Something Brian wrote yesterday really resonated with me:
This also begs the question: why doesn’t a major real estate brand have a Chief Economist?
No brainer really. They should. But it also got me thinking… who else is missing?
Web/Rails developer
Brokerage IT operations seem woefully out-of-date these days. Typically, they’ve been structured to handle basic network administration and PC support duties. In today’s world, where “the Cloud” reigns and the devices agents use get simpler and more user friendly (think smartphones and tablets) who needs this all this infrastructure and headache anymore?
Instead, hire a kick-ass developer — someone familiar with the new frameworks powering the web (Rails, HTML5, etc). I’d listen to my agents’ needs and have this person start churning out great tools for them. Heck, I’d even start listening to consumers and start banging out great apps for them too.
mRealty is doing this. I find it staggering so few others are.
Oh, and yes, this person should be part of the marketing department. All of this needs to be driven by the brand.
Online video producer
Video. Another hot buzzword right now. So far, it seems, the discussion has revolved around agents arming themselves with a Flip camera and taking to the streets. But I’m gonna come right out and say it…
Most of this is garbage.
Your agents shouldn’t be shooting video. You need one guy or gal with a film school degree, a HD camera, a (legit) copy of Final Cut, a Macbook Pro, some chops and an imagination. Set them free and have them start shooting every angle of the community you live and work in. Demand a video a week from them.
Flood your Vimeo channel.
Take a look at what Houlihan Lawrence has done with their community video series. Rinse. Repeat.
Social media producer
Ooh boy. Tough one here. The mere mention of these words is enough to send any sane broker into synaptic paroxysms. So much snake oil has been tossed so flagrantly across this space that it’s doused sensible strategy.
But it can be done. Even a century old brand like Ford, parked in the middle of the rust belt, can summon some social media mojo. First, you need someone who can write. Then they need to come up with a content strategy and find a voice that fits with your brand.
Start by mining the depths of real estate for content. Look what Zillow does with their blog. Or Realtor.com does with theirs. This isn’t rocket science, folks.
If you can tough it out, you can begin to build an audience and start to imbue some deeper meaning to your brand.
Art director/graphic designer
Hire someone who truly gets great design. Require they have a gorgeous portfolio before they even step through the door. Reign in the Wild West of agent-produced marketing materials and start enforcing fanatical brand standards. Make sure everything gets run through this individual.
When I worked in the design department at Nike, there was one individual whose sole responsibility was ensuring that the Swoosh size and placement was correct. On everything. Hanger tags, Powerpoint presentations, t-shirt and apparel designs. Everything had to have his sign-off.
It sounds crazy. But there is a very real reason that the Nike mark has so much brand value.
Email marketing specialist
Take all the content your new Chief Economist and marketing team are developing and tell the world. Don’t be shy.
Hire someone who knows what list segmentation, A/B split testing and open rates really mean. Set up a coordinated schedule of email blasts to different types of readers. Run a mix of content and seasonal promotional emails. Obsess over the results. Never stop fiddling and testing.
Redfin does this probably better than anyone else in the space with their Sweet Digs newsletter. Sign up yourself and see what I’m talking about.
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Five people. And hey, if you’re really lucky, you might fight someone who straddles a couple of these roles.
Five people. People who could make an immediate difference in your organization and set you on a path where real brand value begins to get communicated to the real estate consumers in your market.
Five people.
Local, Mobile, Social and the future of real estate
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Like m in portland, m squared real estate in DC – http://msqrealty.com/ – is doing this too. They are building a truly kick ass intranet for their whole business to run on because they couldn’t find anything else out there worth buying.
I’m with you Joel…why more brokers aren’t doing these types of things, I have no clue.
But for a few smart ones, it’ll never happen, and consumers will pay the price with longer sales cycles and deflated values
Hey Joel – Great Stuff here.
Two points
1) Don’t forget to get your concept of the social media producer to also help the individual Realtors build out their own social identities. Most Realtors need help setting up all of their social profiles – Linked In, Facebook business page, Twitter, active rain or foursquare. Then help them build the social business card as well.
2) With this type of marketing department at the Realtors home office then the cost for the individual realtor will have to go up to cover the FTE cost. Most Realtors are leaving the larger shops because of the large desk fees – Right? How do you tackle that issue?
Drew is right – most are not doing it.
You guys still have desks?
Joe-
You should ask Dominic at m squared for his approach on marketing. m squared covers ALL of it for their agents. Agents are expected to…go talk to real estate & sell homes; not become marketing experts.
“go talk to clients and potential clients & sell homes; not become marketing experts” — is what I meant.
I spend a lot of time each and every day helping out Realtors with their social media set ups and helping them launch the social business cards or whatever they need. So I know it takes time and it can be costly if you have a ton of agents.
But that is the strategy. Do it for them, eliminate excuses and keep them selling…..Love it!
Joel,
Dead on. I would only add a link builder. We are seeing some incredible page rank increases these days. Maybe you can cram that into the Social Media Producers job.
Love you guys content.
Chad
Yep – you’re totally right Chad.
I considered adding an SEO expert in to this mix. Probably should have in retrospect.
It would be very easy for brokerages to manage this additional staffing expense. Close some brick and mortar offices. The overhead cost of an office is astronomical. As far as teaching agents how to use social media…the Brokerages need to get their acts together regarding their brands before bringing it to the agent level.
Amen!
7 Samarai were in the movie. 7 belong in a real estate marketing department. Add to Brian’s 5 — Web/Rails Developer, Online Videographer, Social Media Producer, eMail Marketer, Art Director/Graphic Designer — two more Samurai. The two missing adjunct players are a Marketing-Finance Samurai executive who ensures Brand spending is subordinate to but in balance with marketing spend with measurable ROI, direct linkage to transactions, to optimizing top line growth per dollar of marketing. None of those six Samurai is particularly close to revenue generation. The Seventh brokerage marketing samurai team player is an Agent Manager/Trainer samurai whose job is to measure lead conversion, and increase agent monetization of marketing spend. Seven samurai of brokerage marketing.
I like the two additions Jim!
Survey: what’s the minimum number of agents 5-7 full time marketing employees need to support to make a competitive wage (fully burdened with benefits of course)? Which specialists would become full time employees first and which would become full time last?
Joel – you are 100% correct, but there is a sad economic reality.
If these 5 people did work for a brokerage, they would cost the brokerage around $500k per year if they any skills. One would expect that those 5 people would represent less than 10% to 20% of the marketing budget.
How many brokers do enough business to justify a $2.5M budget?
They would be better off hiring 1000Watt.
Hey Victor
Dude, you gotta move out of California – come to Portland and you could hire those folks for 1/3 that amount.
Seriously though… To Tina’s point earlier, so much money is wasted today in brokerages. Close a physical office. Stop the annual golf tournament. Retire a monthly newspaper ad.
Do these things and I bet you could start to scrape together the dough. Just requires a change of priorities.
I just hired a social media manager for $52K to start.
If you hired a team of 5 – (which seems big) – That’s 260K per year just in FTE.
How many Agents can one social guy implement effectively? One person to 15 agents working at it full time?
Traction: can the 5 brokerage marketing samurai’s marketing yield a steady stream of deals that is, say, 150-200 transactions a year to cover their costs, so they can build brand with their discretionary time? Or maybe 300-400 transactions a year if the group includes overhead, a mix of talent — some more experienced and effective marketing heads (expensive), and/or either a finance head or a revenue conversion head? Can a marketing function reliably generate 300-400 deals at the end of the year? Any examples?
OK, what order do you hire the marketing team, bring them in house as FTEs instead of contractors, to grow revenue fastest? Who are the first two hires?, second two? third two? Let’s say each pair is a $100k-$150k overhead bet. What would be better than this random order here?
Hiring Round 1. Web/Rails Developer, Online Videographer,
Hiring Round 2. Social Media Producer, eMail Marketer,
Hiring Round 3. Art Director/Graphic Designer, Marketing/Finance,
Hiring Round 4. Conversion/Sales Specialist, SEO
Jim
Jim’s Hiring Nominations are as follows.
Hiring Round 1 Full Time: Marketing Finance Samurai + Conversion/Sales Specialist Samurai
People to track strategy, financial investment and conversion of each back into revenue are the foundation. Everything and everyone else is for efficiency and scale, but aren’t the main act. The conversion samurai needs to speak CRM and Mobility.
Hiring Round 2 Contract/Part Time: Direct Response Mail Samurai + Art Director Samurai
I believe the real estate industry misses the boat on direct mail in several respects other industries have jumped on: service market segmentation disciplines, response optimization discipline, print to web conversion, and there are others.
Hiring Round 3 Contract/Part Time Only: Social Media Producer Samurai + Web/Rails Developer Samurai
The Round 2 and Round 3 hires are all about implementing programs that generate response with team synergies. Service market segmentation discipline extends incorporates Social Media. The direct response mail and social media samurai will need help from the developer samurai and art samurai to implement response focused programs of higher productivity.
Hiring Round 4 Contract/Part Time: SEO Samurai + Online Videographer Samurai
That’s how I’d spend $400k on Marketing Samurai to find another 300-400 transactions a year. But it seems like the movies always feature some War Lord that controls like a bridge over rushing Market waters or a gateway through a mountain Market pass or something, oh yeah, or maybe a herd of Marketing horses. If I could pick one of those up for say only $150k that might be cool, and change my Marketing samurai hiring order. Every battlefield is different.
I think you nailed it Jim. Though I might throw the email marketer I proposed into the Direct Response job description and hit both worlds.
The reality sets in. You generate all kinds of marketing success and agents do not respond to more than 50% of the opportunities you generate.
Or my latest one – the broker is in 5 MLSs and needs to get access to data to power the new mobile virtual tour application. One market holds up the entire launch for 2 months. The first month, the application was not submitted early enough to get on the approval committee’s agenda. The second month it gets on the agenda and gets approved, Then the MLS needs two weeks extra weeks provision the data feed – the guy that does that went on vacation followed by a week at the State Association of REALTORS conference.
Great Point. Little will be approved to spend by Marketing/Finance samurai without compelling integrity, numeracy and a lead conversion plan by the Conversion Samurai, to staff marketing or buy brand, either one.