Real Estate Marketing Myths That New Agents Believe (and spend money on)

Over the next five Marketing Mondays, we will discuss the most common and expensive mistakes that new Realtors® make. These mistakes are usually based on real estate marketing myths and misconceptions, and one of the most common real estate marketing myths involves building your first professional real estate agent website.

Real Estate Marketing Myth #1: If you build a website, they will come

There are two parts to this myth that cost new agents money and sales. The first part is believing that a website is the beginning and end of an online marketing strategy. The second part is assuming that bigger equals better. It’s not only new real estate agents who get caught up in this myth. Many first-time business owners believe that if they build the biggest, best and most exciting website, leads will come pouring in. Unfortunately, this couldn’t be further from the truth.

A real estate website serves one primary goal: to help agents convert leads into sales. There are four avenues through which this can be achieved:

1. Prospect enters their data into targeted lead capture form
2. Prospect emails you
3. Prospect calls/texts your listed phone number
4. Prospect visits your office address

While it’s smart to have elements other than your contact info on your website, such as a blog that will help establish your credibility and SEO-optimized listings (MLS integration), it is imperative not to go so overboard that this information is lost in a mix of flashy imagery, videos and information that distracts from the purpose of helping you convert leads into sales.

Even after agreeing with the concept that Realtor® websites exist primarily to help convert leads to sales, many rookie Realtors® still become obsessed with having a website that knocks people’s socks off and blows all other real estate agent websites out of the water. The issue with this line of reasoning is, just like a beautiful home cannot sell itself, a brand new, expensive website in-and-of-itself won’t draw hundreds of leads to your door.

For a home to sell, buyers must 1. know it exists, 2. know how and where to find it and 3. be compelled to go see it. The same goes for a website.

This is why it’s incredibly important that you don’t blow your entire budget on a website when you’re first starting out, instead of focusing on what matters – an effective, lead-generating website that is one component in an overall solid real estate marketing strategy and lead management system. Visit Rookie Realtor Referral Marketing System for more information about this.

Please join us next week for our real estate marketing myth discussion on buying real estate leads!