Know-How Exchange : Advertising/PR

Please post the URL for your web site...

I see information for sellers, but no information for buyers. Isn't it a buyer's market right now?

Rita

One thing that I always believe in if the looks. The looks of your site's homepage is not as appealing that would attract some clients. You need to present yourself as a LEADER in the market, and I think your website does not present that at the moment. If you need any help in that, I can give you some tips.

Secondly, try to mention about the points that proves you as better that any other company there in terms of services that you provide.

Your Web site needs redevelopment to correct several problems that are interfering with your lead conversion.

Your Web site design is your first problem. It needs to be updated with clearer navigation, a more vibrant color scheme, and a unique theme. You typefaces and sizes need to be refined and rescaled. Your layout needs to be rearranged.

You need a logo to replace the generic graphics in your top left corner. You need to add more graphics that feature you. You need to have coordinated graphics throughout the site, regardless of what page you are on.

You need different features. An interactive map would be good as a central feature. You should also consider some widgets such as instant calculators.

You need a clearer marketing focus. Your site should be selling people on why they should use you as an agent, rather than give them access to real estate. You want to convince them that you are trustworthy, caring, and responsible.

You need to have an email newsletter. You can get a content provider to do this for you. But you have to have tie-ins to keep people coming back to the Web site, or at least sending other people there.

Your content strategy needs to be rethought. Add the latest news feeds on real estate prices in the area. Have stories pulled from other feeds on the schools in the area.

Please do not continue spending money to attract people to your site until you have redeveloped it. For the cost of 3 months of advertising, you should be able to get a wonderful site that updates itself with relevant content each day and makes you look great!

Please feel free to ask me off-forum for more specific advice.

Regards,

Win

For the apparent level of clientelle you are looking for based on your posted listings, the actual site design is unremarkable and inconsistent. People will judge your inventory on how they perceive your website...lower class, low-level design. Even springng as couple hundred dollars for a nice stock template would be worth it.
There are only 3 items parts of the site that you actually offered people something: Hot List Request, Search for Homes and Your Home's Value. Search for Homes and Hot List Request require submission of personal information, and Your Home's Value has been taken out as an option (though the link is still there) also requiring submission of contact info. If you have no intention on letting the user use your website at their convenience and leisure, don't give them any false hope of doing so. I suggest offering something useful; HomeValue would have been great, or a newsletter, tip sheet, or even a "video home of the week". Simply put, you don't offer anything of value without asking for the client to completely give up their personal info.
You could even offer someone car detailing or a nice dinner for listing their home with you...In realtor land, you must do something to stand out...BE UNIQUE!

Your website is dull and mundane. Re-read what BARQ said.
It looks like thousands I've been on.

And $3K a MONTH??? Your money could be better spent
on a great website and the 'hungry marketing company' BARQ mentioned.

Hi Tom-Pel,

hope you're having a great day but more importantly a wonderful life. First of all let me offer my disclaimer and say although I have spent a few years in the Real Estate industry I'm in no way a Real Estate Expert. Now that we've got that out of the way let me tell you what I can do for you. You see my expertise is in showing clients like you how to evanglize their customers with PASSION and also show you how you can love your customers in such a way that they work so much harder at bringing you more business hands-down than your employees could ever imagine. Surely that's the way it should work since you have more customers than employees. So here are three things I'd like to recommend for you and the rest are bonuses that I throw in for FREE because I think my customers deserve it.

THREE THINGS THAT WILL MAKE A DIFFERENCE NOW...

1.) If I were you and I had $3,000 a month to apply to the future success of my business the first thing I would do is Hire an excellent Copywriter to build you a landing page and get more bang for your buck than you'll ever get with your current website. That way you can draw like a huge magnet the specific ideal kind of customer whose interested in buying what you are selling. Now if your goal is to pull in the kind of customer you're trying to pull in on the internet you could also do the following...

2.) Consider hiring a Conversions Expert. Someone whose speciality it is to show you how to convert more of your customers into active buyers of the service you are producing. Finally I would also...

3.) Consider hiring a PR Expert. Someone who can show you how to generate the kind of publicity your website is failing to produce for you. At least then you can target your specific marketing community rather than advertising to the whole entire world and still not pulling people from diverse areas of the world who may have an interest in moving to the community where you sell real estate.


ONE THING THAT WILL MAKE A HUGE DIFFERENCE LATER

BONUS: MAKE YOUR FORMER CUSTOMERS CREATE YOUR FUTURE...
Seriously if you've ever sold any previous customers that's your window to the world. That's your way to secure your future by creating the future you desire. Your past customer ---IF--- they like the service you've rendered and think what you have done for them is truly amazing then they will be compelled to reciprocate beyond the transaction cost by sharing with you other people they know. Now you have a huge opportunity to sell a new customer without working half as hard as you did to get the previous customer you did not know. In other words you've got a warm sell lined up and ready to consider buying from you because they are EXCITED about what you've done for their friend, family member or business partner. Now you don't have to believe a word I'm saying but when I sold commercial security equipment at hundreds of thousands of dollars I had an 85% closing average and won the highest awards my company SBC/AMERITECH could give me, I gained all of my respect from my customers by going the extra miles necessary to inspire them to believe they'd ---NEVER--- meet another Security Consultant who would protect them from their fears or worries and bring them the kind of PEACE OF MIND I delievered 24 hours a day and that's what I would recommend you do to become KING of your industry. REMEMBER... our only real problem in life is our failure to be "MORE Creative" than we’ve ever been. If you “Invent” your opportunity YOU WILL most definitely create your future. I'm only an email away from you if you need my help. Is there anything else I can do for you?

Your Servant,

Deremiah, *CPE (Customer Passion Evangelist)

I think Randall has really given you some great advice and questions that are an important part of the analysis. We do have these kinds of professionals on our site as well and Randall's company can offer you some great input on it plus BARQ's I can testify that his work is excellent as well.

LET ME PRAISE YOU FOR TWO THINGS!!!
With all the critiques above one can easily feel bad or take the errors personally but that won't change anything. So let me praise you for doing two things...Tom-Pel, there are two good things I see you doing right and for that you deserve to be praised 1.) You are willing to invest good money into your business and that's a good thing that often times I see business people not willing to do and 2.) You are willing to ask questions and seek out advice when things aren't working and that reflects good on you.

Now you just need to make a slight adjustment by investing your money for the success of your business with the right organization that wants to see you prosper because they understand what you need. Everyone needs customers but more importantly than that we need the right customer for our business. So why don't you call Randall up or Jeff aka (BARQ) I'm positive they can give you some great counsel when you click their blue profile name.

Deremiah *CPE

Are you investing in driving people TO the web site? Having one doesn't mean everybody will go to see it, this is not "if they build it, they will come"...

I think your $3,000 a month is better spent hiring a copywriter to develop content to help educate your potential customers.

I've read through the source code of your web site, and I don't see anything in there that would warrant 3,000 a month investment. The images are being called from another server (typical of a mass produced 'but a template off the shelf' type real estate web site company). There really isn't much design to the site. Nothing amazing in keyword selection. Frankly, I'm at a loss how they could even manage to drive traffic to the site unless its part of a print promotion campaign too (but then you would have said that was part of the web package, wouldn't you?) What are you getting for 3 grand a month?

I can see that your current web site company simply knock out basic web sites. There is little or very little difference between your site and the demo site. Canned content that is too general or too rehashed does little to REALLY reflect YOUR firm's personality. I did a little back ground check, and see that your domain name is simply redirected to the server as opposed to having a site built on your own web space (Search engines don't like redirects much). In fact, your web site has 27,000 plus neighbors on the same server (talk about server load, or one heck of a cash cow if they have 27,000 realtors all paying the same fee you are).

You would be better off going for an ORIGINAL web site, including content that reflects who you are and what you do. You weould be better off hiring a PR firm and a marketing firm to help you tell your story, and keep investing in your web site to keep building more and more quality content that SELLS you to your potential clients.

Hope this helps you

Darcy Moen
Customer Loyalty Network

Besides service, the other (obvious) thing that buyers/sellers want to know is that you maximize their money. Are you a great negotiator? Can you convince a seller to take your buyer's offer, even though it's $50k less than everyone elses? Are your sellers' homes getting $100k over asking, regularly, even though they were priced at a fair initial amount? Are your sellers DOM under a week?

Do you have a great mortgage power-partner, someone that can get buyers great financing, affording a home that's much better than they could normally afford (without causing financial pain later)?

Do you list homes that no one else will touch (or everyone else had before) and wind up selling them at a great price?

You're right, that service is hard to sell (unless, as Randall mentioned, you go way above and beyond). Saving $ isn't as hard to sell.

You said: 'I've looked at this so many ways trying to come up with something quantifiable. Our difference is mainly "honest" "reliable" "go the second mile" All the things we are and that consumers look for, but NOT measurable or memorable.'

What makes YOU different from any other realtor? You said you are honest, reliable and go the second mile.....just like every other realtor. THOSE POINTS that you can't add the phrase 'just like every other realtor' are exactly what you are seeking.

Let me try this another way.

You know the features and highlights that sell a house and help convince a client to buy a specific property. I bet you could list them off rapid fire right away, couldn't you? Well, you need the same features and hot buttons drawn out from your company to help convince clients that you are the realtor or firm for them.

What are those features and hot button issues? That is exactly why you need to work with a creative writer, a marketer, a brand specialist, someone who can draw out those nuggets of information and find the CORE qualifiers that make YOUR FIRM UNIQUE. These then become the foundation of your unique selling proposition, that lead to your unique niche. Once you have this niche, it becomes your territory you dominate. THEN your traffic will become filtered qualified leads that will close more readily.

Like I said to my realtor who was showing me a property with a very high drive by traffic. I said: I don't care how many drive by, it's how many that stop and buy that I want to know. My realtor was experienced enough to reply: My job was to find the location, your job is to build the business that makes people want to stop and shop.

Harsh words, but clearly defined the roles.

Every step in a sales process CAN BE quantifiable. Everything that can move a customer towards closure CAN BE measured. It just requires the proper system in place to measure it. You are already measuring, you know the traffic to your site and the non-conversion rate. Why not establish a few 'test pages' to track how many eyeballs are drawn and convert to a sale? As was previously mentioned, create some 'landing pages' to test different sales processes and systems, and again measure the close rate. Trail and error will help you evaluate the effectivness of each, and one will perform better than others. Isolate what made it effective. Learn from the success, learn from the failures. Test test test test.

You need a specialist who can help you design and determine what will work to SELL your services. A web site is only a PART of that solution. Redesign is another part. The WORDS and CONTENT that SELL is what convinces someone to hire you. You might consider posting this project here and have some MP experts bid on the job. What you are presently spending should attract the right expert to help you.

Darcy Moen
Customer Loyalty Network

tom-pel,

I live in OC and I have real estate industry experience. Based on your home page meta tags (see below), you could start your differentiation by claiming to be THE EXPERT for homebuyers and homesellers in Yorba Linda, East Fullerton, Anaheim Hills and Orange Hills. That would mean letting go of all the flat land properties to the west, letting go of the beach cities and everything Irvine and beyond - they are too crowded with agents anyway. That's what marketing position is, letting go of what you can't own to claim what you can own.

To further differentiate, you could specialize in upscale, hill and view properties selling for $750,000 and up. Then put ALL of your online/offline marketing focus on reinforcing this branding claim with personal care and extra services for your clients. Ask yourself who is number one with this position now. It's probably your company and several others. With strategy clarity, it will be possible to own this position outright in a few years.

Send me an email if you would like to discuss further.

Steve

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title>Yorba Linda and Anaheim Hills Real Estate. Prudential California Realty. 714-348-2350

meta NAME="description" CONTENT="Search for homes online in Orange County California. Yorba Linda, Anaheim Hills, and beach cities. Prudential California Realty 714-348-2350"