the time. It’s like having a captive audience of thousands.”
He closes most of his listing presentations, too.
“As a listing tool, this product is exceptional” Pearson explained. “I have a pre-listing package with prints of reports from my website that show my activity online, how my listings are found on other real estate sites and how many find my site directly. When prospective clients actually see for themselves that I have had thousands of visitors from as far away as 50 foreign countries, they quickly understand that when they list with me, their property will be found by people searching for a home here: because I am found online, their listing will be, too! Now, not only am I able to have my website and my listings found by Internet buyers, I know what to do when they find me! My traffic continues to increase (up double over last year, just like his sales) and my online marketing just keeps getting stronger.”
Getting Your Site Found is Not Enough
“When I began with CompassSearch, my online marketing services company, I didn’t know what to expect,” Pearson offered. “I thought that if I could just get on the first pages of the major search engines, I’d be in great shape. I didn’t realize that being found is only step one in succeeding online and that online marketing is never finished, but that it is always a work in progress. I know those things now, and I know how to convert people who visit my site into people who buy homes from me, thanks to the training I have received from them. I have at least three homes in escrow almost all the time, I obtain most of my leads from my website and client referrals (Internet buyers give great referrals!) and I can say that Compass filled the missing link that I needed to be effective as an Internet Realtor. When approached correctly, the Internet affords anyone the ability to market themselves and their properties to anyone in the world with an Internet connection, no matter their geographic location. I am so glad that I did not use trial and error and that I sought professional online marketing help, for now I am succeeding instead of searching for what works online. I’m looking forward to my best year ever in 2009!”
Steven Pearson is personable, articulate, knowledgeable, hardworking and honest. As long as he has prospects to call on, he will sell homes. What sets Pearson apart from most is that because of his online marketing efforts, he has given himself an endless stream of people to call on. In any market with fewer buyers, having plenty of interested people to call on is the difference between succeeding and failing. The Internet can make that difference for you, just as it has for Steven Pearson.
Mike Parker (mparker@theblackwatercg.com) specializes in online marketing services for Realtors® and real estate professionals. To request a free review of your online marketing and website to determine if it is set up properly to be effective click here and it will be evaluated free.
Also feel free to obtain the new booklet “REAL LEADSTM - How to get them and Sell Homes Online,” FREE with no obligation. Just go to the Blackwater Consulting or Compass Internet site and download the booklet in the Success Stories section or from the homepage.
RISMedia welcomes your questions and comments. Send your e-mail to: realestatemagazinefeedback@rismedia.com.
Read more: http://rismedia.com/2009-06-03/online-marketing-want-to-double-your-sales-in-the-next-12-months/#ixzz0HfdpVdTK&C
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