White Paper Overview

Overview – Brokerage Online Marketing Strategies

The real estate industry is changing rapidly. The source of much of that change is the Internet, which itself is undergoing rapid and constant change. The Web is becoming a richer medium with innovations in video that are raising user expectations to new heights. Online service companies are turning themselves inside out, creating open and interoperable systems that are driving innovation at blinding speed. Internet adoption as part of daily life across all segments of the population has made it near universal. Search has evolved, allowing consumers to more quickly and easily find what they are looking for. For the real estate industry, this means that an extremely high percentage of consumers today research real estate online, demand more access to data, and expect a better user experience. This also means that innovation in real estate and related businesses is happening at a faster pace than ever before.

Story after story suggests that more brokerages are drawing significant benefits from new consumer trends online. This is the consumer who goes first to the Internet to research real estate.

Be it to research their next home, the value of their property, or merely to gauge how much of a home they can afford, more consumers are now going online.

Specifically, over 80 percent of them and increasing, according to numerous surveys published by the National Association of Realtors® (NAR), regional Realtor® associations, franchises and other industry sources.

We’ve all become very familiar with the numbers. But how to exactly take advantage of these trends and the massive technology advances in the industry remains elusive to many real estate organizations.

With the majority of consumers now using the Internet to research real estate, brokerages must first and foremost focus on increasing Internet exposure, brand awareness, lead generation, conversion and lastly, better inter-brokerage cooperation.

Real estate companies that do not develop a comprehensive online strategy will risk losing their competitiveness and will see enormous, constantly evolving opportunities pass them by. Moreover, it is the responsibility of all real estate firms today to participate in a strategy that can ensure the new consumer continues to turn to organized real estate despite the constant barrage of innovation that incessantly encourages them to consider or seek alternatives.

This paper looks at specific, actionable strategies and technologies real estate brokerages can embrace today to help enhance their competitiveness online.

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