Shaking things up

This blog has been quiet lately. My excuses? We were down in New Orleans for the NAR expo from the 10 - 13. What a milk run by the way! Because of flight cancellations, delays, missed connections - this was my flight down:

Saskatoon -> Toronto -> Baltimore -> Houston -> New Orleans!

Coming back was only slightly less of a fiasco:

New Orleans -> St. Louis -> Chicago -> Toronto -> Saskatoon!

Anyway, I took a couple of slow days to catch up when we came back. What was our take away from the Expo? Well I can say that there are a lot of companies out there doing some great things in this space. This was the first major tradeshow that Point2 erected a booth. It was so good getting out of the office and speaking with many of our members face to face. I thnk we learned a lot and we receive a ton of valuable feedback.

Brendan giving a chat at the Point2 booth

With so many service providers in this vertical, it's easy to be lost in the noise. There were so many people at the show walking around looking for 'the thing', not know what that thing was. One of the biggest challenges we have at Point2 is communicating what we are, what we provide. Sometimes we try to simplify our message so much just to get people to sign up for free, try us, and then discuver all the things that lie under the hood. Other times we tell a more detailed complete story so we can better communicate to brokerages looking for the total package. But all of the time, we want to be 'the thing'.

This last week we've been planning our next 6 months to year for Point2. I can't talk about our decisions at this point, but I can say that I'm pumped for our release at the beginning of January! With a mere 100,000 members in 84 countries, we're all feeling at Point2 that we need to find the next gear and kick it up a notch.

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Spotlight Ads Live!

Ok, some of you may have noticed that the Point2 Blogs went live yesterday. Well just a few minutes ago, we lit up spotlight advertising. When you manage or just add a new listing, the syndication page will show you a list of all the sites you can syndicate your listing to for free. Now, you will also see options in the right hand side spotlight add column for enhanced placement.

The 2 partners currently offering spotlight ads are Point2 Homes and Google. You will also see our newest partner, the New York Times where you can showcase your listing for $125 - all from 1 dashboard! Here's a screen shot

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Major Change Underway with Feeds

Some of you may have noticed a change in our feeds now. We've started our migration with the latest release so all professional and premium members will have their listing feeds link back to their own Point2 Agent website. That is, when you add a listing and syndicate it to our partners such as Google Base, Yahoo Classifieds, Trulia, Oodle etc, the listing link will no longer point to Point2Homes, but rather your own website.

In the next little while, members with a large number of listings should see a significant increase in traffic to their website. Our latest release improved the statistics we have for each listing and we'll be able to show how many click or views you recieved from most of our partners.

Jeff

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Sneak Peak

I can't contain myself. In the next couple of days, we are going to release the biggest single release we've ever pushed. I'm excited, i'm nervous and I really just can't wait to get feedback from our members. I'm going to go out on a limb here post some screen shot of just a couple upcoming improvements.

So the first change you'll notice to the syndication screen is that we will have 1 new partner. I won't say who yet. But the major change is the new look and the introduction of spotlight ads. For this release we'll have a couple of partners participating where you can enhance the placement of your listings.

The next screen shot below is of the advanced reporting for syndication. We've heard from our members that there is nothing as frustrating as syndicating your listing, but not knowing where to find it. So we've developed an API that a couple of partners will be using for this release to a few things. First, here is the screen shot:

Publishing reports are available now so you can see what real estate search sites you have syndicated you listings to, if they have been successfully uploaded, and view them through the url they are published on. If there was an error successfully uploading your listing, an error report will indicate the reason. We will have a couple of partners using this API when we release. Results and feedback will hopefully help bring the rest of our partners on board.

The last screen is of our Listings2Go functionality. It provides some code for you to drop on another website you own and display your Point2 listings. The display settings are completely configurable. The real benefit is that it allows you to have more than 1 website, but keep all your listing stats, prospects and publishing reports in 1 control pannel.

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White Paper Part VIII - Conclusion

Predictive Modeling

We’ve noted that the most important factor to increasing response is publishing better listing content. The most important factor in increasing conversion of inquiries into leads and sales is simply the quality, relevance and timelines of the response. The last piece of the lead generation/conversion story is a focus on generating deeper pipelines.

Let me explain.

Not all leads are created equal. Many generated directly from listings tend to be of hot prospects active in the home search process. Many others are of consumers who are further out in the home buying cycle. A study conducted by HouseValues, Inc. in 2005 indicates that the average consumer spends up to 16 months in the home search cycle. Leads created that are further out in the cycle represent future business for the brokerage, but if they are handled correctly. Brokerages that pay attention to these leads can create long term sales pipelines that before long turn into a regular stream of mature opportunities to route on to their sales force.

Reaching further upstream to consumers early in the home search process can also establish the brokerage as the go to source for research information, a reputation that can boost the company’s position and competitiveness in its market.

The lead incubation process begins with a solid lead capture solution. Your software needs to be able to establish lead criteria such as first visit, last visit, location, home search areas, home search price ranges, repeat view patterns, contact information, financial qualification information, contact history notes and other relevant website or portal activity. This information is extremely valuable in pursuing and communicating with those leads.

Typical lead incubation systems on the market today allow real estate companies to place leads into automated drip marketing systems. Leading solutions however have the ability to operate different campaigns based on a trigger system that places the lead on a relevant drip campaign based on the prospect’s activity on the site. Some of those systems may also allow brokerages to develop their own company specific drip campaigns. A state of the art system such as Point2 goes one more step. It identifies prospects that have been on a drip campaign and have now matured (i.e. they have turned into a hot prospect), as their home search activity increases or specific request for contact or information is registered. Hot prospects are then marked, and notification is sent to the brokerage or agent indicating contact must be made.A state of the art system such as Point2 goes one more step. It identifies prospects that have been on a drip campaign and have now matured (i.e. they have turned into a hot prospect), as their home search activity increases or specific request for contact or information is registered. Hot prospects are then marked, and notification is sent to the brokerage or agent indicating contact must be made.

Future lead management and incubation capabilities under development today will focus on predictive modeling. While current drip systems tend to provide home search notification and static drip campaigns, predictive modeling will take lead profile information and send ultra relevant static and dynamic content to the lead. The goal is to make the brokerage the source of research information right up until the lead is ready to engage a real estate agent to help narrow or close their home search.

Conclusion

With the vast majority of consumers using the Internet in their home search, brokerages need to advertise their inventory in as many ways possible to maximize exposure and leads. Today, this includes focusing on both natural and vertical search marketing. Listings are the most valuable marketing assets brokerages and their agents possess. Better listings (rich data) generates more buyer leads, which increases the chance a company’s listing is sold in-house. The most important step in converting those inquiries is to focus on responding immediately. Because agents are mobile and not sitting at their desk all the time, lead notification needs to become mobile, with text messaging.

Brokerages that focus on developing longer term lead pipelines will maximize the total number and percentage of leads that will eventually transact with someone within their organization.

These strategies are not simply nice to have. They are essential for the survival of traditional brokerage business model during this time of rapid change. Real estate companies that do not develop a complete online marketing and operating strategy will risk losing market share and will squander the opportunity to lead, as new waves of innovation enable better, more efficient and more cost effective marketing and lead conversion strategies.

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