Online real estate marketing interview with Joe Manausa

In this weeks agent interview we talk with Joe Manausa who has a  nationally recognized name for internet marketing in real estate.

online real estate marketing

Joe Manausa utilizes his MBA and 22+ years of Tallahassee Real Estate experience in order to help clients with large investment opportunities as well as providing guidance and support for the employees and associates of Joe Manausa Real Estate.

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Joe can be found all over the internet, using progressive online real estate marketing strategies to sell homes. His twitter account (@housingreporter) is one of the most-followed real estate broker accounts, and his writing can be found on hundreds of different blogs and real estate forums all over the internet. Joe Manausa on Google+ is very popular with consumers wanting answers to real estate frequently asked questions.

Joe has clients world-wide who own real estate in Tallahassee. His Tallahassee Real Estate Blog and Newsletter have thousands of followers and is considered the top resource for the Tallahassee housing market by real estate professionals, investors, builders and bankers. His family consists of his wife Michelle and their three children. Samantha, Max & Joey. Read more: https://manausa.com/tallahassee-realtor/joe-manausa/#ixzz35HmAl2BM

What’s your most successful prospecting method to date?

I have had great success with content marketing online.

I take current, real estate life questions from our customers and turn them into articles that demonstrate an important point that early market consumers want to know.

We then build and cultivate the relationship online until the consumer is ready to be an offline customer.

How did you learn the skills it takes to market yourself online?

I started figuring this out in 2007. I have had Manausa.com since 1995, but it was a typical real estate website until my content marketing plan emerged.

I learned by doing.

Even my “bad” articles generated some traffic, so imagine what 7 years of daily articles does for delivering consumers with questions.

When did you start seeing success online and how did you get there?

I started “blogging” in 2007, and I was skeptical that it would produce results. But as early as 2008, we were getting a strong percentage of our business from our website (not the big-name websites, but our very-own website).

Currently, more than 1⁄2 of our business comes from Manausa.com.

You’ve been successful with outsourcing your work as well, how can other agents start thinking about doing that for themselves?

This is not a simple question, so first a “pre-amble”:

Agents need to decide, are they an agent who sells houses, or are they a business owner that manages and leads people who sell houses.

If they are an agent, go to work for a broker who does the majority of marketing and other support services and delivers lots of leads so they can do what they love … meet with customers and sell homes.

If they want to be a business, they should put together a full business plan and be ready to be a leader and a manager, not just an agent. Both roles are honorable and can pay extremely well (or poorly), but agents who hire an assistant or two never make the kind of money a fully supported agent can make.

The secret is that leadership and management take time, so you have to leverage that time across more people if you want it to be profitable … (end of pre-amble).

Answer: As soon as agents start thinking about outsourcing, they need to ensure they are not doing the work their broker should be doing. If they are, they should either get a new broker or get their brokerage license and become a broker. Then they should outsource any activity that can be purchased at a rate below their optimal earnings level.

You also have multiple eBooks on your website, how successful have they been?

That is a tough question. I do not have well established metrics to say that a certain e-Book has produced $X or #Y leads, but I can say that my eBooks produce roughly 60 closings per year and growing.

Do you have any experience with paid ads?

I have dabbled with paid advertisements, but my organic traffic has been sufficient to satisfy my current agents ability to do business. That is why my blogging/content marketing is so important, because the lead quality is far better than what I have experienced from paid ads and purchased leads (Zillow, Trulia, etc.).

Lastly, one piece of advice you have for any agents about to start marketing themselves online.

Just remember, your budget determines your reach. If you overstep your budget, your reach will be too thin to be profitable. Focus on marketing to your sphere of influence, and then focus on growing it one person at a time. You should build your network with the expectation of receiving one good lead per year from each person in your network.

It’s not about mass, it’s about quality.

If you start today and add one good person per day to your network, you will get more than 300 referrals per year starting in 12 months. Can you close enough business from 300 personal referrals to meet your goals?

 

 

 

 

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