Marketing Techniques for 2016 by Phil Lande

2016 Agent’s Guide to What’s Working Now

INTRODUCTION

Hi. Thanks for your interest in our “2016 Agent’s Guide to What’s Working Now.” This year’s survey participation was awesome. If you’ve contributed, thank you. It’s the insight provided by folks like you that enables us to produce our annual report which is tremendously useful for our ever expanding readership. To create this guide we studied survey responses, analyzed current market statistics and used data from our large base of agents & consumers using our software. We also relied heavily on our 20+ years of experience as agents/brokers when filtering through reams of data looking for the most actionable information to spotlight. There’s a lot we could have covered, but we have decided to stay laser focused on the biggest AHHAs The stuff that you can use right away to improve your bottomline. In a nutshell, we’ve compared agents generating the highest levels of income with agents closing fewer than 10 deals per year and, in short, the data doesn’t lie. If you take some time to dive into this report, we are certain that lights will come on and your understanding of what’s working now will be enhanced. The 80/20 rule definitely applies here. Our goal here is to juxtapose what you may be doing, or thinking of doing vs. what the data tells us is working. In this report, we’ll cover 5 specific topics: 1. The “1010 Window” 2. Sniper Marketing 3. HighTech Connections 4. Advanced Open Houses 5. Better Internet Marketing (Best Lead Sources) Okay, let’s jump in….

THE “10-10 WINDOW” So what is the 1010 window? Check out these stats from our friends at NAR:

● Buyers typically searched for 10 weeks and looked at a median of 10 homes. ● The typical buyer who did not use the Internet during their home search spent only five weeks searching and visited five homes, compared to those who did use the Internet and searched for 10 weeks and visited 10 homes. SOURCE: 2015 NAR HBS HIGHLIGHTS REPORT

Sources: NAR Homebuyer and Seller Generational Trends Report 2015 & 2014 Profile of Home Buyers and Sellers The same study reveals that buyers use the internet 94% of the time to find a home. This means that the majority of buyers search for 10 weeks and look at 10 homes the “1010 Window.” Now that we know what it is, why does it matter? agentjet.com | Copyright © 2016 Agentjet, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

It matters because it allows us to understand current buyer behavior so that we can more effectively direct marketing efforts, while keeping the 1010 Window in mind. Notice in the second screenshot above, there’s a PRE 1010 period as well when buyers begin dabbling online mainly on their mobile devices. This is their ‘discovery’ period. Then at some point a life event occurs that catapults them forward. They get serious and then seek out a relationship with an agent, and the 10week10home viewing period kicks in. This means, it is of the UTMOST importance that you seriously consider doing the following: #1. Have a website with a HIGH lead capture rate to get as many buyers in the ‘discovery’ phase entering your marketing funnel. Remember that visitors are great but LEADS (capturing contact info) is what matters most. #2. Be cool. Do NOT pounce on leads with an aggressive ‘are you ready to do something now’ approach. This is a major change from just a few years ago. We used to follow the “call to convert immediately” approach. We taught it too back in the day, because an M.I.T. study showed that there was a direct correlation between the time of contacting a lead to the likelihood of closing a transaction. It was a reasonable approach when the study was done but technology has advanced and our approach must as well. Here's what’s changed: 1. We tested ‘pouncing’ against a softer contact approach AFTER the lead exhibited significant buyer behavior on our website. (Looked at 3 homes, logged in 3 times, etc.) and this softer, more targeted approach yields better results. 2. Real estate website technology has advanced. The thing is, website technology has advanced to a point where software can now monitor buyer behavior and then, at just the right time, the best of these sites will alert agents when consumers exhibit known buyer behavior. In our case, our Agentjet ONE ™ platform tracks buyer behavior using a sophisticated behavioral algorithm to accomplish this. Agentjet ONE ™ also scores lead behavior so that agents can sort and filter by a buyer’s behavioral “MX” score. This makes it super simple to discern who is ready to engage and who to leave to be nurtured by the system. Think about it, the studies show that they’re going to dabble first that is, they are going to do research and planning. Don’t fight that . Get traffic to your site, make it enticing for them to register to search (dabble) and then monitor behavior. At this point, their 10 week period hasn’t started yet . agentjet.com | Copyright © 2016 Agentjet, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

At this PRE 1010 Window phase, your approach should be to provide consumers with a great search experience and make a soft introductory connection you want them habitually coming back to your site so that you can know when to come alongside them. We still recommend reaching out to all leads immediately but NOT to hard qualify or to lock them in. In fact, we’ve found that video texting rather than an immediate call back is a surefire way to reach out in an effective but cool unobtrusive way. Remember, they’re not yet ready to engage directly with an agent the life event that catapults them forward hasn’t occurred yet. At this point you’re just trying to position yourself to be the chosen one when the time is right for them to start the 1010 Window phase. Most veteran agents probably know by feel (but not name) about the 1010 Window. They know that buyers normally go through a period of searching listings, looking at homes, getting educated about the market, making unrealistic offers, and maybe even missing opportunities, etc. This is the 1010 Window period. Now that we know about the 1010 Window, we should expect this cycle and capitalize on it. Here are several things you can do to capitalize on the 1010 Window: ● Relax. Don’t worry, be happy. Just because they’ve looked at 6 houses in the first 3 weeks and haven’t found something yet just means that they are exhibiting normal buying behavior. Don’t waste mental energy fretting. Do something more productive. ● Educate. If you notice the NAR stat above stated that buyers that stopped relying on the internet found a house in 5 weeks after viewing just 5 homes on average. That is remarkable! Consider telling your buyers that they should rely less on the internet and more on you to provide them the best homes to view. Specifically, tell them to be careful with the BIG Kahuna sites like Zillow, Trulia, REALTOR.COM, etc. In this age, more than ever, everyone wants everything faster. Capitalize on this and show your buyers proof that the fastest way to find their dream home is by using your services and not searching the often outdated inaccurate info on the internet . Besides, the more time they spend on one of the Big Kahuna portals, the more likely they are to be picked off by your competitors who are more than likely advertising there. ● Increase Your Effort Towards 5. You don’t need to do a CMA type process for every home at the beginning of the 10 week cycle. However, as you get to the 5s 5 homes viewed or 5 weeks, you should ratchet up your efforts be heavily prepared with all data prior to showings at this stage.

SNIPER MARKETING Sniper Marketing refers to taking a laser focused approach and targeting very specific groups vs. using a shotgun approach where the marketing is broad and tries to attract many groups at the same time. Hands down, Sniper Marketing is better. There’s good news and bad news. The bad news is…. most agent’s don’t do sniper marketing:

Do you use marketing with messaging that is specific to any of the following age groups?

74% of agents don’t do niche specific marketing. They just run general advertising. Now for the good news… most agent’s don’t do sniper marketing! This is a HUGE opportunity for you because Facebook has made this SUPER easy to do. While we’re on the subject, let’s talk a little about Facebook marketing vs. Google marketing. agentjet.com | Copyright © 2016 Agentjet, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Google Marketing or “Search Marketing” is putting your advertising in front of someone that is actively seeking a solution or an answer to what they’re looking for. Facebook Marketing or “Interruption Based Marketing” is putting your advertising in front of people that aren’t necessarily seeking what you’re offering. Old school would be the Yellow pages vs. a T.V. commercial. For example, someone going to the yellow pages and looking for a chinese restaurant in a specific area to eat at vs. someone watching Seinfeld and then seeing a local commercial for a chinese restaurant and then deciding to go eat there now. That is classic search marketing vs. interruption based marketing. Currently on the internet, the two biggies for traffic are Facebook & Google. One (Google) is primarily focused on search based ads and the other (Facebook) is primarily based on interruption based ads . Facebook actually has improved their advertising and created an entirely new type of marketing. More on that in a minute... First let’s look at the pros and cons of each type. Benefits of “Search Marketing” or Google Adwords Pay Per Click program (SEO is a whole other topic): ● In theory, the leads will be much better and more receptive to engage with you since they are already in the mindset of looking to buy or sell a home. ● Gather analytics about what phrases are bringing you the most leads and then you can optimize your campaigns for these phrases. The downsides: ● The audience is limited there are only so many people searching “anytown homes for sale” in any given month. ● Over the past 5 years overall conversions have dropped and costs have skyrocketed. ● There are many phases that buyers and sellers go through, this type of marketing is really only focused on one: people searching now. Benefits of Facebook marketing: ● First (and this is HUGE), Facebook is not traditional interruption based marketing. They have built what we call “Profile Marketing” which is not new in itself. However, no other medium has ever taken it to the level that Facebook has. The way that you can Sniper Market with their platform is truly unbelievable! ● You will be putting your ads in front of very specific groups and you can then tailor each of your messages to resonate with each group differently and individually SNIPER MARKETING. agentjet.com | Copyright © 2016 Agentjet, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

● ●

You are marketing to buyers & sellers in all phases of the buying/selling cycle For now, costs are relatively low when compared to Google.

Downsides of Facebook marketing (Downside may be a strong word as there aren’t any really, but here are a few things to be aware of): ● Ad blindness has to be combated. If you target one area and one group of people, eventually your ad will be shown to the same person over and over again and it’s effectiveness will diminish. Facebook calls this metric “Frequency” and they track and share it with you for each ad. This just means that every so often when ad Frequency gets too high, you’ll need to change up your ads or switch to one of the many other ad options. Facebook provides many formats: video, carousel, image, promoted posts, etc. ● Complex advertising platform. It can be a real beast to learn and you’re never really done. They CONSTANTLY add and change things. C.O.N.S.T.A.N.T.L.Y. They also have two modes: Regular mode and their more advanced “Power Editor” mode. To give you an idea, at Agentjet we’ve been working with Facebook for years and still have to pay staff just to keep up with their latest changes or new advertising formats. Even with the downsides mentioned above, make no mistake about it, Facebook advertising flat out ROCKS. There’s way more to cover than we have space for in this short guide. We could spend a week and write at least 3 big books on the topic, but we do want to give you some very specific actionable instructions right now. To do so, first check out these facts:

So now we know that Millennials make up the biggest portion of homebuyers. We also know that their average income is $84k and that they don’t have any children and that 32% of home buyers are firsttimers. And the Millennials make up 68% of the 32%. Also, we know that this crew is very techsavvy and that they rely heavily on mobile search. M illennials, many of whom watched their parents struggle during the downturn, are focussed on investing. They think, “I’m not spending money on something I can’t make money on.” If you were to ask any professional marketer for a dream wish list on how to reach this segment, it would look something like this: agentjet.com | Copyright © 2016 Agentjet, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

“Show my advertising to everyone within my city, that is between 2534, makes $50K or more, is single and currently doesn’t have a home and is likely to buy in the near future. I also want my advertising to be very inexpensive.” Wouldn’t you want to be able to do that as well? Loaded question. Of course, you would. Well, with our friends at Facebook, you can! You can actually hypertarget any group to the nth degree. You can create a profile for any segment imaginable and then target that group specifically to the exclusion of all other market segments . Do you see the power in that??? It’s incredible what’s available to anyone willing to put in the time to learn how to dominate particular niche markets. Smart marketers understand that the best thing ever is being able to match their messages to their audiences so that they speak DIRECTLY to them . When this is done properly, prospects see copy that speaks directly to them. They say to themselves, “Hey, that’s me. I need to check this out.” Following our example, you could target the Millennials in your marketplace using the criteria above and then run specific ads with language that resonates with them. (Just remember, you can get super focused in your ads, but don’t violate the Fair Housing Laws or use words in your advertising prohibited by the protected classes. http://www.hud.gov/offices/fheo/library/part109.pdf ) Even with Fair Housing restricting us from saying something like “Single Young Seattle Professionals, Find Your First Home Here” we could do something like this:

Notice how our ad touched on all the known traits of Millennials. When a 2534 year old, sees that ad, it’s magnetic. It’s effective and Facebook rewards you with a good Relevancy score which equates to a lower cost/lead and higher lead volumes. Here is a brief stepbystep guide to get this going... For advanced users, we would recommend using Facebook’s “Power Editor” to create and manage ads. However for this example, we’re going to keep it simple and use their normal ad management version. Also, this example is for sending traffic to your website preferably a high converting lead capture page. There are also many things you can do to promote pages and posts within Facebook itself, but that’s a topic to be covered another time. agentjet.com | Copyright © 2016 Agentjet, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Step 1. Login to Facebook and Click “Create Ads”

Step 2. Choose your objective (this is where it starts to get fun). Facebook has a bunch of different ad types. To start, we would recommend the “Send people to your website option”. Then after running the ad for a while and gather data, test the “Increase conversions on your website” and “Get video views” objectives later. Those are all worth testing but start with “Send people to your website”.

(If you notice on the left side of the screenshot, you see “Campaign, Ad Set & Ad” Sections. Keep in mind that this how Facebook structures their advertising. Think about how you want to organize it. In this scenario, I may title a campaign “Millennial Buyers”, then title two Ad Sets in that campaign for two different areas, and finally create different ads for those individual Ad Sets. agentjet.com | Copyright © 2016 Agentjet, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Step 3. Add your landing page & click on “Set Audience & Budget”

Notice the “Choose a pixel (optional)” dropdown. Later, this is something you will DEFINITELY want to do. In a nutshell, it allows you to set up tracking on your website that will communicate conversion data to Facebook. You can set up different goals like “Buyer Lead” and “Seller Lead” data tracking. Once this in place, you start getting pixel “fires” and Facebook can optimize your campaign for conversions. You can also build “custom audiences” around this data. Here is where to learn all about this and how to set it up: https://www.facebook.com/business/a/onlinesales/conversiontracking Check it out later. For now let’s continue with our example... agentjet.com | Copyright © 2016 Agentjet, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Step 4. Set Audience & Budget This is where the real magic happens! Target your audience by location, age, demographics, interests & more.

Using the “Demographics” dropdown, you can get super targeted. In this case we chose “Home Ownership” and “First time homebuyer”. This section is extremely powerful. Besides Facebook’s own data on users, it utilizes a plethora of other sources. Here is what FB says, “ Some of our data providers include Acxiom, Datalogix, Epsilon, Experian and Merkle.” Having access to this data and this type of targeting is truly a marketer's dream! So for the example, we’re keeping it simple but you can get really creative here. You could add targeting for job title, particular interests, employer, etc. Click the dropdowns and you’ll see a world of options that will get your wheels turning. With the current targeting we setup, this is what Facebook tells us:

We just laser targeted 5,700 Millennials in our market that make $50k or more a year and are likely to be in some phase of becoming a first time home buyer. Now let’s get in front of them inexpensively. Let’s set the budget:

Here we put the daily budget at $10. This will have us spending $300 month on this campaign. In red is where you set your bid amount. We’ve checked “manual”so you could see that you have the option to set your own perclick bid. But based on our testing, we usually get the best use of our budget by using Facebook’s “Automatic” option. agentjet.com | Copyright © 2016 Agentjet, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Finally, at the bottom of that page you’ll see a “Choose Ad Creative” button. Click on it and move to the next step. Step 5. Setup your ad. Here just start with the “Single Image Option”. You must connect a Facebook page. (If you haven’t done that yet, it’s super simple. Just follow Facebook’s steps as their online process walks you through it.

After you connect your page, Click “Select Image” and this will appear:

You can use Facebook’s “Free Stock Images” to search for a picture from Shutterstock or upload your own. Next create your ad copy & preview your ad:

Preview your ad and then click “Place Order”. Your ad will go live after a short “approval” delay:

And now we’ve targeted a super specific group of people and we’re showing them (and only them) a very specific ad that will resonate with them specifically marketing at it’s best. After your ad is live, you’ll be able to monitor performance in your Facebook account. As mentioned earlier, setup conversion tracking pixels and then optimize and try different ad objectives once it’s in place. Finally, the next logical step is to build out your target niches. Here are a few niches you could target with their corresponding traits to build ads around: ● Gen X ○ Move up ○ Cross move ● Boomers ○ Retirement ○ Downsize ● More groups ○ Veterans ○ “Likely to Sell” ○ Friends & Family Hopefully you’re seeing the power in this type of Sniper Marketing and why it works so well. Run with it. Hop into Facebook and start targeting very specific groups in your area right away.

HIGH-TECH CONNECTIONS Referrals are still, and will always be, the most important source of business for REALTORS ® . This is why it is so important to know how to connect with your ‘Sphere of Influence’ aka friends, family and former clients. It is from this source that referrals flow, so be deliberate about regularly touching base with them. Check out the survey results!

What is your most effective source of leads?

Back in the day Twentyone years ago, when we were brandspanking new agents, we sent “Signs of Success” mailings a Joe Stumpf technique to our spheres of influence. After closings, most of our satisfied clients would write testimonial letters and send them to us. We'd gather them up and when we had enough, we’d copy them and then, onebyone we folded, addressed, stamped and sent them to everyone we knew our entire church. Fellow churchgoers would read ‘em and voilà opportunities rolled our way. It was awesome! The science behind this phenomenon has been proven . People are heavily influenced by the experience of others! Robert Cialdini, who is best known for his work on the psychology of persuasion and marketing influence, talked about how folks of all kinds are influenced by the agentjet.com | Copyright © 2016 Agentjet, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

experiences of others as they relate to something that they are interested in doing like buying or selling a home, for example. Signs of Success, especially among a group where “Shared values” and “Shared identity” are also present, is a steroidal version of “influence” and it is very powerful. We’ve found that although old school sending of trifolded mailings is still a successful way to build a following, there are additional approaches that don’t require paper and folding. :) According to Brainshark, “ Video in email and text can boost open rates by 20% and increase clickthrough rates by 200300%.” With stats like that, even if you have an awesome subject line and great content, sending a normal text or email isn’t as effective at communicating your message as a video via email or text. Our point here is, please drop the camera shyness, get yourself a selfie stick and have some fun. To shoot a good video you’ll need: ● a good camera or smartphone ● a selfie stick ● a nice couple ● a nice home as a backdrop Then, simply stand out in front of a home and shoot a quick video of yourself standing next to a satisfied customer. Use the KISS principle and say something like this: “Hi, I’m ________________. Thanks for visiting my website. It’s a “safe haven” where you can search for properties without being bothered by every Tom, Dick and Mary. Should you see a home you like or want more information on, simply use the buttons to request a showing or request more information and I’ll be sure to get back with you. Thank you! ” It may take a couple tries to get comfortable, but you’ll get it. Assuming you are getting inbound web inquiries with cell numbers and/or email addresses, once you have a short video, send a short text or email and attach the video to the message. It is this approach a couple in front of a home with a successful agent which sends a powerful “Social Proof” message to the viewer that in turn will result in both a high open and consumption rate of your video text and emails. In short, this is the name of the game. Get your message to the right viewers in a way that they feel comfortable consuming it. agentjet.com | Copyright © 2016 Agentjet, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Another approach that you might take, assuming that you use FB, is to position yourself directly in front of viewers of your FB news stream.

Here is how: ● Sign into your FB Account ● Just above the, “What’s on your Mind?” blank at the top of the page click on Add Photo/ Video Look for this:

●

Then upload a beautiful Picture or Video and add a link to your site where you want to drive people to like this:

This technique will draw the attention of your Sphere of Influence and those loosely connected with you on FB. It will help drive FREE inquiries to your landing page and increase your online inquiries. Another technique you might try is what we’ve coined: “ Stump the Real Estate Chump”. The goal here is to establish yourself on FB, among your followers/audience, as an authority on all things related to real estate. Here’s how: ● Sign into your FB Account ● Just above the, “What’s on your Mind?” blank at the top of the page click on Add a Photo/Video of yourself and write something like this: agentjet.com | Copyright © 2016 Agentjet, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

You’ll be surprised by the number of questions you get. After all, everyone likes talking about real estate, right? Be sure to be, ”Johnny on the spot” and quickly reply to questions. The questioner will appreciate it and the viewers will read your reply. When they do your authority increases in direct relation to your answers the better the answers, the greater the influence . So be professional in your approach and remember it is social media so be careful not to offend anyone or break any Fair Housing rules. The FB techniques above are predicated on you having a FB account. But if you don’t have a following, start building one it’s easy. Here’s how: ● Sign into your FB account ● Look for the search bar it’s located in the top left hand side of the site. It looks like this: Type the name of anyone you have ever known and once you find them, Friend them. Look for the following button and click on it: agentjet.com | Copyright © 2016 Agentjet, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Adding friends is a great way to build a following an audience.

ADVANCED OPEN HOUSES

How many open houses do you typically do in a month?

If you’ve been in real estate awhile, it’s no secret that the amount of agents that host Open Houses has dropped dramatically. In fact, in the survey above nearly 40% don’t host Open Houses. When consumers started searching online, as their primary method of finding a home, open house attendance seemed to drop off the cliff. But the good news is that it’s back and better than ever. Agents in the know are holding open houses and cleaning up . Gone are the days when you had to pay a newspaper an arm and a leg to advertise. Nowadays by simply selecting “Open Houses” and following a few simple steps, you can promote Open Houses via your own MLS, your Company website and on Zillow & Trulia. If you have an account

on Homes.com, you can search for your listing there and mark them as well. It takes a little learning but it’s free and effective. Because most consumers begin their home search online, once they see a home they like, they tend to Google it to see if it’s going to be held open. Therefore, if you have a hot listing, definitely, hold it open. Plan a bit to figure out how you may be able to capture leads, setup searches and provide awesome feedback to the homeowners. Here’s an idea: If you have a website and a mobile hotspot, you could have attendees setup searches for themselves on your website. By doing so, you’ve not only captured leads, but registrants will begin receiving listing alerts branded by you. How cool is that? Also, consider offering an incentive to for awesome feedback. For example, you might offer a free Starbucks gift card in exchange for feedback. There are cool tools out there that automate this whole process and make it super easy & engaging for the open house attendees to register Open Home Pro is a cool tool. http://openhomepro.com/ Agentjet also has Open House Registration Technology built into the the Agentjet ONE™ system . What’s cool about the integrated approach is that with just 3 clicks, the Agent ONE ™ system instantly transforms into a beautiful Open House Registration system that captures: ● Open House attendee names, emails and phone numbers ● Instantly and automatically begins sending agent branded property update emails of homes matching the registrant's search criteria ● It also captures buyer feedback for the homeowner Check out what it looks like here:

Bottomline: Whether it’s our Open House Hook ™ tool or some other system, you should add open houses to your marketing plan. If you’re already doing them, take a look at the new technology available. It really makes a difference. It’s literally ‘live’ lead capture with automated followup.

BETTER INTERNET MARKETING & BEST LEAD SOURCES Every year we poll 1000s of agents, asking them to share their current internet marketing endeavours. What type of websites they have, what lead sources are producing the most, what traffic sources they’re using, etc. Here we’d like to share some of the highlights from those responses. Let’s set some context first. Check out this survey response:

What’s the most important thing you need from your website?

And unfortunately this next response stays the same…

How many leads a month does your website produce?

72.99% of agents say they only get 110 leads a month from their website. Ouch. That’s a real problem! But it is easy to solve. More context (We never like the responses to this next one):

Ugh! Over 50% of agents are closing 10 deals or less a year. Really?! At Agentjet one of our primary goals is to increase that stat for our customers by harnessing modern technology. We then blend our software with solid ageold marketing principles to help agents increase their close rate. However, even if you’re not a customer of ours even working parttime, you should be able to crush 10 deals a year just by following the few strategies we lay out in this guide . agentjet.com | Copyright © 2016 Agentjet, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

At any rate, those are the facts: 51.6% of agents say they close 10 deals or less. At the other end, 10.11% say they are closing 36 or more a year. To us it’s very logical to see what the second group is doing differently than the first. In that regard check this out:

Which of the following internet lead sources do you use? (Filtered by agents closing 10 or less transactions a year)

Which of the following internet lead sources do you use? (Filtered by agents closing 36 or more transactions a year)

On first glance they may appear similar, but they’re really not. Firstly, both groups have more agents citing Facebook than any other source. However, it stands to reason that most agents have at least a personal Facebook account and are probably counting occasional business activity posts as a ‘lead source’. Even with that included, agents closing more than 36+ deals are at 79% using Facebook compared to 55% for the 10 or less group . Next, Realtor.com & Zillow/Trulia are similar probably because most agents have profiles on these sites at a minimum.Then, the big difference occurs: Craigslist, Other & Twitter come next for the 10 transactions or less group. For the 36+ crowd, it goes: Other, Google Adwords, YouTube. agentjet.com | Copyright © 2016 Agentjet, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

That data is a GOLDEN NUGGET. Here’s why. Look at this:

What is your best source of internet leads? (Filtered by agents closing 10 or less transactions a year)

Compare it to this:

What is your best source of internet leads? (Filtered by agents closing 36 or more transactions a year)

The biggie here is Google Adwords takes top spot. Why? It’s search marketing vs. interruption based marketing vs. profile marketing. (Go back to the Sniper Marketing section for a further explanation) Adwords is used by agents that know what we know: pay per click with Adwords & Bing/Yahoo is the most predictable, scalable form of internet marketing you can do. Yes, it costs money to advertise. However, when done correctly the ROI is huge. So it really doesn’t ‘cost’ anything. What’s apparent here is many agents are going the ‘doityourself’ route and buying into the ‘free’ sources. They are relying on just having a profile on Realtor.com, Zillow, Trulia, etc., and running agentjet.com | Copyright © 2016 Agentjet, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

free ads on Craigslist. Those agents are not nearly as successful as agents that are using pay per click with Adwords. That’s not an opinion, but a fact based on actual results from the survey. If you’re not using Google Adwords, mull on that for a minute: Agents closing 36+ deals a year are telling you that Adwords is their top source. Now here is an opinion, and without trying to sound too egotistical it’s a professional one. For several years we’ve managed MILLIONS of dollars worth of traffic for agents all over the U.S. & Canada as a Google Certified Company. So we are definitely qualified to offer direction on the topic of best lead sources. As mentioned in the Sniper Marketing section, there are Pros & Cons to both Facebook & Adwords. Adwords can be very expensive and you can lose your shirt fast without much to show for it if you don’t know what you’re doing. However, it is what the top agents are using for closing transactions consistently . So a goal of yours should be to get in that space at some point. We would recommend to hire a company that specializes exclusively in PPC for real estate like Agentjet. There are not many companies like us, but there are a few. Going at it alone is just too steep of a learning curve and your time would be much better spent perfecting your face to face conversion techniques and booking appointments . At Agentjet we specialize in real estate traffic only and we manage even super small budgets for agents. What we do typically is set up a blended campaign of both Facebook and Adwords campaigns. We then monitor daily and optimize for our clients with the constant goal of getting the most high quality leads for the lowest price possible. It’s also interesting to note that, in one year the rankings have changed quite a bit for the “Best Lead Source” as ranked by agents that close 36 deals or more: Last year looked like this: 1. Google Adwords 2. Craigslist 3. Realtor.com 4. Zillow 5. Facebook This year shapes up like this: agentjet.com | Copyright © 2016 Agentjet, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

1. 2. 3. 4. 5.

Google Adwords Facebook Zillow/Trulia Realtor.com My Blog

Facebook has jumped up to the 2nd spot from 5th and Craigslist has fallen off the list. The reason is: agents that are closing the bigger number of deals have learned to do some version of what we discussed in the Sniper Marketing section for Facebook. These agents aren’t just “promoting posts” or posting to their news feed. They’re leveraging the best marketing platform on the planet. They’re Sniper Marketing targeted groups and they’re also setting up lead capture processes right within Facebook itself. These agents aren’t abandoning Adwords either. In fact, as you can see they still cite it as the #1 source. So the big take away: Take a look at what you're doing right now and compare it to these stats and plan to modify your marketing plan for 2016. At a minimum, develop your plan to include paid Facebook and Google Advertising. You may be thinking, “But that’s going to cost me some $$$?” Well, check this response out:

How much per month do you spend on online marketing? Agents with 36+ deals per year: 68.75% spend $200 to $1000+/ a month Agents with 10 or less deals per year: 72.82% spend less than $200 a/ month Clearly a classic case of “it takes money to make money.” These agents probably didn’t start with $1K monthly budget. But that should be your goal: to crank it up. It’s not about ‘costs’. It’s about ROI we have had many agents with us that for every $1k they spend, they get $6K or more back. This is very possible with PPC and online lead generation. If it’s tight, we get it. Been there. What you should do, what we’ve personally done and what we have many agents in the Agentjet family doing right now is recruiting marketing partners . A mortgage officer is an easy partner to get and an obvious choice. agentjet.com | Copyright © 2016 Agentjet, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Also, at Agentjet we offer very budget conscious allinone solutions. You can get a killer IDX enabled website, a robust CRM, a bunch of really cool effective bells & whistles, live leads & advertising on Facebook and Google for one ridiculously low monthly price. And our program is designed to grow with you. It can also scale up with you as your business grows.

Website Images Just want to share one more thing that was very apparent in the survey regarding websites. If you look at these results you’ll see that “Photos/Image Player” ranks dead last in the list:

What’s the most important thing you need from your website?

Now look at this:

The takeaway here is to make sure you have great images and an image viewing experience on your website. It’s a BIG deal. It is of the utmost importance to what matters: consumers. If you want people coming back to your site and engaging, you need a great visual experience period . At Agentjet we process millions of property photos from various datafeeds that we pull from different MLS associations on an ongoing basis. There are many different formats, sizes and processes required to retrieve and store the data. As technically painful it is to manage, we believe so strongly in the importance of creating an awesome image experience, that we treat all photos with a dedicated viewing process. In a nutshell, if the raw photos from the MLS are large, we offer an elegant player so consumers can view them. If the MLS provides small photos, we leave them as is. We don’t increase their size or stretch them to fit a single player like many real estate website providers do because that is what causes fuzziness, blurriness and a bad visual experience. Here’s what our full size player looks like:

At a minimum, you should review your site and audit the image viewing process. If it’s not outstanding (looks good on all devices, provides large photos, elegant image viewer,etc.), you should make it a top priority to improve that over anything else on your site because that is what is most important to consumers .

Mobilegeddon It’s also very important to make sure now more than ever that not only is your image player mobile responsive, but that your entire site loads, operates and looks good on all devices. Besides being important for users, Google will actually penalize you for not having a mobile friendly site. This is know as the infamous “Mobilegeddon” Google update. You can check your site here: https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/mobilefriendly/ agentjet.com | Copyright © 2016 Agentjet, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

This is the results of a test of one of our sites (and what you want to see):

SUMMARY To wrap this year’s report up, we’d like to point out one last thing from the NAR report:

This means the other 44% were NOT very satisfied with their recent home buying process. And if you think about it, we know that 87% of the buyers used an agent. So agents were very involved in the majority of transactions. And we think 59% stinks! It means you have a huge opportunity because the public is giving the home buying process (mainly our industry) a 59%. That is not too high of bar to beat. It also means that the average experience is pretty bad in the eye of consumers. It’s like they gave us an F! Look at this:

Notice the word “all”. Finding the right property is the top ranked problem for all generations. If you simply commit 2016 to addressing this issue: talk about it, educate your consumers about it, be empathetic concerning it, you will crush 59%! And that will equal more referrals and more business. So here’s a 2016 game plan: Simply, combine an approach which actively works to solve THEIR most difficult issue of finding the right property with your new understanding of the 1010 Window, Sniper Marketing, High Tech Referrals, Advanced Open Houses & Improved Internet Marketing and you will have an amazingly successful 2016. Finally, we would really appreciate your feedback regarding this guide. Please tell us your thoughts . We’re going to be sharing a lot more this year and your comments will help to shape the content. Thank you, The Agentjet Team