THE BEST WEBSITE TO MARKET YOUR LISTINGS
Winner: Zillow
Zillow
The three-way tie among Zillow, Trulia and realtor.com has been broken, and our panel put Zillow at the top. “If exposure and reach are your key for marketing listings, Zillow is king of the castle,” Dollinger says. “Consider that Zillow now powers not only Zillow but Yahoo! Real Estate, MSN Real Estate and Zillow Digs (its answer to Houzz), they have dominated the marketplace online with a whopping 85+ million visitors per month. Now with the the potential merger between Trulia and Zillow on the horizon, your consumers will be asking for this even more.” Zillow is widely used by consumers to find homes. Various programs are available for purchase that all include a number of listings and the ability to send leads directly to the agent. Traffic is driven to the agent profile and contact form on Zillow, and prices start as low as $10 per month.
Zillow only partially tracks impressions (and only if you buy Premier Agent Basic or Platinum – Silver doesn’t track at all), and clicks are only tracked for links to external websites, depending on the program. In addition, prices vary by ZIP code and can cost as much as $128 per month, if not more.
Some on our panel did disagree, though, and say that to them, it’s still a three-way tie between Zillow, Trulia and realtor.com. “Zillow, Trulia and realtor.com are all good options, because this is still where the majority of consumers are,” Lance says.
Price: Varies depending on program and ZIP code.
Where to buy: www.zillow.com/advertising
Runner Up: Your Own Website
A website with quality content can generate quality leads for agents. This option gives agents creative license – they can write blog posts or pages on their website about what’s going on in the industry, answer questions for consumers, write about popular neighborhood landmarks and keep updating the site for consumers. The more the site is updated, the greater chance it has of showing up in certain keyword search results.
Lead generation could take six months or more, and then the website/blog must be updated regularly to generate fresh, different, unique content to keep users interested and get them to come back.
Price says that marketing listings through your own site is really the way to go – but extra help from an IDX company doesn’t hurt. Price’s company, Placester.com, includes IDX integration in all of its clients’ sites, so agents can display listings on their own site. “Why share space and the attention of potential buyers with other agents on a third-party site?” he asks.
Price: Varies. GoDaddy and HostGator have relatively inexpensive options (as low as $3.96 per month for a three-year contract) to host a website.
Where to buy: www.godaddy.com; www.hostgator.com
THE BEST SOCIAL MEDIA SITE
Winner: Facebook
It’s safe to say that Laura Monroe, the director of industry engagement and social media for Inman News, is a social media expert, and she stands firm behind Facebook. Maura Neill, an agent with RE/MAX Around Atlanta, also prefers the site because, for her, it better helps her keep up with clients. “The best social media site really depends on what you use it for,” she says. “But I like Facebook for staying engaged with clients.”
Facebook is no longer used solely for social purposes. You can use Facebook advertising to target specific demographics, such as age, gender, location, relationship status and education. Creating a Facebook business page is a good way to reach consumers and keep them posted on the latest news about your company and your industry. You can also link your Facebook page to your website to improve your search engine optimization, or SEO.
Runner Up: Debateable
Although our panel mostly chose Facebook as the winner here, others on the panel were conflicted if they really could choose any runner ups, or if there really was a “best” for social media in general. “The reality is that different social media sites serve different purposes,” Price says. “Facebook is great for building relationships, particularly with older customers. Twitter is great for promoting content or conversing. Pinterest is handy for posting listing photos. Google+ really helps the SEO of your content. So, there’s no one answer for all situations.”
Smythe Harris agrees. “It varies per person based on where their sphere of influence is,” she says. “The key is to find the social network that gives you the best return on investment of time spent, but also in an arena that you enjoy being social in.”
Price: A Facebook profile is free, and the advertisements are priced per click (but you will never be charged more than your daily or lifetime budget).
Where to Buy: www.facebook.com
THE BEST EMAIL MARKETING SOFTWARE
Winner: MailChimp
MailChimp
Dollinger is among the fans of MailChimp on our panel, saying it continues to improve with new additions. “It continues to get better and better, and now agents can add new features to their email efforts, such as RSS email driven campaigns, auto responders, Web form signups for open houses and an open API (and integration with Zapier) to work with just about everything from Contactually to Gmail,” he says. “Also, most of their templates are now mobile responsive, which adjust to the size of the screen that the recipient is viewing email on (desktop, tablet, phone).”
It also is compatible with several other programs, and Lance loves the “social media integration, mobile app and ease of use.”
Price: Free to start, and certain features are available for paid upgrades.
Where to buy: http://mailchimp.com/pricing/
Runners Up: Happy Grasshopper, Constant Contact
Happy GrassHopper
Unlike traditional email marketing tools, Happy Grasshopper’s services are specifically designed to get results for salespeople. Writers provide several fun, friendly, keep-in-touch emails you can deliver, and you can also create custom, lead-response email campaigns that are designed to convert leads into buyers. Interestingly, the company’s service is fully guaranteed and has a 100 percent money-back guarantee.
Price: Try it with a free 14-day trial; memberships vary from Basic at $19 per month to Platinum at $30 per month, and even Team memberships from $199 per month.
Where to buy: https://happygrasshopper.com/hg-new/plans-pricing.php
Constant Contact
Constant Contact, Inc. is an online marketing company offering email marketing, social media marketing, online surveys, event marketing and digital storefronts. Price says that what puts Constant Contact over the top, though, is its ease of use. “Email marketing has been around long enough that there’s pretty good feature parity between the top providers,” Price says. “The best way to choose between them is to figure out which you find most intuitive to use.”
Price: Free 60-day trial; pricing starts at $20 per month.
Where to buy: http://search.constantcontact.com
experience/pricing