Where Hollywood Boulevard Meets Main Street and Dreams Meet Reality

By Mike Parker Print Article

RISMEDIA, October 1, 2009—It’s the land of Celluloid Heroes, the place where “everybody’s a dreamer and everybody’s a star.” It’s the place where “success walks hand-in-hand with failure, along Hollywood Boulevard.”* It’s where homes sometimes sell for sums of money too ludicrous to contemplate to people who make fortunes for acting–sometimes badly. It’s Hollywood, and it’s where Johnny Johnston of Sotheby’s International Realty makes his living. 

Not every home buyer in the heart of show business is a star, of course—but they all expect to be treated like one. Whether they are buying a bungalow in Los Feliz for a million or so, or a palatial estate in Beverly Hills for a price equal to the GNP of some small countries doesn’t really matter. You see, the rich and famous are different than you and me, but they are not different in what they want from a real estate professional: they want knowledge, integrity, selection and value. 

Likewise, selling homes in this market is not all Beverly Hills and Hollywood glamour, either. There’s staid Hancock Park, funky Silverlake, totally hip West Hollywood, and all the neighborhoods surrounding Downtown Los Angeles. Love it or hate it, it’s what makes LA such a unique place. As you can imagine, it’s hard to successfully straddle all these different markets within-a-market as some of them have nothing in common with each other except proximity. 

Somehow, Johnny Johnston manages to do that. He is unusual because in his five years of selling homes, he has not limited his efforts to one area, as is so common with agents. “I resisted becoming a niche Realtor,” he says, “I try to cover as much of this city—and its diverse spectrum of buyers—as possible. My clients range from first-time homebuyers to savvy investors.” In such a moving market, Johnston had to decide how to target his marketing and his marketing funds. Two years ago, he decided to make a presence for himself on the Internet. 

“I find buyers and sellers through three channels,” Johnston reports; “I find them through referrals, open houses and my Internet marketing. I stopped paying for fliers and mailers; I only market online.” 

Some fascinating observations about Internet Marketing
“When I look at my present active clients–and sales that I’ve closed this year- 40%-50% of all my sales are through Internet leads–or second generation referrals from Internet leads,” Johnston told me recently. “I’m not generating a high number of leads every month, but the leads I do generate prove to be valuable ones– ones that perform and close. I’ve found that the people who sign into my ‘lead capture box’ sometimes don’t prove to be real, but people who email or call me directly from the site almost always close. Prior to subscribing to an online marketing service, my website did nothing to generate leads. It was a pretty calling card–but served no purpose in terms of soliciting or generating new business. People only went to the site when I sent them there–and they were already clients–essentially, it was useless.” (Johnston could be speaking for the 95% of agents who fail online with those comments, because that is precisely why 95% of agents do fail at online marketing: their website does nothing to generate leads). 

Now that Johnston’s site is generating real leads for him every month, he’s made some other observations that are telling: “The entirety of my marketing campaign has shifted to the Internet–and almost exclusively to CompassSearch and the work they do. They have proven to be the single most effective lead generator that I’ve established for my business. I consider myself a very approachable agent and I still have a higher return rate with leads from my online marketing than through any other method. 2009 looks to be one of my best years yet and that’s due to my success online.” 

He has seen the light of Internet success
When I remarked that having his best year yet in this market had to be satisfying, Johnston also told me what made him love his new status as an Internet marketer even more: “What I love most about it is that it’s effective. It amazes me how few people around the market are tapping into it. I still hear people talking about mailers and door knocking and cold calling… I’ll never do them. And while I have to give my online marketing services supplier (CompassSearch) full recognition and props, I’m hoping it won’t let the cat out of the bag–because the last thing I need is my competitors becoming savvy to the efficacy of Internet marketing. One of the things I love about this type of marketing campaign is that it’s self-propelling and sustaining. Besides having to put new listings on my site occasionally and making sure the art is current, this is a campaign that runs 24/7 and is targeted exactly where I want to be seen. I don’t have to come up with a new flier or a new gimmick to mail out every 6 weeks. I leave it alone and it does its work on its own. I have to update my site once–maybe twice–a year, and then it performs on its own year around. Because Compass brings me the leads, I can leave it to them and just go sell homes, knowing there will be leads coming in every month for me to call on. My marketing just keeps getting stronger as time passes and I can’t tell you how good it is to know that regardless of market conditions in the future I will still have real leads to sell homes to. It brings a whole new level of confidence to what I do.” 

Don’t worry, Johnny!
When Johnston worries about letting the “cat out of the bag,” I have to laugh. If there is one group of business people who continue to do the same old thing the same old way, its real estate agents. Despite their own trade association telling them that 87% of residential real estate sales begin online, most agents and brokers act as if we are two weeks past the days of the MLS book of listings. With 87% of residential sales starting online, you’d think an agent would be alarmed if not even 5% of their sales come from their websites, but there’s a general apathy that defies logic in this industry. Johnston, your secrets are safe—your competition is still clucking over their full color ads in this week’s L.A. Times Real Estate Magazine, where their competitors can see how well they are doing because of all the money they are spending on obsolete print media. Why would your competitors want to spend $3,400 annually to reach millions of Internet buyers to sell multi-million dollar properties when they can spend that monthly in the L.A. Times on one listing? 

You see, selling real estate today is not about high-gloss newspaper and magazine advertising. It’s about converting anonymous visitors to your website into people who ask you for more information about something they saw there, just as Johnston describes above. In the final analysis, online marketing success has little to do with which website you choose, how much information is on it, or how pretty it is. Online success depends on three simple factors: 

1. The site must be found often by Internet shoppers under the specialty that you practice and the location you practice it in; that means on Google®, Yahoo® and bing®;

2. The site must incent anonymous visitors to sign in so that you can work with them and develop them into a client; that means 5-15% of all visitors to your site sign in and become potential clients;

3. You must follow the proper procedures and timetables for responding to the leads the site generates. 

This applies whether selling a bungalow in Los Feliz or a palatial estate in Beverly Hills. Or any home anywhere. Make the Internet your marketplace and success will make you a star, and it will make you financially comfortable—in case that’s what you really want out of your real estate practice. 

* Lyric by Ray Davies and the Kinks “Celluloid Heroes”© 1968 all rights reserved. 

Mike Parker has written more than 200 published articles about online marketing services for realtors. For help in making your site an Internet Star or to determine if it can be found by internet buyers and if it is set up to be effective for you, click here and we’ll review it for you at no cost or obligation. 

RISMedia welcomes your questions and comments. Send your e-mail to: realestatemagazinefeedback@rismedia.com. 

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Tuesday, February 9, 2010