…Altos Research team are the first sponsors we get to announce for the 4Realz Seminars.
The main requirement that we have for our sponsors is that they’re able to demonstrate that they provide a product that offers a real value to their clients. Based on the positive feedback I’ve heard over the past few years from Altos Research clients, I’m positive they fit the bill!
Why are sponsors important?
They help drive down the cost for agents to attend tremendously! To be quite honest, there is no way we could make it work to provide a full-day course (with food!) for only $149 if it wasn’t for the number of sponsors that have shown a great interest in helping us pull the events off!
What do sponsors get out of the deal?
Each sponsors will get one table/booth at the event. If the results are anything like the educational events I gave last year with the Top Producer team, then the sponsors will find our presentations a great way to reach a local audience of tech-interested agents who are interested in improving their internet marketing.
Even without the extra incentives we’re giving to attendees to spend money on our sponsors, we’d expect our sponsors to get involved because they are looking to get a good ROI from the event. Period.
The WALL
With all that said, Jim and I are committed to creating a solid wall between the content we present at the seminars and the people who sponsor our event. Don’t expect us to give a sales pitch for any of our sponsors, but don’t expect us to be silent about them either. Since we’ve only been inviting companies to sponsor who we think provide a good value to the agent community, it turns out that we’ve included many of our sponsors in our presentation before we even reached out to them!
(Also of interest is that Mike mentions I talked about Altos Research during my Top Producer seminars, even though Altos wasn’t sponsoring the event. If you provide a quality product to the agent community, don’t be surprised if we mention your name regardless if you sponsor! 
)
Jeff Bernheisel 10:33 pm on August 21, 2008 Permalink |
I suppose it’s also relative to a site that gets 12 billion hits in a month, which I’m still blown away by… But, this definitely puts it into perspective for everyone.
-Jeff
Leavenworth real estate - Geordie Romer 7:02 am on August 22, 2008 Permalink |
ListingNumber does seem to be an interesting tool and I appreciate the idea of putting all ad sources in one place to make tracking easier.
Unfortunately, the assumption that “hits” are everything, might lead an agent astray when it comes to showing ROI.
Obviously, the more important metrics are closed sales or their precursor – showings.
Craigslist has always been good to me when I need to generate hits. I put an ad on Craigslist with a link to a virtual tour and people click on it.
Unfortunately, I haven’t seen reliable results in respect to increased showings or sales. Also, craigslist seems to attract the DYI bargain-hunters, which is great for a few of out lower priced homes, but not the majority of the upper end vacation or luxury homes that I sell.
A sign might not drive traffic to your website, but it certainly will help sell a house and it will build your brand in the “hyper-location” (neighborhood) where you need it.
Christina Ethridge 7:39 am on August 22, 2008 Permalink |
Thank you – this looks like it may be an excellent way to track information for my sellers. I’m definitely going to give it a try. Thanks again for sharing this.
listingnumber.com - Michael Rahmn 10:21 am on August 22, 2008 Permalink |
“Unfortunately, the assumption that “hits” are everything, might lead an agent astray when it comes to showing ROI.”
Agreed. I don’t think we have enough evidence yet to make the case that craiglist offers a better ROI in the sense of tracking from initial visit all the way through to closing.
“A sign might not drive traffic to your website, but it certainly will help sell a house and it will build your brand in the “hyper-location” (neighborhood) where you need it.”
Good point. Most marketing studies show that people driving around the neighborhood is still in the top 3 ways they found the house they eventually purchased. I certainly wouldn’t advocate dumping the sign because the traffic to the site isn’t as significant as other mediums.
In this case I think the numbers are interesting because they help us get a better grasp of the consumers behavior. For example are folks who see a sign more likely to visit a website for followup information, or is that unnecessary because they’ve already seen the exterior of the home, have a flyer with the facts (presumably your sign box is full
, and thus the only actions likely are: (1) do nothing (not interested) or (2) call their/the agent for a showing.
I’m fascinated with putting numbers on the process from start to finish so agents can make better decisions about where to spend their time and money and would be the last to advocate making major shifts based on one set of numbers. That said, get started collecting *some* numbers. Most don’t do any tracking at all (which is why the industry still spends 90% of it’s advertising budget in the newspaper).
Joseph Bridges 4:59 pm on August 22, 2008 Permalink |
Tracking numbers is extremely important and tracking results will lead agents to focusing on what is working (hopefully). The issue in one of the MLS systems here in Los Angeles has been agents are putting properties that aren’t theirs in craigs list which is of course a direct violation of rules. I think it is a great think to track numbers and look forward to seeing long term results.
Ed Kohler 7:51 pm on August 22, 2008 Permalink |
I know this sounds obvious, but you wouldn’t know it talking to a lot of real estate brokers: It’s easier to get someone to click from one website to another than to set down a newspaper, go to a computer, and visit a website.
Dustin 8:12 pm on August 22, 2008 Permalink |
Joseph and Ed: You both touched on one of my favorite parts of online marketing… the fact that we *can* measure results so much more effectively than with off-line marketing.
listingnumber.com - Michael Rahmn 8:28 pm on August 22, 2008 Permalink |
Of course I would argue you can now measure offline as well.
Consumers are going to do one of two things if they see an ad offline that interests them: call or look it up on line.
A basic assumption of listingnumber is that if you give them a direct url to all the data/photos, they will take the path of least resistance and go there – giving you the ability to measure it.
When I was webmaster for a large real estate company, we got an unbelievable number of emails from the public trying (in vein) to find a specific listing on the site from the (little) information in print ads. Lightbulb!