A few months ago, we reported on the rise of For Sale by Owner websites, asking whether a slew of recent releases were having any tangible effect on agents’ business. This brought out the full range of opinions, from those championing the FSBO approach to those highlighting the value of using a real estate agent.

Now, new research by Nielsen suggests that the economic downturn may be causing sellers to doubt their FSBO plans, driving them back to real estate agents’ offices.

This New Zealand-based research, detailed on unconditional.co.nz, shows just 11 percent of sellers are definitely planning to sell privately, down from 17 percent in 2007.

At the same time, the number of sellers planning to work with a real estate agent has grown, up from 35 percent in 2007 to 47 percent this year.

This all sounds like good news for agents, until we consider the fact that this still leaves over half the sellers surveyed either definitely planning to take the FSBO approach, planning to at least try it before they contact an agent, or unsure of what their sale plan will be.

So how do agents win over those sellers on the fence?

We looked at this issue through the eyes of a number of industry experts in our series “staying relevant in the online age.” Their ideas ranged from offering unrivalled knowledge about a local area to creating and maintaining strong client relationships via social channels.

The question to ask is: what do you provide that no one else in your market can – your unique value proposition? Define that, and you should have no problem convincing sellers that working with you beats the FSBO approach, hands down.

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How do you title your listings? Do you try to squeeze in as much detail as possible, or do you aim to appeal to home hunters with more expressive language?

Giving some though to the title of your listing is worthwhile, particularly if you’re using free-to-list websites that don’t allow for photos to draw your audience in. To get an idea of what works – and what doesn’t – when it comes to listing titles, we thought we’d take a look at the real estate section on one of the the top free-to-list classifieds websites in the US: Craigslist.

Loading up the “real estate for sale” section on chicago.craigslist.org, the first listing reads: “$280000 / 4br – Pristine home at discount price!!”

A little further down the list, we have the following: “$410000 6 Year old house.” Under that we have a much longer title: “$186000 / 2br – ONLY 2 BLCKS TO LAKE/BEACHES, 5 MIN TO EVANSTON/NORTHWESTERN 07331012.”

So, how would you have written these titles? What would you add or take away?

The first listing sounds appealing, but like many of the titles on Craigslist, doesn’t include as much detail as it could. There’s still plenty of room to mention the number of bathrooms, what the local area is like, or any other features that might make the property stand out.

The second listing title will clearly be too short on detail for some home hunters. However, there may be a few who are intrigued enough to click through to the listing itself. Still, it seems a shame not to mention that this is actually a five bedroom, three bathroom home with granite kitchen countertops.

Our final example has taken the opposite approach and is arguably better for it, letting home hunters know plenty about the apartment’s location. Using all capitals can come off as shouting, but it does stand out against the mostly lower-case titles around it.

There were plenty of other titles from Craigslist we could pick on – examples that don’t mention location, are full of spelling mistakes, or are simply in the wrong section of the website. But these are rookie errors.

The key with listing titles is to watch what other agents are doing, then do it better – or do something completely different. The final step is to track whether enquiries increase or decrease when you change your title strategy, until you find the formula that works best for you.

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What do you count as a lead, and how much are you paying for them?

In the US, rental listing website rentlinx.com has just changed its definition. Now, emails that do not include a phone number or a specific comment or question will not be considered leads. “At rentlinx.com, a lead is a lead,” the company states.

rentlinx.com may be moving in the right direction with this change, but there are real estate agents out there who are arguing that the majority of their leads can be generated at no cost whatsoever. Over at agentgenius.com, Lesley Lambert says over 80 percent of her closed real estate transactions during the last six months can be directly attributed to her use of social media marketing.

While not everyone was convinced, Lambert’s claim starts to make sense in light of Google’s recent ranking of the top 1,000 websites for April 2010. This list has Facebook as the most visited site on the web, well out in front with 540,000,000 unique visitors and a reach of 35.2 percent.

Agents promoting themselves through a WordPress blog will also be pleased that the platform came in at number 12 on the list. Twitter wasn’t all that far behind, ranking at number 18.

When deciding whether you should be spending more time generating leads via social media, portal listings, or letterbox drops, the most important thing is to know where your leads are coming from. For more on that topic, check out our in-depth article on lead tracking here.

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With almost every real estate agent claiming to be the best and most experienced in their area, choosing an agent can end up little more than a guessing game for buyers and sellers. So how do you make sure you stand out to these (often confused) potential customers?

To begin with, it pays to be original. Whether you’re writing a detailed online profile or simply filling out your Twitter bio, steer clear of overused phrases such as “one of the most experienced agents in Sydney” or “knows central London real estate.”

What potential customers want to know is, exactly how much experience does that Sydney agent have? What does that agent actually know about central London? Be precise and you will immediately encourage more confidence in your audience.

Being honest about your abilities goes hand in hand with being precise. After all, if you overstate your qualifications or experience level, chances are that will become obvious as soon as you start to work with a client.

An over-emphasis on resume details is another potential trap for agents promoting themselves online. You’ll naturally want to highlight your professional qualifications, and buyers and sellers are probably interested in them to a degree. But this interest pales in comparison with their need to be sure you understand their location. The trick is to balance out details about your professional life with just as much (or more) information about the area you cover.

As with any content you publish online, it’s worth having one or two people check over it before putting it on display. This will help you catch any spelling and grammar issues, and possibly prompt you to tweak your message to make it that much more appealing.

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Here at Property Ad Guru, we have plenty of advice on how to make your website the best it can possibly be. But once property seekers leave your website and start looking on places like realtor.com and zillow.com, it becomes more difficult to ensure you stay top-of-mind.

That’s the issue US-based company realbird.com is trying to solve with its newly-unveiled a browser toolbar, which keeps agents in contact with property seekers even while they’re looking through property portals.

realbird.com explains that the toolbar, which can be branded for agents, sits at the top of a home hunter’s browser window as they search for property. When they come across a listing they’re interested in, a few clicks sends an enquiry back to the agent with the property’s title and URL. The agent is then notified via email, and the inquiry is also saved in their realbird.com account.

To access the toolbar, agents need to sign up for a “pro” subscription to realbird.com, which costs US$99 per year.

Looking for more tips on how to track enquiries? Start with our article on knowing where your leads are coming from.

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An extensive customer database, built by encouraging potential buyers to register their details with you, is an excellent tool for three reasons:

1. Listing

When going through the listing process, you are able to tell sellers that before undertaking a huge marketing campaign the first port of call is to contact all those buyers you have on your register who may be interested in a property like theirs.

If your register of buyers is more extensive and up to date than that of competing agents, you then have a competitive advantage. Tell buyers that you can be in contact with these prospective purchasers by the end of the day if they list with you.

2. Keeping advertising costs down

If you are in a market where obtaining vendor paid advertising is difficult, having an extensive buyers list you can readily tap into could see you sell property faster and at a lower cost to your agency.

3. Buyers may be sellers too

Registering potential purchasers early enough may be beneficial in sourcing new listings. People often start to look around for a new property before putting their own home on the market. Creating a relationship with them is your opportunity to impress early. For more on this, see our post Buyers are Often Sellers Too.

How do I capture buyers for my register?

You can implement functionality on your website to encourage and capture interested buyers. Things such as newsletter sign-ups, competitions, and property alerts. For a look at how best to set these up, check out our article on calls to action here.

Other ideas for gathering buyer details include:

- Allocate banner advertising for your suburb on a property portal to drive buyers to your site for registration.

- Advertise in your window and any other media, and encourage registration when any contact is made with new people, whether by phone or at a property inspection or auction.

- Develop and promote a Home Buyer’s Guide to use as a lead generation tool and ensure that buyers are required to register their details before receiving a copy. You can promote this on your site and in all advertising and marketing.

There are multiple opportunities for getting people interested in what you do. The challenge is to capture their information and then use it wisely. Don’t over-promise and under-deliver! If you commit to a weekly newsletter, don’t miss your publishing date. If you promise to send out newly listed properties, make sure you do so.

Finally, ensure that you never ever pass on buyers’ details to third parties or anyone who might spam them. Once you have customer details you need to treat them like gold and keep them as up to date as possible.

[Image: olathehomes.wordpress.com]

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As we learned from a recent survey by international property news website globaledge.co.uk, some agents find it quite difficult to change their online marketing habits, even if they know their strategy isn’t as effective as it could be.

The agents surveyed told globaledge.co.uk that customer referral programs were the most effective way to generate leads, yet only 37.8 percent of those surveyed actually used them. So what’s stopping these agents?

Perhaps it’s the impression that building a successful customer referral program is too complicated or time-consuming. But the fact is, if you have an email database of past customers, you’ve already got the raw materials you need to get started.

While it’s not particularly hard to implement a referral program, there are a few ways in which companies from any industry can slip up. So before you send that email, take a minute to ask yourself these questions:

What is it about you that’s worth recommending? When you pitch your referral program, remind your past customers what it is that makes you stand out as an agent. The temptation here is to focus only on your sales record, but don’t forget to mention how much you know about the local market.

Is the reward worth their effort? Put yourself in your customer’s shoes. If what you’re offering in return for a referral isn’t enough to get you excited, you can hardly expect anyone else to be. What would you like to be offered if you were the customer?

Is there more than one step involved? If the transaction involves more than simply “tell someone about our agency and we’ll give you X”, you could be setting yourself up for failure. Let’s face it, even a customer who was pleased with your service isn’t going to spend more than a minute trying to understand your pitch, so make sure your message gets straight to the point.

Needless to say, the best referrals are the ones that take place without any effort on your part – the unprompted recommendations that happen because you were just that good to your customers. Still, it never hurts to give people a little incentive.

[Image: blackstonepinless.com]

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Here are the different approaches for each segment:

Non-Internet Savvy

While those who are not Internet savvy will likely know they need to be on the Internet, they probably aren’t sure how it works or what they should do. In this instance, your explanation needs to be simple and straightforward without too much Internet jargon.

Try using analogies they will comprehend. For example, relating online advertising to what they know – newspaper advertising. I would point out that their ad can be out there this afternoon, has the ability to go worldwide (not just the local circulation area), provides far more information and images, is available 24/7 for as long as required, and all for a minimal cost (if anything depending upon your policy).

Internet Savvy

When selling online advertising to the Internet savvy, you need to invest time in explaining what type of Internet advertising you are going to do, the sites that you are using, and the benefits for the seller. It’s easy to say “Don’t worry about the Internet, we are on all portals and have it covered.” While they may not say it outright, sellers will want to know that you have the knowledge to be able to maximise their listing online and handle the enquiry.

If your company has a good presence online, this may well be the reason you are sitting in front of the seller now. Make sure you are able to present to them effectively on how you will manage the sale or rental of their property online and reinforce confidence in your company.

So what can you present to them?

• A concise visual presentation of search pages, detailed property view pages, and basically how you will present their property both on your site and the property portals. (You can do this online by having a predetermined search that best presents your profile. If presenting offline you can use a product like “snag-it” that will assist in capturing images off the Internet.)
• Statistical data in relation to average page views for your properties from each of the property portals.
• Past sales over the Internet.
• The portals you advertise on and their associated content partners and exposure.
• The range of products available to them to enhance their listing and the benefits. (Most of the portals will have marketing support material. If not, develop your own using your own brand.)
• Testimonials of clients who have sold property through you originating from Internet enquiry.

One of the most important areas that you should cover with these prospective customers is your ability to manage buyer leads.

With one of the most common complaints against agents being their delayed or lack of response to emails sent – which these people have more than likely been on the wrong end of in the past – they are going to want to be assured you will not do this to enquiry on their property.

Discuss the ways in which you respond to buyer enquiry and how you will regularly keep them informed of response.

Quick Listing Idea:

You will have a database of potential buyers and the major portals will more than likely have a system for sending out electronic brochures to registered buyers with certain criteria of property and location (at a cost). Do some homework before you present.

“Mr & Mrs Seller, I have had a look at our database and also that of our partner property portals and there are currently a total of 267 registered buyers looking for property just like yours in this area. If you list with us I can have an electronic brochure in their inbox by tomorrow morning.”

This can become a very powerful tool if used correctly.

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6. Standing Out Amongst the Crowd

Any advertising – be it online or otherwise – generally focuses on a single goal: encouraging someone to make a purchase. For real estate agents, we could tweak this slightly and say the goal is usually to generate leads.

But if we consider this simple formula for a few more moments, another objective comes to mind: building a reputation as the go-to agent so that those who are familiar with you become your “brand advocates”.

A brand advocate is simply someone who is impressed enough with your brand that they recommend you to someone else. Beyond great service, there are a few steps you can take in the digital world to get people on board as your advocates.

Step one is to figure out where potential advocates might be lurking. This is one area where social media really comes into its own: jump on Twitter, Flickr, or Facebook and it’s possible to find whole communities discussing topics related to your business.

Michele Madansky, vice president of corporate sales and research for Yahoo!, summed up how important social media can be when she told clickz.com:

“The Internet has irrevocably changed word-of-mouth. There’s no turning back. Social media is woven into [advocates] daily lives as well as their purchase processes.”

This new word-of-mouth culture means getting it right in the social media realm is crucial. So once you find an online group that’s right for you, resist the temptation to jump straight in with a sales pitch. Instead, start by tracking what people are saying to find out more about what they really want.

Now that you have a handle on your audience, it’s time to create something worth telling them. This is where we need to reiterate the importance of great content. Remember: content doesn’t have to come in the form of the written word. Competitions, survey results, or a gallery of enticing neighbourhood photos can be just as effective in drawing people in.

Once you have something interesting to offer, it’s time to join the online conversation. But do it carefully. marketingvox.com puts it perfectly when they says that “not trying too hard is key”.

“There’s a stronger impact when you do it wrong in social media than when you mess up in a TV commercial,” Stan Joosten, innovation manager at Procter & Gamble, explained to marketingvox.com. “[I]f I threw a dinner party and then tried to sell you Tupperware afterward, you’d never come back.”

Put simply, creating brand advocates means going a few steps beyond the usual sales pitch. It’s about defining what people want, and giving them an experience that prompts them to give you that valuable mention in return.

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Over the last twelve months, we’ve seen a swathe of new for sale by owner (FSBO) property websites come online, from owner-direct.eu in Europe to buymyplace.com.au in Australia. The UK market seems to be particularly flooded with FSBO offerings – hablib.com, tepilo.com, bethemiddleman.com, notestateagents.com, and auctionmove.co.uk are just a few examples. Even supermarket giant Tesco is organising an FSBO option, according to telegraph.co.uk.

So what effect are these websites actually having? Are they drawing traffic away from traditional property portals? Are they attracting business from owners keen to bypass real estate agents?

At first glance, you could be forgiven for thinking FSBO is the new black. “We sold one day after the sign went up” reads a testimonial on buymyplace.com.au. “Join the property evolution” is hablib.com’s tagline, while thelittlehousecompany.co.uk claims it sees 3 million buyers on its website every month. UK commission-free agency NetMovers has gone so far as to partner with auctionmove.co.uk to offer its users an FSBO option.

But on closer inspection, not all these websites are making such a huge impact. owner-direct.eu, for example, is currently listing just 60 properties in the UK. Australian FSBO site remoov.com.au launched in May 2009, but by July had repositioned itself to operate like a traditional agency. buymyplace.com.au isn’t doing badly with 2,150 houses for sale, but that’s a fraction of the listings covered by Australian market leader realestate.com.au and runner-up domain.com.au.

Meanwhile, portal traffic figures seem strong as ever, with the major players in each market continuing to tout their unique visitor numbers at the end of every month. realestate.com.au has just reported a milestone of 5.9 million uniques in January, while in the UK and US rightmove.co.uk and realtor.com continue to dominate, with the only argument being over who, exactly, is in second place.

Perhaps NetMovers’ partnership with auctionmove.co.uk sums up the story. Some owners are keen to take the process of selling or renting their property into their own hands, but there are still plenty of sellers who want the option of working with an agent.

What’s your opinion? Are FSBO websites a concern in your area, or simply a niche offering that can co-exist comfortably alongside more traditional models?

[Image: frontdoor.com]

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