 |
|
|
Internet Solutions
2006
Where
Have All The Buyers Gone?
8-7-2006
|
|
|
|
|
|
Downturn
or Opportunity?
|
|
In many areas
of the country the market has put on the brakes.
Buyers and sellers who are out there are edgy and
cautious. Many
agents and some brokers are cutting back on marketing when
they should be hitting it even harder.
It is easy to make money in a market where buyers
are falling all over themselves to snatch up a piece of
the American Dream but takes some skill when buyers and
sellers are less plentiful.
FACTS TO
REMEMBER
In real
estate the market goes up and the market goes down.
It never STOPS. In other words there are people who
are selling now and other people who are buying now.
Which agents will assist in these transactions
depends on which agents take advantage of the economic
slowdown and which ones let the slowdown overwhelm them.
TIME TO
JUMP IN
When the
market slows down a certain number of your competitors
will stop marketing and advertising completely.
They will cancel their Websites, stop directing
mail to their geographic farm, reduce their outreach to
past clients and niche markets.
This reduction in the amount of marketing and
advertising directed to potential prospects is actually a
wonderful time for you to jump in and get your fair share
of the business that is out there.
BUDGET
WISELY
Whether the
market is HOT or COOL, the smart marketer is always on the
lookout for cost effective marketing. If you are looking for a real marketing value, check out The
Real Estate Lead Generator. Talk about cost effective.
This Lead Generator is only $595 to set up and
includes search engine submission and lots of built in
marketing.
|
|
|
|
|
Dynamics
of the Self Fulfilling Prophesy |
|
When
agents and brokers perceive that the economy has
slowed down and thus will have a negative impact on
their production and income, it appears that good
old human nature will step in to make sure that this
prophesy comes true. In other words, our predictions
affect subsequent reality.
SO
SHOULD WE DENY REALITY?
I’m
not so sure there is any real “Reality” out
there and many experts point out that Perception IS
Reality however, I suppose we can all agree that in
most of the country the real estate market has
slowed in comparison to the past several years.
I will also agree that simply thinking that
the market is HOT will not make it so.
Where predictions become self-fulfilling and
possibly damaging is when we believe that our
listings and sales will drop and our income will
suffer. It
is just as easy and a whole lot smarter to believe
that the economic downturn will cause many of your
competitors to leave the field leaving the existing
listings and sales to be shared by a fewer number of
agents.
THE
POWER OF POSITIVE THINKING
Who
hasn’t heard of the book by Norman Vincent Peale?
As a formula for success, his message cannot
be beat. To
apply it to your own business situation follow these
rules:
- Make
a positive commitment to yourself to reach out
and find those sellers and buyers who need your
services.
- Focus
on what you need to do to attract the business
you want. Let
others moan about slow times.
You focus on doing your marketing right.
Be
brave! Try
new things. If
you need help with a Personal Plan for Success, call
me tollfree at 888-814-5347 or visit me online at http://www.sellrealestate.net
/FreeWebPlan.asp
.
|
|
|
|
|
At all
times your marketing should focus on the needs and
interests of your customers and prospects.
You are hearing gloom and doom all around
you from some of your colleagues.
They are nervous.
They are frightened.
They are reading in the paper that the real
estate market has slowed down and that interest
rates are on the rise.
Your prospective customers are hearing the
same thing. Do
you have any advice for someone who must sell
right now? Any
advice for someone who must buy right now?
Now might be a good time to create some
words of wisdom for your prospects and put them on
your Website.
When you do this, you automatically
establish yourself as an Expert in Real Estate
Sales in a Slow Economy.
Gee Whiz, that’s right where you want to
be!
RISE
TO THE OCCASION
Now
might be an excellent time to set up a Website
that will place you on the top of the search
engines. This does not need to be a costly
venture, in fact, I prefer the free section of the
search engines to the paid advertising or
sponsored sites sections because more people use
the free section.
Take this time when many of your
competitors are acting less aggressively to get
aggressive yourself.
To find out more about good search engine
placement, visit
http://www.sellrealestate.net/
SearchEnginePlacement.htm.
ANALYZE
YOUR MARKET
Take
time to examine what is happening in your local
market. Are
there homeowners who are attempting to sell on
their own?
Consider using The Lead Generator to target
the FSBO market and increase your listings.
Yes you can!
Visit
the Seller Section at http://sample1.rewebs.net/
to see an example of what I mean.
Or maybe there are a lot of listings that
expire because the owner wouldn’t lower the
price of the home.
Could it be that targeting Expired Listings
is a good idea at this time?
Again, if you need help in analyzing your
market, call me toll free at 888-814-5347. Or, you
might want to do an online Quick Check to see if
you are positioned for Online Success.
You can do that at http://www.sellrealestate.net/
OnLineSuccess.htm.
|
|
|
|
The
Importance of Image
|
|
Someone once
said and a country songwriter once warbled that clothes do
not make the man. The
point, of course, is that you should not judge a book by
its cover. And
while this is such good advice, the fact is that most of
us DO judge books by their covers. We DO judge people by the way they dress and online, we DO
judge agents by their Websites.
IT’S
WHY CURB APPEAL MATTERS
Every agent
knows the importance of a property’s curb appeal and
understands that a home’s décor is a huge part of the
appeal. This
is true even though the prospective buyer is NOT buying
the furnishings, just the real estate.
So why is it then that so many real estate agents
present themselves online with a bleak looking Website or
with a template site that many other agents share?
Well that is a rhetorical question so I’m not
going to answer it but if you have been thinking about
improving your online image, visit me at http://www.sellrealestate.net/customweb.htm.
What you do online really does matter.
SHATTERED
IMAGES
Imagine
being introduced to one of the beautiful people dressed in
the latest Paris fashion. Everything about this person
screams a million bucks and then the gorgeous one smiles
and reveals several brown, partially decayed front teeth.
It is off-putting to say the least.
PROSPECTS’
EXPECTATIONS
Something
very much like this happens when you find a very appealing
book cover, house or Website that fails to live up to its
promise. Which goes to show that while image is important,
reality has to live up to the promise or your prospects
will be disappointed.
In terms of marketing and specifically in terms of
Websites, it means that a good Web designer must pay a
great deal of attention must both to image and to content.
|
|
|
|
|
Words
and Ideas as a Backdrop |
|
A truly
awful or offensive Website will simply not attract
any prospects no matter how great the actual
content. But it is also true that a very attractive Website may appeal
to prospects but fail to hold them if the content is
poor. Content
is the substance of the Website and includes
graphics but also includes the words on the pages,
the feedback forms, the interactivity of the
Website---its core values.
IDX
IS GOOD CONTENT
It
should be obvious to anyone that prospective buyers
want to have access to all the MLS data.
They want to see EVERY house for sale,
compare features, request Email listing alerts and
the whole nine yards.
And, it is obvious to any real estate
professional that his or her Website should contain
this information with one little proviso.
As a real estate agent, you want to display
all the MLS data for your prospects but you want
every listing in the database to come with your
contact information front and center.
When this happens, your prospects get what
they want and you get what you want.
A good thing!
To find out about IDX options that will work
for you visit us online at http://www.sellrealestate.net
and click on IDX Solutions.
When you put your cursor over that link,
you’ll find a whole drop down menu of helpful Web
pages that show you how to generate leads using IDX on
your Website.
LET
YOUR EXPERIENCE BE YOUR GUIDE
Beyond
listings, prospects want to know such things as how
location affects value, the importance of getting
the right loan, how to get the maximum price for
their home, the current rate of home appreciation in
the area—in other words, things that any well
informed real estate agent should know but rarely
displays on the Website.
For additional ideas on Web content visit http://www.sellrealestate.net/
RealEstateLeadGenerator.htm and if you like what
you see, you can sign up online. Call me toll free
at 888-814-5347 for a promo code number that will
save you $100 on this very effective Website.
|
|
|
|
|
The
Third Leg of a 3-Legged Stool |
|
All of
this talk about graphics, images and content
supposes that there are only two main players in
this game---you and your prospect.
Nothing could be further from the truth.
There is another player and his name is
SEARCH ENGINE.
There are, of course, several different
individual search engines but without the
cooperation of one of more of them, online buyers
will never find your Website.
LIMITS
ON YOUR CREATIVITY
This
third player definitely puts limits on your
creativity. While
you and your Web designer might think that Flash
graphics send the perfect image and message to
your prospects, the search engines have technical
difficulties with Flash making it an unwise choice
for your Website.
TOO
MUCH IMAGE – TOO LITTLE CONTENT
Too
much of the image side of your Website will hurt
your chances with good search engine placement.
Your Web designer needs to know what search
engines search for and how the search engines
actually search (scan or crawl) a Web page.
If the home page is all graphic, there is
very little for the search engine to see or read. Since the search engine evaluates your Website based on
content not on graphics, you run the risk of
losing search engine support if your site is too
heavy on the graphical side.
THE
RIGHT WORDS IN THE RIGHT PLACE
Just
because search engines prefer words to graphics
does not mean that you can simply write on and on
about anything on your Web page. Search engines
are programmed to look for words on your page that
support your keyword phrase or phrases.
The text and meta tags on your Web pages
must be written by a professional who knows what
the search engines are looking for and who knows
what keyword phrase will bring you the best
results. For
more specific information on what search engines
want visit http://www.sellrealestate.net/
SearchEnginePlacement.htm.
|
|
|
|
REAL
ESTATE WEB DESIGN & MARKETING
FORMULA
FOR SUCCESS
If
you want to Get Customers to Come to You, Always Put Your
Customers First. Choose or create a real estate Website that is User Friendly,
Focuses on Customer Needs, Makes Offers and Never Keeps Customers Waiting.
For Ideas click on Web Design at http://www.sellrealestate.net |
 |
INTERNET
SOLUTIONS 2006
How to Get Customers to Come
to You
Written by Noel Markham, M.A.
Web Designer & Marketing
Consultant
Contact Noel toll free at 888-814-5347
E-mail: noel@revalues.com |
|
|