Think Outside The Box

May 24, 2010 Leave a comment

“When things are good, a pet monkey can do well.  When things are tough or increasingly competitive, those businesses that are lazy, that don’t maximise their branding advantage, that don’t differentiate, that don’t maximise the latest marketing and communication technology, that continue to use traditional media, that don’t build sophisticated cutting edge databases and WOW customer service … will go broke!” that was the harsh message from international marketing expert Bob Pritchard speaking to 350+ delegates at the First National Real Estate Annual Convention in Alice Springs on Saturday.

Pritchard, an Australian now living in the US, previous International Marketer of the Year, and consultant to international brands such as Coke and BP, is renowned for delivering powerful marketing and business messages that are simple to implement and change the dynamics of businesses.

“Markets have been buoyant and everyone has done well in the last ten years” says Pritchard.  “There are more and more agents less and less stock, discount brokerage, more and more people using the web.  Real estate agents all look and behave the same and it is only a matter of time before the number of real estate agents reduces like pharmacies, car retailers and video stores have. No one is doing anything to challenge the paradigm”.

According to Pritchard, many of the old marketing stalwarts no longer work – 92% of products are interchangeable, only 13% of people buy on price, and 62% of all satisfied customers never repurchase from the same source.  If today’s marketers want to succeed them, then according to Pritchard, there are four things they need to focus on:

“Embrace new technology, Gens X & Y are much more interconnected than older generations, and so word of mouth is more important than ever.  Sell the emotional benefits of your service or product, rather than the features themselves which are interchangeable.  Differentiate yourself with exceptional service – everyone’s expectations of customer service are increasing and if you want to keep customers now you need to really “knock their socks off”.  Finally, Pritchard urged everyone to think outside the box – “think and do things differently or you will not survive”.

Pritchard says even though he is at the peak of his marketing career, he always spends at least 4 hours a week scouring the bookshops for new ideas and things to learn, “A primary reason for the lack of success is only 11% of business owners or managers have ANY ongoing learning, you always have to keep on learning.”

First National Real Estate had certainly taken that advice and had heard from sports heroes, scientists and real estate experts from across the country during the four day annual Convention in Alice Springs, which wrapped up with a finale dinner at Ooraminna Station on Saturday night.

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Off To Alice To Get Centred!

May 16, 2010 Leave a comment

This week, the network’s membership will wing its way to Alice Springs for the 2010 National Convention. From 2pm on Wednesday, registration will open for the earliest delegates, and, Convention kicks off with an economic update at 9am on Thursday morning. Delegate will enjoy keynote presentations by Dr Karl, Peter Fitzsimons (The Fitz Files) and Bob Pritchard (marketforce).

Convention is an exciting time for the whole network as members catch up, hear news of new products and services, and attend workshops / keynote presentations. It’s all about re-connecting with friends and the network’s direction.

This year, for members who can’t attend, First National will be supplying regular updates from Convention, keeping them informed of announcements, launches and exciting developments. So, our members can ‘Get Centred’… even if they can’t actually be there in Alice Springs!

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The End For Print Advertising?

May 10, 2010 Leave a comment

Reports of an increasing trend towards selling homes in secret have emerged in Australian media since January. While many journalists cite buyers agents becoming a more influential in the marketplace, some have grasped the dominant reason – a rise in buyer database marketing.

The use of buyer or tenant databases by real estate agents is no new phenomenon, but the greatest challenge agents have always faced is keeping the information contained in their databases fresh and up-to-date. There are several reasons why.

Firstly, there’s a fundamental tendency for buyers to provide agents a description of their dream home and desired budget at the very beginning of their search phase. This description or data, once it becomes part of an agent’s database, often changes within weeks as buyers discover their budget needs to be increased or they adjust their wish list to stay within their budget. They rarely inform the agent of these changes so the agent’s database soon stops being a reflection of their needs. Likewise, when they buy a property, they’re unlikely to inform all estate agents they’ve met during the process that they no longer need an agent’s services.

Secondly, agents are businesspeople and chiefly entrepreneurial by nature. They rarely relish the idea of hours of data entry or paperwork so will invest their time where they see the best return. This means that in order to keep a database well maintained and accurate, they need to employ somebody within the business to look after that function. Many agencies are small businesses, not well enough resourced to do so. Agents find that phoning buyers on their database is, at best, labourious and time intensive, and at worst, an inconvenience for buyers who either find the agent’s approach a waste of their time or worse, an invasion of privacy.

For both sides of the equation, there is little gain.

In today’s marketplace, the trend of property owners who prefer not to open their house for public inspection or advertise in traditional print media is on the rise. In upper price ranges, there may be security concerns with an open home as most home insurance contents policies are void in such circumstances. Or, in an economic downturn, the owner may wish to avoid creating the impression of suffering financial problems and being forced to sell, preferring to simply announce their sale to friends and family afterwards. In middle market price ranges, some owners just don’t want, in some instances, more than 200 buyers walking through their home and bedrooms.

Enter the buyers agent. It seems that with time poor Australian families, the willingness to pay a buyers agent to find their next property has grown in appeal. With more and more listings being kept ‘in the drawer’ and marketed quietly, the attraction is obvious. The buyer feels they won’t be exposed the competitive conditions of the open market and they’ll be able to close their purchase with less stress and, potentially, faster.

In a recent Daily Telegraph report, Real Estate Buyers Agents Association of Australia president Byron Rose said the association had been fielding a surge of interest from real estate agents wanting to become buyers agents over the past six months, due to increased demand for such services.

However, what is increasingly clear is that new, smarter, buyer database systems are in use across the profession, particularly by large networks who are taking advantage of their large scale and market penetration. The agents who are using them effectively are winning on all fronts. With systems that effectively resolve the problem of data freshness, suddenly customers are being notified of properties that suit their needs in a timely, convenient fashion. With buyers responding rapidly, agents are winning new customers, providing better customer service and selling properties faster than ever before – without print advertising.

In the case of First National Real Estate, the Utopia buyer/tenant matching system introduces methodology that guarantees data is kept fresh. It also places customers in control; allowing them to update their search criteria through websites, choose the information they receive, and, the method by which they receive it. So, with customers receiving newsletters, just listed notifications, price reduction notifications, new vacant rental property notifications by email, SMS or MMS, they don’t feel any pressure and can take action when it suits them.

Win, win!

While print advertising can still play an important role in the overall marketing mix, agents are finding that the new generation of databases mean they no longer need to advertise because they can send exclusive listings to buyers who are ready to purchase via text message or email.

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Winning the online war

May 7, 2010 Leave a comment

Success in real estate has long moved past just being the best salesperson or property manager. Winners have launched into the realms of social media, online profile management and database marketing. While many still don’t fully grasp how websites such as Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn help win listings, there’s widespread acceptance that social media websites facilitate a highly effective form of agency marketing, and, are way more dollar productive than door knocking.

It’s not just agents and property managers embracing this important new medium either. Australia’s major networks are fiercely promoting the relevance of social media, taking every opportunity to train their agents on how to best exploit their online presence, capturing ever more consumer property searches and steering them to their websites.

This is not without good reason. The rise and rise of consumer blogging websites, where members of the general public discuss customer service in an un-moderated environment, delivers the potential to either destroy or underpin the success of each and every real estate business.

Within minutes of a customer service failure, your agency, its employees and your brand can all be ‘kicked to the kerb’ with devastating consequences. And, if you don’t think one consumer’s rant has much potential to get noticed, think again. Google introduced ‘real-time search’ last year and appears to index and ‘crawl’ web-logs faster than other websites, so a single disgruntled customer might end up with better search engine results, placing their opinion of your business above the link to your own agency’s website. Fortunately, though, the destructive power of social media can be mitigated by making sure you have an active and positive presence in the same online sphere.

The traditional playing fields for the major Australian real estate brands are shifting rapidly and future success will have little to do with the consumer brand awareness that comes from sheer office numbers. As the relevance of newspaper marketing begins to fade, and it is, a mixture of Search Engine Optimisation (SEO), Online Profile Management, Inbound Marketing and Social Media is becoming vital to the dominance of this bloody, bloody battleground.

Somewhat of a paradigm shift is occurring as the whole industry gets its head around adjusting its emphasis from ‘Outbound Marketing’ – where you invest hard earned dollars trying to interrupt potential customers with your message – to ‘Inbound Marketing’ – where potential customers find you and decide whether they want to discover more. The major corporates may find this adjustment the most difficult of all.

Last December, Business Review Weekly (BRW) published their ‘Top Australian Agencies’ list, outlining the thirty most influential real estate brands nationally, but in no particular order. As if to emphasise the power of the internet and its ability to rapidly challenge accepted norms, Australian inbound marketing experts, Sticky, took this list and assessed the performance and ‘site stickiness’ of the top 30 brands’ websites, accidentally proving that biggest doesn’t always equate to industry best. The results showed which networks threaten to shake-up the industry, potentially changing the brand pecking order with their Inbound Marketing skills.

IPSOS, an international company whose sole focus is survey-based market research, found that Australia’s top three best known brands are, in order, LJ Hooker; Ray White and Elders. Sticky’s assessment, however, showed that the top three most successful inbound marketers are, in order, First National Real Estate, LJ Hooker and Century 21. So, if inbound marketing is the way of the future, these three may be headed for brand dominance.

So, how is it that First National Real Estate, a cooperative that IPSOS research placed at number seven in terms of overall brand awareness, was able to beat six other major brands with a score of 96.2 out of 100?

According to Craig Wilson, Managing Director of Newcastle based Sticky, his organisation conducted its analysis based on six key criteria including On-page SEO, Off-page SEO, Keyword search results, Competitor scores, Social media and Traffic conversion.
‘Scores can vary from month to month depending on search terms’ says Craig. ‘Our NLYZR assessment measures websites against up to 568 international search engines and then provides the best recommendations on how to improve search rankings’.
The company utilises constantly updated optimisation software, which assists Fortune 500 companies like Microsoft and Mastercard through to small enterprises across the USA and Australia. Sticky’s NLYZR adapts this set of search engine optimisation tools to meet their Inbound Marketing criteria and the company’s website allows real estate agents to submit their own website for free testing. Whilst NLYZR was initially created to meet Australian web marketing demands, the company has increasingly found itself using the technique for international projects too.

What, in practical terms, does First National Real Estate do differently though? The question was put to First National Real Estate’s National Online Services Manager, Suzi Cowperthwaite. At pains to point out the fluidity of results such as these, Suzi is reluctant to take credit, preferring to point to an overall long-term strategy of communicating with the network’s agents, educating and reinforcing the importance of web-based marketing as the future of the profession at every turn.

‘First National made a decision to significantly change its eMarketing strategy five years ago’ says Suzi. ‘While there was some opposition at first, the network determined that it would take every opportunity to outline and communicate how the marketplace was changing and how the network’s brand awareness would be increased over time’.

Using a combination of template based individual member websites, First National encouraged its membership to buy domain names related to their region of operation (FN Domains on Gateway) and also set about buying hundreds of domains itself. It also encouraged members to deploy ‘Search Maximiser’ websites on those domains they had bought, rather than just pointing those domains to their main websites, which is less effective.

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