Predictions for Online Realtor Marketing in 2006

1. Online competition will not only get stiffer by other Realtors, but also online lead companies will seek to take top search engine positions.

Do a search under any Big real estate Keyword phrase & in any given real estate market. You usually will find two or three actual Realtor websites. The remaining sites are Commercial Lead Aggregators or non-agent sites.

Most online traffic comes from search engines, with branding a distant second. There is usually only ten spots available per natural search phrase (natural meaning non-sponsored).

This will only feel more restrictive, as the Realtor Bubble swells, making the NAR Average of 6 sides per agent grow smaller over time.

2. Blogs will get even more popular. Real Estate Blogging will continue to grow in popularity. New blog directories & Engines, are popping up to index and categorize these content machines.

3. Audio/Podcasting will become mainstream as agents find ways to implement audio into blogs and websites. Adding voice to listings, and personalization will find its way into many creative web designs and blogs.

One of the reasons that blogs are so powerful is that they put a personality and voice to a business. It also adds authority over ones subject matter. Audio adds another powerful modality in the agents quest to win over his or her audience.

4. Video Casting/VBlogging- Some creative Realtors like David Weiss in Chicago are offering Video as a possible incarnation of what Virtual Tours was supposed to be.

5.Leads and Follow-up- Everyone who is a player seems to have done the website thing. And many know they need SEO or at least Pay Per Click. But 2006 will demand better lead conversion and better lead follow up by agencies.

As marketing costs escalate, the prudent real estate marketer will be forced to give ahrderlook at metrics such as cost per lead. This will force introspection on numbers like visitor to lead ratio & closure. Cherry picking phone numbers and forgetting about "email only leads" will not be acceptable as competition grows.

Without effective email follow-up and closure, costs per click & lead goes up while ROI drops.

6. Online leads will get less and less visitor phone numbers as MLS data gets freely distributed and becomes a commodity. In addition, as visitors become more sophisticated, they are less likely to be willing to provide their personal information. Especially if they see the MLS data as their given right.

This is not to say that you can't get more information, you just need to make a compelling reason for them to comply.

Learning how to run an effective follow-up drip system is mandatory. Time to learn direct response marketing folks.

7. The Bundling of Information. The web is becoming more and more difficult to get through. Visitors are tired of doing the Google Bumble to find information.

The engines know this and are coming up with Local Search, Blog Search, RSS feeds, and on and on in their attempt to help the visitor to get the specific information they want. They will fail.

Searchers are demanding their information packaged in easy bite size packages. This is bad news for the engines as it is almost impossible to parse the ambiguity of natural language.

The good news is that Realtors already have their information pre-packaged. It is called the MLS.

However, Realtor data is being given away, often times without registration, making it a commodity instead of a privilege to access. I wonder if there will ever be: mls.Google.com?

8. There is a Dichotomy on the web that will grow larger over time.

I have noticed in my consulting and website marketing that today's Realtor can be divided as:

a. Online marketers that can be further divided into: i. "do it yourselfers" ii. and "outsourcers" that use the web to supplement their off line business, while hiring firms like Spider Juice Technologies to market them.

b. Hard line Traditionalists that are the grandfathers of the old offline age. They not only know how to produce sales in the offline world, but also have the advantage of local branding and a "book". Many traditionalists also have the budget to go online, but choose not to.

The Traditionalists need to be aware of the online agent. Over time superstars will emerge online. They will use Guerrilla tactics to find leads and win these leads over into loyal followers and eventual clients. This cannot happen with traditional client affinity methods.

A new way of constantly re-igniting client loyalty will be necessary to survive and prosper thru 2006 and beyond.

The Onliners will enjoy this trend that over time, the upcoming generation of web users will demand what the Onliners have. That is Onliners are already wired and finding ways to connect with the information that the public can easily access.

Where as, less buyers are finding property the old traditional ways. However, the old can become the new, as I predict great opportunities in off-line direct response methods.

Why? Because marketing is usually more effective when it is isn't cluttered against someone else's message. Everyone seems to have forgotten how to snail mail.

Add your on line marketing with email, website interaction, audio/video. Along with off line direct-response touches like postcards and the telephone. And You have a very, very powerful marketing mix.

All in all I predict that 2006 will be another great year for the agents that know who they are, and how they intend on reaching their production objectives.