Online Marketing: After 33 Years, Technology Starts to Make Money for Industry Veteran

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By Mike Parker

RISMEDIA, May 22, 2008- Walt Straub is a Prudential California Agent in Walnut Creek, CA (www.waltstraub.com), and he has been a real estate agent for 33 years. He has wanted to make the Internet work for him since he first grasped its potential, and for that last four years, he tried very hard-without success. He has seen many things come and go in the business, and like most good agents he recognized early on that if he could establish his own personal marketing niche he would probably do better. This story tells how Walt Straub finally achieved his goal of establishing a niche on the Internet and success in being an Internet Realtor®

parker_mike1.jpgRossmoor Retirement Communities has a 2,000 acre master-planned community just minutes away from Walnut Creek. Walt decided to carve himself a niche in finding retirement aged folks seeking an active and stable environment and a great place to enjoy a home long ago. For years, he has been trying to transfer that niche to the Internet. While some people joke when referring to seniors, while they have been joking, that demographic has quietly become a major factor in just about everything today, and that includes the purchase and sale of homes.

Mature “55+” people have children and grandchildren who have turned them on to the ease and ubiquity of the Internet; “55+” people utilize the Internet when they go looking for a home or a retirement home, or multiple retirement homes.

Walt reasoned that if he could carve out a niche on the internet appealing to seniors and folks interested in that huge resource two miles from his doorstep, he might be on to something. About four years ago, Walt began trying to reach that group online and in earnest. He decided to invest in his own website, as well as subscribe to a page on Prudential California’s site.

Initial enthusiasm and expectations

“I was sure that it would be very successful once I put my site up” Walt told us recently. “I imagined this huge virtual billboard right in the middle of the Bay Bridge, seen by everyone coming to the East Bay from San Francisco every day. To me, that’s what the Internet provided as potential. I was one of the first agents in our office to really get involved in using the Internet and I was so excited to be putting up my website.”

Unfortunately, as is often the case, expectations exceeded results. For a little over three years, Walt characterized his success with the site as “poor.”

About a year ago, Walt took stock of the situation and realized that what had started out as a good idea, namely; to use the Internet as a marketing tool-was rapidly becoming a necessity. With 84% of buyers using the Internet to shop for homes it was clear that he had to be a player in that venue. It was then that Walt decided to put more effort into becoming an Internet Realtor. The question was “How to become an Internet realtor?”

Three years later, the light dawns

“I think it started to come together for me when I became aware of how one of my fellow agents spent hours continually working hard to try to get to the top of the search engines without success. I came across an article on online marketing that highlighted one agent’s online marketing success with organic search. That agent had hired professionals to help him succeed, and they had delivered.”

“As all this was happening, the brokerage’s IT manager came to see me to show me the team’s exciting new website-where everyone gets a page on the corporate site. With my new knowledge, I asked him how I was going to get found on a site where my page couldn’t be optimized,” Walt related, ‘and when he responded ‘We’re still working on that’, I knew I had to do it myself. I had never heard of a “subdomain” but when I learned what one was, I knew that a page on the corporate site could not be indexed by search engines or found by Internet buyers unless they knew how to find me on the corporate site. I developed an organic search strategy and I am so very glad that I did.”

First, he subscribed to a leading organic search subscription. Then he upgraded to a feature-laden website (for free) and his original concept of making the Internet work for him began to become reality. As soon as he received reports from his search subscription that showed him where his traffic was not coming from, Walt cancelled what he felt was a totally unproductive program that was costing him $300 monthly and producing nothing. Now, his total costs for his program that works are less than for his former program that did not work.

Finally, success in harvesting the Internet

“In the past year, I have sold 7 homes to folks moving to the area from outside my home market,” Walt related. “There’s no way this could have happened without the Internet. I use my website’s features to network and to stay in constant touch with my prospects and clients. My target market-retirement communities and golf course homes-are very popular searches from so many contemplating retirement and leisure. Now that I am where the buyers can find me, I am getting a constant stream of quality leads from a resource that had produced poorly for me for years.” Walt also reports that since he bought into organic search, his personal site produces far more leads and interest than his page on his company’s main site.

“I now get about 40% of my leads from the Internet. The commissions I have earned since subscribing to organic search have exceeded the total annual cost of my subscription many times over. This is one of the best investments I have ever made in my real estate marketing and in my business. I’ve also saved over $300 (more than the subscription costs!) a month by eliminating my participation on the [leading search subscription] website,” Walt reports, “once I learned how to interpret the data on my site from my search subscription, I had the confidence to leave them behind for good. I can’t afford to waste $300 a month on a program that doesn’t produce.”

“There has been a big increase in unique visitors to my site since it is now found by Internet buyers because of my organic search subscription,” Walt added, “I’ had over 300% more unique visitors last month than just three months ago, and the numbers continue to climb each month. The information I now have at my fingertips about my site is truly amazing.”

“My business is much better since the Internet started contributing to it. I’m looking to do better this year than last, and I attribute that to being optimistic and positive, as well as utilizing a good web platform and organic search. Some of the things I love about being an Internet real estate agent are that the ease of marketing and the simplicity of the customer response that make it simple for me and for my prospects and clients. People searching for what I sell only need to type that in to their browser and they can find me. I call them immediately and -more often than not-good things develop from there.”

You don’t need to be a techie to succeed in online marketing

Here’s a simple summary: a 33-year-agent who unabashedly admits that he is not a techie and that he never wants to be one has mastered the technology that so many ‘IT gurus’ can’t seem to and his 55+ prospects and clients have embraced it just as much as he has. Success in online marketing isn’t about age or length of experience online, it’s about delivering what people want when they go looking for it in the most simple and uncomplicated path possible. What way is better than in one click on Google, Yahoo and other Search results? If you are like Walt, intuitively knowing that the Internet can help you but you haven’t been able to tap it, maybe you should do what Walt did. Keep it simple and use the right tools, and buyers will find a path to your door. After 33 years in the business, Walt now uses technology to help him make more money and to better serve his clients.

Thanks to Walt for agreeing to share his success with us all, and if you know someone looking to retire in an active and wonderful place in Northern California, Walt is always ready to help you.

About the Author: Mike Parker is a principal at the Blackwater Consulting Group, Inc., and specializes in online marketing for real estate professionals. You can reach him by e-mail at mparker@theblackwatercg.com. To ask for a free copy of his booklet “SEO Secrets for Real Estate Professionals” by writing to mailto://realestate@theblackwatercg.com. It will be sent to you free and no one will call you. To request a free review of your website to determine if it can be found by internet buyers and if it is search engine friendly, click here and it will be evaluated free.

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