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Internet Marketing:From your web site, social networking, e-cards & beyond…

Breakout SessionThursday, October 16, 2008Presenter, Angie VandenberghCRYE-LEIKE Information Technology

Introductions…

Questions about search engine ranking, questions about web sites, questions about social networking…

Goal today… if you don’t know what “social networking” is you’ll have an idea and maybe even want to visit a few places. If you haven’t know where to focus or how to start you’ll leave with a plan of some things you can try.

Let’s look at a couple statistics…

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Online Marketing:Trends & Stats

Top Producers spend 22% of their time marketing online.

Agents are spending more money on online marketing. Trends indicate future increase to 52% of marketing budget.

Stats that were shared earlier in the week.--Ok – so what’s the first step in online marketing….

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Online Marketing:What’s the 1st Step?

Get Your Own Web Site

Only $10 a month

901-758-5640

Get a web site. $10/month.

But that's just the first step. Don't stop there. How many of you thought "My web site isn't generating all the leads that I thought it would" Or you hear someone ask "Is your web site getting you a lot of leads"?

Let’s get real… here’s some statistics you should know. Help set your expectations.

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Online Marketing:Site Generating Leads?

Let’s get real…• Industry Standard… 2-3%

• Crye-Leike 4-5% (double the standard)

Industry standard close rate on web site inquires "leads" is 2-3%. Crye-Leike closes 5% of online inquiries. This is double industry standard.

That means after timely response, research, gathering information and following up - if you got 100 requests for information from your web site, you could expect to close 2 maybe 3 times from that Labor intensive lead scrubbing. It could also take 6 months or more for the deal to close.

So what’s the point of this session? Why do we have web sites? How do we get the most out of them?

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Online Marketing:& how to get the most out of it…• It’s another tool. Just like you have business cards, this is your online business card.

• Professional.

• Stay in touch with your sphere.

• Tools for clients (buyers, sellers & past clients)

• Grow your sphere.

• Get Googled.

You want your customers to be able to find you online.

“Get Googled” – Refers to your placement on search engines. Can someone find you when they google “Your Name Realtor” or “Your Name Crye-Leike” even on into some of the more competitive phrases “Your City Real Estate for Sale” etc. In order to show up in google you have to have your name and those phrases on web pages that are indexed by google (or yahoo, msn etc). If your name and those terms cannot be found on a web site, then a client won’t find you in google. Social networking and online marketing help build more and more pages with your name and those phrases. The more pages with that info and the more links into that, the more likely you are to be found in google and to rank at the top for certain search terms.

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Online Marketing:Back to Basics

Is your web site address…….on your business cards….on your email signature….on your voice mailDo your buyers know you have a web site? Do they use it? Do your sellers know you have a web site? Do they use it? Do your past clients know you have a web site?Do they use it?

So what’s the next step… promote it. The more you use it, talk about it, promote it and link to it, the more you’ll get out of it. Are you using your site? Are you promoting your site? Have you ever told anyone you have a web site?

Buyers… (…why use it more pics than realtor.com and all the listings) Sellers… (…tip sellers and virtual agent emails) Past Clients… (…tip past clients see what’s for sale in their neighborhood and virtual agent emails)

Your web site is one piece of your online marketing…. what else could you do?

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Online Marketing:Social Networking

• Facebook.com

• LinkedIn.com

• MySpace.com

• ActiveRain.com

You've heard of these sites, maybe you are even using them. How do we focus in and use them in real estate?What's one of the best parts about the ideas I am going to discuss today? From this point forward all the ideas that I will talk about are free. $0

Why 1 = A lot of business comes from your sphere. Social networking is a way for you to stay in touch with your sphere online and to expand how many people are in your sphere.

Why 2 = A lot of times it is the younger generation using these sites… but who is the younger generation? First-time buyers and future business. But even is business now… who do you consider the ‘younger’ generation… is 30 too young to sell a house?

What sites should you start with? Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn, ActiveRain (each has a different style and a different network. There are others out there, but these are the most popular. LinkedIn more professional network, Facebook typically more friends/family.)

If mySpace was a country it would be the 3rd largest in the world.

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Online Marketing:Social Networking, getting started…

Set-Up Profiles• Upload your photo• Add phones & email • Link to your web site• Make connections • Join groups • Search for people • Info on services • Info on experience

What should you do once you get to one of these sites?

- Create an account and set up your profile- upload your photo- add your phone numbers, email address - add a link to your web site- Put information about your real estate services, your experience.Then make connections. Join groups. Search for people you know.

Let’s talk about another idea or avenue of online social networking…

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Online Marketing:Social Networking

Look who’s online!

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Online Marketing:Online Discussions

• What is the Germantown real estate market doing?

• I am looking for real estate to invest in Hot Springs, AR…

• Moving to Nashville, any advice?

• Anyone have input on Chattanooga? We are moving there.

• Where do you look for homes? I'm moving to Little Rock.

• We are trying to figure out a good time to sell our Destin condo…

• Moving to Fayetteville, school and home questions…?

These are actual questions I found posted by your potential clients online. Are the people who posed these questions people you would be interested in meeting?

Questions you could answer and become their local real estate expert?

Where do you go to find these questions…

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Online Marketing:Question & Answer Sites

• Trulia.com/voices• Answers.Yahoo.com• Zillow.com/forum/site• LinkedIn.com/answers

Email Updates“Q & A from your network”

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Online Marketing:Blogging

Next possibility is with blogging.

active rain…….. Why this site?- real estate network, - get a free blog,- get ideas etc.

great resource. Could serve as your only blog.Some people like to have a completely independent blog - activerain provides that service or you could look at google's blog spot or wordpress.

If you do blog….- include links from your blog posts to your web site- keep a blog post at least once a month… more often if you can. Some people like weekly routines.

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Online Marketing:More Ideas…• Press releases

• Get links

• Branch out.. Technorati, Plaxo, Twitter or Yelp

• RealTown.com, CareerConnectionNetwork

• Share your expertise at squidoo

• Upload photos or video to flickr, youtube

• Share your own google maps

If you want more ideas… here’s a few. Also included in 4 week plan passing out.

Let’s talk about another statistic…

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Online Marketing:Trends & Stats

90% of customers cannot name

their agent 1 year after closing.

Harold Crye “If we only did this one thing…. We’d be rich”

As we’ve been discussing…Most people get business from referrals. You will hear from top producing agents again and again about how they kept in touch with their sphere.

Harold’s Realty Alliance “1 Best Idea” for the past 2 years…

A simple way to keep in touch is to use ecards. And better yet… they are free. Save money by supplementing your use of ecards with other keep in touch programs you may have in place.

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Online Marketing:The 1 best idea ~ E-cards

Demo new ecards and eflyers - Suggest a monthly send (or if supplement with another program send every other month etc) Its more than a card, now a newsletter.

create ecardshow content choices/possibilities and even blankshow contacts, groups, select all, add group, add people to groupsend ecardtalk about tracking statisticsview ecard in email, show that tracking stats updated

create eflyercreate flyerthen show in emailthen show tracking stats in activity log