Posts Tagged ‘Online Dominance’
The Ultimate Listing Website
Sunday, August 22nd, 2010
If you think the Web only works for buyers think again. Here’s a Website that is specifically designed to generate listings and doesn’t even use search engines to drive traffic to it.
Focus, Focus, Focus
Mega-producers Noel & Lee Bittinger are members of my ULTRA eTEAM and decided to go after the more affluent listings in the Canton, MI area. Only after months of planning and refinement did they even speak to a Web designer. The extraordinary result is SellingCantonHomes.com. It was the focus of a recent HOT SEAT session we did to evaluate its effectiveness and refine it even further.
The video below is a recording of that Webinar that shows you exactly what they did on the site and why it is such a powerful listing generating machine (be sure to watch it full screen!)
The site shows a lot of clever thinking and the application of rock-solid online business-generating principles. Take some time to study this site, view its “irresistible offers”, read the copy to see how engaging it is and so on. This goes so far beyond the typical “For Sellers” button or menu item on the typical agent Website —something potential sellers recognize instantly.
Websites are not just for buyers. Literally half the market is being ignored online, until now…
The Nearly Perfect Real Estate Website
Monday, July 12th, 2010
As a speaker and author about doing business online I’m asked all the time for examples of Websites that work. There are plenty to point to but almost all have one or more things that don’t meet what I consider certain standards. Well here’s one that does and scores a 10 out of 10 on just about every measure of an awesome productive site.
Don’t Bother Calling a Web Designer
Roman Pavlik, the owner of this Web marvel is a member of my ULTRA eTEAM Alumni and is frankly one of the most coachable sales associates I’ve ever met. Instead of hiring the best Web developer he could find, he spent the first four months planning and outlining every aspect of his site www.DowntownLivingMiami.com from the perspective of his target market. Once he had his written site plan completed (and fully vetted by me and the rest of the ULTRA eTEAM) then and only then was introduced to the best Web developer I know of. With a written plan in hand (including most of the copy produced by a professional copywriter) it was relatively easy for the designer to manifest Roman’s vision for his site.
Hot Seat Wunderkind
During our Tuesday evening Live Group Coaching sessions we will occasionally have what is affectionately known as a “Hot Seat”. This is where a sales associate volunteers to have their site evaluated by me and the group live during the session. For most it is an extremely useful exercise on how to improve their sites dramatically. The video below is a recording of the recent DownTownLivingMiami.com site’s hot seat session. In this particular case it was a struggle to find any way to improve this site. Check out the video and you will see why (and you will also see which criteria I use to evaluate sites.)
(NOTE: it is strongly suggested that you play this video full screen to see all the details being discussed.)
Nothing is Ever Perfect…
You are probably wondering why this site is referred to as “nearly” perfect. Well, if you watched the whole hot seat session video above all the way through (it’s about 71 minutes long) you will have seen and heard about “constant refinement”. There is no such thing as perfect, only a constant state of refinement to continually improve a Website’s ability to generate business and differentiate you from your competition. By the way, Roman’s is the first of several “nearly perfect” Websites we will be highlighting here and during our future live Hot Seat sessions. These others will also be coming from my ULTRA eTEAM Alumni. You will find that their sites are just as impressive and unique as Roman’s but for different target markets.
The moral of the story here is don’t even THINK about contacting a Web designer before you do your planning and outlining first. To do otherwise you are inviting much frustration, financial pain and ultimately ending up with a business Website that is anything but perfect.
Facebook vs. Google
Sunday, July 4th, 2010
Last week I posted an article on how powerful Facebook Pay-Per-Click (PPC) advertising could be for your business. Since then I’ve received responses from people who say it is not all that great shakes. This is clearly a case of discovering a new “hammer” and thinking everything is the same kind of nail. It’s all about using the right tool, for the right purpose at the right time. Here are some tips that will help you choose the right business promotion tool for the job.
Facebook is about Interests
I recently challenged one of my ULTRA eTEAM members, Roman Pavlik to use Facebook to drive traffic to his new highly targeted DownTownLivingMiami.com Website. Since most of his buyers for luxury downtown Miami condos come from New York, Canada and South America he targeted his Facebook ads to people who live in those areas. Let’s just say there are a lot of Facebook members living in those areas. In a very short period of time (literally just a couple of days) he had over 60,000 ad impressions. Unfortunately, not one person clicked on his ads. And to add insult to injury, Facebook stopped showing his ads (after all, they want to make money too!)
So Brad Carroll (our Online Dominance Social Networking Mastermind coach) and I suggested that he further refine his targeting by including interests that would be consistent with anything having to do with Miami. For example, people living in Canada, New York and South America who are interested in Miami sports teams and so on. While this refinement substantially reduced his pool of Facebook members that would see his ad, the click throughs to his site shot up (he had 24 just in a couple of days vs. zero before).
When advertising on Facebook, less is more and you really have to think about which member interests are most likely follow through on your ad’s call to action.
Google is About Wants and Needs
When someone searches on Google, by definition they are looking for something specific (i.e. a want or need). In this case, it makes perfect sense for Roman to complement his Facebook advertising with a Google PPC campaign targeting people who are specifically interested in buying downtown Miami condos. A little closer to home, I am personally involved in syndicating GoArmyHomes.com Websites for every army base on U.S. soil. Part of this process includes driving substantial traffic to each respective base site. At first we considered running Facebook ads because there are well over 300,000 Facebook members who are also in the army. The only problem is that a tiny fraction of those will be interested in going to any particular base at any particular time. Without a doubt if we had pursued that course of action we would not have seen any click throughs and Facebook would have shut our ad campaign down. In this case, our PPC options are clearly better with Google. However, Facebook is the tool to use as we begin to promote our GoArmyHomes Facebook page.
Facebook and Google are two awesome online advertising tools. It’s just a matter of knowing which one is the best option for the task at hand and using it in the manner that produces the best results for the lowest cost. With a little bit of practice and patience, you will get the hang of it :0)
Maximize Profits Through Hyper-Targeted Facebook Advertising
Monday, June 28th, 2010
Imagine if you could advertise your services in such a way that only those who are most likely interested would even see the ads. And better yet, you only paid for when they acted on those ads. Sounds a lot better than traditional print advertising doesn’t it? This is what “hyper-targeted” advertising is all about and nowhere is the opportunity greater for this than on Facebook and yet few people in the real estate industry have taken advantage of it.
Facebook vs. Google
Facebook is huge with close to a half a billion members and continuing to grow rapidly each month. What makes the advertising potential so great however is that by the very nature of the data found in “personal profiles”, Facebook has amassed incredible demographic and psychographic information on its members that is the envy of even companies like Google. This information includes personal likes, dislikes, affiliations, interests and so on. It doesn’t stop there however because Facebook also has the ability (and the necessary funding) to cross tabulate their internal member information with purchased third party data like magazine subscription information, group membership affiliation, etc which allows them to further refine their targeting ability.
When Google serves up ads to users of its search engine, the ads typically are targeted based only upon the search query because that’s limit of Google’s knowledge about that particular consumer. Whereas when Facebook serves up ads to members, it knows far more about the member and can show ads (on the right side of the page) that are tremendously more targeted and hence more likely to convert. And Facebook ads can leverage built-in “social proof” to add credibility and increase conversion rates since your ads can show who else of the viewer’s Facebook friends have interacted with you or your services. Also, the amount of time an average member spends on Facebook eclipses even the most avid searcher on Google.
Like Google Adwords, you can pay for Facebook ads either as Pay-Per-Click (PPC – recommended in most cases) or per 1,000 impressions (CPM). The process of setting up, managing and tracking your Facebook ads is very straightforward. And frankly, no one does a better job of explaining it than Facebook. Just go to http://www.facebook.com/advertising to review the steps and best practices. (TIP: Facebook suggests ad pricing to best reach your defined ad target. Let’s just say they can be a bit biased about this. Experiment using PPC values that start out about 10% less than suggested and then continue to lower your bid amounts until you see a significant drop off in impressions. This strategy can save you a lot of money!)
Now let’s take a look at all the ways you can use this high-powered advertising rifle to grow your business…
Hyper-Targeting for Hyper-Growth
The ways in which you can use Facebook advertising to grow your business and differentiate yourself are limited only by your imagination. The following came out of a recent brainstorming session with my Online Dominance students. To help organize these ideas, I’ve broken them down into categories:
- Win New Listings – show your prospective sellers how you can advertise their listings on Facebook and receive literally thousands (if not tens of thousands) of impressions. Chances are very good that none of your competitors are doing this and it will help you stand out considerably.
- Sell Targeted Listings – if your listing is unique or fits a particular profile (e.g. Florida waterfront property) you can create an ad that is shown only to those who would likely have interest in this including “snow birds” from other areas that have a proven track record of purchasing this type of property.
- Property Tours – advertise just about any kind of tour you can imagine (the more out of the box the better) to targeted Facebook members in your area. Here are just some ideas that came up for this:
- Riding horse property tours
- Bicycle property tours
- Waterfront property tours ending in a wine-tasting party
- Luxury high-rise condo bedroom tours
- Boat tours of waterfront properties
- Golf course / property tours that include short presentations by the golf pros at each course
- Foreclosure property tours, or pre-foreclosure tours (with the permission of the owners of course.)
- Seminars – either in person or Webinar-based. There are tons of possibilities here including:
- Investor seminars
- Foreclosure / Short-sale seminars
- Invest with IRA funds seminars
- First-time Buyer seminars
- How to get around today’s mortgage maze seminars
- How to prepare your home for sale seminars.
- Community Involvement – you can advertise your community involvement by getting local people to participate. For example:
- Charity food drives
- Client appreciation parties
- Neighborhood block parties
- Irresistible Offers – if you Website has irresistible offers, using Facebook ads is a powerful way to drive targeted traffic to take advantage of them.
Advertising without targeting is just taking shots in the dark. Your chances of actually hitting something are pretty slim. Advertising without the ability to measure your ROI is just throwing money at something and hoping it sticks. Neither are a viable way to grow business profitably. Facebook on the other hand offers a convenient, inexpensive way to hyper-target your advertising dollars and almost instantly measure the results. And the good news for you is that very few real estate professionals have even started taking advantage of this potential. Now is your chance to grow your business in a way that will have your competitors guessing and you smiling, all the way to the bank.
NOTE: Mr. Internet®, RUSSER Communications, its staff and officers receive no compensation whatsoever from any third party vendors (unless he/they are directly involved with the creation and/or improvement of a vendor service or product), and make no recommendations as to the suitability of the products or services mentioned in this article. Always thoroughly investigate any product or service before trying or purchasing.
Mr. Internet is the alter-ego of Michael J. Russer, an internationally recognized Internet speaker, trainer, author, and strategic consultant to the real estate industry. He’s dedicated to helping real estate professionals leverage their people skills into profit on the Internet. Send your Internet questions to help@askmrinternet.com or you can visit his Website at http://www.russer.com
This article is reprinted in its entirety from the June 2010 issue of REALTOR® Magazine by permission of the NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF REALTORS®. Copyright © 2010. All Rights Reserved other than mentioned above. Mr. Internet® is a registered trademark of RUSSER Communications.
How to Publish Your Print Materials Online For FREE!
Monday, June 14th, 2010
If you have been in business for any length of time, chances are you have many print materials (i.e. special reports, articles, marketing plans, tips etc.) that would serve you better online. It used to be a bit of a problem (and expensive) to re-purpose these materials for your Website or Blog. Not any more, here’s why…
Make An Issuu Out of Everything
ISSUU (pronounced the same as “issue”) is a free online service that allows you to easily and quickly take any digital document (i.e. PDF, Word, etc.) and convert it into a very interactive online format that anyone can read directly within your Website or Blog. Your visitors don’t need anything other than Flash to view these documents and they look and act like a real magazine or report.
It only takes seconds to convert documents and you can then embed them (with the code provided with the document) into any Web page. See the example below of the PDF handout I’ll be using for tomorrow’s session with ERA Top Producers at their convention in Atlanta.
In addition to making your documents look better, the “Wow!” factor will help you really stand out. Perhaps even more importantly however, you can track statistics as to how many times a document was viewed down to the page level. This will give you a very good idea as to whether or not your material is perceived as valuable by the viewers.
Once you create a new account (no credit card required) you start converting to your heart’s content. However you can also search to see what other Issuu users have published (and selected to make public) based upon key words and phrases. Search for “Real Estate Marketing Plan” and you will see how some sales people have put this tool to use.
While this is a very cool and powerful way to display your marketing plans for sellers, some might (rightfully so) be concerned that you are educating your competitors. Well, there are a couple of ways around this. First, you can flag any converted document as “Private” which means no one can view it unless you give them the URL. You can go a step further like Mega-Producer Melinda Estridge did and also embed it in a password protected page that only prospective sellers can view.
Turn “Wow!” Into Closed Transactions
As I looked through several of the real estate examples I noticed something glaringly missing from each one –a call to action. Most squander the opportunity to engage with the viewer by simply doing the typical “Show & Tell”. If you are going to use Issuu to publish your reports and plans on the Web, at least take the time to think through how you can make it so engaging that they will want to contact you immediately.
To sum it up it’s cool, free and completely worthless unless you use it and include calls to action.
Copy and Paste For New Web Traffic
Monday, April 26th, 2010
I get asked all the time about how to prevent people from copying content off their Websites and blogs. Now there is a service that will have you hoping they will!
Copy Me —Please!
Tynt is a new free service that will track what is being copied off your Web and blog sites and help you drive traffic back to those sites as a result. After you set up your free account you are given a short bit of code to add to your Website pages you want to track. For blogs it’s actually much easier. It shows you (or your Webmaster) how to add the code just once and which will then cover every page and post of your blog (highly suggested).
Once your site or blog is loaded in this way any time someone copies and pasts an image or text from your site / blog and pastes it into theirs, a social networking site like Facebook or even an email, it will automatically include an attribution link back to where it was copied from. This provides a powerful and automatic way to build link backs that will drive more traffic to your site and raise its SEO positioning. Oh, there’s one more thing. You can even set Tynt up so that anytime someone copies and pastes your content online, it will generate a Tweet about it in your Twitter account.
Here’s a short video explaining the entire process:
So now instead of dreading that someone is “ripping you off” you can actually benefit every time they send a part of your work to their friends and associates. BTW, feel free to copy any part of this post and forward on to others, you have my whole-hearted permission :0)
DISCLAIMER: Always investigate any third-party products or services to your satisfaction prior to using them. RUSSER Communications, its officers, staff and consultants do not receive any compensation whatsoever from third party vendors and are not responsible for any damage or liability you may incur as a result of using products or services mentioned herein. If you do not agree to these terms do not use the product or service mentioned.
Refining Your Website For Greater Profits
Monday, April 5th, 2010
Congratulations! You just launched your brand new Website loaded with the latest bells and whistles. And, you can hardly wait for it to start cranking out new business while you sleep (hey, the vendor promised that would happen!) Sorry to curb your enthusiasm, your Web marketing journey isn’t over, it’s just getting started…
Measure, Test, Refine
Let’s assume for the moment that your site has tons of new traffic coming to it on a daily basis. Believe it or not, that is not a hard thing to accomplish. What is much more challenging however, is getting your visitors to convert to new business. That’s why it is important measure their behavior when on your site and consistently test additional ways to engage them and then refine your site to optimize conversion. And, this is an ongoing process that should take place ideally on a quarterly basis.
For example, something simple as changing the words from “Featured Properties” to “Best Buys” made a huge difference to Realtor Jim Dolanche’s site in terms of click through rate.
He never would have known unless he tested it.
Measuring What’s Hot and What’s Not
Imagine being able to sit over the shoulder of your visitors and see exactly how they interact with your site. Measuring site visitor behavior is very different than visitor statistics and is crucial to understanding how your site does or does not engage people who land there.
CrazyEgg is a service that generates “heat maps” of your site pages showing you where people click and how often. The brighter the spot, the more people clicked on that particular spot (see example heat map below).
CrazyEgg shows where people are clicking (the lowest form of engagement) whether or not there is a clickable link there. In one snapshot you get an immediate and rich sense of what your visitors found interesting and just as importantly, what they didn’t. For just US $9/mo you can measure the behavior of up to 10,000 visitors/mo on up to 10 pages of your site (prices current as of this writing).
Once you have measured your visitors’ collective behavior it is time to start testing alternative text, graphics, offers and even layout to see if these changes significantly improve your site’s ability to convert casual visitors into serious clients.
The ABC’s of A/B Testing
To effectively test changes to your site you need to have a way to randomly serve up both the current and changed versions of your site and then measure visitor behavior on each. This is known as A/B Testing (or Multivariate Testing when making more than one change at a time), and is a very powerful way to consistently improve your site’s conversion performance.
There is good news and bad news about the A/B Testing process however. The good news is that Google has a free A/B testing service call Google Website Optimizer that is very feature-rich and lets you test any changes to your site and statistically measure the differences in conversion, time spent on your site and visitor satisfaction. The bad news is that it is so sophisticated that you will need the help of a knowledgeable Web developer and/or SEO person to set up the tests and measure the results. One last caveat; your site needs to see several thousand visitors per month in order for test results to be statistically significant.
Consistent Incremental Improvements
Once you have completed visitor behavior measurement and A/B testing part of the refinement cycle, it is time to implement the changes you have determined will enhance your site’s conversion potential and start measuring all over again. Ideally, you want to repeat this cycle 3 – 4 times a year. Think of it as polishing your Website. It just shines that much more brightly with each treatment.
Websites are not “launch and forget” marketing weapons. They need to be consistently refined and course corrected if you want the most bang for your online marketing buck. If you focus more on the Web marketing journey rather than the destination, you will have a lot more fun and more business to show for it.
NOTE: Mr. Internet®, RUSSER Communications, its staff and officers receive no compensation whatsoever from any third party vendors (unless he/they are directly involved with the creation and/or improvement of a vendor service or product), and make no recommendations as to the suitability of the products or services mentioned in this article. Always thoroughly investigate any product or service before trying or purchasing.
Mr. Internet is the alter-ego of Michael J. Russer, an internationally recognized Internet speaker, trainer, author, and strategic consultant to the real estate industry. He’s dedicated to helping real estate professionals leverage their people skills into profit on the Internet. Send your Internet questions to help@askmrinternet.com or you can visit his Online Dominance Fan Page at http://www.facebook.com/OnlineDominance
This article is reprinted in its entirety from the March 2010 issue of REALTOR® Magazine by permission of the NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF REALTORS®. Copyright © 2010. All Rights Reserved other than mentioned above. Mr. Internet® is a registered trademark of RUSSER Communications.
The Secret to Online Lead Conversions
Monday, March 8th, 2010
For most sales professionals, converting online leads is the bane of their Internet world. Online consumers just don’t behave anything like those you meet face-to-face or on-the-phone. Now imagine if there was just one thing you could do that would suddenly convert cold online inquiries into serious clients.
Small Steps to Solve Big Problems
In their new book: “Switch: How to Change Things When Change Is Hard” authors Dan & Chip Heath explore how big problems don’t always require big solutions or worse, big changes in behavior. Big problems can often be solved by leveraging just one simple, small change in behavior. For example, real estate companies and their agents have been struggling with how to boost online lead conversion since the inception of the commercial Internet. They often approach this with massive training programs and/or constantly introducing even more complicated strategies (like social networking) when agents haven’t even mastered the basics of speaking the language of online consumers.
If companies and agents would use just one thing consistently, they would see their online lead conversions soar. That one thing is what I call the Critical First Response Email script. This is an email script engineered to be used specifically as the first response to online inquiries. I crafted this script and have been teaching it since the 1990’s and always receive email from incredulous agents who are astounded at how well it works. Here’s one that I just received a few days ago:
Last week I had used the email lead response script that was provided in the course. I had been going back and forth with the prospect and finally met to show her the rental property this week. Very nice, professional gal and we hit off very well.
She thanked me profusely for my quick replies to her emails AND said, the first email I sent to her was the reason why she trusted me!!! It was non-threatening and she felt I totally understood where she was coming from making an internet inquiry. It was EXACTLY as you and Michael said!!! Amazing…
RuthAnne Salvatore, REALTOR/Broker Associate
C.R.S. Certified Residential Specialist
ERA Goodfellow Homes
203.994.4860 (Mobile)
Just One Thing…
Remember the movie “City Slickers”? Billy Crystal’s character asks “Curly” the trail boss (played with dead-eye aplomb by Jack Palance) “What’s the secret to life?” And Curly responds by holding up his finger and says “Just one thing…” Well, I don’t know about the secret to life, but I sure as hell know the secret to boosting online lead conversions and it’s just one thing —consistently using the Critical First Response Script for every initial inquiry that comes your way via the Net.
Here’s Where You Find It
If you’ve read this far then you deserve to have access to this incredibly powerful, yet simple tool. Just go to www.FaceBook.com/OnlineDominance and click on the “Cool Tools” tab at the top (you will need to be a fan of Online Dominance to get access to this tab’s contents.) You will be able to immediately download this script right from there.
Remember, big problems can often be solved by very small changes in behavior. Here’s your chance to find out just how powerful this thinking really is…
Google Makes Your Active Fan Page Even More Valuable
Sunday, February 28th, 2010
Google is busy serving up real-time updates from Twitter, Myspace, blogs and so on for hot search topics or trends. It just added Facebook Fan Page updates to this mix and here is why it’s important to you.
The world of search results and relevancy is going more real-time (you can largely thank Twitter for that). Since Google is all about providing relevant search results for a particular search, it is now striving to provide these real-time yet ephemeral results right at the top of the non-sponsored results of each search. If you have an active Facebook Fan page focusing say on your primary neighborhoods, and fans are actively posting comments, then you are going to see more search engine traffic. First to your Fan Page, then (by extension) to your site. This also means that your Fan Page is likely to rank higher in the search results over all as a result.
For this to work in your favor however, two things need to be in place regarding your Facebook Fan page:
- Its focus needs to be relevant – a Fan page is NOT about you (at least not if you want to succeed)! For most real estate sales professionals this means it needs to be about your particular niche and/or neighborhoods you service.
- Fans need to be active – this means you must keep the content fresh and worthy of comment.
I truly believe that appropriately maintained social media will be the new “Google Juice” for driving Web traffic and hence most online business. Static content, even if comprehensive, is no longer enough. So if you are not connecting with clients and prospects this way (i.e. via an active Facebook Fan page), now is a good time to start!
* Special thanks to Brad Carroll of Dakno Marketing for this tip :0)
