Best Practices Paper
What Top Agents Know–And You
Don’t–About Online Buyers and Sellers
Six Objectives to Ensure Long-term Success in Real Estate
Introduction
Contents
Introduction
1
Understanding The Value Of
‘Long-Term’
2
Six Objectives for Acquiring Long-term
Success in Real Estate
2
Objective 1: Be Proactive
2
Objective 2: Brand Yourself
3
Objective 3: Enrich Consumer Data
4
Objective 4: Create Incentives
4
Objective 5: Recognize Buying Stages
5
Objective 6: Update Your Technology
6
Summary
6
About HomeGain
7
HomeGain Solutions
7
The Internet can be your best business partner: find out how! In this
paper, we’ll share key success strategies learned from top performing
agents that describe how to transform your current online leads into
rewarding long-term customer relationships.
As technology achieves mainstream adoption, an increasing number of
homebuyers and sellers are turning to the Internet to find, compare,
buy and sell real estate. You and your competitors are now just one click
away from potential prospects, and how you respond will determine
whether you win or lose the business. Does that scare you or excite you?
To survive within this new paradigm, you must know your customers and
be an expert in interacting with them both online and offline. But how
do experienced agents change they way they have worked for years and
integrate online sales tactics into their business? How can a new agent
jump into the industry and succeed solely through online means?
Developing your own website is an essential first step, but what is most
important once a prospect is on your site? Read this paper to learn winning strategies for developing online prospects, as some of HomeGain’s
leading agents share their experiences in how they continue to successfully convert online prospects into sales.
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What Top Agents Know—And You Don’t—About Online Buyers and Sellers
2
Understanding The Value Of ‘Long-Term’
This paper includes six objectives for developing long-term success in the real estate business.
But before discussing those objectives, it’s important to address the need for an approach that
integrates “long-term” business practices and principles.
As a real estate professional, you’re a member of a fiercely competitive industry. Success requires not just passion, but a long-term commitment. Maintaining a high level of commitment
will change the way you view your work, so that it’s not just a job but also a rewarding career.
Establishing clear long-term objectives and focusing on their execution will result in increased
business six to nine months from now and ensure a continuous stream of future business.
It takes only two
weeks for Internet
buyers to select a
home, while traditional buyers takes
seven weeks1.
Consider adopting the following approaches as part of your long-term strategy:
•
Think of your job as a business investment. Develop an action plan to build your base
of leads and turn those leads into loyal clients.
•
Establish your competitive edge. What do you do better than anyone else? Define and
promote your unique value proposition to keep ahead of the competition.
•
Demonstrate a positive attitude. A positive attitude will convey an image of success to
your clients and business associates, which will in turn contribute to your success.
Six Objectives for Acquiring Long-term Success in Real Estate
For any real estate agent, the Internet is a powerful, flexible tool. You can brand your website
to reflect your unique value proposition and fine-tune your message until you discover what
resonates with potential clients. It also gives you the opportunity to respond to consumers in a
thoughtful yet timely way. Your future success will lie in your ability to use the Internet successfully as a communication and sales tool.
Did you know that 66% of homebuyers in today’s market choose the first agent who is in contact with them1? In order to be competitive, real estate professionals must apply a set of strategies that addresses consumer behavior and builds and capitalizes on consumer leads.
Here are six methods* to quickly boost the way prospects perceive you, and how to interact for
receiving higher approval ratings – increasing your client base and helping you close more business.
Objective 1: BE PROACTIVE
Agents Agree
Homebuyers and sellers want real estate agents who proactively respond to their needs, have
a customer-centric view, establish loyalty, and engender trust. The key to your success will be
your ability to establish warm, professional, online relationships that are as solid as your more
traditional offline relationships—while still meeting your business objectives.
Sandy Legere
ReMax Alternative Realty
“When a customer
contacts me through
my website, I make sure
to establish a relationship through email
and phone calls before
looking at properties.
The result is less stress
and less time in finding a
home.”
Being proactive in online real estate means taking the initiative to:
• Identify with new buyers and sellers. Apply a proactive—not reactive—strategy. Excite and entice them, or target their pain points.
Demonstrate that you understand their concerns and needs. If you
adopt a customer service approach rather than a typical real estate
approach, you’ll send a message that, “I’m here to help you.” When
1. According to the National Association of REALTORS® in 2006
*Best practices and strategies learned from a study of top performing real estate agents and other experts within the
online real estate industry.
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What Top Agents Know—And You Don’t—About Online Buyers and Sellers
3
you ask consumers how they would prefer to be contacted, be prepared to note not just phone numbers, but also email addresses or
text messaging.
Agents Agree
Robbie Griffie, RE/MAX
Highlander Realty, NC
Robbie has created several
unique templates that he
keeps on hand so that he
can easily personalize and
quickly send to a prospect.
“It’s important to let the
client know that you are
going to provide the best
possible service to them,
right up front.”
• Respond quickly and personably. Take immediate action when
buyers or sellers contact you or provide feedback. This may require
additional follow-up to keep in touch, because some online consumers may not want to reveal all of their contact information initially.
Respect their level of desired contact and still have an outreach plan
for keeping your offerings in their immediate reach.
• Address their needs and kick it up a notch. Ask or tell a consumer what they may not know already. A consumer is looking to your
expertise in real estate but also in their market area. Follow up until
you know you have connected with the prospect. Caution: don’t
over-email or over-contact. Find the perfect balance of keeping open
communication but not overstepping boundaries.
Objective 2: BRAND YOURSELF
Boosting your online presence and recognition will require establishing a strong image of who
you are and what you can do for the consumer – called branding. Branding is about taking your
existing website and making it into your ideal selling tool. Building a strong brand identity is
crucial to short-term recognition and long-term profitability.
Having a strong brand means to:
• Brand yourself as:
• A credible agent with a history of outstanding references,
especially in the consumer’s local market
• A trustworthy person who cares about their needs
• An innovative and out-of-the-box solution provider
• Possessing geographic or niche specialties or awards of excellence
• Be consistent. Be consistent with your branding across everything
you do that is customer facing. Because not all business will transact immediately, consumers will only remember you through how
you presented yourself, or what value you used to attract them
initially. Plus, when they are ready to buy–or years later when they
are ready to sell–you may have an additional opportunity to work
with them.
• Don’t be afraid to be creative. You can still be professional and
leave a lasting impression. Most consumers will decide immediately whether they “click” with you or not while online. If you
have your website reflect your true character, when, and if, you
meet them face-to-face, the consumer will know what to expect
because your brand and message was consistent.
1250 45th Street, Suite 200 Emeryville CA 94608
Bill Hoyle,
Shells Realty, FL
“Asking a good question
shows you care about
them and requires them to
respond and contact you
back. This starts the dialog
and communication. You
need to take the relationship step-by-step and not
push too fast.”
Doug Goss, RE/MAX
Valley, CA
“If a prospect is in a
particular geographic area,
I customize all comments
based on my knowledge
to make a connection with
that particular area. Buyers
get a comfort level from
looking at my website.
I stress the fact that I’m
an accredited buyer rep
- ABR.”
Lauri Huston, Coldwell
Banker, WA
“I emphasize my knowledge of the local area,
pointing out that I have
lived there for over 25
years, although I have only
been an agent for the past
five years.”
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What Top Agents Know—And You Don’t—About Online Buyers and Sellers
4
Objective 3: ENRICH CONSUMER DATA
Agents Agree
Leads can only be translated into sales if you’re willing to continually enrich your customer data
and, in turn, mine it for the best possible usage. Know “who” your customer is. Incorporating
an ongoing series of communications will build your consumer data. You can find out if they are
still in the market, if they are working with another agent, are they buying or selling, etc.
Only through understanding your customer thoroughly can you send them the correct message
and win them as a recurring client. The increased knowledge may even help you determine
where to take your business.
Here are some suggestions to organize and enhance your consumer data:
Virginia Cheezum,
RE/MAX Distinctive, VA
“Don’t be hesitant to work
with the low-end clients
– they need a home too,
and it will help build your
history quickly.”
Yvette Sloan
Century 21 House
of Realty
“You must be available at
all times and be checking
online and doing searches
to see what works. You
also need to ask potential
clients questions when
they call you like how they
heard about you.”
• Ask questions up-front. Attain a better understanding of where
your clients fall in your pipeline because building a pipeline means
establishing a list of clients that will continually come back to you
in the future.
• Understand the consumer decision factors. In knowing the
reasoning your prospect uses to make decisions, you can focus
your attention to specific selling points or positioning. Incorporating interactive elements or call to actions to any of your emails or
website pages, such as a form to fill out, will let you better know
your consumer.
Larry J Wrasse
Century 21 Sunbelt
“I use a drip mail campaign
in my business to keep
my pipeline filled. Internet
buyers are not only future
buyers but also future
sellers and an opportunity
to gain a referral commission.”
• Develop a good lead system. Or find a resource that provides
a system for you to organize your leads accurately and effectively.
The challenge is that not all clients are ready to transact within
three to six months. Hence there is importance of continually
keeping in touch with each of your prospects to increase your
chance of becoming their agent of choice when they are ready to
transact.
• Use drip email marketing campaigns. An effective method
of staying in contact with all prospects within your pipeline is
through email “drip email” marketing campaigns, which are a series of ongoing emails based on the consumers needs. Drip email
campaigns are a “work smarter, not harder” technique, specifically designed to grow relationships. These automatically set up
emails are less time-consuming than individual phone calls and
emails. The emails ‘drip out’ over time – keeping in touch with
the consumer.
Objective 4: CREATE INCENTIVES
What are you currently offering on your website or your business in general? Your ‘services’ can
actually take you further than you think. You can capture a high volume of interest through
incentives, which develop into relationships, and referrals, with your website visitors.
Robert Moreno
Moreno WorkGroup
“I have always made
it a point to add every
contact I make onto
the mailing list. My drip
email campaign is set up
to work over the course
of a year. Many more
clients have come back
to me due to my drip
mail campaign, which
keeps my name in front
of them.”
Increase your recurring customers’ interest and loyalty through these ideas:
• Provide various incentives. Give incentives to return to your
website (or you directly) in your outreach marketing collateral. If
you build an incentive-based, outreach website, buyers and sellers
will want to return often for updates. Incentives are a great way
to sell your services online.
1250 45th Street, Suite 200 Emeryville CA 94608
www.homegain.com
1.888.542.0800
What Top Agents Know—And You Don’t—About Online Buyers and Sellers
5
• Create local interest. Develop ongoing materials that will inform
your potential customers about your service as well as provide
them general information about real estate. Provide free market
information, neighborhood and school reports, email out new
listings or make local maps accessible online. Write articles or
create a newsletter that keeps your readers up-to-date on what’s
happening in their local market. According to recent studies, more
people are interested in receiving reading materials that provide
value to them. You can easily grow your visitor relationships by
sharing content online.
Agents Agree
Elizabeth Assem
Shelley Sears Team Inc.
“My website has helped
me grow my business,
where I’m getting at least
two leads a day. I send out
monthly newsletters, and
clients can find helpful tips
from moving with your pet
to real estate listings, etc.
from my website.”
• Allow readers to share your content. As readers forward your
articles or materials to others, you begin to see that a very cost
effective referral service has developed. In addition, always have a
contact email available in the articles for readers to reply to with
further questions.
• Use one of your unique incentives as a key word in search
marketing. This is a great way to stand out amongst the competition, and a smart way to make your investment of time and
money with search marketing worthwhile.
Objective 5: RECOGNIZE BUYING STAGES
The better you understand the concept of “buying stages” of an online consumer, the more
you will be able to identify your own behavior of responding more timely and effectively. Know
“where and when” your consumer wants to make a transaction. Understanding not only who
your client is (see Objective 3) and what their needs are but where in the cycle that client may
fall, will enable you to fine tune your selling objectives.
As you organize your pipeline, determine the different buying stages your clients might fit into,
your frequency or timing, and how you want to position your communication.
• Respond to ALL prospects until you determine their buying stage. Because consumers start shopping far sooner in the
process than they ever did before–often more than six months–it
is critical to respond to ALL consumers who show an interest in
your services. Capturing their information on your site gives you a
quick-start to getting to know the consumers needs. Use an autoresponder on your website to ensure that you are responding in an
immediate fashion to each website visitor who emails you for more
information – then follow up to get more information about the
consumer before adding to your pipeline.
Judy Bulman
Metro West Realty
“My website enables me to
create a personal portal for
my clients. Whether buying
or selling, they are just a
click away from up-to-date
market info 24/7. My site is
user-friendly so that we are
able to share info, including showing stats, even
before it appears in MLS.
I believe that you need to
stay in touch, provide the
right tools, give access to
pertinent information.”
Jeffrey Bastress,
StarPoint Realty, MA
“My goal is to make
contact with as many
prospective buyers and
sellers as possible - even
if they’re not immediately
buying or selling, because
I’m confident I can turn
them into a client.”
• Identifying your leads by buying stage. To better identify your
consumer’s stage, use forms on your website or emails to capture
the information you need. Ask direct questions and make the
questions mandatory so they are forced to enter the information in
order to submit their form to you. Limit your questions, however,
so that the form is not overly intimidating. Through testing, you
can find the balance between collecting the information you need
and creating a form that people are interested in completing.
• Categorizing your leads by buying stage. Arrange for your
1250 45th Street, Suite 200 Emeryville CA 94608
www.homegain.com
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What Top Agents Know—And You Don’t—About Online Buyers and Sellers
6
lead management system to organize each of your buyer and seller
leads into a correct buying stage according to their status, and
move them along the “buying stage time-frame”, sending them
the correct message in each stage. Drip email campaigns will help
you accomplish this. Because it takes some consumers more than
six months transact, targeted and well-timed responses will benefit
you greatly.
Agents Agree
Objective 6: UPDATE YOUR TECHNOLOGY
Living in a modern world obligates you to be accessible to however your clients need you to
be. Because real estate requires online and off-line efforts, and due to high competition in this
industry, you may want to reconsider your technology tools. Online tools and solutions that will
help provide the widest possible reach and branding is an essential part of building your outreach efforts via the Internet.
Update and expand your technology through these suggestions:
• Mobile technology. A mobile phone is the most basic of needs for
an agent. However, with more consumers becoming tech savvy, some
mobile phones have more functionality than other models, including
Internet access, a keyboard for easy typing, text messaging, alerts and
more. A few examples are the Trio®, Blackberry® or Tablet PC®. Sign up
for text message alerts to your mobile phone for when new consumers or
existing clients are trying to reach you via email. Or, simply upgrade your
mobile phone so that you can receive email and respond quickly, wherever you might be.
Christine Hocking,
REALTOR, AZ
“Having the right technology is essential to a
successful real estate
agent these days. I have
found the highest level of
efficiency (and customer
satisfaction) in using
Zipforms Online, Docusign,
the Internet, and an EFax
program. As long as I
have my laptop with these
programs loaded I am
good to transact business
from any part of the world!
My clients appreciate that I
am tech-savvy and am able
to provide them with an
efficient and easy process
for transacting real estate
deals through me.”
Christine Hocking,
REALTOR, AZ
“My website is the heart
and soul of my business;
it generates leads, helps
me stay in touch with my
sphere of influence and
keep my sellers informed
about marketing activities
on their home.”
• Work in a paperless atmosphere. Arrange for all your materials to be
available in electronic version so that you have access to them 24/7.
Adobe® can create professional looking documents out of Microsoft®
Word. You can also choose to hire a graphic designer to produce electronic (and printed) materials using your brand and consistent look and
feel. Electronic files can be emailed to prospective consumers or e-faxed
(from your email address to their fax machine).
• Set up real-time chat functions on your website. Adding to the list
of how a consumer may want to “speak” to you is online chat. Only add
this feature if you are going to be available to chat online for periods of
time, or it will not be a worthwhile investment.
Summary
In this paper, we have reviewed how to key into who your clients are and how to build and
sustain a connection with those clients long-term. Long-term relationships will lead to a higher
volume of closed transactions – and recurring transactions.
Elizabeth M. Ristine
Pan Florida Realty Inc.
“Using Efax, Top Producer,
Outlook, Acrobat, Alta Star
forms and our Website we
have successfully assisted
many buyers and sellers
and made the transaction
easier than they could have
ever expected.”
While finding the balance between respecting people’s privacy and trying to connect (sell) to
them, being proactive and patient will help you better understand your client and to develop a
long-term relationship. Creating incentives for buyers and sellers to return to your site will justify
your time invested when they are ready to transact.
It’s critical in any transaction to promote your image and brand both offline and online consistently. Understanding where your client falls within a buying stage improves your messaging
1250 45th Street, Suite 200 Emeryville CA 94608
www.homegain.com
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What Top Agents Know—And You Don’t—About Online Buyers and Sellers
7
tactics and selling strategy. In turn, the value of your strategic mix and marketing programs will
increase as your pipeline proves to drastically show results months down the line.
Homebuyers and sellers want to know that an agent will help them in every way possible to
market and sell their home. Being available to prospective clients in multiple ways will ensure
their availability to you in turn – and will be beneficial to you in competing with other agents.
All in all, knowing the true objectives for your business and setting yourself up with a customized, effective system will deliver you more business six to nine months from now, and continuously in the future.
About HomeGain
HomeGain is the leading, online resource for connecting real estate professionals with homebuyers and sellers. Established in 1999, HomeGain provides agents and brokers a choice of solutions for long-term success. With over 300 partnerships, including Yahoo!®, Google®, MSN®
and USATODAY.com®, HomeGain is the second largest real estate destination, attracting over
5.5 million monthly visitors.
HomeGain will help you connect to homebuyers and sellers who are looking for a real estate
agent in your area. HomeGain solutions are focused on helping you build relationships with
consumers—and your long-term pipeline—enabling you to grow your business to higher levels
of success.
HomeGain Solutions
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AgentView is a complete online marketing solution for REALTORS® to reach local home owners. Receive exclusive leads, and the tools you need to promote your business, build
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For more information, visit www.homegain.com
1250 45th Street, Suite 200 Emeryville CA 94608
www.homegain.com
1.888.542.0800