Do I have this right?
With a rapidly evolving role in the competitive marketplace of Realtors you find yourself facing difficult decisions concerning your role as a trusted marketing partner of your client’s properties. Treading water in place will not work. You go no where. You will eventually be surrounded by sharks, be eaten or drown. What to do?
Agencies are no longer providing the support they use to. The impact of print has been diminished. You agency’s web site is no longer the “Go To” place to find homes. They all look the same. The “Free” Web site they provide “all their agents” looks the same as anyone else and it’s a mere extension of “their” brand not “yours.” It is no longer an advantage. It’s an “Oh I have one of those too…”
Buyers no longer use the technology they used a mere 5 years ago. You are surrounded by new technology guru’s touting the latest and greatest spinney things and 3D virtual reality glasses. Those are followed by parading dinosaur news papers telling you they have the solution to your advertising needs, just give us $30k a year and we will bring you leads. Zillow has almost overnight disrupted the whole dynamic of traditional client search interfaces. Facebook now rivals Google in the on line Ad market and your brokerage will pay for nothing.
Do I have this right so far? What to do? What to do?
First Step:
Please be sure to read my article. Not long at all. Just a slide show. It will help you begin to understand the current evolving role of a Realtors Personal Business Web Site. Then come back to this tab and continue.
Fact… Realtors do not really understand the role web sites play in todays marketplace. They’re Realtors. That has never been their job. At best it was the job of the brokerage and for a short window in Real Estate history brokerages did a good job building them. Then BAM… Zillow, Trulia, Realtor.com, Facebook, and Google happened. Drones happened, smartphones happened, tablets happened, VR happened.
Second Step:
Once you understand the implications of Step One, and have a full grasp on how to use a Realtors web site, you should start to think about a budget. You should understand all the moving parts of this project and the costs associated with them. There are initial costs and there are ongoing recurring expenses. These are just for the web site. Much more follows.
Keep in mind your web site is only one part of your marketing infrastructure. There are a lot of moving parts. Much like a car you have an engine, a drive chain, a chassis and a body. Integrated to work in harmony they get you where you want to go. They need maintenance, fuel and most importantly they need a driver (so far). There is a big difference between using public transportation and having your own transportation. The biggest difference is the flexibility your own transportation brings to your world.
Third Step:
Let’s look at those integrated parts and begin to build a new marketing budget. MORE TO COME in the next installment. We’ll show you those moving parts. We’ll provide you the framework for building that Marketing budget.