By Carole Hawkins, Staff Writer
If there’s a technology toolbox made just for real estate agents, Craig Grant has assembled what goes into it.
A national real estate tech “guru,” Grant offers dozens of classes for Realtors on such topics as how to go paperless, becoming a social media rock star and running a successful Realty website.
Realty-Builder recently interviewed Grant between classes at NEFAR, where he trains about three times a year. We also talked to Realtors about their experiences implementing Internet-based business strategies.
Building a successful website
With home-listing behemoths Zillow and Trulia grabbing scores of top spots on Internet searches, it seems unlikely Realtors could drive homebuyer traffic to their own websites.
But Grant said agents can improve their odds by carving out an industry niche that places them higher on certain keyword searches.
“If you type ‘Jacksonville’ and ‘homes’ into a Google search, the top results will always be from Zillow and Trulia,” Grant said. “But if you narrow the search to a niche market, like international buyers, then a Realtor’s site may come up.”
Realtors also can differentiate their sites from the national players by offering more accurate listings and including localized information, such as a list of the area’s subdivisions and a blog about what the neighborhood schools are like, he said.
Mark Good is one Jacksonville Realtor who has tried targeting niche buyers.
His website has a search for golf communities and another for active adult communities. But, so far he hasn’t had much success marketing to those niches, he said.
Instead, Good buys his leads from national real estate websites and then works on converting those leads into sales. He lets buyers use an MLS portal on his site to search for homes on their own and tells them he’s available to answer questions.
“I’ve become convinced that people today use the Internet so much, that’s where to find the buyers,” Good said. “If it costs me $1,000 of advertising to get a sale that’s going to net $4,000 or $5,000, it’s a good business investment.”
Going mobile
For most agents, mobility means talking to clients on smartphones and looking up listings on tablets.
But completely untethering from the office, allows Realtors to quickly respond to opportunities from anywhere, Grant said.
He teaches Realtors how to perform every part of their business on mobile devices, using features like Google tools, cloud computing and apps. To get an idea of what that means, Grant shared his top two app recommendations, Evernote and Magic Plan.
Evernote is a searchable filing system for documents, photos and notes, that’s much like Windows Explorer on a computer. Because files are stored in the cloud — that is, on an Internet server — they can be accessed from any device.
Magic Plan is an app that creates floor plans. The software takes room measurements instantly by aligning gridlines on a smartphone to the corners of the room.
Dustin Van Antwerp is a Realtor with the Legends of Real Estate East Coast, a brokerage where agents work from outside the office. She agreed mobility can make a huge difference to performance.
“To me it means speed, and being able to get answers immediately,” she said. “Especially in this hot market, if you have a property that comes online, you definitely want to be one of the first agents to show it to your customer, otherwise the property might be lost to somebody else.”
Social media
Realtors get leads by networking, right? But when it comes to social networking, less can be more. Grant suggests Realtors use social media only 15 minutes a day.
“The reason why most Realtors fail with social media is because it overwhelms them,” he said. “They have to not spread themselves too thin. Find the site that’s right for them and for the kind of client they want.”
LinkedIn is best for reaching business people. Pinterest is great for engaging buyers with photos of homes. Twitter? A waste of time.
“Nobody wants to know how an agent spent their afternoon,” Grant said.
Facebook should be part of everyone’s mix, because so many people use it, he said. Realtors should create a business page that’s separate from their personal page, though. No sense having clients get turned off by an offhand personal joke.
Also, pick a strategy for posts that’s social, such as offering advice on a subject or building community around a common interest.
“People go to Facebook to have fun. To check out their friends and find out what’s going on in the world,” Grant said. “Nobody goes there to be sold products.”