by Brian Brady
Commercial Real Estate Finance Expert
Structured Debt and Equity
Licensed Real Estate Broker in AL, CA, and FL
As Jeff Brown would say, “There’s more than one way to skin a cat”.
Mitch Ribak is a Florida real estate broker who purposefully avoids the Web 2.0 world. Well, that’s not really true. Mitch Ribak is a blogger. I met him on Home Gain Blog and I read everything he writes. Why? Because he’s VERY effective at marketing.
Mitch is extremely helpful. In the 3-4 months I’ve known him, he’s answered every single question I’ve asked and gone out of his way to explain the efficacy of his pay per click marketing success. He is extremely open with advice, sharing with whomever asks for it. Mitch designed a CRM called 100mphmarketing.com which he’ll release next month. I respect this guy a lot.
Here’s the short version of this 15 minute interview:
1- If a REALTOR is not online, he’s going to lose out.
2- Buyers control this market, not sellers. Ergo, attract buyers with your marketing.
3- Websites should offer less content, not more. The most important tool is a lead capture tool.
4- Give enough content to entice the buyer to call you.
5- The lead capture form should be prominent on every page.
6- Quality lead generation comes from attracting serious buyers; the lead capture form distinguishes their intent.
7- Traffic should be high quality. Mitch uses PPC and affiliate marketing programs.
8- No email= no access to listings. Real estate brokerage is a business and businesses must deal with serious buyers.
9- Conversion is key. It is the contact with not the content provided for the customer that is of paramount importance. Autoresponders work because they automate the marketing process. “Dripped” MLS listings buys customers’ brain cells.
Mitch has “street cred”. His team of 14 agents closed 193 transactions, last year. Last month, they closed 38 transactions. Not a big deal? He sells real estate in Brevard County, Florida; the eye of the hurricane.
I’ll ask you to listen to the interview with Mitch before you comment.
James Boyer says:
Mitch seems like a very knowledgeable guy. Just listened to his interview and looked at his blog, very good.
I am interested though, will you or anyone at the Blood Hound Blog be trying out his CRM tool which he talks about in his interview???
Thanks,
Jim
June 3, 2008 — 3:38 pm
Craig Tone says:
Great interview. Looking forward to the CRM.
June 3, 2008 — 4:53 pm
James Bridges says:
Nice post , I especially like that he uses ppc as a way to generate focused serious buyers. I would say though that if you generate more content and keep page lengths consistent you can end up getting great organic results so I wouldn’t agree with not creating more and more content.
June 3, 2008 — 6:50 pm
Louis Cammarosano says:
Mitch closed these deals mainly as a result of his participation in HomeGain’s buyerlink program. He uses HomeGain’s Buyerlink in conjunction with his 100mph software.
Mitch will tell you that he gets an enormous ROI with HomeGain.
Mitch’s success is an example of what I was saying at unchained. Social media can only get you so much business. I doubt, many blogs produce 193 transactions a year, like Mitch’s HomeGain system does.
As I also mentioned at Unchained, you SHOULD engage in social media. I’ve encouraged Mitch to do so and he is blogging on his own site, on HomeGain and on Active Rain.
But HomeGain can help supplement you blogging effort. OR you can use HomeGain’s S4S product to blog directly from HomeGain.com
In spite all of the wonders of social media, the vast majority of Mitch’s business comes from HomeGain.
June 4, 2008 — 6:50 am
Louis Cammarosano says:
Brian
Actually what Mitch excels at is not marketing but converting leads and closing deals.
I think we all have been focusing TOO much on marketing and not enough on SELLING real estate.
Mitch’s marketing is HomeGain.
His real skill is in his process which he has perfected with his new 100mph software.
Mitch spends less time marketing because of HomeGain, and as a result he spends more time selling.
June 4, 2008 — 6:57 am
Brian Brady says:
Louis, you’re selling pretty hard in this thread.
I’m trying to show that agents need to have more than one arrow in their quiver. HG is good, SMM is good, hell, door knocking is good but a marketing mix requires more than one medium.
Wouldn’t you agree?
June 4, 2008 — 1:55 pm
Louis Cammarosano says:
Yes, you are I are in synch that marketing should be multi pronged. Its foolish to stop at just social marketing if there are other methodologies, like Homegian that can bring you customers in a cost effective/time effective manner.
While I was selling HomeGain, I was also making the point that we all seem to be missing, we are all focused too much on marketing and not on the substance of being a realtor.
Mitch actually doesn’t spend to much time thinking about marketing, he focuses on converting the customers he gets through his ppc campaigns. This is the main advantage to HomeGain-you pay and the marketing it done for you.
Mitch is now working to get additional customers through blogging and SEO efforts.
This is icing for him, as he has already nailed down his primary marketing quivers (HomeGain, Google and Yahoo) while perfecting his conversion skills and landing page optimization.
June 5, 2008 — 8:12 am
Sue says:
Thanks for the post Brian. I am very interested in Mitch’s CRM. Is there anyway to get a sneak peek?
Lead capture and management is sooooo important and probably falls short with many realtors. Need to set up a good system, let it work and concentrate on selling. I have several websites and understand the advantages of dripping on leads even if they just provide an email. I am challenged to find a good system to handle the leads and do everything or most everything I need so I can concentrate on selling real estate.
Regarding the concept of less is more…hmmmm I can see the advantages as you do want the call. Now to determine how much to give and where to draw the line.
June 5, 2008 — 9:19 am
Brian Brady says:
Hey Sue:
I disagree with Mitch’s content “rule”. I subscribe to the Claude Hopkins appraoch of long copy sells for you. I want a customer to read a lot and either click away or keep reading. If they make it to the bottom of my copy, they want me.
Mitch talks about landing pages on HG blog. I see a hybrid approach working for me.
Call Mitch about his CRM- I’m sure he’s love to show it to you
June 5, 2008 — 10:47 am
Sue says:
Hey Brian,
Thats pretty much the school of thought I’ve been operating with….give, give…lots of info. I would think the longer they are on your site, the more comfortable they are and likely to return and/or contact you…sign in. At some point its just easier than getting acclamated with another site. Guess I won’t be able to take the easy way out after all. Yes, I’ll have to contact Mitch about the CRM. I’m developing quite a “to do” list tonight. 😉
Those landing pages are so important. Like they say, you only get one chance to make a good first impresson. I’m trying to pay attention to when I’m looking for something and my own reaction to various sites and why I prefer some over others..leave right away or not. One thing for me is “simplicity”.
June 5, 2008 — 8:53 pm
Louis Cammarosano says:
Susan
the key is to have three things
-qualified visitors to your web site-not just visitors
Mitch will tell you that the visitors he gets from Homegain convert 50-80% better than the visitors he gets from Yahoo or Google.
-a good landing page. Homegain gives away a free customizable landing page with its buyerlink product. These pages are averaging 14-15% lead capture. Mitch’s customized landing pages get about 18-20%
-back end conversion system. Mitch has spend some time developing this software. This automates what he had been doing manually. So follow up in some form is the third part of a successful lead capture and conversion system.
June 5, 2008 — 8:58 pm
Louis Cammarosano says:
Here is a good blog post by Pat Kitano on the need for CRM’s especially ones that tap into social networking sites..
http://transparentre.com/2008/06/05/crm-20–why-cant-social-networks-port-into-crm-systems.aspx
June 6, 2008 — 9:14 am
Louis Cammarosano says:
Here is a good blog post by pat kitano on the need for crms especially those that tap into social media sites.
http://transparentre.com/2008/06/05/crm-20–why-cant-social-networks-port-into-crm-systems.aspx
June 6, 2008 — 9:17 am
Sue says:
🙂 Thanks Louis, you are into the heavy selling mode.
June 6, 2008 — 3:03 pm