Continuing on from the popular article last issue, “Who is Tech Savvy Agent?”, in Part Two, Chris Smith highlights the difference between the technology “essentials” for Real Estate Agents and the “shiny objects”.
There are a lot of types of technologies and tools available to Realtors these days, including Facebook, Twitter, blogs, CRM technologies and more. Plus there are lots of “shiny objects”. By “shiny” objects, I mean things like using QR codes, individual property websites and other things, like Twitter, which have become popular. But these things are outside the fundamental “core” of the things that you need to get right.
The top five essential things as a Real Estate Agent that you need to get right are:
1. Your home on the web.
Every real estate agent should have a ‘home’ on the web, and obviously, that is a website; and this is the first thing that needs to be right. What we recommend is a website with a blog, and one of the easiest ways to achieve this is with WordPress. If you set it up so that you host your own WordPress installation then your blog is your website. The reason we recommend this, is that blogs like WordPress give you the ability to log into your website and add content without the need for your “web guy” to be around; making a new post is not terribly difficult.
Your website is so crucial. Offline businesses that sell things need a store, online your store is your website. You should spend time and effort here, and ensure that your store looks terrific. Although I support agents using Facebook, lots of Agents spend more time on their Facebook page than their “store”, when it is your store that is where you are going to convert the leads.
You also need to think about your potential customers finding your store. Early on in the buying process, a consumer will type things into Google, like “homes for sale”. As they get closer to buying and get more educated, they will start typing in longer “tail” search terms like “East Orlando homes for sale under $200,000” – and all of a sudden, the agent has the possibility of that traffic finding their site if their home on the web is optimised for these long tail searches.
Once the prospect gets to your site, they need to be able to easily find what they want on the site, including comparable properties that they might be searching for, or they will automatically revert to searching the national portals, and you may lose your prospect to another agent. Likewise, if a potential customer gets to your site and it is awful, then you will lose them back to the national portals as well, and again, they will find another agent.
2. Database
You need a complete contact management or CRM system so that when you do get a lead, or when you do meet someone, you can manage those relationships, rather than putting them in a shoebox. For a long time now in the US, agents would put their contacts on to an index card and keep them in a shoebox, then when it came time to prospect they would pull out the shoebox, flip through and make calls. The beauty of the technology on the web is that I can have a database of contacts, I can tag them as a buyer or seller then my database can automatically schedule the follow up calls, send out emails, and perform automated drip email campaigns. From the same piece of software I can manage listings, sales and marketing pieces all from the one place. Outlook and Gmail are not contact management tools, they are email tools; unfortunately a lot of realtors try to conduct their business out of some free web-based Gmail account. There are a lot of options today that are real estate specific, such as ‘Top Producer’, which I believe lots of Australian Agents already use. Your database is critical because its one thing to generate traffic and convert that to someone giving you their information; but to turn that person into a face to face appointment, a database will help. Remember, you do not get paid for leads, you get paid for appointments and listings!
3. Facebook Profile
I’ll talk about Facebook “pages” in a moment, but let me say this: If you can not convert people from your personal profile, then you are never going to convert them from your business page, because a deeper level of interacting needs to take place online. Have a personal profile and be a real person. Update your status about what you do. There are ways to talk about what you do for a living without it being overly “salesy”. If you have an open house, there are ways of talking about it other than it being “open from 2pm until 3pm”. Talk about it as a house where “a couple of weeks ago this is what happened”. Speak the way you would talk to someone in real life, and remember to interact with other people and write on their walls. For most agents, their status updates go something like: 1. Listing, 2. Open, 3. Famous quote. Forget the famous quotes, be a real person! The other thing that not enough people do on Facebook is use the chat tool, or the email messaging system. If you want to prospect or talk a little bit more about business, that is, “do you know anybody looking to buy or sell”, I would be more inclined to do this through the private tools, and not through status updates, as this is a more appropriate place to discuss business matters, than on peoples walls.
4. Facebook Page.
Next is a Facebook page, and here’s a tip: If your name is Chris Smith and you have a Facebook profile, you do not want your Facebook page to be “Chris Smith the Realtor”. Yes, it puts a line in the sand – but most times, there is not a great deal of success in people liking or becoming fans of agents. Newsflash – you are not a musician, you are not an actor, you are a realtor! If I had named my Facebook page “Chris Smith – Top producer Sales Rep in Florida” you and I would not be having this conversation! Because I made Tech Savvy Agent about the community, and the people that would join the community, it became a success. My advice for Real Estate Agents is that they should create a page for the residents of the key suburbs that they are listing and selling into. If someone knocked on your door, or gave you a flyer that said the community has a new Facebook page where there will be lots of news and info about the local area, then you as a resident of that suburb would probably go “like” it immediately. Likewise, if you were looking to move to that suburb, you would probably do the same thing. Maybe even get a Facebook ad that advertises the fact that there is a new community page and you may be surprised at the result.
As a realtor, you should then update the page with news in the local area, and here is the bottom line: you have established a funnel of people who like the community and like your page, you have taken your prospective buyers and sellers from a wide area of the funnel to a much more focused set of prospects. If you live in the neighbourhood, you are going to be interested in what the homes in your neighbourhood have been listed for sale and how long they have been listed for. Any Real Estate information is going to be so much more relevant to people that like the page.
