We’ve worked with realtors in the past, and we very often feel that online marketing in general and Search engine optimization (SEO) in particular presents the biggest bang for their marketing dollar or realtors. As an example, in one small resort market, a new agent grossed $58,000 from a web site in the first year. We could trot out an example of a new agent making $1M off the leads generated from a new website. But, we both know that the latter result isn’t typical. A new website should be able to generate $58,000 in revenue (with little marketing).
We find that your realtors are hoping to spend 10% of their commission income for marketing. In the above example, the agent spent $4k on the website, and the ROI on their advertising budget was well within their goals. It’s possible to do much better.
Keep in mind that the realtor above wasn’t actively promoting their website. With a small amount of online promotion, it’s quite reasonable to expect 1,500 visitors/month after the first year and 3,000+ visitors/month after the 2nd year. Results vary widely, but you can expect this type of results if you do the standard bread-and-butter online marketing techniques with a budget of about $1.5k/month ($20k/year).
So, the question is this, is that $20k well spent?
My own research at http://www.bergstrom-seo.com indicates that you can expect 0.25% of the people that come to your law firms website via a relevant Google search will become clients. This might not seem too impressive, but remember that the average commission for a sale should be around $5,000. Thus, the average client that visits your website generates $5,000 x 0.5% = $25.
If you want to have a ROI on your marketing investment of $10 in revenue for every dollar spent, you can still spend $2.50 on every visitor.
So, if you spend $1.5k/month on Google SEO, then you need to get 600 visitors/month to get an acceptable ROI on your investment. So, based on the results we’re seeing, you can expect to begin getting an acceptable ROI well before the end of the first year (month 6-8 being typical).
So, it makes sense for realtors. If you’re a realtor and you’re not marketing yourself online – you should be. This fact is especially true because that’s how people are going to start shopping for realtors & houses. This is a tremendous opportunity for realtors to significantly increase their client base. But, this opportunity isn’t going to last. Realtors are a savvy bunch. They’re embracing the Internet as a tool to find clients (and sell real estate) at a rapid rate.
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