I am wondering how many investors use a web site? My thought is to keep my marketing short and sweet but really drive them to my web site. Any thoughts?
Thanks
Ramona
hi ramona,
i just hears a great presentation ar a local rei club meeting on web marketing. the guy basically said that the web gives you credibility, allows you to capture contact info from someone interested in your service, since they come to you rather than you to them via door kncoking, letters, etc.
he suggested a teaser on your biz card, or flyer that sends folks to your site for free info, then they fill out contact info before getting that info. he sells buy sites and sell sites. this guy says he doesn’t even see the houses, does alll by mail, email, fedex.
his program was $1500 for both a seller and buyer site.
there’s a great audio on this site by mike collins about internet advertising. he’s out of tampa, but i think the material works everywhere.
yahoo has a small biz package i just bought- you get domain, site, webhosting. check it out.
you need keywords to drive people to your site. if you know someone who builds sites, knows about spiders, clicks and all that, use them to help you figure out how to drive traffic to your site.
lorrin
Before investing in a website (or any marketing for that matter) you need to ask yourself, “What is my end result for this website”.
Once you answer that question, it will lead you into what type of website you will need. Do you plan on managing the website yourself or will you hire someone to manage it? Do you have any website skills?
Also, driving traffic to your site can also be a full time job. I would suggest that you check out a few different places to see what is out there and which one suits your needs best. A few to try are:
SiteSell is good for people who want to build a website but don’t have many web skills. Very detail and information overload.
http://buildit.sitesell.com/marketing101216.html
Thirdsphere is a good hosting company that has a lot of different options (autoresponders, forums,etc…). They offer a lot for a little a month hosting fee. But it can be a little confusing if you don’t have any web skills.
http://profunde.thirdsphereplus.com/
GoDaddy is a cheaper hosting company and is very good for beginners. It is not the best for people with web skills or if you’re looking to do a lot with your site.
Regards,
Patti Porter
Thank you both for the great advice. I am really going to use the site as a lead generation tool and for information for the homeowner once they get there.
I agreee that it may give more credibility to what we are doing.
Ramona
I promote my site in my marketing and I find that it pulls the same response rate as a 24hr recorded message, and the sellers provide more information.
For buyers it’s absolutely invaluable for weeding out tire-kickers.
I have my first large mailer going out with 1000 letters to a target area this week. I will let you know how it goes.
I am hoping they go to the site for information and then call or log in and fill out there info. This will be a good test.
Web sites very work well, IMO. It lends credibility. It is 24/7, in terms of capturing their information. Plus, you have a slight psychological advantage in that the HO came to your site, and filled out a form. I cannot believe what people will tell me over the phone, and what docs people will give me when I visit. It’s unreal.
Of course, the down side is that some may not have a computer, or their broadband was the first thing to go when they got themselves in financial trouble.
Just thought I would give you an update on my mailers.
We mailed out the first set ( it was actually only about 760) after I took out duplicate leads.
I got about 10 good leads, one actually used the website to contact me and fill out information and the others just called.
But a few of the people that I met with said…great website. So I know they at least looked at it.
I am going back to the same 760 people with another mailing ( different material ) in hopes that branding ourselves will be a good step.
I will update you on my progress and thanks for all the information.
Property Girl
That’s really good to hear.
I just finished up my first, and am going into the uphill battle of getting the site to place in the SERPs.
Have to say, it’s been a lot of work thus far… but fun.
I would agree with turborocket too… it definitely lends credibility. You can always use it as something that might differentiate your service over someone elses’…
Glad to hear the mailer went well…
Starke
A good website is not only a business brochure that tells people what you do and who you are but it is part of an overall system that ultimately should be on autopilot so you can spend more time working on your business and not in it (paraphrased from “The E-Myth” by Michael Gerber). Without a system, you will either work long and hard for your money, or ultimately fail completely. My website has a great autoresponder system that regularly sends out e-mails to Realtors, FSBO’s, potential tenant-buyers, attorneys, code officials, etc., each month so they keep me in mind occasionally toss me easy deals. Before I had it, I was doing all this by hand and it was tedious.
I’m still trying to systematize other aspects of my business but it’s a lot easier with the website I have now. For what it’s worth, I use a website sold by Larry Goins at his website (just Google him and you’ll see it). It has the best autoresponder system I’ve ever seen as well as property displays.
I read that as many as 70% of home buyers now search the Internet first before ever approaching a seller or Realtor so I want to put forth the best first impression I can.
Wow, this has been wonderful information and I definitely agree that my website has been there to market for me. I have done quite abit of research on websites in the past two years and found that Advanced Access has an extroadinary product. They build a beautiful website and it is loaded with tons of real estate information. My contact there is Tiffany Myers and her number is 888-902-4653 ext.1043.
I’ve been working on building my own real estate web site and have recently started to get some contacts from it. Fortunately for me I have some basic html knowledge which helps to do things outside of the web site builder program. Feel free to evaluate it and check it out for yourself… If interested, you can build your own free trial web site for a 10 day risk free (no obligation) trial website by clicking the “get a website” link at the site.
Best Regards,
Daniel Durham
I completely agree with you, patti porter. A friend of mine made his site using also a website builder a few days ago - sitekreator.com - his site is http://baileyrealestate.net. He didn’t finish it but already has several customers from the website. This builder uses templates but it’s free - so why not use it to make a website and see how it goes yourself!
Web sites are great marketing tools. The best way to promote any web site is by publishing helpful articles on the internet. From my experience the best marketing is still direct mail. Keep it up.
There is no question that a website is a good idea for your business. As Patti Porter has described, its not as complicated to setup as it once was a few years ago with all the free online tools available.
There are some really excellent resouces available at http://www.marketnigtips.com/newsletters for learning how to create a site that will generate the best responses.
At a surface level I would say to keep your focus in mind, and try to provide a lot of helpful content on your site that will lend the credability you are looking for. Just having a site that has “We Buy Houses” plastered all over it will not likely get you that credibility you are looking for.
Again, there are a wealth of newsletters and information available on the IMC website that I mentioned above that you can check out before you start to design your website.
Best,
John Schroeder
Make sure you spend some time reading about promoting your website. What I mean by that is that you need to know how to get your house in the first search results page on google when someone searches for we buy houses your state
Otherwise, you will be missing the boat.
I agree that having the web site helps when we talk to people in trouble, especially if they have been to the site.
I also wanted to update you on the list I have been working. We went back to the same list and mailed 3 sets of mailers and it is working out great. In fact I have not been able to deal with all the calls as of yet.
( Now i need a crash course in wholesaling).
Thanks for all the great posts.