With almost every real estate agent claiming to be the best and most experienced in their area, choosing an agent can end up little more than a guessing game for buyers and sellers. So how do you make sure you stand out to these (often confused) potential customers?

To begin with, it pays to be original. Whether you’re writing a detailed online profile or simply filling out your Twitter bio, steer clear of overused phrases such as “one of the most experienced agents in Sydney” or “knows central London real estate.”

What potential customers want to know is, exactly how much experience does that Sydney agent have? What does that agent actually know about central London? Be precise and you will immediately encourage more confidence in your audience.

Being honest about your abilities goes hand in hand with being precise. After all, if you overstate your qualifications or experience level, chances are that will become obvious as soon as you start to work with a client.

An over-emphasis on resume details is another potential trap for agents promoting themselves online. You’ll naturally want to highlight your professional qualifications, and buyers and sellers are probably interested in them to a degree. But this interest pales in comparison with their need to be sure you understand their location. The trick is to balance out details about your professional life with just as much (or more) information about the area you cover.

As with any content you publish online, it’s worth having one or two people check over it before putting it on display. This will help you catch any spelling and grammar issues, and possibly prompt you to tweak your message to make it that much more appealing.

Here at Property Ad Guru, we have plenty of advice on how to make your website the best it can possibly be. But once property seekers leave your website and start looking on places like realtor.com and zillow.com, it becomes more difficult to ensure you stay top-of-mind.

That’s the issue US-based company realbird.com is trying to solve with its newly-unveiled a browser toolbar, which keeps agents in contact with property seekers even while they’re looking through property portals.

realbird.com explains that the toolbar, which can be branded for agents, sits at the top of a home hunter’s browser window as they search for property. When they come across a listing they’re interested in, a few clicks sends an enquiry back to the agent with the property’s title and URL. The agent is then notified via email, and the inquiry is also saved in their realbird.com account.

To access the toolbar, agents need to sign up for a “pro” subscription to realbird.com, which costs US$99 per year.

Looking for more tips on how to track enquiries? Start with our article on knowing where your leads are coming from.

An extensive customer database, built by encouraging potential buyers to register their details with you, is an excellent tool for three reasons:

1. Listing

When going through the listing process, you are able to tell sellers that before undertaking a huge marketing campaign the first port of call is to contact all those buyers you have on your register who may be interested in a property like theirs.

If your register of buyers is more extensive and up to date than that of competing agents, you then have a competitive advantage. Tell buyers that you can be in contact with these prospective purchasers by the end of the day if they list with you.

2. Keeping advertising costs down

If you are in a market where obtaining vendor paid advertising is difficult, having an extensive buyers list you can readily tap into could see you sell property faster and at a lower cost to your agency.

3. Buyers may be sellers too

Registering potential purchasers early enough may be beneficial in sourcing new listings. People often start to look around for a new property before putting their own home on the market. Creating a relationship with them is your opportunity to impress early. For more on this, see our post Buyers are Often Sellers Too.

How do I capture buyers for my register?

You can implement functionality on your website to encourage and capture interested buyers. Things such as newsletter sign-ups, competitions, and property alerts. For a look at how best to set these up, check out our article on calls to action here.

Other ideas for gathering buyer details include:

- Allocate banner advertising for your suburb on a property portal to drive buyers to your site for registration.

- Advertise in your window and any other media, and encourage registration when any contact is made with new people, whether by phone or at a property inspection or auction.

- Develop and promote a Home Buyer’s Guide to use as a lead generation tool and ensure that buyers are required to register their details before receiving a copy. You can promote this on your site and in all advertising and marketing.

There are multiple opportunities for getting people interested in what you do. The challenge is to capture their information and then use it wisely. Don’t over-promise and under-deliver! If you commit to a weekly newsletter, don’t miss your publishing date. If you promise to send out newly listed properties, make sure you do so.

Finally, ensure that you never ever pass on buyers’ details to third parties or anyone who might spam them. Once you have customer details you need to treat them like gold and keep them as up to date as possible.

[Image: olathehomes.wordpress.com]

As we learned from a recent survey by international property news website globaledge.co.uk, some agents find it quite difficult to change their online marketing habits, even if they know their strategy isn’t as effective as it could be.

The agents surveyed told globaledge.co.uk that customer referral programs were the most effective way to generate leads, yet only 37.8 percent of those surveyed actually used them. So what’s stopping these agents?

Perhaps it’s the impression that building a successful customer referral program is too complicated or time-consuming. But the fact is, if you have an email database of past customers, you’ve already got the raw materials you need to get started.

While it’s not particularly hard to implement a referral program, there are a few ways in which companies from any industry can slip up. So before you send that email, take a minute to ask yourself these questions:

What is it about you that’s worth recommending? When you pitch your referral program, remind your past customers what it is that makes you stand out as an agent. The temptation here is to focus only on your sales record, but don’t forget to mention how much you know about the local market.

Is the reward worth their effort? Put yourself in your customer’s shoes. If what you’re offering in return for a referral isn’t enough to get you excited, you can hardly expect anyone else to be. What would you like to be offered if you were the customer?

Is there more than one step involved? If the transaction involves more than simply “tell someone about our agency and we’ll give you X”, you could be setting yourself up for failure. Let’s face it, even a customer who was pleased with your service isn’t going to spend more than a minute trying to understand your pitch, so make sure your message gets straight to the point.

Needless to say, the best referrals are the ones that take place without any effort on your part – the unprompted recommendations that happen because you were just that good to your customers. Still, it never hurts to give people a little incentive.

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Here are the different approaches for each segment:

Non-Internet Savvy

While those who are not Internet savvy will likely know they need to be on the Internet, they probably aren’t sure how it works or what they should do. In this instance, your explanation needs to be simple and straightforward without too much Internet jargon.

Try using analogies they will comprehend. For example, relating online advertising to what they know – newspaper advertising. I would point out that their ad can be out there this afternoon, has the ability to go worldwide (not just the local circulation area), provides far more information and images, is available 24/7 for as long as required, and all for a minimal cost (if anything depending upon your policy).

Internet Savvy

When selling online advertising to the Internet savvy, you need to invest time in explaining what type of Internet advertising you are going to do, the sites that you are using, and the benefits for the seller. It’s easy to say “Don’t worry about the Internet, we are on all portals and have it covered.” While they may not say it outright, sellers will want to know that you have the knowledge to be able to maximise their listing online and handle the enquiry.

If your company has a good presence online, this may well be the reason you are sitting in front of the seller now. Make sure you are able to present to them effectively on how you will manage the sale or rental of their property online and reinforce confidence in your company.

So what can you present to them?

• A concise visual presentation of search pages, detailed property view pages, and basically how you will present their property both on your site and the property portals. (You can do this online by having a predetermined search that best presents your profile. If presenting offline you can use a product like “snag-it” that will assist in capturing images off the Internet.)
• Statistical data in relation to average page views for your properties from each of the property portals.
• Past sales over the Internet.
• The portals you advertise on and their associated content partners and exposure.
• The range of products available to them to enhance their listing and the benefits. (Most of the portals will have marketing support material. If not, develop your own using your own brand.)
• Testimonials of clients who have sold property through you originating from Internet enquiry.

One of the most important areas that you should cover with these prospective customers is your ability to manage buyer leads.

With one of the most common complaints against agents being their delayed or lack of response to emails sent – which these people have more than likely been on the wrong end of in the past – they are going to want to be assured you will not do this to enquiry on their property.

Discuss the ways in which you respond to buyer enquiry and how you will regularly keep them informed of response.

Quick Listing Idea:

You will have a database of potential buyers and the major portals will more than likely have a system for sending out electronic brochures to registered buyers with certain criteria of property and location (at a cost). Do some homework before you present.

“Mr & Mrs Seller, I have had a look at our database and also that of our partner property portals and there are currently a total of 267 registered buyers looking for property just like yours in this area. If you list with us I can have an electronic brochure in their inbox by tomorrow morning.”

This can become a very powerful tool if used correctly.

Any advertising – be it online or otherwise – generally focuses on a single goal: encouraging someone to make a purchase. For real estate agents, we could tweak this slightly and say the goal is usually to generate leads.

But if we consider this simple formula for a few more moments, another objective comes to mind: building a reputation as the go-to agent so that those who are familiar with you become your “brand advocates”.

A brand advocate is simply someone who is impressed enough with your brand that they recommend you to someone else. Beyond great service, there are a few steps you can take in the digital world to get people on board as your advocates.

Step one is to figure out where potential advocates might be lurking. This is one area where social media really comes into its own: jump on Twitter, Flickr, or Facebook and it’s possible to find whole communities discussing topics related to your business.

Michele Madansky, vice president of corporate sales and research for Yahoo!, summed up how important social media can be when she told clickz.com:

“The Internet has irrevocably changed word-of-mouth. There’s no turning back. Social media is woven into [advocates] daily lives as well as their purchase processes.”

This new word-of-mouth culture means getting it right in the social media realm is crucial. So once you find an online group that’s right for you, resist the temptation to jump straight in with a sales pitch. Instead, start by tracking what people are saying to find out more about what they really want.

Now that you have a handle on your audience, it’s time to create something worth telling them. This is where we need to reiterate the importance of great content. Remember: content doesn’t have to come in the form of the written word. Competitions, survey results, or a gallery of enticing neighbourhood photos can be just as effective in drawing people in.

Once you have something interesting to offer, it’s time to join the online conversation. But do it carefully. marketingvox.com puts it perfectly when they says that “not trying too hard is key”.

“There’s a stronger impact when you do it wrong in social media than when you mess up in a TV commercial,” Stan Joosten, innovation manager at Procter & Gamble, explained to marketingvox.com. “[I]f I threw a dinner party and then tried to sell you Tupperware afterward, you’d never come back.”

Put simply, creating brand advocates means going a few steps beyond the usual sales pitch. It’s about defining what people want, and giving them an experience that prompts them to give you that valuable mention in return.

Over the last twelve months, we’ve seen a swathe of new for sale by owner (FSBO) property websites come online, from owner-direct.eu in Europe to buymyplace.com.au in Australia. The UK market seems to be particularly flooded with FSBO offerings – hablib.com, tepilo.com, bethemiddleman.com, notestateagents.com, and auctionmove.co.uk are just a few examples. Even supermarket giant Tesco is organising an FSBO option, according to telegraph.co.uk.

So what effect are these websites actually having? Are they drawing traffic away from traditional property portals? Are they attracting business from owners keen to bypass real estate agents?

At first glance, you could be forgiven for thinking FSBO is the new black. “We sold one day after the sign went up” reads a testimonial on buymyplace.com.au. “Join the property evolution” is hablib.com’s tagline, while thelittlehousecompany.co.uk claims it sees 3 million buyers on its website every month. UK commission-free agency NetMovers has gone so far as to partner with auctionmove.co.uk to offer its users an FSBO option.

But on closer inspection, not all these websites are making such a huge impact. owner-direct.eu, for example, is currently listing just 60 properties in the UK. Australian FSBO site remoov.com.au launched in May 2009, but by July had repositioned itself to operate like a traditional agency. buymyplace.com.au isn’t doing badly with 2,150 houses for sale, but that’s a fraction of the listings covered by Australian market leader realestate.com.au and runner-up domain.com.au.

Meanwhile, portal traffic figures seem strong as ever, with the major players in each market continuing to tout their unique visitor numbers at the end of every month. realestate.com.au has just reported a milestone of 5.9 million uniques in January, while in the UK and US rightmove.co.uk and realtor.com continue to dominate, with the only argument being over who, exactly, is in second place.

Perhaps NetMovers’ partnership with auctionmove.co.uk sums up the story. Some owners are keen to take the process of selling or renting their property into their own hands, but there are still plenty of sellers who want the option of working with an agent.

What’s your opinion? Are FSBO websites a concern in your area, or simply a niche offering that can co-exist comfortably alongside more traditional models?

[Image: frontdoor.com]

Judging by the preliminary results of our poll, most Property Ad Guru readers are planning to invest significantly more in online marketing this year. With the Internet Advertising Bureau also predicting another increase in online ad spending in 2010, one question springs to mind: How do you make sure the money you spend on online advertising doesn’t go to waste? In other words, how can you fine-tune your advertising strategy this year to ensure it results in more leads?

The place to start answering those questions is your records for 2009. Where did you spend your money? What form of advertising resulted in your strongest leads? If you’re not sure of the answers to these questions, start tracking your online ad spend today, recording exactly where each lead is coming from and how much it cost you in terms of dollars as well as time.

Of course, the biggest expense for agents advertising online is usually the property portals that carry their listings. Property portals are the obvious choice, especially when we consider the number of people looking online for property: the US National Association of Realtors estimated 90 percent of potential buyers were looking online at the end of last year. But even the major real estate websites are gradually realising they don’t have every base covered when it comes to online advertising.

US property search engine trulia.com, for example, recently said it plans to bring more content to mobile phones this year, and to offer property seekers more local information. In Australia, market leader realestate.com.au has also branched out into the local and social realms with a property review website.

So if even major property websites are catching on to these trends, does that mean agents should also invest in a mobile website, add reams of local information to their blogs, and double their efforts on every social media channel?

Not necessarily. Internet Advertising Bureau chief executive Guy Phillipson, quoted on outsourcery.co.uk, sums up the issue when he says, “In the end you need to follow an audience and find out what they do all day to decide where you are going to advertise.”

Phillipson added that he sees the social side of the Internet becoming “inescapable” for online advertisers. But as with every aspect of online advertising, the key is tracking the results your efforts are bringing in. Ultimately, this information will allow you to keep fine-tuning your marketing mix until you have a personalised strategy that works for you.

For more tips on knowing where your leads are coming from, check out our article here.

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In a recent guest post, Ryan Hinricher said agents need to define their niche market to stand out in the online marketing game. It’s sound advice when you think about it – finding your niche, and owning it, gives you a much greater chance of becoming the agent who stands out when a buyer hones in on a certain suburb.

So, how do you promote yourself online as the expert in your chosen niche? Plenty of real estate portals offer ready-made platforms encouraging this, from zillow.com’s Local Experts section to realestate.com.au’s Local Voices website. But these are not the only options.

Once you’ve defined your own area of expertise, another strategy is to seek out websites that are focused on the same area. Then, get in touch and see if you can organise an exchange of content for a link back to your website, or even just a by-line including a mention of your business.

Of course, online social networking is another part of the puzzle when it comes to positioning yourself as a local real estate expert. The trick here is to focus on what you love about your niche when tweeting, updating Facebook, or commenting on a blog.

While you can get away with slipping in the occasional listing, it’s important to balance these with updates that show how engaged you are with your local area, to the point where your friends and followers associate your name with the place.

Of course, don’t forget to ensure all your “real-world” advertising – things like window displays, flyers, and your shop front – include all your online contact details. Over time, these three steps should go a long way towards establishing your reputation as the local real estate expert.

This article was originally posted on onlinerealestate101.com.

Establishing yourself as a successful real estate professional in 2010 can easily be a daunting task. The real estate market is unrecognisable when compared to just a few short years ago. In 1994 the first online real estate listing was published in an email by Eric Hilding of Coldwell Banker in Morgan Hill, CA which changed real estate forever. Within 1 year ERA launched the first listing portal with over 50,000 listings. Today we have Zillow, Trulia, Twitter, Facebook, iPhones, and thousands of other tools and technologies which power the new real estate economy.

Because of this, it’s easy to become overwhelmed and impossible to stay ahead of the technology curve. I thought I’d put together a shortlist of critical components to your online real estate foundation. These are the building-blocks of any real estate business and most aren’t sustainable without them.

The 4 Building-Blocks:

1. You must find a Specific Niche. The new real estate economy is simply too vast to compete if you don’t have a niche. Your niche will be your area of expertise which you can leverage online and offline for your future marketing, blogging, and web optimisation efforts. Ask yourself this question: Can I really compete for terms on Google, Twitter, and more such as, “LA realtor, Chicago real estate, etc”? I hope you get the picture. You don’t need to find your niche overnight but it is a requisite to competing in an online world successfully.

How do you find your niche? Look for something you feel highly confident about, which you also love. Maybe it’s Miami Beach condos or something similar. By looking around and searching in your area, you’ll find that the smaller the niche the more the person behind the niche seems like a true expert. I’d be hesitant to spend much money on your marketing until you’ve truly defined your niche.

2. A Defined Sales Process is essential for building your business the right way from the ground up. This sales process is going to make or break you in the long run once you start generating leads. Most real estate professionals never plan this out correctly leading to low conversion rates, frustration, and ultimately lost dollars.

When defining your sales process keep in mind 3 things: Recency (how quickly you follow up), and Frequency (how often you follow up), and Consistency (following up at regular intervals). Considerations for defining this strategy include, online replies, Facebook strategy, Linkedin, emails, phone calls, thank you notes, etc.

A good book worth reading to give you some ideas on these is  “Selling the Invisible”.

I didn’t take having a defined sales process seriously until I lost a client to someone who said the only reason he chose my competitor, was they called him back first!

3. A Customer Relationship Management or CRM tool is a must. This is not optional.  The  Dunbar Number is a theoretical number that says the average human can only manage 150 relationships mentally at a time. The average Facebook user has slightly more than this number of friends so how will you suddenly manager hundreds of customers? CRM tools help you manage your customers by setting reminders, sending out auto-replies, and creating follow up communication for you with regards to your clients.

There are many to choose from in the marketplace, both free and paid. I’ve used, in the past 37 Signals Highrise(recommend), Leads on Rails (wouldn’t recommend), Sugar CRM, and most recently SalesForce (highly recommend, but a bit more costly).

Also Josh is running a CRM for Real Estate experiment with Heap on onlinerealestate101.com. I look forward to seeing his feedback.

4.  In-House Lead Gen and your Online Presence go hand-in-hand. These are where you’ll put most of your intellectual capital, personal expression, writing, and branding.  In fact, the online space has been so cluttered that by you having your properties on all the classifieds like Craigslist, Backpage, Oodle, etc. is going to give you little if any competitive advantage at all. Why?  Because there is no longer a barrier of entry into these spaces and everyone, including your competitors, are already using them. That’s not to say you avoid these, but these need to become automated functions of your business.

Your website can provide you residual efforts from much front-loaded efforts. Your web presence should be unique and offer strong call-to-actions which are visually appealing and clear in message. Use WordPress to get started if you don’t have a big budget for a custom site. Offer something of value. The 2 year old report that all of your competitors are giving away too is not something of value. Create original content, build a guide to people relocating, a dining guide, or comprehensive data on a specific neighbourhood. By creating something original you can offer a unique value proposition which will likely usurp what your competitors are offering.

Last thoughts:

Don’t be overwhelmed in your mission to be successful as an online agent. Focus on the essentials which will give you a long term benefit. These building-blocks will give you a basis for which you can add new tools you test out to your business. Otherwise you’ll be chasing a never-ending rush to find the newest, quickest, sexiest real estate tool or trend.