Did you know that three times as many buyers prefer receiving emails to phone calls from their agent?

This is just one of many new trends identified in the recently published California Association of Realtors Home Buyer Survey. While the data to support these trends originates from the California market, we believe the inherent takeaways are applicable to agents throughout the country and should influence how you do business.

“Sixty-eight percent of buyers Googled their agent, the highest percentage since the survey started tracking this statistic in 2007.” – California Association of Realtors, 2013 Home Buyer Survey

The recently released 2013 California Association of Realtors buyers and sellers reports are chalk full of highly relevant data and trends for real estate agents. But the statistic above is perhaps most piercing to those agents who don’t prioritize real estate branding. If you’re like many of our most successful customers, the focus has traditionally been on direct marketing, lead generation, or referral-based systems. Many see ‘branding’ as wasted marketing dollars with poor ROI. 

In the age of Yelp, Angie’s List, and a plethora of other consumer information and review sites, simply having a nice website, or being a nice person for that matter, just won’t cut it for your business. For real estate agents in particular, this is where having authentic, credible testimonials to help set you apart comes into play.

For many Realtors, the primary goal during a first conversation with a new real estate lead is to uncover when they want to purchase. While this is important, our customers often find that greater success with leads comes from a more engaging and consultative approach. Such an approach is paramount given that each lead is embarking on a major milestone in their financial and personal life. Instead of simply asking “When do you want to buy?” try to engage your leads on a deeper level with the questions below:

At Zurple we coach: “When you send drip emails, you are training your customers to delete your emails.”

If the thought of this alone isn't enough to stop you from using drip emails, consider the new Inman report that explains why agents who send drip emails are being categorized as SPAMMERS by Gmail. Here's a link to the full report from Inman News.