Harness the Power of Social Media Marketing

 Effective Online Marketing [24:40m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

BuilderRadio interviews Mitch Levinson, mRELEVANCE

You’ve got a great new state of the art website, complete with flash pictures, video, testimonials, fly-throughs.  You’ve even got a blog that highlights targets your buyer’s ideal lifestyle.

So, why aren’t you getting more traffic to your website and to your model?

Don’t blame the ‘down market;’ there are as many people looking at homes online as ever.  The trick is to get them to find you, like you, come see you, and buy from you.  You have to get their attention and build their trust.

This week we talk with one of the new breed of marketers who understands the power of the interactive Internet as a marketing vehicle.  Mitch Levinson, of mRELEVANCE, talks with us about new media, social networking, and how to use these resources to connect with buyers on their terms.

IM – A Big Word.
“Internet marketing is no longer just building a website and making it look pretty and trying to get people to fill out your lead form.  Internet marketing now includes search engine optimization, search engine marketing, Google search results pages, email marketing, Internet advertising.  Internet marketing is a big word that encompasses a lot of different areas.

To be where your customers are, to have your company appear credible through third party sources, through blog sites, social networking and social media sites – that’s where you’re company needs to capture buyers because, as we all know, everyone’s online.”

Recent studies show that consumers are often bypassing a company’s website and going to social media sites – industry blogs and social sites such as LinkedIn, Facebook and Active Rain – to research companies.  They look to see what other people have to say about particular companies, often before they ever contact them.

“People use those sites to look at exactly what they’re getting into when they start to do business with a company, especially when they make a purchase as large and important as a home.  Using those sites effectively so that you’re capitalizing on that third-party credibility and you’re where your buyers are looking, that’s what is key in today’s market,” says Levinson.

It Starts with Elimination
The overwhelming majority of buyers are doing research about you, your homes, your reputation, your competitors and your local market online.  Chances are good that before you ever see or talk to them, they know a lot about you from what they’ve gathered from a multitude of sources online.  Your first objective, then, is to not get eliminated.

Levinson explains: “It used to be that people would use their research to create a list of builders or products or companies to buy from.  Now, the Internet gives them the list immediately.  You have to be in the right places so that your name stays on the list when they get ready to make that purchasing decision.”

1.  See what your buyer sees online.
“Look online as if you were a buyer and see who is there.  See what your competition looks like, and see what you find when you Google your own name.  Try to manage your reputation and learn as much as you to be put in all the places you need to be in order to reach your target market.  You need to be in a lot of places, ” he recommends.

2.  Pay attention to your Internet Tracking Report
“Everything that you do online as well as with your traditional [offline] marketing is in your tracking report.  For our clients, when they run a billboard, newspaper ad or post to a blog, we see all of those results in the tracking report.  We can calculate very specifically what their return on investment was for that activity.  If you look at is regularly and trend it over time, you’ll be able to see direct impacts from specific changes in your online and offline marketing media mix.”

3. Be Sociable.
We here more about social media sites, such as LinkedIn, Facebook, Active Rain, and even Twitter, as being the ‘next big thing’ in marketing.  Is this really so, or are these just fads?

“A lot of people say, ‘I don’t know if my customers are really there [on these social network sites.]  And, even if they are there, are they really looking for my homes there?’  Not only are your clients and buyers there, but the search engines are there, and if you are found more effectively by the search engines, then you’re going to be found by your buyer.

[Social networking sites] are where people go for information.  That’s where you can build third-party credibility about your product.  That’s where increase your network and display your products and promotions.  That’s where you can more effectively attract the real estate community if that’s what you’re trying to accomplish.  There are a lot of benefits that you get from social networking sites.  Some of them are direct benefits from customers, but most of them are those ‘soft benefits’ that you get from search engines and from the network base that you have.  But it has to be done correctly.”

Reputation Repair and Management
Bad news always travels fast, and at lightning speeds over the Internet.  And those that have negative things to say are always more vocal that the positive.  That’s another reason to be active on social networks – to protect and enhance your own reputation.

When one of Levinson’s clients has negative press that pops up, he has a plan of action:  “One of the ways that we target [bad press] is to blog and use the social media sites to add positive news about that story all over the internet, so that when someone Googles their name, we basically fill up the Google results with strong positive pages.

You have to know the right places to post, and you have to weave your social media and Internet marketing strategy together in such a way that it makes sense, not only to you and to a consumer, but more importantly to a search engine like Google.  If you can build strength in your network in such a way that Google looks at it and builds its own strength into it, that’s how reputations are protected,” says Levinson.

IM = ROI
How much of your budget should go towards strategic Internet marketing?  Levinson notes that most companies feel comfortable allocating about 30% of their marketing budget toward online activities, but that it should be much more.  Typically, that 30% realizes a larger return that the other 70%!  Although much of what has been discussed here in the way of social marketing has no hard cost other than time, he recommends that over half of your marketing budget go toward online.

“I would spend more online than in traditional advertising,” says Levinson, “and then watch your traffic report for those traditional spends to see if there was an impact. That’s the first step.  The second step is to see if there was an increase in traffic to your sales center and an increase in people contacting you directly.  All of that has to tie together.”

Levinson makes the point that anyone can start a social media campaign by starting a blog, joining the social network sites, posting comments on other relevant blogs, and getting your name and website ‘out there’ so the search engines can notice it.  And, anyone can be somewhat effective at it.  However, to make a significant impact requires time, knowledge and a new set of skills that most companies don’t posses in-house, such as knowing how to interpret and be guided by your website tracking report.

After all, that’s what keeps him so busy and creates such a high demand for his specialized services.

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For more information, or to contact Mitch Levinson, click here.

Mark your calendar:  March 18, 2009  2:00pm EST.

That’s when the first of our series of 6 ‘Take Control of Your Sales’ webinars will begin.  We have over 25 organizations promoting this series, and seats are limited for this live event, although it will be recorded and you’ll be able to download all 6 presentations.

The series starts off with our special guest, Robert August, on the topic ‘If Not Now, When?  Why Now Is The Best Time EverTo Buy A New Home.’

Couldn’t you do with a little more Control of your sales?  Click here to learn more.

New Sales & Marketing Videos are being posted at http://tinyurl.com/SellingMoreHomesNetwork