Online marketing planning for real estate agents

Creating a website is certainly useful as part of the property marketing mix and can be very cost effective but does not even scratch the surface of what the internet offers the entrepreneurial and forward thinking real estate agent looking to add value to every stage of the process, using the internet to increase desktop productivity, enhance business skills and win new clients.

It’s about driving cost-savings through a small business, making things cheaper, trying to meet prospects through the web direct and saving money by getting things done once. Running a 21st century business should be cost effective, shouldn't it? After all with email, SMS, digital cameras, laptops, hand held computers and the large number of suppliers out there you'd think it would be easy.

This staggering average wastage of 17.5 working days per year of estate agency managers and owners time resolving issues is proving that for the majority of estate agents the reality is anything but easy.

Time and time again UK estate agents are under estimating the true cost of the combination of their IT products, time wasted, opportunities lost and sheer heartache caused by trying to get everything to work together smoothly.

Of over 200 estate agents quizzed the average budget they thought they had set aside was £3482, yet the very same agents were paying an average of £23,000 in real terms for the Internet and IT. The majority, some 80%, had no idea what their total spend was per year.

Estate agency finance directors listed their top known extra burdens as:

Hours on hold to IT support about problems.
Lost revenues due to malfunction of computer equipment or website advertising .
No email.
Extra services billed by network maintenance companies per hour for "repair jobs".

There is another way however. By planning your computer needs overall and paying attention to avoiding short term deals with a sting in the tail. By getting professional service levels rather than wasting hours per year of your own valuable time.