Y.I.M.S Blog

Are Real Estate Online Marketing Companies preying upon the Naivete of newbie agents? written by David Yim

Being a salesman in any industry comes with baggage, and in my experience in online marketing sales there are a few bad companies that turn the carry-on into an immigration  suitcase.

I just got off the phone with a newly licensed agent in Las Vegas and he was expressing his frustration with online marketing companies that were promising rainbows with pots of real estate gold at the end (who knows how far away that end is). He summarized it poignantly as he complained, “they are preying upon their perception of my naiveté and all I want are some realistic expectations!”

How many of you can share in the frustration of this agent who is trying to read in between the lines of the exquisitely sounding salesmanship? I don’t know how to use pollster yet, but I would put one here if I could =)

Being on the other side of the sales conversation for most of my day, perhaps I can help you expose the leprechauns and false rainbows with some straight talk. Here are some general considerations to make when shopping for your online marketing solution:

1) You need your own website! In 2009, if you don’t have your own website that you can take with you through the broker divorces that are inevitable in your career, then you don’t have any competitive edge. Don’t rely upon the subdomain that your broker gives you – www.davidyim.makemybrokermoney.com If you should move on to a different brokerage due to irreconcilable differences, namely commission splits, or worse, your broker goes out of business, you need to be able to pack your website and hit the road.

2) Make sure you OWN your domain name. Some online marketing companies will purchase domain names for you. While this may seem like red carpet service, it is actually the biggest disservice you can do for yourself. When (and I stress “when”, not “if”) you switch your website platform, the domain stays with the owner. So if you’re online marketing company owns the domain, you’ve just built them a brand name that they can sell to the next new kid on the block.

3) Swear by this one: Make certain that your website is IDX enabled. In plain speak, if consumers cannot search for homes in the MLS on your website, it’s no more valuable than a classic Martin Guitar without strings. Buyers care only about how easy it is for them to search for homes in the MLS.

3.1) Don’t use website companies that merely “borrow” or “frame” your MLS board’s data into your website. This provides a terrible experience for the consumer who clicks on your Search for Homes button and is taken to a whole new window! Make sure that your IDX provider actually gets a raw data feed from the MLS and “crunches” the data into your solution so people can search for homes in the MLS right on your website and never leave.

4) Make sure IDX solution has some kind of registration process where it requires the consumer to provide their contact information at a certain point, preferably a delayed registration – see my last post on the rationale. If you leave your MLS search process completely wide open (no registration required), the statistics show that 1 out of 100 visitors will actually volunteer their information or call you. Granted that 1 person is probably a high quality prospect, but you can see how this would burn a hole in your wallet faster than your teenage daughter if you’re employing a pay per click strategy.

5) Make sure your website solution provides a smart, intuitive, and painless way of managing, monitoring, and cultivating your online leads. What good are 50 leads in your database if you cannot even monitor the activity of these prospects? If you have to use Microsoft Excel to manage your leads, fire your online marketing solutions provider immediately!

6) Make sure you have some way to drive consumers to this new darling of yours. You just spent a couple of Benjamins (or in some cases thousands of dollars) on a beautiful site that you proudly trophy to your family members, co-workers, and the friends you have in your life. As essential as word of mouth marketing is, what are the chances that Uncle Louis or your racquetball partner Michael will buy enough homes from you to make a decent living? Unless you’re a former A-list movie star turned realtor, chances are you’ll need to employ a pay per visitor marketing campaign. This is the only cost effective strategy to drive high quality consumers searching for homes in your market area directly to your MLS Search enabled website. May I shamelessly plug HomeGain’s Buyerlink as your solution par excellence?

I need to stop before this list takes on a life of its own and expands beyond your blog reading capacities, so I’ll save it for some delicious posts in the near future. Don’t let the incredibly smooth taste fool you, and fight the marketing leprechauns with pots of fools gold by asking the right questions!