In 1998, Coldwell Banker Real Estate Corporation won an Inman Innovator Award for its "Personal Retriever" app. Personal Retriever delivered listings to consumers via email based on their search criteria.
There were companies doing this before Coldwell Banker — iHomefinder and SOAR Solutions come to mind — and hundreds have implemented it since. It’s usually called "email updates", "homes via email", or "listing alerts".
It was a killer app then; it is a killer app today. It was Web 2.0 before we even knew what that was.
Think about it. A listing alert app:
- Distributes the content consumers desire most, based on user-defined criteria
- Delivers this content to the user on their terms
- Gives the user total control — they opt-out or change preferences at any time
- Has value to buyers, but also sellers, nosy neighbors and investors
- Creates engagement, surfaces preferences, and "incubates leads" for practitioners
It’s a win-win for consumers and practitioners — one of the real highlights of the online real estate story.
But … the vast majority of brokers — in fact, darn near all — have failed to implement this application well. This killer app sits under their nose while they bemoan the lack of buyers, struggle to understand the Web 2.0 phenomenon, and persist in blanketing neighborhoods with postcards and newsletters. More accurately, it usually sits within their company Website, an elegant feature made grotesque with graphics, confusing language and pages optimized for the IT Guy.
The online players, on the other hand, have mastered the email alert form, even though they have less to gain from it. Take a look at how Trulia handles it. It’s a thing of beauty: Easy to find, simple to sign up, and explained in plain language.
Why have brokers missed the mark?
- Crappy vendors
- Inertia
- Distraction
- Lack of internal marketing and tech resources
- Complacency brought on by the dot-com crash and high-as-a-kite market
The good news, of course: This can be fixed. There are some great new vendors, including companies like Terabitz, Roost, and Diverse Solutions that have brought a new sensibility to the IDX world. Costs are falling. Good designers are legion.
It’s a matter of focus, of sweeping away the clutter that’s accumulated on your Website over the past few years. It goes something like this:
- Scrap your old Website
- Create a new one
- Put IDX search on the home page. Make it dead simple (don’t call it "Quick Search" if it’s not quick)
- Put a strong call to action for "Listing Alerts" at the top of every search results page
- Make sign-up a matter of an email address and password
- Apply best practices for deliverability and design to the email template (alt text, etc.) and put your contact information in a prominent call-out
- Consider including relevant neighborhood information in the alert
- Make opting out and changing criteria easy
The rest is marketing. Every ad in every medium should include a call to action to "Get property alerts direct from the MLS" (unless you live under the dominion of an MLS that won’t let you use "MLS"). Every agent in every open house should replace the business cards from the broker tour scattered on the kitchen table with a property alert sign-up form.
This is a back to basics endeavor. But it’s absolutely necessary. Any company looking to embrace Web 2.0 should make certain they also nail the real estate killer app time forgot.
– Brian Boero
(disclosure: Terabitz is a 1000watt Consulting client)
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Brian,
As a huge Tim Sanders fan, I read this post with a permanent smile on my face, and agreed with you on the "back to basics" importance of this. It amazes me that in the quest to increase the "quality of leads" to pass on to agents, companies have neglected to realize that their "lead -ugg" has many different options that require less. Does making them fill out less information make them any less qualified a buyer or seller?
Luckily, here in Chicago, our MLS (yes we can call it MLS), has a really nice feature that emails potential properties to clients. Unfortunately, with rising inventory, and agents making less money, they are quick to sign their clients up for this without properly finding out what will truly make their house a home. They are soon bombarded with 1000's of listings that match the general criteria of their search, but might miss major points. The results? They become overwhelmed and retreat from the web to see a limited supply of open houses, rather than explore the information they have received.
I believe that there is a huge element missing in this whole process… and that is the human element. It's the voice or personality that explains their search, the criteria, and actually filters out some of the SPAM listings. some of the top agents I work with actually send the results to themselves first, so that they can scrub the listings before passing them on to their clients.
The catch-22 in this is that where the client wants to see "all the listings – 'I am not a lead'" they also become paralyzed in the decision making aspect when they are overwhelmed with choice, "Differentiate or Die – Jack Trout" Once again, where I believe that the level of information is what we all seek, the guidance of a solid individual is what they need to exploit it.
Matt
I remember CB's personal retriever. They used a picture of a golden retriever on their website for marketing.
Funny how I remembered that it was a dog….Hmmm.
Hi Brian,
thanks for this great post. We at Terabitz couldnt agree with you more. While it is obvious that buyers can benefit from listing alerts I think that it is important to note that the alerts are equally valuable for sellers. nothing convinces a seller more than finding out what is going under contract or what has sold. Data is louder than any claims. Listing alerts should be the life blood of the realtor marketing strategy. Drip marketing with newsletters is fine but there is no substitute for real data of what is happening at this moment. Of course, the only people who can provide this data are realtors! many MLS's have restrictions on supplying in-contract or sold data unless it is initiated by a realtor — great way to differentiate from public sites!
I agree with the post from Matt about making sure that the consumer is not deluged lest it become more spam. Carefully qualifying the buyer or seller and then doing a good job of being specific about search criteria is a way to provide value. unconsidered, unqualified alerts will only get people upset. this is why it is important to use all the parameters at your disposal when initiating alerts. the better job of understanding that you do, the more your consumer will value the relationship.
(Shameless plug is next: Terabitz has an enterprise offering that integrates alerts as a natural and important part of our system. Our agent offerings do the same.)
Thanks for the post and as always, keep them coming!
best,
ash
Interesting to visit your website. The whole goal of your business is to offer the customer useful products, which will result in them wanting to buy more in number which you are offering. So considering Internet Marketing Solutions, there are different companies offering software products containing one or all of these solutions.
Brian
As the humble inventor of the "original" Listing Alert ("ListingAlert!") at Baynet World, 1995, I just had to write and claim my inventor's credit
Aside of that, I would like to point out that email alerts have disadvantages: if sent with high frequency, they clog up the user's mailbox and due to the sheer alert volume become cumbersome to manage; there is time lag between alerts; finally, emails, as we all know, have a tendency to sometimes get lost on the way to their destinations. A much better (21st century) way to deliver updated listing information to the homebuyer are RSS feeds (which also can be converted, if the user so desires, to email alerts using a free gateway service). The Realbird service (http://www.realbird.com) has built-in RSS feeds which can be bookmarked, shared using online social websites, emailed, or fed into a widget to create slideshows, email signature banners, etc.
Gabe:
You are correct: Shame on me for neglecting to mention your pioneering work at Baynet!
Regarding frequency: The best implementations allow the user to control this … to receive a daily or weekly summary, or real-time updates.
And I do agree with you about the pitfalls of email and think, as many do, that it will eventually be replaced. But that is years off. And RSS, for all its elegance, is still just scratching the surface of consumer adoption.
Brian
I have held off setting too many people up for auto-emails, especially right now, only because I do not want people deluged with unwanted emails. Being a big blogger, I tend to want to develop relationships over time without starting regular emails unless they are specifically requested. SoftRealty stepped into the picture, and I'm sidetracked again (they aren't in my area yet). Great post. Thank you.
I am now using a couple of products. The most success for generating leads is the "Market Snapshot" which Top Producer is marketing as of late. It has a cool looking "widget" and I've mounted it on my radio show blog and promote it on the air. It provides 2 to 5 leads per show with the vast majority being home sellers seeking a market evalauation. Buyers can use the product also. It's good for mailing into a farm area and making available to your old client data base by "inviting" them via email to visit the link.
CleanOffer.com is a localalized product I use for my buyers and it is IDX with a direct proprietary interface with our Local MLS which does not have any "opt-out". Client love it, they can email me favorities and I can see, through weekly updates, exactly WHERE my client's searches lead them!!