Lisa Gray

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Lisa is an accomplished marketer with years of expertise in direct response marketing, digital marketing, data analytics and business development working with both B2C and B2B.

The Perfect Stay-at-Home Project: Ramp Up Your Website’s Neighborhood Page

Mar 30, 2020

Generate more future leads with your neighborhood page

Did you know that the most powerful lead-generating pages on a real estate agent’s website can and should be the neighborhood or community pages?

Sadly, for too many agents, they aren’t. Although these pages provide important information to visitors, too many aren’t doing the heavy lifting of luring new visitors to the site. Why?

Inaccurate understanding of how to set these pages up for lead generation success.

For instance, one agent website provider offers up a blog post about features to include to create an “Unbelievable Real Estate Neighborhood Page.”

Home prices
Community description
Neighborhood photos and videos
Area statistics
School rankings
Local attractions

They then show examples of these features “in action.” Of the two agent websites shown, neither showed up within the first FIVE pages of Google results for their neighborhood pages.

I don’t know about you, but an “unbelievable” neighborhood page should generate leads.

So, how do you get yours to do that?

Optimize those neighborhood pages

Although the pages we viewed on the aforementioned websites are full of valuable information about the various communities, they will never rank unless and until they are SEO optimized.

Even then there is no guarantee you’ll show up on page one of Google, especially if you work in a major market, such as San Francisco, Chicago or New York.

Optimizing your pages may, on the other hand, yield huge results for smaller-market agents.

The Sanitizing Your Home Free Report is available under the Free Report section

Start with the title

Your first impulse when creating a title for a neighborhood page is naturally going to be something along the lines of “Homes for Sale in [Name of Neighborhood].”

But, check this out: There’s an agent in New England who titles all of his neighborhood pages “Realtors Guide to [Name of Neighborhood].”

We don’t know what led him to make this decision but it might be that he felt the names of the neighborhoods were too competitive to rank well on their own.

His decision is brilliant, however. We ran a search for “Realtor [Name of Neighborhood] and he ranks on page one of Google for three out of four communities. For the fourth, he ranks in the number one spot on page two of Google results.

While the volume of searches for this term are most likely quite low, we imagine this agent gets the lion’s share of leads when it is used.

Tip: If you choose to go the traditional route, avoid using the term “real estate.” It’s not a term that consumers frequently use. In fact, Google ads research shows us that “homes for sale in” receives nearly 9.5 times more impressions than “real estate for sale in.”

Additionally, the former results in nearly 5 times more clicks than the latter.

Sprinkle longtail keyword phrases throughout

Longtail keywords typically include at least 4 words, but often more than that. Some to consider include hyper-local phrases such as:

Homes for sale in las vegas with a view
View homes for sale in las vegas
Oceanfront homes for sale in Waikiki
Homes for sale in Hopkins near the blake school

Work these into your neighborhood descriptions as naturally as possible. For instance:

“The best neighborhoods that offer ocean-front homes for sale in Waikiki include . . .”

Tip: If a neighborhood is known locally by a name that’s different than what appears on the map or the official name, don’t be afraid to use it in your long-tail keyword phrases.

Don’t stuff

While you want to avoid keyword stuffing, there are areas of a neighborhood page that will give your keywords the most bang for the buck.

These include:

The title of the page
The first sentence on the page
The URL link
Several subheadings
Image alt text

The Sanitizing Your Home content card is available in the Content Card Series under postcards.

If you don’t have neighborhood pages on your website, it’s time to fix that.

Send the Sanitizing Your Home content postcard from the Content Card Series to your Sphere and/or Farm to keep them informed of how to stay safe during the coronavirus.

Need help targeting a specific niche of buyers or sellers? Use our mailing list tool to create the ideal list (it’s easy) or call our support team for assistance at 866.405.3638!

PLUS: When you have time…here are some free resources we’ve made available to support your success.

1. The 12 Month Done-For-You Strategic Marketing Plan

The Real Estate Marketing Planner is a powerful 12-Month-Guide that strategically defines what marketing to do when. Four key market segments are included, Niche Marketing, Get More Listings, Geographic Farming, and Sphere of Influence. –Click Here

2. The Free One-Page Real Estate Business Plan

Treat your business like a business it is vital to long-term success in this industry. Some agents may put together elaborate business plans, yet there’s something powerful about keeping it simple. Check out our one page Online Real Estate Business Plan. – Click Here

4. Become a Listing Legend Free eBook

Ready to take a vertical leap in your real estate career? If you’re looking for inspiration…and the tools and methods to dominate a market and go to the top in real estate…you’ll find them in this free book. – Click Here

5. The Free Online ROI Calculator

Consistency and automation are the keys to success. Discover how effective direct mail marketing can dramatically increase your bottom line. Enter your statistics in our Free online ROI Calculator and click the ‘CALCULATE MY ROI’ button to see your results instantly! –Click Here

3. The Real Estate Marketing Guide “CRUSH IT”

The “Crush It” Guide includes easy steps to launching an effective direct mail marketing campaign, how to create a targeted mailing list, the perfect way to layout marketing materials for success, seven opportunities available to target in your area right now. –Click Here

The Time is Now to Supercharge Your Database

Mar 25, 2020

The Perfect Stay-at-Home Marketing Activity

Imagine what the future would look like if you could stop cold calling, door knocking or chasing after FSBOs indefinitely – or at least cut way down on those activities?

Ditching the more distasteful aspects of your real estate lead generation routine may be possible, if you vow, right now, to get serious about your CRM database.

Warm calls are so much more pleasant and knocking on doors where people are happy to see you beats the alternative.

Make building better relationships with people you already know, the center of your current stay-at-home activities.

How’s your sphere of influence?

Agents who have been in the business for more than a minute tell horror stories about friends and even family members who “forgot” that they were in real estate and listed their homes with another agent.

In fact, NAR statistics says,

“The typical real estate agent earned 13 percent of their business from repeat clients and 17 percent from referrals from past clients and customers.”

Look at those numbers – they’re pathetic, aren’t they? Especially when NAR surveys say that nearly 90 percent of real estate consumers say they would use their agent again in the future.

Past clients know you and, hopefully, they like and trust you. Shouldn’t agents be getting more than 17 percent of their business from referrals from them?

We get it. Agents have a ton of irons in the fire during the typical work week and keeping in contact with their SOI typically ends up as a low priority.

What would happen, though, if you moved it up on the list? Made those warm contacts (instead of contacting strangers) a priority? You’ll end up top-of-mind with your sphere when someone mentions buying or selling a home.

Customize a postcard from the DIY Series with a personal message offering ways to help stay busy.

Step 1 to get your real estate business on the referral track

Organize your database. Yeah, it doesn’t sound like a whole lot of fun, but it’s necessary to keep you on track. And there is no better time to do this than right now, while you’re at home.

If you already have an organizational method, you’re one step ahead. If not, let’s create a simple one.

Start by grouping your contacts. There are many ways to group them, so choose labels that make sense to you. Some suggestions include:

Hot leads (people you don’t know yet)
Cold leads (again, people you don’t know)
Sphere (or “family,” “friends” “ladies I play tennis with” “past clients”)
Vendors

Feel free to create subgroups, if it will help you to stay organized. Some of these may include:

Immediate family members
Extended family
Closest friends
Acquaintances
Neighbors
People you met through your kids

Share fun, family ideas with your Sphere with the Recipe Series. Don’t forget to add a custom note.

Thanks to the folks at TopProTraining.com for some of those ideas. Check out their list for more.

Kim Hughes at KimHughes.com suggests that the next step in setting up your database to help you succeed should be to go through all of the leads, checking the information you have on them and adding anything that comes to mind.

At a minimum, Hughes says you should have the contact’s full name and the name of immediate family members. Naturally, you won’t have family member info for some contacts, such as leads.

Then, take some time to pick up the phone and start calling people. Start with folks you know, like past clients, relatives, and friends.

Let them know they’re in your thoughts and you’re checking in to see if you can help them with anything.

While on the phone, tell them you’re updating your database and want to ensure you have their correct contact information:

Verify that the addresses, both snail and email, are current.
Best phone number to contact them.
Birthdate is an important one (folks LOVE getting birthday greetings). The birthdate might be a tough one to ask, but tell them you like to reach out to people on their birthdays. You don’t need a year, so that may make the question “Hey, when is your birthday?” a bit easier to ask.

Get ideas for these conversations at TheRealEstateTrainer.com.

Listen carefully to their end of the conversation for any tidbits you can add to their spot in your database.

Then schedule a follow-up call, or a reminder to send a card, depending on what they’ve told you.

This is a project that, although it needs to get done sooner, rather than later, is one that can be done in chunks. Hughes brilliantly recommends starting the organization process with your past clients.

But do schedule those time chunks and vow to stick by the schedule. Before you know it, you’ll have an organized, clean database, making your real estate lead generation a much more enjoyable and rewarding process.

Use the Just Listed Series to create a custom postcard for your “Open House Virtual Tour”

Do you have current listings to promote? Create “Virtual” Open House postcards for your current listings using the Just Listed Series and promote them through social media, on your website, and through mailings.

Need help targeting a specific niche of buyers or sellers? Use our mailing list tool to create the ideal list (it’s easy) or call our support team for assistance at 866.405.3638!

PLUS: When you have time…here are some Free resources we’ve made available to support your success.

1. The 12 Month Done-For-You Strategic Marketing Plan

2. The Free One-Page Real Estate Business Plan

4. Become a Listing Legend Free eBook

5. The Free Online ROI Calculator

3. The Real Estate Marketing Guide “CRUSH IT”

You might like the following episode from our Take a Listing Today Podcast.

Switching Strategies: The 3 Best Practices For Effective Video Tours

Mar 23, 2020

If anyone is an expert at switching strategies, it’s real estate agents and right now with sellers that need to sell and buyers that need to buy, the best way to facilitate this is with video tours.

Therefore, the following are the three best practices to follow to ensure your video tours are an effective marketing tool.

Tight budget? Did you know you can purchase only one Just Listed Just Sold postcard download from our site to send in emails and promote on social media instead of a mailing?

Best Practice 1 — Ensure your video does double duty

Sure, the purpose of the video is to market your listing, but videos can do double duty, according to Forrester Research. Videos are 50 times more likely to show up on the first page of Google search results than text pages, if they’re optimized, according to research.

Why not leverage the power of YouTube to benefit your business while also promoting your client’s listing?

Mashable’s Nate Elliot suggests doing the following:

Use your keywords in the video’s title, tags and description when you upload it to YouTube.
After uploading the video to YouTube, embed it on your website. According to Elliot, Google considers “how many times a video is viewed, and any views embedded videos receive on your own site get added to the ‘views’ tally on YouTube.”
Create a video sitemap.

Best Practice 2 – Keep your video short

Saying that we humans have short attention spans might just be the understatement of the century.

In fact, 56 percent of all videos published in the last year are less than 2 minutes long. Fewer than half of video viewers (46 percent) stick with a video all the way to the end, according to research published by Vidyard.com.

Smart marketers know this, which is why that same report shows that 75 percent of videos produced by businesses in the last year are less than two minutes in length.

Brevity reigns when it comes to getting someone to press the start button on your videos. You need to engage them immediately. Therefore, avoid putting yourself in the frame at the beginning of the video. Head straight to the most compelling aspects of the home.

And, if you don’t get their attention in the first 10 seconds, kiss them goodbye.

In fact, research shows that you’ll lose 30 percent of viewers within the first 30 seconds of your video and, when it reaches the one-minute mark, another 45 percent will leave.

So, plan on putting the most important stuff upfront and keep the entire video as short as possible.

Best Practice 3 – Promote your video

Like any content you create, promotion is the key to success. After you upload your listing video to YouTube and embed it on your website, also add it to the home’s dedicated page, if you have created one.

Then, start pumping out promotion for this video on social media (especially Facebook and LinkedIn) and through email.

Property Flyers are available as a download or shipped to you.

By following the above guidelines to video tour best practices you will continue to market your property effectively and keep your clients happy.

Download a Property Flyer and promote your property in your emails and on social media.

Need help targeting a specific niche of buyers or sellers? Use our mailing list tool to create the ideal list (it’s easy) or call our support team for assistance at 866.405.3638!

PLUS: When you have time…here are some Free resources we’ve made available to support your success.

1. The 12 Month Done-For-You Strategic Marketing Plan

2. The Free One-Page Real Estate Business Plan

4. Become a Listing Legend Free eBook

5. The Free Online ROI Calculator

3. The Real Estate Marketing Guide “CRUSH IT”

Real Estate Lead Follow-up: Nail The First Call

Mar 18, 2020

Overcome your call reluctance

It’s irrational. After all, “call reluctance” is a malady reserved for cold callers, isn’t it? Then why does the warm-call-lead-follow-up produce the same symptoms?

The dread at the thought of picking up the phone and trying to win the trust and business of a complete stranger isn’t all that irrational when you think about it.

You’ve cleared the first hurdle by generating a response to your marketing. Now, it’s completely up to how you handle this call that will result in you winning the business.

That’s intimidating for many of us.

Intimidation gets us stuck. So, back away from the phone and take a deep breath. Then, learn the tried-and-true techniques successful agents use when following up on real estate leads.

Generate Leads With a Free Report Offer (Available in Free Reports)

Change your perspective

Remember, this first follow-up call isn’t a cold one. You’re returning a call (or email, etc.). This person reached out to you and expects a response. You’ve actually been given permission to contact her.

She may not be ready to pull the trigger on a real estate transaction right now, and you should be prepared for that, but she was motivated enough to take the first step and that’s a cause to celebrate, not back away.

Besides, who has too many leads in their pipeline? There’s always room for one more.

It’s all in the timing

While our industry is known for its “location, location, location” mantra, what outsiders don’t know is that “time is of the essence” is more than just a contract term to real estate agents.

When faced with an initial contact from a real estate lead, time can either be your enemy or your best friend.

It is critical that you place that follow-up call within minutes of receiving the lead.

If you don’t, another agent most certainly will.

Whether it’s call reluctance or that you’re insanely busy, we get it. But studies show that the chances of reaching the lead are the highest if you return the call within five minutes.

Years ago, two guys from InsideSales.com teamed up with James B. Oldroyd, from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) to conduct a survey of more than 600 businesses.

Their aim was to study “lead response rates, timing and effort, and their influence on the outcome of a lead,” they told Steve Olenski at Forbes.com.

Compel Your Target Market With Free Reports (Available in Free Reports)

What they found should be etched into the minds of every real estate agent:

Call back within five minutes and you’re most likely to connect with the lead.

If you wait a half-hour, you are 100 times less likely to reach the lead.

Wait five hours and your odds of ever connecting with that lead drop by 3,000 times.

An immediate call-back is not only most likely to result in a conversation with your lead, but it’s impressive as well.

“We call it the ‘wow effect’ as in wow, that was fast! You are impressive,” InsideSales.com’s CEO Dave Elkington tells Olenski.

And, how could they not be impressed, especially if they’ve placed calls to other agents? The odds are pretty low that they got a return call this quickly from anyone else.

But this isn’t all we can take away from the survey; conversion rates – “the rate at which the lead contact is willing to set an appointment and enter the sales cycle,” according to Olenski — increases with a quicker return call.

Free Report Offers Get Your Phone Ringing (Available in Free Reports)

Obviously, getting an appointment is the goal with real estate lead gen follow-up, so ignore time being of the essence at your peril.

**What not to say after “hello”**

Before making the call-back, take a minute to familiarize yourself with everything you learned from his or her message. If it was a call about a specific property, get the MLS listing in front of you. Then look it over to determine the neighborhood, size, and anything of interest that may not be included in the public-facing listing information.

Focus solely on the lead and his or her reasons for reaching out to you, no matter how tempted you are to toot your own horn. Naturally, if you’re asked, you’ll want to answer questions about yourself, but unsolicited remarks about your sales stats, designations, etc. make you appear overly “salesy.”

Don’t push for an appointment until you understand where in the pipeline this lead falls. At this point, you’re a counselor, not a real estate salesperson.

Identify yourself and the name of your brokerage, and quickly add that you’re returning his or her call.

At this point, the lead may launch into the reason for the original call. Listen carefully to what’s being said and answer all questions.

When the call is for information about a particular listing, describe it and then, again, listen.

If you feel that the lead is open to remaining on the phone with you, begin a gentle probe, asking if he has spoken with a lender, if he has a home to sell before buying another and, naturally, if he’s interested in touring the home he called about.

Before disengaging the caller, let him know that you have no intention of hounding him like some of the other agents he’s spoken with but that you’re available if he has additional questions.

Ask for permission to email alerts about new listings similar to the one he called about.

Free Report for Real Estate Marketing to sellers — Add Free Report Offers to all of Your Marketing (Available in Free Reports)

The wrap-up

If you offer free reports or an e-book, offer it toward the end of the call. “I just created a market report for the Pleasant Skies neighborhood that will give you an idea of what the different models are selling for, can I email you a copy?”

Great free reports to offer that are popular with consumers include, “Chop Years Off Your Mortgage“, “5 Reasons Your House Didn’t Sell” “Sure-Fire Tips For a Quick Sale“, “6 Dangers of Overpricing“, all of which are available here.

Be sure to include your free report offer with your emails direct mail, social media and website to drive those inbound phone calls.

No freebies? Hey, a list of new listings matching his criteria is a freebie, so offer that. “I’ll tell you what, Joe, give me your email address and I’ll be happy to email you alerts of new listings that match what you’re looking for.”

End the call with something along the lines of: “Terrific. Now, if you see any other listings you’re interested in touring, don’t hesitate to give me a call, or text me. I’m happy to set appointments for you and show you around the neighborhood,”

The key to success with a lead who leaves you a message is lightning-quick response time. Then, remember not to come on too strong. Counsel the lead, don’t sell to her.

Now that you have a plan of attack, order Free Reports and add a Free Report Offer to ALL of your marketing (emails, direct mail, website, and social media).

Need help targeting the perfect niche of buyers or sellers? Use our mailing list tool to create the ideal list (it’s easy) or call our support team for assistance at 866.405.3638!

PLUS: When you have time…here are Free killer tools to help your success this year!

1. The 12 Month Done-For-You Strategic Marketing Plan – NEW 2020!