How to make the perfect PB&J

Our little magazine has always been a hyper-local, mobile-enabled advertising vehicle.   We feature local homes and real estate agents and place it in targeted distribution locations all over town.  Home buyers and sellers pick it up, put it in their pocket or purse, and take it with them to search for homes, and agents in the magazine and on the websites they see featured there.

We’ve been doing this for over 30 years. This experience has been crucial in our adaption of mobile technology as part of our overall strategy.

A few things we’ve learned –

1. Home buyers and sellers are short-term customers.   Once they’ve made the decision to buy or sell, there is a very short window of opportunity in which to engage them.
2. A significant percentage of the 2 million unique users who go to RealEstateBook.com and NCI’s suite of sites are new every month – not repeat visitors.  High churn.  Once they’ve selected a home or a real estate agent, they typically don’t buy or sell again for another 6-7 years.
3. Therefore, you have to be everywhere THEY SEARCH for real estate information.
4. And, you have to SEARCH FOR THEM through advertising.  It’s not their job to find us.  It’s our job to find them.

Here’s why mobile works well with real estate advertising.

• 73% of local searches are performed through mobile web browsers*

• More than 48 million mobile users accessed maps on their device in May 2011, marking an increase of 39 percent from the previous year. *

• In June of 2011, time spent on mobile apps and sites surpassed time spent surfing web sites on a laptop or desktop computer.**

• By 2013, more people will own smart phones than personal computers or laptops.**

• 14 million mobile users in the U.S. representing 6.2% of the total mobile audience, scanned a QR or bar code on their mobile device in June 2011

• The most popular source of a scanned code (49.4%) was a printed magazine or newspaper.

In other words, more and more consumers are using their phones to surf the web – and using an offline source to drive local traffic to a mobile enabled site makes perfect sense – especially in an industry like ours in which location is key.

Want to learn more about mobile marketing for real estate?  Contact your local Real Estate Book representative.  Enter your zip here to find yours.Our offering now includes single property mobile websites, text codes, and QR codes - at no additional cost.

Because print advertising and mobile marketing go together like . . peanut butter & jelly.  Bees and honey. Bacon and eggs.  Baseball and hot dogs.  Football and tailgating.

Ok . . please excuse me.  I’m hungry now.

*comScore, Inc. Research  ** Nielson Research

The new search happens everywhere. 

Today’s multi-media multi-taskers take in print, tv, radio, mobile tools, the web and , social networks. It’s not just the Google web or even the social web.  The new “search” is not just online.  It’s also physical.  We “search” everywhere we turn.

To reach the top of the “new search, you must integrate your media and content marketing to reach consumers in relevant ways.

An integrated strategy includes 4 types of media

1.       Owned media – Your own website –  information about you from you.

2.       Paid media – Advertising that connects to your owned media, your brand.

When consumers conduct a Google search, they find you.  When you advertise, you find them.    

You must use prospect focused distribution of relevant content to interrupt your target audience – a print ad, a online banner, a postcard, a billboard.   

3.       Social media – Facebook, Twitter, your blog – part of the billions of conversations  on social networks daily.  Relevant conversations build brand awareness,  loyalty, and engagement,  drives traffic to owned media and creates earned media.

4.       Earned media – the stuff you can’t buy.  Positive reviews and voluntary distribution through networks of influencers the highest quality leads.

The Real Estate Book has spent over  30 years studying consumer habits in the real estate industry. 

·        We understand today’s consumer.

·        We understand the tools you need to connect with them.

·        We create those connections.

Based on this deep understanding, we guide leading real estate professionals through today’s marketing complexities.

I was recently reminded of a story – true or not – about a visit that President John F. Kennedy made to the space center at Cape Canaveral sometime in the 1960′s. While there, JFK ran into three custodial workers. He asked all three, “What is it that you do here?”

The first replied, “Earn a livng.”

The second said, “I pick up the trash.”

The third said, “Mr. President, I am helping to put a man on the moon.”

The third understood that he played a part in a larger picture. Clearly, for effective operations at the space center, someone had to keep the facility clean and operational. And, as the facility was able to operate effectively, those who worked there also were able to accomplish their goal of sending a man to the moon.

This worker had two things – passion and a sense of purpose.

I thought about all the people here at Network Communications and our passion and purpose. On the surface, we create and publish shelter-related content. And it takes around 800 – 900 people to do that in various forms – whether they are making sales, creating web content, running a printing press, creating graphics, servicing our customers, gathering and reporting data, delivering the mail, driving a truck, or any other number of functions – including keeping the place clean and operational.

But, as an entire organization, what is that we really do? What’s our purpose? Here’s what I came up with –

We help people find their home.

They may be looking for an apartment, a first home, a next home, a second home , a retirement home, or a place to age gracefully. We will help them find that place. Then, we help make the place they live into a place they call “home” with information on decorating, repairing, or improving their space and on enjoying and becoming a member of the community around them.

And, we’re pretty darned passionate about that.

What do you do?

How do top agents continue to win?

What are the winning qualities home buyers and sellers look for in a real estate professional?  The recent release of the National Association of REALTORS Profile of Home Buyers and Sellers for 2010 reveals that even with access to an abundance of information online, consumers still value the services offered by a full-service agents and brokers.

According to the stats – Here’s what  sellers want most from a full service agent -

1. Help me price the home competitively – 22%
2. Help find a buyer for the home – 21%
3. Help seller market the home to potential buyers – 20%
4. Help sell the home in a specific time frame – 19%

In today’s market place, sellers rely even more on real estate professionals to help them price their homes as competitively and realistically as possible.   Most understand that their home has most likely,  lost value in the past few years and understandably, want to sell for as much as they can.

Consumers also know that exposing their home to the largest universe of buyers possible means they stand a better chance of selling quickly and for a higher price.  That’s why agents who go above and beyond to actually market the home versus just posting it on the web on free  sites are preferred by sellers.

Also, according to the study, buyers want a real estate professional to  –

1. Help them to find the right home – 51%
2. Help negotiate the terms – 14%
3. Help with price negotiations – 12%
4. Help with the paperwork – 10%

Even though home shopping on their own has never been easier, buyers are still looking to the agent to help them find the right home and a professional agent to help them through the process.    Agents who presents themselves as honest, caring,  knowledgeable, and full-service stand a better chance of engaging buyers.

Even though the market has changed and technology has changed, consumers’ expectations remain consistent.   Sellers still want their home priced well and marketed well with the belief that means a faster, more profitable  sell and buyers are still looking for a professional agent to guide them through the process.

Top agents have always known this and they make sure they promote these qualities to both buyers and sellers.  That’s why they continue to win the business and confidence of consumers.

Like many of us in this business I have been awe struck by the rate of decline in almost everything related to the housing industry over the last three years; existing homes sold, new homes built and purchased, mortgages sold, real estate agent commissions and of course the one that most directly impacts me and my business, the significant drop in advertising and marketing spend.  If this is any consolation,  books will be written (some already have been) about this period in time and we’ll all be able to say we witnessed it first hand.

There are plenty of people better qualified than I to predict how the 2011 American housing market will play out, so I won’t try to second guess them. Their forecasts range from more of the same (4.8M to 5.0M existing homes sold) to slightly more aggressive numbers, closer to 5.5M existing homes sold. The consensus is the recovery in housing will be tepid in 2011.

But there is less consensus around real estate marketing media trends for 2011 and so I’d like to further that discussion with my own predictions for the Top 5 Media Trends we’ll see develop in the coming year.

Top 5 MEDIA TRENDS FOR 2011

1. Common sense will return to the media market. Top Agents and Brokers recognizing that real estate always has been and always will be a hyper-local business, will stop following the larger crowd and decide instead to find ways to stand out from the crowd in  their very specific, very local market.

2. Local housing guides, especially color catalogs integrated with an online offering.  like The Real Estate Book and its companion website http://www.realestatebook.com  and other well executed products, will regain favor due to their hyper local characteristics and their ability to attract buyers and influence  prospective sellers to list their home with a market leader.

3.  Internet marketing will change radically. The idea that simply posting listings on large national sites is innovative marketing and that “if we post they will come” will be replaced with a smarter approach, better leveraging the real power of the internet.  Large sites today like Realtor.com and other popular sites like Zillow.com and Trulia.com get anywhere from 5 to 10 million unique users every month, which is amazing considering the lackluster pace of home sales this year, but lead generation from those users is low at between 1 and 2% of traffic. These sites can be a great research tool, but for whatever reason the medium just doesn’t engage people to take action, like send an email or make a phone call, to the same degree other mediums offer.

4.  Content marketing solutions, like http://www.brokersherpa.com  where Agents and Brokers are able to leverage their existing digital assets, like listing data mentioned above and  integrate it in a more meaningful way to intersect and engage with buyers and sellers as they are online searching in any of the major search engines or social media sites, will be a major trend for 2011.

5. Cost and return on investment will continue to be major drivers to media and marketing decisions as the housing market recovers, but at a slow pace in 2011. Commission dollars will still be tight and very precious. Every decision should have a measurable and productive outcome and top Agents and brokers will insist that the vendors they choose to work with can back up their claims with concrete results and reporting.

That’s my list for Top 5 MEDIA TRENDS for 2011. I”d love to hear your thoughts and invite you to  let me know if you agree and if not, how you might modify the list.

Happy New Year!

Ah . . . the joys of giving. 

Be generous this holiday season.  Here are 3 ways to give to home buyers and home sellers in your advertising and a special offer from The Real Estate Book.  Read on . . .

Give the people what they want.  In your advertising, buyers want to see  . . . PHOTOS of homes.  Multiple photos of the rooms inside, the yard, and the special features.  Don’t make them work too hard.  Make it FUN to look for their dream home.

Sellers want you to MARKET their home.  Make it stand out.  Advertise it.  Before you ask for a price reduction, be sure you’ve done more than put a single photo of the front of the home on MLS and and buried it for free on listing aggregate sites. Showing them that you are doing everything you can to reach potential buyers makes them feel SPECIAL.

Tell them how it benefits them.  So, you’re a top agent.  Good for you.  Consumers want to know what you are going to do for THEM.  Talk about how you’ve helped your clients, not about how they’ve helped you. Show success stories on selling a home quickly or helping a buyer find the perfect home.    Offer a free consultation, downloadable community resources, checklists to help them get ready for the big transaction. 

Be responsive – quickly and appropriately.  An automated phone message that takes 5 minutes to navigate before you get to a live person or a voice mail with the promise of calling them back within 24 hours means that they will most likely hang up on you.  An auto-reply on your email means they will most likely email someone else.  Advertise the best way to reach you and do your best to answer your phone personally and respond to voicemails and emails as quickly as you can.  Your TIME AND ATTENTION are the services they want – along with your expertise.

Here’s our gift to you.  We’d love to tell the world how great you are.  Send your best sales story of 2010 along with a photo if you’d like and we’ll post it here on this blog, on The Real Estate Book Facebook Page and we’ll tweet about you on Twitter.   So that people can find you, include:

1. Your Name
2. Company Name
3. City and State or Province
4. Your Phone Number & Email Address
5. Your Website or Blog

Send to Marketing@treb.com and we’ll do the rest!

Thanks for all you do and HAPPY HOLIDAYS!

When will you scan this?

The late comedian Mitch Hedburg once said, “I am tired of following my dreams.  I am just going to find out where they are going and meet them there.”  Funny. 

But . . . it does make me think – can you get ahead of yourself?   Our world is evolving so quickly, it’s easy to feel left behind and yet, sometimes we get so far ahead of ourselves that we lose touch with today. 

Technology has certainly changed the real estate industry and we can be challenged by when to embrace the next new thing – now or later?  You CAN do anything.  The questions are – SHOULD you and WHEN should you? 

When I started in the business 17 years  ago (I was a child), the MLS was private and few agents had their own web presence. I was thrilled when my pager could recieve text messages.  In 1999, when I joined The Real Estate Book, we launched one of the first websites on which consumers could search for properties – RealEstateBook.com.  Listing syndication was the big thing and we were one of the first sites to push our advertisers’ listings to Yahoo, Zillow, Trulia, Wall Street Journal, and The New York Times.  Then, widgets and IDX feeds.  Social media and mobile quickly followed.  Today, QR codes are an example of a new technology with the potential to significantly impact real estate marketing.  

I tried to find a statistic on the current number of consumers – who have smart phones + a QR reader + a current desire to buy or sell a home + who would actually USE the code to learn more about the home.  Needless to say, this was not a readily available statistic.  I am sure they exist and will increase over the next 18 months.  The integration with print makes these especially interesting to us.

My point is -  WHEN do you begin to invest money and time (which translates to money) into this technology?  It’s quite probable that at some point, you should.  Just when?

As a self-confessed tech geek, I love all the new pretty shiny things and want to play with them.  As a marketer with an eye on ROI and ROE (Return on Effort), I watch where my current traffic and leads are coming from, how they are converting, and what other benefits, such as existing customer engagement or brand building, that we reap from a particular campaign or media channel.  When the time is right, we incorporate a new channel, test, adjust, evaluate and potentially launch.

Not every pretty shiny new technology that sounded so cool makes the cut.  Sometimes they fizzle or are replaced by something more advanced before they gain enough momentum to be worthy.  Sometimes, the return is just not enough to justify the investment. 

So, while investing in the future is smart, timing is still everthing.

Want to watch future trends?  Here are just a few places I watch. 

Future of Real Estate Marketing

Mack Collier

Tech Savvy Agent

60-Second Marketer Videos

Mashable

With the recent acquisition of ListHuB by Move, Inc, the possibility and in fact likelihood that the landscape for moving real estate listing content around the Internet will change is very real.  Sami Inkinen C0-Founder and COO of  Trulia.com recently blogged about this topic and made some very clarifying observations. I agree with his observations about the risk associated with the data syndicator now having another, larger agenda.

Interestingly, he went on to talk about how this might accelerate the movement of marketing dollars from offline to online. I don’t see that, as fifteen years into the Internet revolution for real estate marketing, the relative value and inherent qualities of offline media and online media for keeping the  Agent and Broker front and center in home seller’s and home buyer’smind is quite clear. I have posted Sami’s original blog post and then my comment so you can see the larger discussion in more complete context.

My comment:

Sami makes some very valid points. Consolidating any part of a market into too few hands increases costs and discourages innovation as the leader has a lot to lose by introducing better and less expensive solutions.

But I part ways when Sami concludes this will further accelerate the offline to online movement due to the inefficiency of offline. Not sure I get that.

Leads from hyper local real estate magazines, like The Real Estate Book and others, far outweigh (4 to 1) leads from a online only sources. This is not only true in traditional single family home sales, but also in the apartment world. Pick up a copy of a local rental magazine in your market, like the Apartment Finder, for example. In major cities these magazines are 400 or more pages in spite of the audience being young and very comfortable with technology. Why hasn’t this business migrated completely online? Because these property owners faithfully track their leads and put their money where it gets them the maximum return. They do online too, it’s just not powerful enough on its own.

NAR research indicates the median move in 2009 between original home and new home was 12 miles, supporting the hyper local nature of real estate once again. Local home shoppers use the magazines to see which Agents have homes listed that look and are priced like theirs and to contact Agents that are still in the game. Online is very valuable, no question, as it allows the shopper to go deeper, but print interrupts the shopper in a good way and a way that online only hasn’t been able to replicate.

It’s my belief that the movement from offline to online has been driven more by the scarcity of marketing dollars available as total commissions have dropped 45% from peak, than by the effectiveness of online only advertising. Research shows that for every ten listings online, 1 to 2 leads will be generated each month. Not bad if it’s free, but certainly not enough to sustain a serious Agent who is working hard to keep their home seller happy.

Below, I’ve copied the content of Sami’s blog post dated September 21/Move on ListHub-Is American Airlines now going to sell fuel to JetBlue, Virgin America and United? 

By now we have all read the news that Threewide Corporation, the creators of the third party listing syndication platform ListHub, has been acquired by Move Inc, which operates Realtor.com, the official website of the National Association of Realtors.

ListHub sits in between the originators and owners of listings – MLSes and brokers – and online real estate sites like Trulia. ListHub became known as the unbiased and impartial third party to both syndicate listings cost efficiently and provide fair and accurate performance statistics to the listing owners. Consequently, whether you are a franchise, broker, MLS, or real estate agent it’s likely that you or one of your close friends use ListHub to syndicate your listings or use their aggregated performance reports.  And if you operate a real estate listing site of any significance it’s likely that ListHub provides a portion of your listings on behalf of your partner brokers and MLSes. 

In short, most of us – if not all – in the real estate ecosystem are either directly or indirectly affected by the change of ownership at ListHub. As co-founder of Trulia and long time partner of ListHub, I would like to share some thoughts and more importantly, start a conversation with our industry partners. 

Here are a few of our candid observations about how this change could impact all of us:

The Exciting

• Listing syndication becomes even more mainstream and encourages all brokers and agents to consider the benefits of listing syndication to sites like Trulia. Given Move, Inc’s existing MLS and broker relationships, Move and ListHub together could quickly increase ListHub’s reach.  This would bring services to more agents and brokers across the country, which would also give the consumer a better experience on the listing sites.
• Further accelerates the shift of inefficient offline marketing to online in real estate. Move.com is likely to be incentivized to promote the value of listing advertising investment online vs. inefficient spending offline which could help all real estate websites as well as the marketers themselves, agents and brokers.
• Force all online real estate sites to deliver true value, objectively measured.  This acquisition could force all online real estate sites to deliver real quantifiable value if they maintain the integrity of the syndication and reporting platform that compares sites apples to apples. This would spur innovation and creativity among different sites.

The Concerning

• Pricing power aggregated into fewer hands means bigger bills. Move, Inc could use this power and data to help Realtor.com extract more money from the industry without having much alternative: pay and syndicate – or die.  
• Potential lack of objectivity in performance measurements. Nielsen is an independent, unbiased third party for a good reason. TV Channels and advertisers like that. The previously independent ListHub platform (some called it the Switzerland of listing syndication) for listing reporting is now owned by one of the largest “channels”. What happens if there’s a dip in performance and Realtor.com’s numbers drop below those of its competitor sites?
• It is difficult to imagine a world where JetBlue and Virgin America would be buying fuel from American Airlines in a fair and independent marketplace where American Airlines has full visibility into the demand from their competitors. Listhub owned by Move Inc, essentially creates this situation.

Since Trulia’s launch five years ago, we’ve built our business by trying to find the best possible solutions for the industry and consumers.  So consider this proposal — one way to ensure the ongoing independence of the Listhub service is to create a committee made up of brokers, MLSs and major online real estate listing sites which will provide accountability to all customers they serve. This would help ensure accountability of the merged entity, and directly address “the concerning” factors from my list above. 

What is your opinion?  How would you ensure that the market remains open for innovation and a great experience for both industry and consumers? 

We look forward to hearing from you.

Cheers,
Sami Inkinen, Trulia

Questions?  Comments?

 An effective social media program requires a significant time investment – and a significant investment in time does not guarantee an effective social media program.  View video.

We recently launched Broker Sherpa, a turn-key solution to building and managing a social and content marketing programs for real estate brands, brokers, agents, mortgage companies, and builders. 

This fixed-cost monthly subscription service includes the creation of a custom-branded blog, Facebook and Twitter presence for the participating real estate business; regular updates with unique hyper-local content; and monthly reports detailing traffic and leads.   

This is not our first toe-dip into social media solutions. Through various “DigitalSherpa” initiatives, we now manage over 1,000 social media programs for businesses across a range of industries – including apartment communities, home design companies, and the health and fitness industry.  BrokerSherpa was the logical next step to bring real estate professionals a social marketing team to help them execute a social media strategy that will drive online traffic, increase their networking sphere and capability, generate leads, and drive their personal brands. 

This extension of an agent or brokers’ internet marketing activity can radically increase their footprint and ability to be found on the Web. Its power far surpasses traditional cost-per-click and paid search strategies.  

Unlike other “do-it-yourself” services on the market, BrokerSherpa offers a one-of-kind, full service program for real estate professionals that takes the complexity out of social media marketing. Services include:

• Creating, hosting, and maintaining blogs with fresh content every week
• Custom programs for brokers and their agents
• Creating social identities on Facebook and Twitter and publishing regularly to these networks
• Driving social networks by building community and engagement
• Connecting social outlets and online marketing
•  Increasing search visibility and driving more Web traffic
• Reporting real-time results
• Providing ongoing training

Want to learn more?  View blog examples or sign up for a free webinar at BrokerSherpa.com or follow our discussions on Facebook or Twitter.

1.    Your Competitor is Talking About Your Marketing Plan.  The marketing plan is the #1 reason sellers chose an agent and the #3 reason agents lose listings.*  If you are not talking about yours, your competitor will.

2.    Today’s Consumers are Multi-Media Multi-Taskers.  Home shoppers consume information and use about 4.5 sources** when choosing a neighborhood, a home, an agent.  Every piece of information they see is relevant, whether it’s online, in print, or on a social site. They use them all.

3.    Your Advertising Reflects Your Professional Reputation.  Premium positioning and good design reflect a quality agent.  Low priority positioning and bad design reflects a lower quality agent.

4.    Be Clear About Your Call to Action.  Most advertising fails because the consumer is confused.  Should they call, email, go to your site or your blog? Why?  More information? More listings?  Market statistics?  Tell them specifically why and how to act.

5.    It’s Not About You.  Think benefits.  #1 Buyer’s Agent?  You helped more buyers find their perfect home and wisest investment.  #1 Sales Agent?  You helped more sellers get the best price for their homes – even in a difficult market.

Real Estate Book Representatives help you stand out and get results in print, online and through social networking – and we’re willing to be measured. Go to Store.RealEstateBook.com to learn more.

*2010 Independent Study of Home Sellers, NCI

** NAR 2009 Study of Home Buyers & Sellers