Some say that if you start your business January 1st 2012, you are already behind. Real estate is a lag industry and things can take 60-90 days of implementation to see any results. So if you don’t start until January, you may not see any results for several months (especially in this slow economy).

The best marketing advice I’ve ever received is to ramp up your marketing efforts and activities in the 4th quarter so you can see your results once the new year hits and get it off to a fabulous start. If you wait too long, you may find it harder to reach your business or revenue goals because you were waiting for leads to convert and get those marketing results to appear. Market for next year starting NOW!

Starting now, there are probably a few things you can be doing differently, or at least get started on, that can get your 2012 started off right. For example, you can:

• Start a blog or dust off that blog you have been neglecting and post regularly (at least 2-3 times a week to start)
• Give your website a makeover and make sure the focus is on the consumer, and not what a great REALTOR you are.
• Create or find deliverables that your prospects would actually want to sign up for and get those leads starting to come into your pipeline
• Increase your visibility on Facebook and make a business pages focusing on the neighborhoods and communities you serve.
• Start up on Twitter and be visible, engage, and share with your followers.
• Start using video! Promote your properties, your expertise, and your market area
• Be sure to keep your social media activities ongoing and never let anything get stale or make people wonder if you are still in business.

It is the perfect time to examine your current business plan (if you have one) refine it, in start implementing NOW so you can have a fabulous 2012. So take some action! I want you to start it off with a bang!

Have some marketing ideas you can implement now to get next year off to a great start? I would love to hear them! Please leave me a comment below!

Megan E. Barber is a Real Estate Virtual Assistant, and owner of Barber Virtual Assisting Solutions. With over 10 years of experience working within the real estate industry, Megan and her team Virtual Assistants provide top notch real estate support services such as marketing, lead follow-up, social media, WordPress websites, and more. Megan E Barber is also the creator and author of The BVAS Connection and VA Mommy

Some have quickly taken one side over the other, dismissing the validity of the other point. The “old school” folks cheer on the statement that social media is a total waste of time. The “new school” people think the ones who deny the potential of social media are dinosaurs of the industry that should step aside. I think the the bigger picture here in this debate is that a balanced approach using both old and new methods is necessary to succeed in this market.

Is social media a complete waste of time?  I don’t certainly think so. If you know me, you know that I am a big social media fan, and use things like Facebook and Twitter quite often personally and for my business. I have even signed new clients that I’ve met via social media.

Social networking can certainly have potential to be a time waster, with the virtual farms, virtual mafia, and the penchant to announce what one had for breakfast. Certainly if you spend too much of your time living on Facebook and Twitter, you are not going to get much done in general, or be able to effectively work with your clients. But if you handle your social networking activities correctly (strategically), you can get potentially attract new business through your social media engagement.

It is also necessary to have the right mindset and expectation about the potential business social media marketing can bring you. Connections that you attract through social media can take a long time for them to convert to actual business, much like other internet leads. But if you look at the bigger picture, social networks are a great tool to foster new relationships with prospects by engaging with them and repeatedly be out in front of them.

Through some of the more traditional methods of cold calling, and door knocking, most of the “old school” gurus direct agents to go through their database, sphere or lists looking for buyers and sellers that are ready to make their move RIGHT NOW. And then they’ll instruct them to cross the prospect off the list and move on the the next if the are not ready to do business in the immediate. Where this differs from social media marketing is that you are spending little time incubating those warm or cold leads, and going directly for the hot ones. While this approach may be successful for some, it is not for everyone, and even some prospects find this type of communication a total turn off (Hello Gen Y?).

Both social media marketing and more traditional prospecting methods both have their place in today’s marketing plans.  Cold calling for hot leads can help you generate business that is ready to move right now, while social media marketing can help fill that pipeline of incoming leads that can eventually warm up to actual business too. I believe a balanced approach in your marketing plan is best.

There is no one  marketing method that is the magic bullet. But use any combination of them with the right approach and mindset, and they will bring you new business.

What side of the debate do you stand on? Or what marketing methods have yielded the best results for you? I want to hear from you, so please comment below!

Megan E. Barber is a Real Estate Virtual Assistant, and owner of Barber Virtual Assisting Solutions. With over 10 years of experience working within the real estate industry, Megan and her team Virtual Assistants provide top notch real estate support services such as marketing, lead follow-up, social media, WordPress websites, and more. Megan E Barber is also the creator and author of The BVAS Connection and VA Mommy

You Are Doing It Wrong if…

1.   Your site is a stale static site that does not have regularly updated content like a blog.

• If you are not updating your site regularly with new content, like blogging, your site stays stale, uninteresting and totally irrelevant. And blogging doesn’t have to be strictly written articles. You can regularly post videos and pictures relevant to your market area that will provide content that people will come back to see.

2.   You have pictures of palm trees and beaches all over your header and pages, but your local market is in Denver Colorado.

• If your site does not reflect you and your local market, what is the point? How would anyone know if you are the local market expert when your site displays a complete disconnect?

3.   You have a forced sign-up immediately just to be able to start a property search or to view IDX listings.

• I know this is a common tactic to garner leads, so some may disagree with me here. But from my own experience as a consumer… when I am looking for homes and you make me sign up just to search or view them, I will bounce out of there and go where I can view homes unimpeded. It’s a personal annoyance of mine, but I know many consumers share the same experience.

4.   It is too hard to find the top THREE things visitors to your site want most: Home Search, “What is my home worth”, “How is the Market”

• If those top three things are not above the fold or in a most obvious place on your site for buyers and sellers to find, you are missing the mark. Your site will lose credibility with visitors right away if they have to search too hard to find the information they want the most. So they will bounce out and find it elsewhere.

5.   Your website is all about you and nothing much about your local market and what your visitors want (see the top 3 items above).

• Truth is, consumers don’t much care about the agents when they start their home search. When you go car shopping, do you first start by searching for the best car salesman you can find? My guess is that you don’t. The same goes for home buyers. They start searching for HOMES not for Realtors. So drop the ego and make sure your site is geared towards the consumer. Answer the question, “What’s in it for them?”.

6.   You’re not offering buyers and sellers something of actual value to them for signing up for your list or updates.

• Those cheesy, canned “free reports” provided by template sites don’t count. (does anybody really sign up for those?) Try something like the Market Snapshot system, a special buyers guide, offer IDX listings to their inbox, or free foreclosure lists.

7.   Your site has no links or way to connect with you on social media.

• Social media gives web visitors the opportunity to observe your activity, a bit of your personality, and build up that trust factor over time. And since many visitors are not usually ready right then to make contact with you, provide them links to your Facebook business page or Twitter feed for them to get to know you from a distance. This is especially appealing to Gen Y’ers since they are way more likely to reach out via Facebook than pick up the phone or send an email.

8.   There’s no clear call to action on your site.

• If you don’t have clear consistent calls to action to tell your users what you want them to do with the information  you provide them, you’re doing it wrong. Tell them to call or email you for more info. Tell them to leave you a comment about their own experiences or questions. Tell them to sign up on your form to receive market reports on recent solds in the area.

9.   You have no contact forms on your site for visitors to actually contact you when they are ready.

• Only having your phone number or links to email you may be hurting your site’s ability to capture leads. Having no (or very few) contact forms on your site, you’re not making it easy for visitors. It can be especially difficult for those who primarily use a web based email client like gmail or they happen to be at work. In fact, it is important to have some sort of contact form on every page. Make it easy on your users to contact you!

10.  You say you are different from the rest, yet you are using a templated website that looks identical to 50,000 other agents’ sites.

• Using a template site that is provided to you by your broker or from from some other web vendor, does you no favors. Those template sites hardly reflect your local market or your own brand and you can get easily lost in the shuffle. How can you stand out from the rest if your site looks exactly the same as the next guy and does nothing to set you apart.

If you took a good look at your site and saw that your are doing one, all or any combination of the above, it is probably time for a new approach. Your website should be your hub, your engine for delivering exactly what consumers want when they search for real estate info. If you are not making it easy, not making it all about them, you are losing them. Stop doing it wrong.

Consider utilizing a Real Estate Virtual Assistant to help you do it right.

Seen other ways people are doing it wrong?  Have any questions on how to do it right?  We want to hear from you! Leave us a comment below and let us know.

Megan E. Barber is a Real Estate Virtual Assistant, and owner of Barber Virtual Assisting Solutions. With over 10 years of experience working within the real estate industry, Megan and her team Virtual Assistants provide top notch real estate support services such as marketing, lead follow-up, social media, WordPress websites, and more. Megan E Barber is also the creator and author of The BVAS Connection and VA Mommy

Megan Barber is a Real Estate Virtual Assistant, owner of Barber Virtual Assisting Solutions, LLC,  and runs blogs, The BVAS Connection and The Virtual Perception. Megan has been in a Virtual Assistant for 4+ years and has spent 10+ years doing the “behind-the-scenes” work in the real estate industry assisting agents with their real estate marketing and transaction needs.

The above scenario is a huge myth and a big mistake in my opinion. Believe it or not, there are agents and whole real estate companies out there that are abandoning their newspaper advertising, direct mail advertising, and farming to sink all of their marketing dollars into the internet and internet leads. Hundreds of thousands of dollars are being spent on fancy websites, lead capture software, search engine optimization, pay-per-click ads, and lead generation companies. Real Estate agents and brokers are looking for the next big technology tool that will bring in a boatload of internet leads without them having to do much work to get them.  The problem is that internet leads are likely to cost more time and money in incubating these as leads and abandoning a well rounded marketing plan to solely depend on these internet leads can end up hurting more than helping.

Internet consumers searching for real estate are not necessarily ready RIGHT NOW to buy a home or sell real a home.  For many, the internet is where they go upon first searching homes and feeling out the marketplace. The internet gives them the opportunity to scan ads and do a “drive-by” of available listings without having to leave home. They want to remain anonymous for as long as possible until they are really ready to take the plunge. And even when they do fill out a web form for property information, statistics show that those leads can still take 6-12 months or more before they become active real estate buyers or sellers. I do not believe that the return on investment that many of these internet lead generation companies will convince you of, is as good as they promise.

According to NAR’s 2006 Profile of Home Buyers and Sellers, 80% of buyers used the internet for their home searches. But in stark contrast, only 7% of buyers found the agent they used on an internet site.  40% of buyers used agents that were referred to them by friends, relatives or neighbors and another 13% used an agent they have worked with in the past.

Those statistics affirms my belief that you cannot dismiss the idea of having a well rounded marketing plan that involves not only the internet, but also the traditional farming and marketing methods to your friends, family, past clients and your neighborhoods you serve.  People are more likely to use someone they trust or is trusted by a close friend or relative, not some stranger on the internet that sent them an auto-email. When you continuously market to your past/present clients, friends, family, and neighborhoods through newspaper, direct mail marketing , even email if you can, you will stick out in their minds as the one they trust and the neighborhood expert.

Technology in real estate is ever growing and ever changing and there will always be something “bigger an better” that promises to generate tons of leads without lifting a finger, but they never quite live up to the hype. Don’t fall into that trap. When revisiting your marketing plan think about going back to the basics. Never underestimate the power of basic farming and advertising in your community and service area and watch the leads and referrals roll in.