Many of our clients (Real Estate Agents) wonder if online marketing for real estate agents is really a necessity, and wether it’s important for them to invest in proprietary online marketing channels (i.e. websites) while the brokerage they operate under has already invested adequately in that area; or that they haven’t really had a considerable feedback from their current online presence anyway!

In fact, the answer to their concern lies back on the drawing board! One needs to understand that marketing tools are used in many ways in order to achieve different goals; goals that are not necessarily shared among different players in the real estate domain.

We suggest that our clients consider the fact that their primary objective for an online presence is very different from that of their Agency. A real estate agent’s goal is to build trust, to satisfy an actual deal on a property and/or maintain client relationships, while an Agency’s primary goal is usually brand building to attract more agents! Therefore every strategy for building websites for agents and agencies will have to be fundamentally different.

On the other hand, if adequate feedback has not been realized from online marketing channels, it is absolutely not because of ineffectiveness of those channels (specially when statistics clearly show that the Internet is an extremely important marketing medium for real estate.)

The reality is that by just writing a name and phone number on a website with a couple of pictures from random properties, will never attract prospects, regardless of the amount of money spent to promote it. Websites (and every other online channel), just like any other marketing channel, require explicit strategies and reasonable investment, in order to become effective for successful marketing.

After all, every visit made to a website is like an enquiry made to its owner’s phone, and just like it would be if real estate agents keep their phones switched off every day, it is absolutely devastating for them to underestimate this vital marketing channel and go for any cheap solution out there, just to “save money!”