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.

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.

[Image: blackstonepinless.com]

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]

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.

Not only is this a great way to promote your listings to an international audience, it is also a great tool to differentiate yourself from your competitors when marketing to potential sellers.

If you would like to be a guinea pig and help us test the application for free, just go to www.listglobally.com and click the link on the home page to register for a free trial. Once we receive your request, we will be in touch via email with your login details.

The news just over a week ago that Google was “entering” the UK/European market has sent the share prices of Rightmove and Seloger into a tailspin. Seloger dropped by 9% while Rightmove has plummeted a whopping 17%. Seloger has since recovered to its pre-news price while Rightmove continues to be significantly down.

So let’s look at what happened, will the property portal landscape change and is this impact on the share prices is justified.

An article by the Financial Times (Dec 2 titled “Google set to enter UK property market”) seems to have set the cat amongst the pigeons. The article stated that Google is in talks with British estate agents and that “experts” say that an entry by them to the market could pose a serious threat to existing property websites. The article didn’t talk about what Google was going to do and Google didn’t comment. So there is really not much to go on. So the only guide we really have as to what Google may do in the UK and Europe is what they have done in Australia.

Google “entered” the Australian market 6 months ago (July 2009) when they made it possible for agents, brokers, franchise groups, and portal sites to place their listings on Google Maps. When a user does a search on Google Maps (not the main Google search) for real estate, Google plots the houses in its database on the maps and users can then click on the various dots to see if they like the houses and then are driven back to the advertiser’s site.

At that time, there was a similar uproar and many were predicting the death of realestate.com.au and domain.com.au and the REA Group share price dropped nearly 7% from $5.90 to $5.50. However in the 6 months since the announcement by Google, the REA Group share price has increased 60% to $8.84, the traffic to the site has increased from 4.5m UB’s in June 09 to 5.4m UB’s in October and analysts are predicting an additional 20% revenue growth for the REA Group in FY 2010.

In August, PropertyPortalWatch wrote about the challenges for Google knocking over the market leaders. Here is the link to the article called “The Challenges for Google Real Estate”. All of these still hold true.

Many hope that Google will be the saviour from the “big bad” commercial property portals and deliver free marketing to the agents. However this is a simplistic view and underestimates the challenges Google faces. The challenges include gaining enough listings, maintaining their quality, driving traffic to the maps area, and ensuring the interface is attractive to consumers.

Even if Google is successful in addressing the above, they will only be delivering clicks to the agent’s site not email leads. The agents will need to invest more in higher quality sites to convert the clicks to leads. This, of course, comes at a cost. The old adage holds true, there is no such thing as a free lunch.

It will be interesting times and if I was an agent, I would be putting my listings on Google. However, any clicks I get from Google should be supplemental to my existing online marketing strategy and not replacing my use of established portal sites.

A recent press release quotes co-founder Tyler Kraemer as saying the forthcoming iPhone release will allow agents to post their real estate news directly from the application.

It seems AgentWorld is gradually becoming established as an information source: the release also states that many AgentWorld profiles are now appearing on the first results page of Google searches for an agent’s name.

“This is extremely valuable to agents, who really need to have those top results point to something they can control and something that promotes their image and reputation,” says Kraemer.

Along with access to propertyblast.com’s flyers, realup.com is introducing another paid service through which members will be able to purchase location based property advertisements.

realup.com also recently partnered with commercial listings database CommercialDex, offering free accounts to CommercialDex members and including all CommericalDex listings on realup.com.