Using the Web and social media to sell real estate

I have just returned from an amazing evening presentation by Chris Krimitsos the founder of  The Wealth Building Annex in Tampa and a leading expert in how to train business men to use Internet Marketing without becoming Internet Marketers full time.

The Wealth Building Annex meeting on social media strategy.

It was a private session for just a limited number of people and I have come back with the feeling that something has changed in my whole perspective of how the Web will play a key role in the future evolution of business. First I will quote a statement that was emphasized during the event: “70% of business comes from referral”, which means it comes from word of mouth by your existing or previous customers.

Social media makes it easier for the word of mouth to spread, but the real connection happens between real people who have been involved in real business. Gone is the time (or soon gone) where you just use some technology trick or technique to gather always new potential customers and then leaving them behind to find some more (high churn based on ample availability of leads with little competition).

Chris ventured into saying that possibly 90% or more of future business will be based on referral and it might as well be true. So gaining access to people through lead generation is just the first part of it, because the real opportunity begins when you build some for of relationship with them before selling them something. This is very true of any type of marketing before the Web and it remains true today.

Chris then described three major business models for online business that have all been very successful and that have, each one, some really major difference in terms of capital and time employed, of key tools and final products.

Model number one: the free funnel

Example given: Gary Vaynerchuck – Web celebrity, wine expert and entrepreneur in the wine business

Wide scale employment of RSS (Real Simple Syndication) to create a massive following without trying to sell anything directly, but leveraging the desire of people to reciprocate. Long time to build (8 to 10 years), little cost for infrastructure, massive amount of work. Key tool: Word Press blog and video content. Result: major expansion of traditional wine selling business. Top figure consulting gigs with major corporations.

Model number two: product based funnel

Example given: DC Fawcett – real estate investor and mentor

Massive employment of Pay Per Click advertising to literally own the short sale nice nation wide. Massive use of autoresponders, professional copy writers and tools to build a list at high speed. Very expensive to set up and keep going. Result: domination of the short sale training market in the US, substantial revenues from product sales, huge and responsive list.

Model number three: the people based funnel

Example given: The Weath Building Annex – mastermind and Internet Marketing training

Building of brand and customer base through weekly and monthly meetings, and special events. Substantial use of Meetup and videos as tools to increase the number of members and customers. Use of all other major social media channels to enable viral effect. Most of business is acquired through direct personal contact after initial connection through the Web and through referrals.

See the differences? Maybe this can help you improving your own business model when it comes to online presence, it has definitely me develop more ideas.

Roberto Mazzoni