Businesses that succeed tend to Plan and Budget for everything; and a proper Marketing Plan is essential for Real Estate Brokerages and Agents. Successful Real Estate Companies understand that they are in the Business of Marketing NOT Sales; Sales are the Result of a proper Marketing Plan whether that is the Marketing of Property Listings or the Marketing of the Brand to attract good Real Estate Professionals.

The advent of the Internet threw a Monkey Wrench in the planning of so-called Traditional Marketing and Brokers and Agents are sometimes at a loss on how to add the proper Marketing Dollars to their “Internet Marketing.”

So let us discuss ways to start thinking about Budgeting your Dollars for Internet Marketing –  the numbers I am going to throw at you are just a guide, a way to start thinking about effort and investment. You MUST always use your judgment and trust your instincts – so as you read this adjust these ideas to fit the reality of your business, your market, and your Brand.

1. You MUST have a Proper Website – those of you who follow this blog have a beginning understand of the integrated tools you must have in order for it to be called proper. In this area I am going to attach a price to what I call a “Container” meaning the Website and its tools NOT the Work and Paid Marketing you must do. Real Estate Agents should plan about $1,100 a year or about $90 a month for a proper Web Container. Real Estate Brokers should budget $6,000 a year for a Broker Website with 10 Agents or a total of 11 Websites at an average of $500 a month. When a Broker takes the lead the price per agent drops down to about $50 per month per agent for a proper Web Container. If the broker chooses not to be involved in offering Web Services to their agents through their own website then they should budget $3,600 a year for a proper Broker Solution.

PS: Remember prices fluctuate a lot and a proper Website must include a Scalable IDX Search, a proper Contact Management System, a proper Lead delegation backend, full email services, a proper Blog platform, Landing Page Creation System, Full Domain Management and Integration, Full Listing Management, etc…

2. Your Pay per Click Campaign must be well Planned and Monitored. let me break down what you should expect to pay:

a. Expect your agents to close One Sale per 100 Leads – this may shock some of you but I reviewed hundreds of brokers and agents Lead Management Campaigns and this is the average – Great Agents close 1 out of 50 (but they are rare…)

b. Expect to pay $15 per PPC Lead if you use proper Landing pages. This is a national Average – some markets are much higher. this translates to about $1,500 pay per click marketing per closing.

c. Without proper Landing Pages your campaigns will NOT generate the leads you want.

3. You Must have an SEO Campaign: I am not going to spell this out too much in this blog, but keep following me and I will be adding what I call “The ingredients of an SEO campaign for Real Estate” in the near future. I will share with you in hours of work as well as in yearly Budgets; a good SEO Campaign requires a minimum of 8 hours a week or 500 hundred hours a year. When I coach brokers I tell them to set aside between $300 and $500 a month in order for them to start seeing results. This must be ongoing and whether you pay someone or do it yourself (usually a combination works best) you must always be doing it. The best brokers with the best results hire Marketing Staff who spend 20 hours a week at the brokerage level to affect their Organic placement – they don’t think of it as separate from their Traditional Marketing Efforts; they see SEO, PPC, Social Media, Websites, and Traditional Marketing as One.

Here is my Rule of Thumb and it seems to work well in many instances – if you are a small office with 10 working agents you ought to be closing no less than 150 transactions a year – you should set aside $100 per transaction minimum or a budget of $15,000 per year for all your Internet Marketing (this the combined spending between the broker and the agent – or $50 for the broker and $50 for the agent.) The $100 per Transaction will serve you well whether you spend all of it or not…  As your agency grows and your staff becomes well trained you will see these numbers dwindle to around $50 per transaction or $25 for each.

Happy Blogging – Key Yessaad, Real Estate SEO Trainer