1650 E. River Road
Internet Marketing: What it Is and What it Isn’t
Real estate marketing has changed very little in the past 50 years. Imagine this: you hire a Realtor to sell your home in Tucson and he/she comes in and says, “Great! I’ll feature your home in the newspaper’s real estate for sale section, place it in the homes magazine, and do some open houses.” Which year is it –1957 or 2007? Well, surprisingly, the overwhelming majority of real estate agents are still doing the same thing today as they did in 1957, and it does work. But every day, the traditional marketing method loses a little more of its dominance. Just look at newspaper circulation numbers over the past 20 years and it’s easy to see the newspaper isn’t nearly as important in helping you get your home sold as it used to be. What other options should you and/or the Realtor you hire consider?
In comes Internet Marketing. When I take a listing, I do use the newspaper, and I do a ton of open houses because I love the one-on-one action that an open house brings. I feel my personal sales skills are way above average, to say the least. I’m actually writing this post from an open house right now. BUT, what I also know that can sell a home faster and for more money is that over 80% of prospective homebuyers use the Internet. Make sure your home shows up online. The more action you create on a home, the better chance that someone is going to go above what they thought was their threshold to beat out the other buyers. This is why auctions are so effective. This is Internet marketing. Internet marketing, in my opinion, will be the experts’ choice for securing buyers for your property in the next 10-15 years. When you’re looking to hire a Realtor to get your home sold, I would very seriously ask about their plan for marketing the property and what Internet plans they have to get the most exposure. Also, take a look at their website. Does it look professional? Ask them what type of traffic their site averages. If it’s not at least 1000 visitors per month, it’s useless. How is your property going to be displayed on the agent’s site? What else are they using to get the word out about your home? I myself employ several professional companies to make my website the best in the business — from a professional web designer, content writers who craft extremely good pages that capture an audience, to a company that does nothing but monitor my Google, Yahoo, and Microsoft Live search rankings and improves them every month so that my sellers get better exposure than they can get from anyone else in Tucson. In my opinion, the agent(s) who are really taking advantage of the Internet are the ones who are going to be able to get you, as a seller, the best overall package and best results. No doubt about it.
The Internet is NOT — again NOT — the end-all answer to selling your home. Please do not think that because I say the Internet is the cutting edge means that
you can just pay some money to be on a “For Sale By Owner” site or make your own real estate site to feature your home and make an instant sale and put tons of money in your pocket. Here’s the cold hard truth about it: it’s still a SALES JOB. Whether you sell on your own (FSBO) or hire a real estate agent who doesn’t have sufficient sales skills, the result will most likely be the same. NO HOME SALE. There are many points in the transaction process where a deal can and will fall apart. It’s the sales professional’s job to hold it together or even outright avert it through knowledge and understanding of what is going to be an issue before it becomes one. This is the hardest part of the job. There are people who are experts in selling, and, believe me, they are worth their weight in gold when it comes to negotiating your home purchase and getting your home to closing. We’re talking about a business transaction worth hundreds and hundreds of thousands of dollars, if not more. Think about this. All homebuilders have extensively trained and experienced sales staff to sell their homes for them. If it were just as simple as getting a website or a little advertising, the sales people who work for the builders would not make the type of salaries they do. (It’s way above an average income if you’re good.) So I personally cannot understand why sellers would want to sell on their own or even think about hiring a Realtor who has no sales experience. That is the #1 most important thing that gets homes sold, and I believe a true professional Realtor with great sales, marketing, and negotiation skills makes you a profit in excess of the fees charged every time, hands down.