A New Relationship Building Strategy for Agents that Farm

A consideration of Technology based Marketing options open to Agents that Farm geographic areas or affinity groups.

© NonStopNeighbors, 2005

Saturday morning. Walking the dog. You are strolling through ‘your’ local neighborhood - the one you have considered your territory for the last 5 years. It’s a fine morning, but the experience is terrible!

Number 201 is up for sale – but with a different listing agent. How did this happen?
Number 37 has decided to do a For sale by Owner. How could this be?
Two homes closed last week with another agent, the owners are moving in, if only you had some really great information for them (not Real Estate!) that would help you start a relationship now?

Sound familiar? But haven’t you been actively farming this area for over 5 years? What’s gone wrong?

This scenario, although fictitious, is common enough. The traditional dominance enjoyed by Agents in their farming areas has been steadily eroded as more and more Agents compete for the same clients.

Agents that farm a geographic area are faced with the following issues:

Traditional approaches include the use of flyers, mailing and advertising. But the success and sustainability of these approaches is proving more and more suspect. Moreover, these traditional approaches are not very effective at helping to create personal relationships with prospective clients.

The cost of marketing can be high. Typical marketing budgets for top Agents may be as much as 25% of revenues. So what alternatives are there?

Is Traditional Marketing making the Grade?

The aim of a successful marketing strategy for Farming Agents is to create a lasting impression with residents so that over the long term, whenever they think “real estate” (time to sell), they automatically think of you.

It’s about credibility, reputation and relationships.

Of these, the creation of some form of relationship is probably the one most likely to give you highest returns on your investment.

When we consider traditional marketing media with this in mind, we can start to see why we spend so much with so little in return.

Yours is a service business, specifically one that helps people with high risk and emotional purchases. Your reputation, and relationship with potential clients has a critical bearing on their decision to use you.

Sure, your flyers and adverts establish credibility – it’s clear you are a Realtor.

However, your business will gain more from relationships you form, than any other mechanism.

It has been said that every time you spend marketing dollars on traditional marketing communication techniques, all you really end up with is an invoice!

How many flyers, adverts and other campaigns do you spend your marketing dollars on to create some form of impact? But do these mechanisms help you build relationships?

Traditional marketing, costing a significant amount, is not only delivering you diminishing returns, it is also fairly limited in its ability to help you build relationships.

So, what can you do differently to build relationships with potential sellers? How can you get closer to the residents in the community you want to serve? How can you spend marketing dollars more effectively?

It’s time to think about a new approach. It’s time to think about Marketing, not just Advertising. Its time to start thinking about the Internet in a way you’ve probably not thought about it before.

When most people think ‘Internet’ they think of advertising web sites. Well things have changed. You can now use the Internet as a marketing tool to help you build new types of relationships – both ‘on-line’ and in person. This article continues by setting out an approach to achieve this.

Marketing, not advertising

Most Internet tools for Realtors are focused on attracting Buyers – not Sellers.

However, breakthrough approaches are creating new opportunities to generate listings through new types of real and ‘on-line’ relationships created using the Internet.

It is a simple, effective and sustainable strategy.

The strategy is based on creating a web site resource of high value for local residents that they want to use regularly. Specifically, a private, residents-only web site for information exchange and news. Such a site must provide high value tools and resources that are tailored to the needs of residents. The aim is to provide compelling reasons for residents to sign up and use this free service.

The sponsor, of course, brings the service, to them free of charge. This fact alone provides one of the biggest opportunities to listing agents – a really good reason to go and knock on all the doors in the neighborhood, or speak to people on a regular basis about something that is of interest and value to them.

The Value to Members Makes it Work!

From a Realtor’s perspective, the business justification is simple—invest to build relationships. To do this, the service must be used. To be used, it must provide value to residents.

Getting the value model right is critical. There are many examples of so called ‘neighborhood sites’, which are little more than tourist information resources. They aren’t focused on the needs of residents—they are created mainly to give information to those external to the community.

There are also many sites that are not Private (password protected). In discussions with residents we have found time and again that this is a critically important feature they look in this type of service, giving them peace of mind and thus making them feel comfortable using the service.

There are also web sites that provide a real mixture of approaches, neither focused on residents, not focused on the community, yet they often offer lots of advertising spots for local and national vendors!!

The bottom line is this: as an agent that farms, you are looking to build relationships. So choose solutions that are focused, like a laser beam, on the needs of residents. The consequences of not doing this are demonstrated by the thousands of so called neighborhood websites that litter the web (and our cities!) and are never used, providing NO return on investment to the sponsor!

Benefits to Residents

Based on research and focus groups with many residents, these are the key Benefits and Values to be found in a successful Neighborhood web site:

It is a Private resource for Residents / Members

It is an Interactive resource which provides a lot of value to members. If members are registered, then an audit trail ensures proper use, and we can allow members to post information and use the resource interactively, and immediately.

It automates the dissemination of information through regular and continual email updates to all members.

Residents are provided with a secure area for information exchange. Whether it be an organization of a block party, a yard sale calendar, car pool information or the requests / offers for services such as lawn cutting, the Community Site can readily provide access to all these capabilities.

The ultimate effect is to make the Community a better place to live and with better neighbors.

This type of secure, private, interactive web site is generally known as an INTRA-NET.

What are the Benefits to the Realtor?

Privacy creates an email database for eFarming

Privacy requires Registration which makes members feel comfortable and is part of the value we give them. However, this is a critical part of the value proposition to the Sponsor—without registration you will always be struggling to build a database of emails.

Automation helps re-enforce use which builds name recognition

Because registration creates a quality database of members and their emails, we can now automate the process of communicating and updating members about new contributions and information on the site, on a weekly or even a daily basis. This brings members enthusiastically back to the site, re-enforcing the habit of use and building a vibrant on-line neighborhood community. As the sponsor, you couldn’t desire a more effective way of building name recognition.

Interactive Resources keeps your involvement to a minimum

Instant gratification is something all web users desire. With mandatory Registration we can now audit everything anyone does on the site. Consequently, the site is truly interactive. As soon as a user posts a message or comment or advert, it appears. The ‘stamping’ of each entry with a user name provides members with a highly visible reminder of the audit trail.

Marketing Tool

Now you can have a really great reason (not Real Estate!) to speak to all the residents in the local community on a continuous basis about a high value service for them. How many new relationships could you form? How would this affect your reputation in the community?

Investment in an Asset

Whatever your long terms plans, investing in the local community with a Private, Automated and Interactive Resident’s web site service (INTRA-NET) will give you a tangible asset in the future that you can sell, or use to convince partners to join your business. Few, if any other marketing efforts offer such potential.

What does the Realtor have to do?

Once the service is established, the Realtor’s involvement in the Community Web Site itself is very minimal. Some areas in the site are available to be updated regularly by the sponsor, which can be used for news, events and other information.

The main use of the service is by the residents for the residents. It is their tool for them to use. So there is no involvement or effort required by the Sponsoring Realtor for any of this function.

Also all registration processes for residents are handled automatically.

This means you can focus your efforts on promoting use – not worrying about how to maintain or manage it.

What about Launch and Marketing?

The community site is your marketing tool – it is not a traditional advertising web site.

Continually promoting the site and exploiting the site to meet new people and talking about the community, NOT Real Estate, will be a powerful approach for building relationships.

The benefit, is that it becomes the tool you use for continually engaging people in the community – either encouraging them to use the site, or to seeking ideas for improvement or specifically using it to communicate to residents.

This is a tool that the Realtor can use to meet and engage the residents of the community in a way never before achieved.

Return on Investment

One extra listing per year will cover your costs many times over. A Neighborhood INTRA-NET site will deliver you a significant return on investment.

Consider the following factors when creating your own investment plan:

Now, consider the potential investment you might make in a Neighborhood INTRA-NET that has your details throughout it. The cost of each visitor to this site is pennies compared to the high cost of traditional methods. Each time a resident is on the site, they see your name – again the cost is pennies compared to other mechanisms.

Your Neighborhood site is something of value to you and the members of your target communities. Traditional marketing as well as poorly executed Neighborhood web sites, provide little value to either party.

Summary

By thinking differently, by embracing the marketing and relationship building opportunities presented by an INTRA-NET, Realtors can create a highly effective e-Farming strategy that can deliver a substantial return on investment.

The Real Estate industry is going to change dramatically over the next five years because of the power of the Internet – not just for consumers, but also to providers of services – like Realtors.

 

 

Paul Eastwood

NonStopNeighbors
Blue Fire Marketing Group Inc

NonStopNeighbors is, a total marketing solution for Realtors® that Farm http://www.NonStopNeighbors.com
Relationship Building Solutions for Real Estate Agents, Teams and Brokers.
303-225-7600