Lock – up stage and moving into your online business – Stage 3

6 minute read

.
For new subscribers to Business2 – here are the previous stages.

Diagnosing your online position (warts and all) – Stage One

Constructing your perfect online real estate media platform – Stage Two

Without a doubt from my experiences real estate agents have little to no – understanding about what exactly defines an online business. Today, they remain a tangled online entity boasting a website with very little traffic and Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) – the lights are on and nobody is home. Direct online communications are next to non – existent simply because they are reliant on consumers finding them, as against actually delivering then driving online customer communications. Easy to fix so long as you are prepared to lock – up this online market.

Not only are you providing purchasers the best online service – more importantly offering vendors a stand-out real estate media platform. One that you created and paid for (I say this because real estate agents struggle using their own monies to invest in technology) hopefully your online platform model of choice will now  exceed your competitors too! Stop following the market – time to lead it.

Allow me to elaborate on that –  have you read – “Digital Marketing – Strategies for Online Success”? A great and easy read by Godfrey Parkin – a must for your online library (it’s now in mine).

“There is little point in building a website or fine – tuning your e -marketing tactics unless your strategy is right in the first place. To build a competitive strategy to capture the loyalty of your online consumers requires re – thinking your vision for your business from the ground up. It also requires an intimate understanding of what this online environment is all about, from the perspective of your business, from your competitors’ point of view, and particularly in the eyes of your target customers as individuals. Without those insights, you cannot begin to put together a digital strategy that has any hope of succeeding.”

So let’s best sum up where your real estate agency presently sits.

“The answer is that most businesses have an increasingly fuzzy vision of what their future should be, so their tendency is to clutch tightly to the past. As the world around them changes faster and faster, the future becomes even more blurred and uncertain. Without a bright light to head toward, they feel safer not to move away from their fundamentals and put their efforts into shoring up their defences. Those companies that do stumble forward usually head in the direction that they have always followed, tactically groping their way through fog, turning to dodge obstacles and grasping at opportunities reactively as they fly by. Without a vision, they have no idea where they are headed. Without a vision, they cannot put together an effective strategy.” Sound familiar?

“So why, are the brilliant examples of how it should be done so few and far between?” I’m not suggesting that our online strategy is such an example – rather this is what we do – with success.

.
We have five non – negotiable online services that we adhere to on a daily basis. It is imperative that your online platform must strive to deliver so that you can claim this all very important point of difference over your competitors.

1. The largest online database within your demographic area – be proud that your online media platform connects to more buyers and vendors. Our proof is that we display on our homepage our subscriber sales to our online business which presently sits at $952,234,220.

2. Without using Google AdWords – use intelligent Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) methods where your agency appears at number one position organically on all Google keyword searches within your demographic areas.

3. Write a weekly e – newsletter, send out daily email alerts, provide weekly data on the sales that have been recorded within your demographic area. Each week send out your upcoming open for inspection lists. Provide subscribers the ability to choose exactly which online communication they want to receive. Keep branding your business online.

4. Get a blog going – move with the times. Each comment adds another page to your website as well as on Google which drives your SEO. TAG keywords that appear within your e – newsletter as we try to add at least – 100 new pages to our website on a weekly basis. When you sell or lease a property keep the link live as the more live links on a website the greater SEO. We are over 3,000 pages and rapidly chasing down 4,000 pages.

5. Be relevant – not irrelevant. Use technologies don’t refuse it. Religiously translate your enquiries and open for inspection lists to connect to your online model. There will come a time (and it is happening now) where vendors and purchasers are restricting online communications from agents – where research has identified no more than five (three is the average) and that includes property portals.

When a successful online agency advises a vendor let’s launch an online campaign with a two week marketing strategy before having to commit to a much more expensive print campaign – guess who will win every time?

As Godfrey Parkin said“there’s a very simple, powerful, burning light that all of us need to keep in focus: properly used, the internet frees customers and marketers from the constraints of time and space, which in turn unleashes personal communication and experience – sharing on a scale unprecedented in history.”

Our online communications are very up close and personal – how are yours? When you start digging at your online foundations make sure you use a developer that really knows what they are doing they are few and far between.

Tell us if you liked this content.
Show CommentsClose Comments

8 Comments

  • real estate website design
    Posted June 24, 2010 at 12:55 am 0Likes

    Gday Robert,
    This is an interesting article, thanks for posting it. I just wanted to bring attention to your last comment.

    “When you start digging at your online foundations make sure you use a developer that really knows what they are doing they are few and far between.”

    My advice to any real estate agent that is serious about establishing an online presence is this….forget about seeking out a web developer, and find yourself an INTERNET MARKETER.

    1 hour with an experienced internet marketer at any local coffee shop will quite literally save you an enormous amount of time, and if not hundreds but thousands of dollars.

    As you say, the number of developers out there that REALLY know what they are doing, are very few and far between. Web developers in most cases will try to impress you with fancy jargon and technical nonsense — Internet marketers on the other hand focus on traffic generation techniques and whats most important – generating leads and making money.

    Just my thoughts, of course.

  • Nick
    Posted June 24, 2010 at 9:18 am 0Likes

    I disagree. You are drawing a distinction between the two.

    I’d argue that a web developer without knowledge of how to market a website is of little use, while a internet marketer without technical knowledge will basically burn money.

    As for finding one, thats incredibly difficult. The good thing is that there is a small handful here at Business2.

  • real estate website design
    Posted June 24, 2010 at 2:27 pm 0Likes

    Internet marketers understand that in order to make money online you DONT need technical knowledge. This is why many of them have little understanding of programming, yet make tens of thousands of dollars monthly. Many of which work just a few hours a day.

    Im not siding with either, infact Im a web developer myself. However I soon realised that in order to stop working dollars for hours, as a web developer with my head buried in code at $80 an hour, I had to become an internet marketer, which allows me to enjoy passive income.

    My point was that real estate agents shouldnt focus on the bells and whistles that the majority of web developers or techies will try and sell you. Whilst it might seem “nice” Its not important and at the end of the day, wont mean more money.

  • Robert Simeon
    Posted June 24, 2010 at 2:31 pm 0Likes

    Everybody has differing opinions on what works best for them – although I can’t believe that real estate agents are not using WordPress on their websites. That to me is the greatest no brainer that I have seen of late.

  • Bill
    Posted June 26, 2010 at 10:07 pm 0Likes

    The “hiring a developer” question is interesting as you don’t want to be paying 10’s of thousands for a programmer to be reinventing the wheel.

    You are far better off using a 3rd party RE tech company to back end your web site and investing money that you would have spent on a developer on a good designer. Don’t use the RE tech companies designers as they tend to knock out the same designs day after day.

    Stay away from the “website in a box” type products as they are very brittle and inflexible.

  • Vic
    Posted November 1, 2010 at 1:36 pm 0Likes

    Robert,
    Love reading your stuff. Just came across this article and find it significantly relevant to where we are at as we speak.
    We virtually got sucked into believing that our web developer could produce in terms of the vision we had developed. A great coder is not the answer, we needed a combination. A developer that could embrace our vision, a designer who knew what pressed the buttons of viewers, a marketer that understood the internet, some one intricately understanding the interrelationships behind the various promotional tech tools, and finally an SEO guru.

    Where do you find such an outfit that has these combinations under one roof?

  • Robert Simeon
    Posted November 1, 2010 at 1:57 pm 0Likes

    Vic,

    Thanks – I agree that this journey can be frustrating given so many developers and designers just don’t understand the real estate dynamics. Our total online business is handled by http://www.agentpoint.com.au who also own and operate Business2.

    If you want to see how we operate have a look at http://www.rwm.com.au and Glenn Batten (who writes here also) http://www.nfn.com.au also runs another Agentpoint website.

    By all means call me to discuss 02 99697622 or 0411856969

  • Vic
    Posted November 4, 2010 at 7:10 am 0Likes

    Robert,
    Great site. Will give you a ring to chew some fat shortly.

    At present we are in the middle of our featured properties and property of the week launch. The rubber hits the road next week.

    Hey- Notice that you are not feeding to us yet, through your agentpoint multi lister:)

Leave a comment

6 minute read
NetPoint Group