Real Estate Pay-Per-Click Marketing Blog

The best online real estate marketing in the world is of no use at all unless you are able to turn enquiries into clients and eventually sell property to some of them. The first step to achieving this is to follow up your pay-per-click or search engine leads promptly, professionally and effectively.

When you’re selling real estate, you naturally have to take into account that the buying process is much longer than in most other cases, and will probably stretch into months - sometimes even years. This is why it is vital that every single thing you do as you follow up your leads contributes to building a relationship of trust with your prospects - that essential element of making the sale.

Respond to enquiries immediately

Remember that you are not alone! Your prospects have most definitely contacted several other estate agents enquiring about similar properties, or maybe even the same ones they are asking you about. Always make it a point to respond to pay-per-click leads and enquiries as soon as you possibly can, and in any case within a maximum of 24 hours.

The early bird catches the worm here, and you will gain a significant advantage over other estate agencies simply by being the first to get back to your clients. What’s more, you’ll come across as being efficient and professional and you’ll also show your prospective clients that you care for their business - two more points in your favour!

Use a combination of phone and e-mail wherever possible

The phone is a much better way to establish a personal relationship than just using e-mail, so make sure you call your prospects if they have left a contact number. At the same time, you should also use e-mail to send extra information about relevant properties, such as brochures, photos, Internet links and so on. What’s more, by sending e-mail, you give your clients the information in a written form that they can easily refer to. It may be a good idea that when you send an important e-mail, you suggest that your clients print it out - you never know when that piece paper could show up again, weeks or months down the line, and serve as a reminder of the property or of your real estate agency.

Depending on the particular case, it may be best to call first and e-mail follow-up information later, or else send the information first and then call to discuss it. Still, always make sure you follow up one with the other, giving your client enough space so they don’t feel pressured.

Make sure you understand what your clients are asking for and answer all their questions

Don’t let your busy schedule get the better of you! Part of establishing your professionalism as a real estate agent is to communicate well with your clients, and that begins by understanding well what they are telling you. So read their queries carefully and make sure you do not leave any points out as you answer them. There is nothing more frustrating for a client than to receive an e-mail that does not adequately address all their questions or doubts. Don’t count on your clients getting back to you for clarification if you are sloppy in your replies - they may very well not!

Ask questions yourself to find out as much as possible about your clients

Show an interest in your real estate clients and ask the right questions to find out as much as possible about them - what sort of property they are looking for, their reasons for buying, what they expect from the property and so on. Many times, your clients may not be too sure of the answers to these questions themselves, in which case you can also be of great use by helping them to clarify their thoughts.

Be prepared with alternative properties

No property hunter feels comfortable around a pushy estate agent, so when you suggest alternative properties, make sure they are relevant to what your client is looking for and do it out of a genuine interest to help. You may want to consider using professional real estate agent software to help you keep track of both your property portfolio and your clients. That way you save precious time by quickly matching clients with ideal properties, and at the same time you make sure you never miss out on a sale by forgetting to mention a property that could have been the one.

Keep in mind once again that finding the right property takes time and what your clients want most is an agent who has the patience to help them find what they are looking for.

Follow up your leads

Show an active interest in your clients and their business by following up on your communication according to the schedule you agree. If they told you they would think about it and call back in a few days but don’t, let an adequate amount of time pass and give them a call. Remember, do this out of interest in the client, and not in that particular sale itself.

Be professional at all times

Honesty and integrity is the one thing all clients look for in a real estate agent. You may be the most knowledgeable about your property market or have the largest property portfolio, but if you don’t manage to win your clients’ trust, it’s all for nothing.

Professionalism involves a whole list of things, from being prompt and efficient, to respecting your clients and not using cheap tactics, like hinting that a property is about to be sold to someone else. Clients can sense that fake concern and your reputation will suffer because of it.

Remember that if you want to get the most out of your pay-per-click advertising, you will have to deal effectively with each and every single lead, so that you maximise its chance of converting into a sale at some point in the future. Follow the above tips and you’ll be definitely on the right track!

Time and again, we get asked the same old question: Which way to go, a pay-per-click campaign or hard SEO work and a good dose of patience to get a good position in the natural search rankings?

Of course, the answer is that you need both. Getting good search engine rankings is an essential part of your long-term Internet marketing, while pay-per-click will give you the immediate and targeted results you need to get your business going strong online. Once your website begins to achieve good search engine rankings, you can slow down on the pay-per-click, or even keep it as long as it is giving you a positive ROI.

And just in case you were wondering, we do practise what we preach! Last November we decided to modify our website www.payperclickmanagement.eu to focus on a combination of pay-per-click and real estate keywords (instead of just pay-per-click). After all, 99% of our clients are estate agents and that is what we specialise in.

Ever since then, our partners at Sorted Sites have been busy doing some serious SEO work for us and the results are coming in even faster than we had ever imagined! Take a look at some examples of our Google rankings as of today.

We have our three websites www.payperclickmanagement.eu, www.pay-per-click-manager.com and www.sortedsites.info in 1^st, 4^th and 5^th positions for ‘estate agency adwords’! (Click images to enlarge)

www.payperclickmanagement.eu is in top position for ‘estate agent pay per click’.

www.sortedsites.com is top for ‘pay per click in spain’.

www.payperclickmanagement.eu has 3^rd spot for ‘property pay per click’, 9^th spot for ‘real estate pay per click’ and 10^th spot for ‘real estate adwords’. We’re still not satisfied with the last two, but we’re working on it!

Running a real estate agency can be a huge headache if you don’t have the right tools, and one of those tools is a professionally-designed real estate software suite that will allow you to manage everything and keep track of it all without any hassle.

Have you ever lost a potential sale because you did not realise you had the very property that perfectly fitted your client’s requirements? This all-too-common occurrence will be a thing of the past with the state-of-the-art real estate software developed by Sorted Sites - a high-end database application that (among other things) allows you to match clients to properties in an instant, with a few mouse clicks!

7+ years of experience with estate agents packed into the software suite you need

Sorted Sites have over seven years of experience in real estate web design and have used their know-how to design this estate agent software to perform all the functions you need and integrate seamlessly with your company’s website. Every property you add to your database will automatically be searchable on your website, and the client details that you collect from the web are automatically filed in your contacts database.

But that’s not all! This real estate software allows you easily perform extensive property searches, share files, manage branches, assign clients to sales consultants, print reports and window display sheets, and much, much more - everything you need to run your agency at maximum efficiency and make more money!

Store your data in one place - Access it from anywhere

The key to operating efficiently is being able to access all your valuable data in one place, be it property information, client contact details, inter-branch communications, associates, suppliers… the list goes on. Whether you operate a single office or have branches spread across several countries, the Sorted Sites real estate software suite will allow you to store, manage and access all your data with the utmost security and efficiency.

Say goodbye to those overflowing filing cabinets of property fact sheets, agendas full of scribbled notes and faxes that seem to love getting lost among piles of other faxes. Contact Sorted Sites to find out more about how your estate agency can benefit from their real estate software that took three whole years to develop, based on many more years of working with countless estate agents.

Software designed by the real estate computer systems specialists

Sorted Sites’ experience in real estate is wide-reaching and even extends to Internet marketing, where they have helped many estate agents achieve those coveted top search engine rankings. Their expertise and backing is also the secret behind our ongoing success, here at Touchdown Pay-Per-Click Management, at running high ROI Pay-Per-Click advertising campaigns for real estate agents. In a nutshell, if you need anything to do with real estate and computers, Sorted Sites are the people you want.

There is a very fitting parallel between the economy and jolly old Darwinian evolution. At the end of the day, it’s not just the fittest who survive, however, but those businesses that are most able to adapt to the changing circumstances of the harsh, real world. And there is nothing like a recession to bring out the most resilient businesses that are smart enough to know how to weather the storm, leaving the others behind to wonder what ever happened to the ‘good old days’.

Please don’t kill your business

Every business has its own strategies for trying to cope with a recession like the one that is currently hitting real estate markets in Spain, the United States and other parts of the world. Some close down offices… others fire staff… But all too often, the first thing to go when the purse strings need tightening is - astonishingly enough - the marketing and advertising. It actually seems as though the knee-jerk reaction of many business decision-makers to a looming recession and tough times ahead is to put the company out of its misery!

When the going gets tough, the tough get marketing

You see, never is your business in more dire need of good marketing than in the middle of a recession. When times are tough, it is more important than ever - absolutely vital - to figure out how you can spend your money wisely to attract as many clients as possible to keep your business afloat. Your first instinct may be to put your business into hibernation mode and hope that the rough times pass quickly by, but that will only weaken you further and leave more space for your competitors to thrive.

Go for marketing that can be proven to work

If you’ve never done it before, the recession is a perfect time shape up your marketing. Trim off the extra fat that is not performing and make sure that every bit of advertising muscle is pulling a dozen times its weight or more. This is the time to shift to a more accountable form of marketing where your strategies are tried and tested, so you can be sure that every Dollar, Euro or whatever you spend is paying you dividends in the form of good leads that you can follow up and convert into sales.

And now for the good news…

There is one way to market your business online and know exactly what you’re spending, exactly what you’re getting back and what you have to do to improve your results - run a Pay-Per-Click marketing campaign.

Pay-Per-Click marketing allows you to direct your advertising money right at the people who are already searching for your business and most likely to become your clients. What’s more, you only pay for results - people actually visiting your website looking for your services. And best of all, with PPC advertising, you can know exactly how each and every one of your advertising campaigns are performing down to the keyword level, so you stop burning money on what doesn’t work and invest more in what is.

Nip your recession in the bud!

The recession is now, and now is when your business must get that extra boost it needs to survive! So contact us right away to discuss how a Pay-Per-Click advertising campaign can get you that instant business that you need so badly!

Not only will we advise you on the best way to set up your PPC campaign itself, but we will also examine your web pages to make sure that they work well to turn site visits into those leads you want. Don’t dilly dally! Contact Touchdown Pay Per Click Management now!