Trends are funny.
In some cases they jump up out of nowhere and demand to be noticed. In other cases, in fact in most cases, they bubble up over a long period, kick around in other industries and finally get realized by a larger group as relevant to their current way of life.
But trends are also terribly misleading because they are often overstated and simplified and tend to focus on a tool rather than the underlying behavior. Think about when Twitter got hot. Everyone talked about the tool, but few realized that it was simply the embodiment of a way to communicate that people were looking for. Understanding that shift allowed some to take advantage of the behavior rather than the tool and this put them miles ahead of the trend.
Here are five shifts that I see making an impact right now on both the way we go to market and the way the market comes to us.
1. LITTLE COMMITMENTS
Generic information overload is causing a real bottleneck for marketers. We’ve been told over and over again to produce content, but now the competition for content is choking, rather than informing, our prospects.
Our prospects don’t have (or won’t) take the time to learn all about our great solutions even if it’s in their best interest to do so. Our job now is to offer them little pieces of information that move them ever so slightly in the direction of personalizing their experience with us.
HOW IT APPLIES TO REAL ESTATE: Think pop-up surveys that ask very specific questions, community-specific market analyses and search filters that break down the property listings by lifestyle as well as bedrooms, bathrooms, and neighborhood. In addition, study user behaviors to offer a personalized experience.
TOOLS YOU CAN USE:
° Pop up survey from KISS INSIGHTS.
° Guided content path created by using WordPress plugin SURVEY FUNNEL.
° Guided tour using a tool like WALKME.
° Dynamically relevant content through a tool like GETSMARTCONTENT.
2. VIDEO SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION (SEO)
One of the most dramatic changes in Google’s indexing of local business pertains to video. Right now a local business has a better chance of ranking for highly relevant search terms using YouTube hosted, highly optimized videos than any other approach.
Smart marketers are serializing their most important keyword phrases and frequently asked questions using video and optimizing these videos through specific file names, descriptions, keywords and transcripts.
HOW IT APPLIES TO REAL ESTATE: Use videos with your market’s most frequently searched keywords, tag the videos with those keywords and make sure you geo-tag them to your location as well. Upload theses videos to YouTube, Facebook, your website and any other relevant sites.
TOOLS YOU CAN USE:
° Using a tool like TRAFFICGEYSER makes it easier to spread these videos to other video sharing sites in order to garner further traffic and links.
3. VISUAL SCANNING
One needs looks no further than the current hype of Pinterest or the $1 Billion dollar sale of photo sharing site Insta-gram to witness the visual scanning behavior impact. These sites soared in popularity in large part due to information overload and the stimulation caused by visual interest.
It is far easier to look at a thousand pictures than to consume a thousand words. To me this doesn’t simply mean jump on the Pinterest bandwagon.
www.garealtor.com GEORGIA REALTOR I 9
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28