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28
Don't Know What You Got Till It's Gone
No, this isn't going to be about Cinderella's hit from the '80s. Interesting video though if you have time to check it out.
This article is about brokerages not looking at the entire picture when making significant decisions about their business and, more importantly, their customers--the sales associates. Today, everyone understands that it is more important than ever to recruit and retain agents, and one small hiccup can cause significant ripples throughout an organization.
I'm specifically focusing on the potential pitfalls with online marketing strategies when switching to a new marketing technology provider. The biggest mistake that I see is that many brokerages don't understand what is driving their online business.
The definition of brokerage's 'online business' is the online marketing efforts that generate better visibility for the brokerage, agents, and that drive measurable online traffic and leads.
Before making a transition, there are few things to consider. First, get a firm handle on the different online initiatives completed and what is currently in the fold. Next, review the data for each initiative to determine overall value and assign priority. Finally, take the time to review this with the new partner to make sure there is enough time for proper planning and execution.
SEO and content are very big for us, so when bringing on new customers, it is a priority to understand what we are dealing with during the on-boarding process. From an SEO standpoint, we evaluate how well they were doing before the move, what content ranks well, what the site architecture looks like, can we adopt the same URL structure, or if not, what does the redirect strategy look like. This is all part of what we call our ranking and traffic retention strategy. Proper preparation allows for a relatively smooth migration.
A smooth migration means that upon launch, the new site doesn't take significant steps backward with traffic, or worse falls off a cliff. Our new client's traffic tends to hold steady as search engines go through the process of re-indexing the site. This is mainly due to all of the upfront efforts put forth before launch for the sole purpose of protecting rankings and traffic levels. Unfortunately, based on my experience, I don't see much of this throughout the industry to the detriment of brokerages and agents looking to grow their online market share.
Occasionally, we will have a customer leave (which we don't like to see, but it is reality) where perhaps online marketing isn't that important at the time. This is where 'don't know what you got till it's gone' rears its head a few months later when much the traffic and leads dry up, and their agents are wondering what happened.
To illustrate this, we had a fully engaged SEO client where organic traffic (generated through our efforts) equated to 50% of their total traffic and 61% of their leads. Once they moved from us, their organic presence evaporated, where all of the phrases that generated significant traffic drop out of the top 50 results. When this occurred, the 50% of search engine traffic went away as well as the subsequent leads generated from it.
So to give you real numbers. Before leaving, each of their agents was on average receiving five leads per month. After switching, that number went to less than two leads. I'd argue that these are conservative numbers as leads probably dipped even further. Unfortunately, it is not only about 'leads,' but it is also a branding issue. Can you imagine having excellent visibility in the search results one day and then totally disappearing the next? This scenario is not only a problem for the brokerage's brand, but it is also a problem for agents who leverage the brokerage's online success in their pitch.
The loss of traffic and leads has been so negatively impactful that some clients leaving us have returned to our company to regain what was lost. While their decision to leave us was unfortunate, it illustrates the importance of first, knowing what you have, and second, ensuring that the proper measures are put in place to protect it.
