Online Marketing – Bringing Prospective Buyers to You

By Mike ParkerPrint Article Print Article

online-webRISMEDIA, March 18, 2009-Instead of another article about how bad things are and how agents are scared, this is a short analysis of how a broker in a town where the bottom literally fell out of the market is prospering and thriving by adapting and by using the Internet to bring buyers, sellers and investors to them. That’s just what Rick and Joyce Tietz continue to do, and with 15 transactions in escrow in the first quarter of this year plus a record year last year, they obviously are doing it correctly. Ninety-percent of Realtor websites fail to produce sales because agents and brokers don’t know exactly how to make them work.

Adapting your site to address the market

Rick and Joyce are RE/MAX agents in Antioch, California-a place with 900 homes for sale consisting of REO, lender owned short sales, or seller-owned homes. The Tietz’ strategy of going after these buyers is established right from their homepage (www.tietzhomes.com), where they include a call to action: “Ask Us about Antioch Foreclosures, Short Sales & REOs! It’s Our Specialty!” It may seem obvious to use such a simple call to action, but it works and the Tietz Team receives leads from it daily. However, their efforts to reach out to a targeted group of prospective buyers does not stop there. They also include an option for site viewers to: “Click here to receive reports on Foreclosures, Short Sales and REOs directly to your inbox with no obligation!”

Giving the online visitor value that makes you stand apart from others

When the visitor clicks on the invitation to receive information, they are presented with a special “Foreclosures and REO” page that offers facts about the local market and a choice of useful information packets that are available to the visitor, free of charge. The visitor may choose from booklets or reports titled “Short Sales are looking more attractive,” “FACT SHEET: FHA to provide additional mortgage assistance to struggling homeowners,” “Understanding REO’s,” “Mortgage Rates,” and “What is the HOPE for Homeowners program?” In this way, Rick and Joyce practice what they preach, namely that It is essential for the buyer or seller to be aware of all aspects of the real estate market before making a major decision.”

By putting together these informational reports, they both incent their visitor to receive them and they inform the visitor of the reality of each topic. That is value and information combined, the two things consumers want most in a website.

Giving the consumer that value is a big part of the reason that Rick and Joyce have experienced no less than 3,500 page views monthly since January, up from as few as two per day when they first began online marketing in earnest. It also explains why they receive so many registrations: people want the information.

A simple template site with a layout the consumer can operate

Rick and Joyce use a Point2 Professional site that they have customized to favor their specialty and the site is easy to navigate. It’s not a custom site with a fancy design and it isn’t in the running for “Most beautiful website of the Year.” All this site does is make money for Rick and Joyce.

Likewise, it’s not hard to find their site online, either. Just type in “Antioch CA Real Estate” on Google and there they are at number four on page one. Or, type in “Antioch CA Short Sales” and you’ll find them at number six on page one of Google.

The fact is that Rick and Joyce have been found on 500 different first page searches by over 6,000 people in the past 12 months and more than 30 of those searchers bought a property from the Tietz Team. Rick and Joyce don’t get the majority of their leads from Google: about 60% of the search engine traffic they get is from Yahoo.

“Our subscription to CompassSearch doesn’t limit us to just one search engine,” Rick says. “We get leads from all of them. To say that Compass has been fabulous doesn’t begin to measure the great benefit they’ve brought to our business. We’re found on all major search engines, we get great coaching and guidance on how to make our site stickier, and we get almost 100% of our leads from our search subscription.”

How can you succeed online?

The first and least involved way is to understand what you need to be able to do to manage your online marketing: request ‘REAL SEOTM Explained’-a 12 page PDF. After you read the booklet, you can take the second step and request a review of your website to learn if it is SEO and user-friendly, and what you can do to help make it that way. If you’re still unsure of what this is about, you can even take a third step and dial in and listen to how the Tietz Team’s online marketing services partner, CompassSearch, helps agents sell homes, live, in a typical morning “Welcome to Compass” webinar. All these things are free of charge, so if you want to start becoming an Internet Realtor and sharing the kind of success Rick and Joyce Tietz enjoy, you have many ways to learn how to do so. In three to six months, you could be signing up seven clients in a weekend and enjoying the same success that Rick and Joyce have found.

REO’s can be better than Short Sales and Foreclosures

REO (Real Estate Owned) refers to a property taken back by a bank or other lender. Usually, the properties have been restored to decent condition by the lender in order to spruce them up for sale. As all liens against the property are removed once it becomes REO for sale and as all taxes are brought current, there’s a lot less to impede a successful conclusion to a sale in an REO property than in, say, a short sale. That’s made clear to the visitor to Tietz Team’s site in the simple write-up: ‘Understanding REO,’ a simple page put out by Rick and Joyce that finds favor with their visitors who want to know how to participate positively in the housing market as it is now. There are lots of great investments out there today, and if you can bring visitors to your site that explains to them why those properties are great investments, you’ll prosper.

Mike Parker (mparker@theblackwatercg.com) specializes in online marketing services for Realtors® and real estate professionals. Obtain a free copy of his booklet “REAL SEO Explained” by writing to realseo@compassinternetsystems.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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