SEO

Apache is functioning normally

[Editor’s note: We’re trying something new–collaborative thought pieces written by the Geek Estate Mastermind community. The goal is to make the absolute best argument possible, derived from the collective expertise of members. The first two articles are bull and bear arguments for industry search and IDX, a topic initiated by Greg Fischer over a year ago.

Bull: The industry must not cede search to the portals. Meeting buyer expectations and owned, perpetual lead generation are table stakes to agency.

Bear: The portals have already won the minds of buyers. Search is an undifferentiated lost cause. If you can’t “win,” why play at all? Read the full argument here.

Without further ado, here we go with the bull argument…]

By: Ted Adler

One of the great fallacies of real estate digital marketing is that Zillow cannot be beat. 

Yes, Zillow has put itself between the real estate broker and the consumer when it comes to the search experience: The word “Zillow” has replaced “real estate“ as the most likely additional phrase for people looking to find a home for sale. The millions of monthly visitors it attracts dwarfs that of any ad-free industry player, by a landslide. Take out Redfin from the equation, and it’s a complete romping.

Traditional property search (but not visual search) has been commoditized online, yet it is still a fundamental component to a real estate business. Consumer expectations are high and there’s a sense of entitlement, so if a potential buyer client arrives to an agent/broker website (however they get there) and is not given the option to search listings, the user experience is 100% compromised. That’s not to say they won’t work with an agent, but brand equity takes a hit and that buyer will have to be reached again some other way.

Search can yield true insight around when and why to communicate with a consumer, improving that experience and building a relationship. For most local brokerages, it’s a tool to convert traffic from multiple channels, not to win a web ranking contest.

Continued investment is essential as a way to serve buyers, generate leads, and avoid irrelevance. It’s true: Portals have the minds of buyers. But they have not won their hearts; that’s only something a person can do. 

PERPETUAL LEAD GENERATION MACHINE

Brokers are in the business of helping people own the most important asset: their home. Yet when it comes to their primary marketing tool (their website) in the dominant marketing media (the internet), they seem willing to rent their leads. These names, emails, and sometimes phone numbers–which are sprayed out to an array of brokers–run in the ballpark of $150/each.  When you stop paying that rent, you’re evicted from this lead pool.

The alternative of developing a strong website with a solid technical SEO foundation that can capture long-tail searches in a perpetual lead generation machine is a far better strategy. Beyond generating online leads to power the broker’s business annually, it serves as a quantifiable asset that can be monetized in a transaction.  

The biggest issue is not the website, but what is done after the website goes live. Long gone are the days of the internet as a “field of dreams.” If you build it, they won’t come. Billboards in the basement are seen by no one. Ranking well takes time, resources, and know how. In an era when reading is hard (and watching a video is easy), who really wants to spend time creating content and doing technical search engine optimization–much less the hard part, organic link building? Only those brokers who understand the digital landscape and want to win. Keep in mind: The longer you wait, the more expensive it becomes.

The Bears (which include the portals themselves) have convinced many brokers competing for traffic is not worth the required time or capital. In the aggregate, there is merit to that argument that no site (agent/broker websites, BPP, consumer MLS portals, Upstream, etc) will displace Zillow in 2020, or even 2025 for that matter. 

However, what real estate agent or brokerage cares about buyers nationwide? None of them. They care about hyperlocal. Competing for search phrases in an agent/broker’s “farm” is all that is required to make an IDX & SEO investment worthwhile.

As brokers are not technical by nature (a common college major for brokers is psychology), convincing them to invest in other areas isn’t hard. When it comes to their vehicle lease, brokers will throw down $700/month for an Audi Q7 and then debate the value of a website platform at $79, $149, or $199 a month. One will drive a handful of their clients around on a monthly basis.  The other will be the first drive everyone they know (and many people they do not know) will take with their brand. The former is irrelevant without the latter.

HYPER LOCAL SPECIALIZATION

The last mile of real estate search–property addresses and long-tail search queries pertinent to buyers further down the purchase funnel–accounts for 92.42% of queries according to ahrefs. When it comes to hyper local, Zillow can be beat. I know this as fact because we help clients do it every day.

Ranking number one for a specific property address is the ultimate “local” of digital marketing.  Appearing number one for your own listings is a highly valuable result, which could lead to impressing sellers in the research phase (a listing presentation asset) and converting buyers to conversations. 

Strategies/tactics for ranking well for hyper local:

It’s not a coincidence that all of this is part of Redfin’s repertoire of differentiation. 

INDUSTRY SEARCH SOLUTIONS

IDX is marketing magic. Using IDX content opens up a swiss army knife of marketing and sales capabilities.

Any cooperating member participant (agent or brokerage) of any size who opts into IDX policy may access and display a very comprehensive set of on- and off-market properties. Typically, that inventory is as or more comprehensive than any portal. It is vital to attract buyers who have had their first course of portal listings–or listings displayed in the window of agency’s in year’s past–and are ready to get serious with the actual local MLS database on a broker site. 

Historically, IDX has served three primary purposes:

  1. Power a buyer experience with all inventory (in real-time).
  2. Allow the agent/broker to engage, track, capture, and convert traffic (ultimate goal of a website).
  3. Enhance the brand of the brokerage as a go-to place for information about the local market.  

In addition to engaging and converting traffic, IDX should be part of a larger strategy to:

  • Increase time on website.
  • Reduce bounce rate.
  • Gain insight on client’s search activity and track search behavior. (Ie, “They said their budget is $400K and yet they keep going back and looking at properties in the $480K range.”)
  • Lend credibility to agent. Portals rely on 3rd party data so often inaccurate and out of date.
  • Offer a personalized consumer experience (as opposed to a mass portal experience).
  • Meet consumer expectations.

A world without IDX, would: 

  • cripple buyer-agency, as many buyer leads would only be distributed inter-brokerage. All pocket listings, all the time. 
  • lead to agents/brokers selectively sharing listing info with portals over local competition. 
  • cause SMB sized brokerages to get squeezed out or rolled up by incumbents who possess listing inventory control.

Nearly 20 years after IDX was made available, today it’s more relevant than ever. Gone are the days of the vanilla ‘boxed in’ (i.e. framed / I-framed) MLS search box. “Disassembling” IDX wouldn’t abandon a ghost town. To the contrary, it would cripple a utility that is required to maintain a sense of agency with buyers. Afterall, if professionals aren’t even facilitating the most basic online home discovery process, what are they doing at all?

THE AGGREGATION THEORY

Consumer MLS websites and the Broker Public Portal have the same goals as IDX: a comprehensive search experience, free from ads from competing agents. And not having to pay for leads. The difference is they add marketing muscle in the form of many agents promoting the same website.

Consumer-driven traffic is just one part of the equation. Agent-driven traffic is a very different animal with a much higher correlation to closings. Don’t ignore the potential of MLS-wide adoption of an agent-to-consumer mobile search tool.

Broker Public Portal, the joint venture with Homesnap, is aggregating consumers by leveraging agents on a nationwide scale. While they aren’t at the top of the traffic charts yet, it takes time. With continued efforts, they will crack the top five most trafficked real estate search portals.

HamptonsRE.com is a new portal to combat Zillow’s acquisition of Hamptons Real Estate Online (re-branded to Out East). HAR.com is the gold standard of what a consumer MLS portal can be. Granted, it was started years before any other MLS was considering how to combat the online portals existence. But, it is clear proof consumer MLS portals can gain an audience if cards are played correctly. 

DON’T GIVE UP

While search is an undifferentiated cause, it’s not “lost”–it is simply evolved table stakes where general feature parity with national portals should be maintained. 

Without IDX, you can be certain that it will be more difficult for consumers to make an educated decision around buying a house. An anti-competitive landscape is not one the industry wants. 

Agents and brokers shouldn’t cede search to the portals without a fight (especially since Zillow is now a competitor not a partner). Left unchecked, Zillow will go from buyer traffic domination to annihilation. It will have all the leverage in the world without someone to challenge it.

The industry’s investment in search must continue–real estate agency as we know it depends on it. Without a role in the top of the funnel, agents and brokers will fall into the abyss of irrelevance.

Wrap-Up

Thanks to the other contributors to the thinking behind this bull argument:

If you’re interested in learning more about membership in the Geek Estate Mastermind, which I usually describe as a think-tank for real estate tech, have a read here.

Source: geekestateblog.com

Apache is functioning normally

This article is part of a series put together by the Total Mortgage marketing team that provides loan officers and other sales professionals with a crash course in marketing and self-promotion. To read other articles in this series, click here.

When we talk about on-page optimization, we’re talking about factors that can influence how a page on your site will perform in a search result.

Everyone wants their site to come up at the top of the search engine results page (SERP), so there’s some serious competition. To increase your chances of claiming the coveted first position, you’ll want to make sure your page is optimized.

Fortunately for you, this blog will give you the ins and outs of on-page optimization.

Structuring Your Content

When a user comes to your site, you want your content to be structured in a way that makes it easy to understand. That means using a variety of headers and other organizational tools.

Title Tags

Tittle tags help search engines figure out what your page is about. They consist of the text that is placed in between the title tags in your HTML document. To anyone who isn’t a developer, you’ll think of title tags as what the results that up in blue in search engines.

Title tag = Title Tags: How to Improve CTR by 20%+ – Siege Media

Here are some quick tips for title tags:

  1. Include your keywords: The first place someone will look is at your title tag. Make sure your targeted keywords are in the title tag, preferably at the beginning. Don’t go overboard trying to jam as many keywords as you can in your title tag. Not only will “keyword stuffing” get you penalized by search engines, but it doesn’t read well.
  2. Optimize the length: You want your title tag to be between 50-60 characters.
  3. Descriptive: For obvious reasons, you want your title tag to clearly reflect what your post is about.

Headers

After your title, the headers will be the next thing that a user sees. It’s important that the headers guide them to the information that they’re seeking. Internet users don’t have a lot of patience and aren’t interested in reading unnecessary words.

Often times, they’ll get to a site and scroll down, only reading the headers. If they don’t find what they’re looking for, they quickly bounce back to the SERP. Just like your title tag, it’s crucial for you to include keywords in your headers. We’ll talk later on about the different options you have with keyword use.

Sub-Headers

You might think that a simple header would do, but you’d be wrong. Dialing down into sub-headers makes it that much easier for users to follow the flow of your content. It’s not always necessary, but you have to think about what will funnel the readers attention down to the granular sections of your page.

Anything that helps the reader navigate your page will help on-site optimization. It might take a few posts to get a good grasp of when to include a sub-header, but stick with it. Feedback from friends or colleagues is invaluable.

Bullets vs. Paragraphs

Bullet points are nice and neat and are therefore easier to read than wordy paragraphs. That doesn’t mean you should go overboard, but if the time comes, don’t feel like it’s poor taste to use them. Readability is key when it comes to getting likes and shares, and will help keep your readers coming back for more.

One way to make intimidating paragraphs more approachable is to break them up. Since most readers scan through blogs, as opposed to reading them start to finish, you’re better off with smaller paragraphs.

Think about it. If you have a large block of text, the reader certainly isn’t going to jump in at the middle of the paragraph and start reading, and it’s entirely possible that they’ll skip over the whole thing. But if you break that paragraph into three smaller paragraphs, the chances greatly increase that they will read any one of them.

Images/Multimedia

If you’re trying to craft masterful blogs, you’re going to want to include images and videos. There is a lot of data that shows users are more likely to stick around and engage with your site if you have images and videos.

With text, bots can crawl your site and easily figure out what your post is about, but bots rely on your help in order to figure out what images and videos are about. That’s where the file name and alt-text come in.

File name

Search engines love when you feed them clues about your page. Often times, the file name of an image will be some random combination of numbers and letters. That’s not a very good clue. If you help search engines out by using descriptive file names, it will have a positive effect on your on-page optimization.

Alt-text

Alternative text (alt-text) is another place for you to drop a hint to search engines. As the name suggest, they are a text alternative for browsers in the event that they can’t be properly rendered. The same guidelines that apply to file name apply here. You want a clear description of your image.

Meta-Description

The meta-description is the text that appears underneath the title tag in the SERP. Its main goal is to get users to click the link and enter their site. The best way to do that is by combining informative text with a strong call to action. The user won’t know if they want to enter your site until they have an idea of what’s on that page.

One way to help them out is by using keywords. If you have the keyword they searched for in your title tag and meta-description, the odds are good that your page is relevant to their query. Also, when you type a keyword into Google, it appears in bold text if it’s in a meta-description. In the example below you can see the keyword I typed into google—quesadillas—is in bold. It makes it stand out more and draws the user into reading your meta-description, which makes it more likely that they will click through to your page.

Ideal Word Count

Search Engines Prefer Long Posts

Studies show that longer content outperforms shorter content by a substantial amount. What’s the magic number? Well, that depends on who you ask. Different studies have shown that the average word count of top ranked searches is 2,416, 1,890, 2,250-2,500, 2,000+.

They might disagree on the exact number, but they all share one thing in common: long-form content usually outperforms short content.

Why is this the case?

It’s a simple concept. You know a lot, so you write a lot. If there are two blogs on FHA Loans and one of them has 1,000 more words than the other, odds are, that blog is more informative. People think this way, and from what the data says, search engines do to.

Every Post is Different

The content of your page will also play a large factor in determining the ideal word count. Not every topic needs a 2,000+ word post about it. After all, the purpose of a post is to relay information to a curious reader, and if you can satisfy that need in under 1,000 words, then so be it. You want your posts to be readable and shareable, and excessive wording will most likely detract from both of those efforts.

Taking a look at some of the blog posts here at Total Mortgage, these findings ring true. For our mortgage rates blog, there is definitely a correlation between the length of the post and the number of views. There is always some degree of variation depending on market conditions and current events, but overall, longer content does better.

We’ve also noticed that nothing beats a good topic. It’s not something you can always count on, but if you strike gold, you might not have to write a novel to reel in a high amount of traffic. One of our top performing evergreen blogs is under 600 words, but that’s enough for it to rank #1 in google for our targeted keyword.

Which brings us to…

Keyword Density

Keywords are words used to classify or organize digital content, or to facilitate an online search for information. They are what people type into search engines, and they’re incredibly important.

The general theory used to be that the more you mention a keyword in a post, the more likely it is that your article will rank for that keyword. Now, it’s true that the more you use a keyword the easier it is for search engines like Google to figure out what your page is about, but it’s hardly true that there is a direct correlation between the times used and search ranking.

Rand Fishkin, Founder of the highly respected inbound marketing company Moz, says that you should definitely include the keyword in your headlines and a couple times in the body of your post, but other than that, you really don’t have to stress repetition.

Readers want to be reassured that the page they’re on has the information they’re looking for, and seeing keywords in the headers will not only keep them from leaving, but get them to read the copy below it.

As for keyword density metrics, Rand says, stay away.

The long and short of it is that there is no ideal keyword density. You should strive to write posts that naturally have the keyword in it. After all, no one wants to read a clunky keyword stuffed post.

Semantically related keywords 

Search engines are always refining and expanding their methods. One of the most important advancements they’ve made in recent years is the ability to recognize semantically related keywords. The best way to explain this is with an example. Say your keyword is “how to buy a house.” If you type that into google and scroll down to related searches, you’ll find semantically related keywords. 

Google knows that someone searching for “how to buy a house” could very likely wind up wondering about any of these keywords. As stated earlier, you don’t want to keyword stuff. However, if you use various semantically related keywords throughout your post, the copy doesn’t get clunky and you’ve made it much clearer to Google what your post is about, which will help you rank in the SERP.

Selecting the right topics

No matter how well your page is optimized, if your topic selection is terrible, you’re not going to get viewers to read any of your posts. Fortunately, we created a blog post entirely devoted to Creating and Curating Content.

Experience Matters

On-page optimization sets you up for success. If your posts aren’t fully optimized, you’re missing out on users, conversions, and new clients. It’s not unusual for someone who is new to all of these concepts to feel a little overwhelmed. One benefit that loan officers at Total Mortgage have is the ability to engage with a seasoned marketing department. We’ve been blogging for almost a decade, and know all the ins and outs of on-page SEO.

Whether you don’t want to deal with on-page optimization, or you would want us to show you the ropes—we’ve got you covered.

Carter Wessman

Carter Wessman is originally from the charming town of Norfolk, Massachusetts. When he isn’t busy writing about mortgage related topics, you can find him playing table tennis, or jamming on his bass guitar.

Source: totalmortgage.com

Apache is functioning normally

[Editor’s note: We’re trying something new–collaborative thought pieces written by the Geek Estate Mastermind community. The goal is to make the absolute best argument possible, derived from the collective expertise of members. The first two articles are bull and bear arguments for industry search and IDX, a topic initiated by Greg Fischer over a year ago.

Bull: The industry must not cede search to the portals. Meeting Buyer Expectations and Owned, Perpetual Lead Generation Are Table Stakes to Agency. The full argument is here.

Bear: The portals have already won the minds of buyers. Search is an undifferentiated lost cause. If you can’t “win,” why play at all?

Without further ado, here we go with the bear argument…]

By: Drew Meyers

There’s simply no way for the real estate industry to compete in search against Zillow and other established portals with years of brand and SEO headstarts, particularly with the growing cost of providing a killer search experience across mobile and tablets. Even if the industry invested the needed capital to build a portal, the cost to reach buyers is too expensive.

Let’s define real estate industry search as any agent or brokerage website, MLS, or tech initiative majority funded by those parties. It’s worth noting that while Redfin is a brokerage that who has cracked the top three, that’s a unique situation that started at the beginning of “online real estate portals” and has unfolded over 15 years.

To change, buyers need motivation/incentive: Why in the world would a home buyer visit a brokerage’s sub-par IDX site to search for homes, when a better search experience on Zillow or Redfin is one click away? Agent and brokerage websites are all cut from the same mold; very few use their virtual real estate to differentiate on client experience and service opportunities.

The industry’s core competence is not consumer technology. Never has been, never will be.

The agent’s value proposition is about more than helping clients find a property. It’s about overseeing the entire transaction and making it a seamless experience from end to end. Helping buyers find a home with their own technology is not required to maintain relevancy.

HOW THE PLAYERS ARE FARING

A list of the top 20 real estate websites in September 2019 shows largely the same incumbents as those that graced top 20 lists a decade ago when I was at Zillow. From a 2013 top 10 list, Yahoo! Real Estate, FrontDoor, MSN are no longer. No new entrant has meaningfully broken through the ranks.

According to SimilarWeb, here’s the landscape with October 2019 data:

You can see the full rankings for the real estate category here.

Cliff Notes

Zillow Group: We can keep this short and sweet. Complete domination.

Redfin: I am beyond impressed with their slow, steady march up the rankings–now, firmly cemented as a top three search portal. They are the only brokerage anywhere in the list that benefited from an early start and deep tech/engineering roots.

Realtor.com: They keep coming out with ad campaigns and have grown their traffic, but I haven’t seen much product innovation for several years. 

Yahoo! Real Estate: A top three site for over a decade that is no longer. Somehow, I didn’t notice when Yahoo! shut it down in 2016 (along with other major verticals). It’s absurd they didn’t even take advantage of the massively powerful domain they had. Why not at least keep the landing page up, and funnel organic SEO traffic to a partner for a fee? That’s what AOL did. I guess I’ll never know.

Compass: Everything I’ve heard and read says they are focused on creating leverage with unique supply, aka coming soon and exclusives. That strategy seems at serious risk with the recent Bright MLS decision.

Broker Public Portal / HomeSnap: Gaining traffic by getting agents to email listings to their entire sphere? Cool. Anything differentiated or strategically defensible? Nope. I understand the broker’s perspective, I just don’t buy it.

Consumer MLS Websites: I didn’t understand the consumer MLS portal strategy nearly a decade ago. I understand it even less today. I’m scratching my head as to why the flawed strategy is being tried again. There is still no way a buyer would switch to a website like this when the alternative is Zillow or Redfin. Remove HAR.com from the equation, and the entire category is a colossal failure. 

ABANDON THE GHOST TOWN

I spoke with agents 10 years ago without IDX sites who still found a way to sell millions in real estate. Greg Fischer launched FWLocal.com in 2013 without one. If you think it’s a requirement to serve clients, you’re sorely mistaken. Even those who pay for and advertise IDX solutions know consumer usage rates are abysmal. Most IDX websites are, in fact, ghost towns sitting idle in their tiny speck of cyberspace.

Beyond that, IDX perpetuates the long-standing confusion surrounding online real estate search: buyers don’t understand who the agent showing up on the listing detail page is (it’s not the listing agent). It reinforces the status quo under the guise of innovation and stymies competition by encouraging parity in a crowded market. The mass-implementation of IDX has diluted the value prop of the end user experience, further driving home browsers to the major platforms. 

Clients are already using Zillow, Trulia, Redfin, or Realtor.com to search for properties. It’s possible to pay for My Agent, getting all the branding that you get with IDX solutions without the hurdle of figuring out how to drive traffic and compete on user experience. That’s likely why Zillow got out of the game–they sold Diverse Solutions. If they were bullish on IDX, why would they sell their IDX company?

Traditional lead funnels are a waste of time. Why not wait until the buyer is ready to talk to you. Wouldn’t you rather speak to buyers when they are actually ready to speak to an agent, not six, nine, or even 18 months prior to that.

Disassembling IDX in its current form would provide increased transparency around buyer and seller agency, as well as the stage in the process a consumer should seek agency, and from whom. Only then can the industry rid itself of its decades-old obsession to clone the portals and focus on places where it is proving real value with differentiated offerings–alternative/innovative financing, trade ins, and packaged ancillary services (discounts with moving vendors, utility/service transfers, school searches, community/lifestyle amenities).

OPPORTUNITY IN THE MIDST

Agents and brokers can’t compete in search against the established order of portals: The audience lead is simply too big, the capital investment requirement too great, and customer acquisition too challenging. The money, incentive, and patience to battle Zillow for a decade is simply not in the cards. Not to mention, a core competence in consumer tech is lacking entirely.

Search is not dead. Opportunity exists in curation (green homes, modern, etc), fixer-uppers, and teardowns when structures become irrelevant.

Breaking through in search is incredibly unlikely for anyone–but not impossible. Successful execution is far more likely to come from an outside entrant. But a search solution by the industry is even more far-fetched, having the added nightmare of 1099 contractors at every turn, years between consumer use cases, and being built from the perspective of “helping the agent.”

By abandoning a hopeless fight, the industry saves itself from throwing away capital better spent cultivating relationships and, more importantly, the mental bandwidth that is better spent serving clients. Don’t cede the fight? Regardless of who the perceived opponent is, that war is over and has been over since Zillow acquired Trulia. Checkmate, real estate industry search–and IDX.

Wrap-Up

Thanks to the contributors to the thinking behind this bear argument:

The bull argument (spearheaded by Ted Adler from Union Street Media), which has already been published for members, is available in full here.

If you’re interested in learning more about membership in the Geek Estate Mastermind, which I usually describe as a think-tank for real estate tech, have a read here.

Source: geekestateblog.com

Apache is functioning normally

This article is part of a series put together by the Total Mortgage marketing team that provides loan officers and other sales professionals with a crash course in marketing and self-promotion. To read other articles in this series, click here.

Good business doesn’t change.

Or does it?

As the market recovers from the housing crisis, many loan officers and housing professionals are making the mistake of trying to return to a pre-crash business model.

Pre-crash, there was no such thing as a smartphone. Your average homebuyer hadn’t grown up with the internet. Most transactions were conducted over the phone, maybe with an email or two here and there. Unfortunately, this isn’t 2005. Reaching today’s homebuyers requires a different set of skills.

This guide will help start you down the right path.

Meet the next generation of homebuyers

You’ve probably heard the word “Millennials” thrown around to describe today’s college kids and recent grads, but that moniker actually applies to anyone born from the early 80’s up until around 2000.

So while one of the biggest myths out there right now is that Millennials are still years and years away from buying their first homes, that’s simply not true. They’re already here.

So is the intent to buy homes. According to a 2014 survey conducted by Fannie Mae, 76% of younger renters actually think that owning is more sensible than renting in the long term.

What’s more—there are a LOT of them. Millennials number around 76.6 million, more than even Baby Boomers. In a few years, they’ll make up a majority of buyers, and without an understanding of what separates them from past generations, you may find yourself struggling.

Marketing to Millennials

There’s one thing that will never change: a house is still a huge purchase, especially for a generation crippled student loan debt.

Winning over Millennials will be an uphill battle for most loan officers, as they may be the toughest generation to market to yet. In a 2012 Pew Research Center survey, just 19% said most people could be trusted, compared with 40% of Baby Boomers.

To earn the trust of Millennials, you’re going to have to be able to:

  • Meet them halfway, on the platforms they use most.
  • Be fast, accurate, and personable.
  • Promote yourself in ways that make them feel involved, understood, and educated, not marketed at.
  • Understand what they value and promote accordingly.

If all that has you scratching your head, don’t worry. We’ll go through the basics components of a good marketing plan next.

Going beyond the phone

Traditionally, the phone has been the key point of contact when it comes to mortgages. Regardless of where the lead came from or how it reached the loan officer, the goal has always been to get that lead on the phone.

But Millennials are much less likely to respond to offers of phone calls so you can talk about their concerns. In fact, many will try to get out of talking to you completely. A greater reliance on personal cell phones over a family landline has turned talking on the phone into a much more personal act.

Many other older marketing tactics also won’t work, either because younger generations have started to abandon the medium or grow wise to marketing lingo:

  • Direct mail
  • Radio ads
  • Print ads

Even email marketing can backfire if not done right. Millennials have grown up sifting through junk mail. They’ll have no problem deleting anything that isn’t relevant to their needs or interests. To learn more about email marketing the right way, our guide on email lead nurturing is a great start.

The importance of a CRM

We’ve already touched on Customer Relationship Management tools (or CRMs) in our blog on referral partners, but here are the basics.

CRMs are built to keep all of your contacts, accounts, leads, referral partners, and emails in one place, organized and ready for you. A CRM isn’t the sort of platform you can wave around to impress prospective clients or referral partners, but it will help you stay on top of all the channels you manage on a day to day basis.

There are tons of platforms out there. If a CRM sounds right for you, shop around before settling on one. At Total Mortgage, we offer our loan officers a few different CRM options just so they can find one that fits their workflow.

Creating content you can market

A great way to build a relationship with potential clients? Give them something valuable, no strings attached, with your name on it. This builds goodwill while attracting potential clients to a space you control—generally a blog or newsletter.

This isn’t a new idea. Way back in 1904, for instance a struggling Jell-O gave out free cookbooks full of Jell-O recipes, only to see their sales balloon to over one million (on a ten cent product).

The trick, of course, is knowing what sort of content will be most valuable to the kind of people who are likely to become your customers. That’s something we can definitely help you out with. We’ve run a popular industry blog for almost 10 years. Our guide to content will be a great jumping off point.

Once you’re ready to post, you encounter a whole new set of problems. In order for your content to reach as many people as possible, you have to make it friendly to search engines like Google. If you’re wondering how we do it, this guide on on-page optimization and this other one on generating links to your page will be a treat for you.

If you’re looking for a way to stand out from the crowd, though, you might want to check into our guide on marketing videos. Total Mortgage creates video for a wide range of uses, and we’ve found that it can really make a difference (especially if you use our tips).

Social media and you

Social media isn’t a hot new fad anymore—it’s a fact of life for a large percentage of the population, Millennials and Boomers alike. That makes it a great way for you to connect directly with your audience and give potential customers a feel for who you are.

Most companies big and small have a Facebook page these days. That’s a great first step, but it’s not going to get you far. If you’re wondering where to go next, we have some great resources on how to get started on other platforms and engaging with followers.

Of course, gathering followers and interacting with your peers isn’t the only thing social media is good for. It also makes for a great advertising platform. Facebook especially offer tons of options for targeting your ads to a specific audience. Take a look at our primer on social advertising here.

Mobile and apps

Housing is a slow and steady kind of industry. Many smaller companies and brokers still haven’t made the jump to online lending, much less considered the part mobile will play in their future.

However, that future is coming up quick. Right now about 56% of internet traffic already comes from mobile devices. That’s a huge number, and it’s only going to go up as new users age into the market.

While updating (or even creating) your site, consider optimizing for mobile, so that it will look nice and stay usable to potential borrowers on the go. Another thing to consider? An app. Our MyTotal Mortgage app has played a huge part in allowing us to reach a new set of homebuyers. It might not be right for everyone, but if you’re working with a larger company that has the resources, consider raising the issue with your sales manager.

Referral partners

In the face of all this talk of SEO and Twitter, it’s easy to overlook the old-school tactics that will still play well with this generation of homebuyers. Namely, building up a network of referral partners.

One thing that hasn’t changed about buying a house? It still takes a small army of people, including realtors, inspector, contractors—you get the picture. By creating a network of professionals you trust (and who trust you), you create opportunities for buyers to find you through word of mouth.

If you’re interested in seeing a breakdown of how Total Mortgage loan officers make this happen, guess what—we have a guide for it. Just click here to learn more.

To get more specifics about what the Total Mortgage marketing team does for our loan officers, check out other articles in this series, or by visiting our career portal.

Source: totalmortgage.com

Apache is functioning normally

The all-in-one real estate platform at openlistings.com represents the next step in the home buying experience. Designed for the tech-savvy consumer, Open Listings lets members complete the home buying process without the aid of a traditional real estate agent. The results? A 50% refund of the standard agent’s commision and a total customer savings of over $8 million dollars. And with the company recently surpassing $1 billion dollars in total sales, member savings average out to approximately $9,000 per user.

The Open Listings story is both fascinating and instructive. It also provides a glimpse into the possible future of the entire real estate market.

A Start-Up No More

Significantly, Open Listings has achieved its impressive numbers in the space of just over three years. Launched in February 2015, Open Listings’ high-tech approach to home buying attracted forward-thinking investors like Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian. His substantial investment proved to a harbinger of things to come. Soon, millennials and other tech-savvy customers flocked to the site in droves. This allowed the California-based company to quickly expand into Seattle, Austin, Chicago, and Dallas.

So what is it about this ambitious company that has persuaded so many home buyers to abandon the services of a conventional real estate agent? For starters, the reduced commission has proven to be quite the incentive. Open Listings’ website has also managed to streamline the daunting, complicated process of buying a home. Combine these factors with the digital vector the global economy now travels and you get a company that might soon dominate the entire real estate market.

Innovation Plays a Starring Role

Not surprisingly, innovation has fueled Open Listings meteoric rise. This innovative vision was evident from the beginning– the very concept of an all-in-one home buying platform marks a radical departure from the industry’s standard procedures. Yes, the internet was already glutted with online real estate services and easy-to-use apps when Open Listings got started. But as useful as they once were, these services now seem like glorified classified sections.

A quick rundown of how the site works will further demonstrate the role innovation has played in Open Listings’ rapid ascent. Members can use the site’s next-wave software to navigate the entire home buying process. They can browse homes for sale in their area, schedule on-demand showings, and submit an offer. But the real estate agent hasn’t been completely eliminated from the equation. Open Listings has affiliated agents that can help members with everything from the initial showing to the closing details.

Prior to actually choosing a home, users can utilize Open Listings’ personalized feed. Driven by advanced market analytics, this feed allows members to view homes that match their search criteria effortlessly. These features are available on both the Open Listing website and their IOS or Android app. Most importantly, these services are free of charge. Open Listings only collects its fee after members have closed on their home.

All in all, the Open Listings platform gives members a slick and streamlined home buying experience. Along with the 50% reduction in commission, this is a chief reason that Open Listings might very well completely transform the real estate business.

Ben Shepardson is a Realty Biz News Contributing Writer and has a long track record of success in online marketing and web development. While pursuing a bachelor’s degree in Computer Information Systems, he worked doing enterprise-level SEO and started an online business offering web development services to small business customers.

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Source: realtybiznews.com

Apache is functioning normally

The Property Management Market will likely see a USD 49.45 billion increase, with a CAGR of 2.73% between 2022 and 2027. Several factors influence this growth, including:

  • Adherence to industry and government regulations for property listings; 
  • The growing importance of customer-centric business operations;
  • And increased awareness of the benefits of property management software. 

A recent market research report released by Technavio – “Global Property Management Market 2023-2027” – provides a detailed analysis of market segmentation based on Application (construction and real estate, government, retail, hospitality, and others), Deployment (cloud-based and on-premise), and Geography (North America, Europe, APAC, South America, and Middle East and Africa). 

Technavio has announced its latest market research report titled Global Property Management Market 2023-2027

The report also includes historical market data from 2017 to 2021, offering insights into industry drivers, trends, challenges, and changes. TKey drivers and trends contributing to the growth and transformation of the Property Management Market include:

  • Improved adherence to industry and government regulations for property listings;
  • The adoption of customer-centric strategies by property management firms through technologies like AI, chatbots, and machine learning;
  • And the increasing use of blockchain technology and smart contracts for secure and transparent real estate transactions. 

Cloud deployment models remain popular due to their user-friendly nature, cost-effectiveness, agility, and advanced security features. 

However, some challenges hinder the growth of the Property Management Market. These challenges include:

  • The need for specialized expertise in emerging technologies like AI and blockchain;
  • The risk of data breaches and cyberattacks as property management processes become more digitized;
  • The complexity created by varying regulations and practices across different regions and countries;
  • And resistance from some property managers and clients to adopting new technologies due to unfamiliarity or concerns about disruption. 

Despite these challenges, the Property Management Market presents significant growth opportunities. Businesses can utilize the insights in the report on market trends, drivers, challenges, and regional dynamics to refine their marketing strategies and gain a competitive advantage in the industry.

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Mihaela Lica Butler is senior partner at Pamil Visions PR. She is a widely cited authority on public relations issues, with an experience of over 25 years in online PR, marketing, and SEO.She covers startups, online marketing, social media, SEO, and other topics of interest for Realty Biz News.

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Source: realtybiznews.com