Internet Marketing Seminar in Orange County & Adwords Training in Seattle

Last Thursday was a busy day in the world of online training for real estate professionals.

I was down at the 4RealzEd internet marketing seminar in Orange County put on by Dustin Luther and Jim Marks (Zillow was one of the sponsors). Jim mentioned a couple interesting stats worth repeating; 80% of buyers start their search online, 75% of them plan to act within 120 days, and 75% of them do not have a Realtor when they start their online search! That’s a massive opportunity for real estate professionals to help potential clients find what they are looking for when they are looking for it either through social media or their website, and in turn, potentially become their agent when that buyer takes the next step. I had fun, and the feedback from the attendees I talked to was excellent — they found the event informative and said that it helped them understand how they can take advantage of many of the tools available to them!

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Meanwhile, back in Zillow’s Seattle offices, Steve Jagger and Rodney Bartlett from Reachd taught a group of 20 how to effectively use Google Adwords. To quote David Gibbons, who attended the last hour of the session:

There was great interest in Zillow Mortgage Marketplace so we discussed that first and then I walked through the steps to create an EZ Ad on Zillow that’s targeted to their Zip codes. After spending the morning learning to optimize Google’s adwords system it took only a minute to explain how EZ Ads works; EZ Ads are that simple. We finished the session with a look at live EZ Ads that were getting great click-through rates and some that are not. Some of the conclusions from that exercise are:

• Home buyers are shopping for bargains. Ads that claim to offer a special deal (price reduced) are getting most clicks.
• Ads with photo’s of homes get far more clicks than all other ads.
• Including your logo or your head-shot in an ad is a great branding strategy but it won’t drive nearly as many clicks to your website as a powerful call to action or a special offer will .