Feb 2009 - These slides are from a presentation I gave to the Home Builders Association of Maryland, helping the attendees to identify and be aware of what shifts they should be making in their marketing focus.

1. Internet Marketing Strategies
The things you MUST
know in 2009.
Our Sponsor:

2. Overview
WHAT background
WHY strategy
HOW implement

3. Consumer Behavior
The 2008 NAR Home Buyers and Sellers Survey

4. Consumer Behavior
Buyers are researching their home purchase longer:
• 2006 – 6.4 weeks of research
• 2007 – 12.1 weeks of research
• 2008 – 16.5 weeks of research
56% of television viewers are online at the same
time, browsing the web or sending email
* The 2008 NAR Home Buyers and Sellers Survey
** 2008 US Entertainment Survey, Yankee Group

5. Internet
“Market from the inside out” – Tom Richey

6. Internet
“Market from the inside out” – Tom Richey

7. Internet
“Market from the inside out” – Tom Richey

8. 5 Things to know in 2009
• Analytics
• Search
• Video
• Mobile
• Social Media

9. Analytics

10. Analytics
The Measurement of Website Visitor
Quality & Quantity

11. Analytics
• Better allocation of future resources
Forrester Research: Online Advertising Predictions for 2009
• Online advertising growth rate of 12%
• Marketers will be looking to make more of technologies like
targeting and measurement
• Marketers relationships with agencies and publishers will strain as
marketers take a more active role in managing their data and
media buying.

12. Analytics
Metrics to Monitor:
• Bounce Rate – How quickly are people leaving
your site?
• How did your visitors find you – Ads, Search,
Listings, Other Links
• What did visitors do once on your website?
• Who sent you BETTER traffic ?

13. Search

14. Search
Search Engines Directories
• Google • Move.com
• Yahoo • BaltimoreSun.com
• MSN • NewHomeSource.com
• Ask • Zillow.com
• YouTube • YahooRealEstate.com
• Hundreds of Others

15. Search – organic vs. cpc
• Organic – The results of a search that the search
engine believes to be the most relevant
• CPC, PPC – A paid placement of an ad to displayed
when a visitor searches for a specified search
term or phrase. Aka – cost-per-click, pay-per-
click, paid search
• SEO – Search Engine Optimization. The
practice of improving a website’s
organic search ranking for a desired
keyword or phrase.

16. Search – organic vs. cpc
mmmm

17. Search – organic vs. cpc
mmmm

18. Search – organic vs. cpc
Organic CPC
• Free • $1-5/click
• Long-term • Only as long as you’re
paying
• Higher click-rate
• Good quality traffic
• Traditionally higher
quality traffic • Instant on
• Slow to make change • All keyphrases can be
purchased
• Limited ability for
uncommon
search behavior

19. Search – organic vs. cpc
Noteworthy Consumer Behavior Statistics
2008 Search Engine Market Share*:
• Google – 69%
• Yahoo – 19%
• MSN – 6%
• Ask – 4%
In 2008 Google reported that the average search query has gone
from 3 up to 4 words.
“New Home” vs. “Green Home”
* Source: Hitwise, an Experian company

20. Search – organic vs. cpc
• Maximize Free traffic w/SEO efforts focused on
most-likely-to-perform keyphrases
• Supplement your SEO with Paid Search to cover
“long tail” keywords & phrases
• Monitor the effectiveness of both efforts
using analytics results

21. Video

22. Video
People remember:
• 20% of what they hear
• 30% of what they see
• 70% of what they hear and see
65% of U.S. Households have a broadband
connection
* Source: Online Publishers Association, June 2007

23. Video
YouTube.com
November 2008
• 2.8 BILLION searches
(200M more than Yahoo)
• 146 MILLION visits in the U.S.
12.6 BILLION videos
• Views have doubled from 20 months ago

24. Video
1. Video featured on your website
2. Video featured on outside services like You Tube
• Content must be relevant, educational, and/or entertaining
• Avoid posting a made-for-TV commercial
• The quality expectation is lower on You Tube than
video featured on your web site, but the
information or entertainment value
expectation is higher.
• Short (long is bad) videos can be inexpensively
produced by media companies

25. Video
Afraid of giving too much away online?

26. Mobile

27. Mobile
SMS Marketing
• Text Messaging
• Auto-responders
• Mass Follow-up
Mobile Web
• Websites designed for viewing on mobile
devices (standard and light)
• Mobile applications that access web data

28. Mobile
• iPhone’s • Blackberry
• Android Phone’s • Treo
• Some others • Most others

29. Mobile
Out of 250 Million Cell phone subscribers in the U.S. :
• 137 Million use SMS/Text (over 50%)
• 43.3. Million access the Internet on their phone
• 28.2 Million access video content on their phone
Text Message use is rising:
• Q1 ’06 – 198 calls vs. 65 Texts
• Q1 ’08 – 204 calls vs. 357 Texts
* Source: Nielsen

30. Mobile
• Real Estate is naturally local
• Making the web more mobile is simply the
natural evolution of technology.

31. Mobile
Mobile applications that access the Internet are
changing how the public uses the mobile web

32. Mobile

33. Mobile
• Mobile initiatives should be focused on the younger
generation, first time buyer, and urban professional
• It’s not necessary to build a mobile-only site
- Be sure you’re existing site is mobile friendly
(iPhones cannot see flash content)
• Be sure you’re a part of Google Base

34. Social Media

35. Social Media

36. Social Media
WEB 2.0
• Conversational Web
• Two-way vs. One-way
Early Examples:
• Classmates.com
• User reviews on Amazon.com

37. Social Media
LinkedIn
Facebook
Twitter
MySpace

38. Social Media
LinkedIn The Office
Facebook The Bar
Twitter Happy Hour
MySpace High School

39. Social Media
• This is where people spend time online –
LOTS of time.
• 35% of adults have at least 1 online profile, up
from 8% in 2005*.
• You’re accessible on their terms.
You’re at their party, not yours.
* Source: Pew Internet

40. Social Media
• Social networks are ideal platforms for
evangelical customers to sing praises and
improve the likelihood of referrals.
• Search engines value UGC.
UGC = user generated content
* Source: Pew Internet

41. Social Media
LinkedIn
• Professional Network
• Groups allow discussion
• Supports automatic
import of blog and
other feeds
* Source: Compete.com & Quantcast.com

42. Social Media
Facebook
• 150,000,000 registered users
• Adding 450k/day
• Estimated length of daily visit:
40 minutes
* Source: Compete.com & Quantcast.com

43. Social Media
Twitter
• Micro-blogging
platform set to go
mainstream in 2009.
• Numbers do not
reflect users who
access Twitter via
applications
• Enables fast mass dispersing of short messages
to users who’ve opted-in
• The Red Cross uses Twitter to communicate
shelter and evacuation data.
• 4,500,000 users with 7,500 new per day
* Source: Compete.com

44. Social Media
Rules of engagement:
1. Give before you get
2. NO Spamming
3. Respond to public complaints in a
public way
4. If it looks like you’re hiding something,
someone will find it.
5. Maintain your presence. Never, never,
abandon it.

45. Social Media
LinkedIn
• Request all employees maintain a profile.
• Create a group for employees to
collaborate and share with vendors and
customers.
• Encourage employees to participate in
other discussion groups where they can
answer industry related questions

46. Social Media
Facebook
• Create a page for your business and
encourage employees, friends, family
members to become a “fan.” All of their
online friends will be notified.
• Post relevant photos, links, and videos
about your company and encourage
comments and dialogue by your visitors
• Encourage employees to participate in
other discussion groups where they can
answer industry related questions

47. Social Media
Twitter
• Broadcast relevant news for your customers
• Announce sale events
• Be accessible to those who prefer to communicate this way
• If there’s no immediate business purpose evident, at least
monitor your name.

48. Summary
• The most benefit will always be gained from a cohesive and
comprehensive strategy
• Market from the inside out:
1. Take care of the inside first – your website
2. Maximize free exposure with good SEO practices
3. Supplement your SEO strategy with paid search
4. Use, or be prepared to use, new technologies as
consumers adopt them in their habits and expectations
5. Reach out to those not actively searching for your
product and enable your mavens to help you
spread the word for you.