At Property Webmasters, we have been desperately trying to reconnect with our Spanish-based agents in person. For obvious reasons, we have been unable to fly out, sit down and talk face to face with agents who have been using our services, and agents who are looking to get started with marketing and/or new websites.
Over the last few years, our client base within Spain has really continued to grow at a rapid rate. With the new development and strong resale market continuing to explode, we have seen some fantastic results that have allowed us to display just how effective our services can be.
With a focus on delivering forward-thinking, game-changing solutions to everyday agency problems, it was a great learning experience for some of our team members to immerse themselves in the Marbella real estate culture. Finding out trends, stats, tendencies and understanding agents problems was our top priority, gathering thoughts from some of the largest estate agents and marketing consultants in Spain.
Following the trip, we wanted to highlight some of the key findings whilst we were speaking to both current and prospective clients.
One thing that was obvious from the off, was how busy our clients, partners and prospects were.
It was abundantly clear that time was at its essence and they were all extremely busy. The market is busy for agents around September and it generally picks up furthermore until December. So it’s important that our clients are busy doing what they’re best at, and are not being ‘busy idiots’. With time being so crucial and the market extremely busy, it’s essential you are being as efficient as possible. We met people who are trying to do too much, managing, marketing, selling, appointments, changing their website and it was clear they were spreading themselves too thinly. It’s important that they focus on what they’re best at, such as dealing with customers and delegate other responsibilities, such as innovative lead generation campaigns and market-leading websites to experts like us.
It is extremely common for CEO’s and Managing Directors to be taking on too much work, to succeed within a competitive market, you must attract staff and secure partnerships that can help diversify workload and improve productivity.
It is widely known how competitive the real estate market in Marbella is. With Marbella being one of those sought after locations in the world for property and with over 4000 agents in Costa Del Sol, it is no surprise that there is a lot of competition for properties, developments and other services.
The biggest takeaway from this for us is that agents need to stand out from the others. Most Estate Agents in Marbella operate on an MLS system, so why would a customer choose you over the other agents that are advertising the same property? What makes you different from all of the other agents, what are your USP’s? Are you marketing your own business or are you a small fish in a big pond on a portal? How does your website compare to your competitors? Does your branding stand out from the others?
With so much competition it is essential you are marketing your own business well and your service to your customers needs to be flawless.
One of the topics of conversation from speaking with prospective clients was of course lead generation. One crucial aspect of lead generation is the lead generation source. We wanted to discover and advise what your main sources of lead generation should be. To our surprise, we found for many of our prospective clients, their website wasn’t sometimes even in the top 3!
After delving deeper into this, we realised a lot of these websites were extremely outdated, in most cases they were made several years ago. Websites evolve like everything else in the digital world, and they need to be looked after and refreshed every so often. I think another fear for some agents is they feel the process of getting a new website is a lot of stress and hard work, however, when dealing with the right people that couldn’t be further away from the truth.
Another objection we sometimes hear from clients when deciding whether to proceed with a new website is of course the cost. Investing a large sum all in one into something that can take time to perfect and see a return on investment is of course something that needs to be considered. However, when our growth consultants were discussing pricing with our prospective clients, they were pleasantly surprised at how cost-effective the website and all the functionality is. If you would like to find out more information about our websites and the costs, you can take a look here. To summarise, your website should be the number 1 channel and source for leads!
Lastly, we found that a lot of the business estate agents typically rely on (more than they should) is a word of mouth recommendation or a referral. Having multiple sources and mediums of enquiry is fantastic and while referrals are a great way to get business, they are not constant and they can fluctuate heavily, making it unsustainable to rely upon them.
Instead, we displayed the power of what even a small marketing campaign can do for them, attracting new users, retargeting them, pushing their brand in front of thousands of people within their target audience. By no means are we saying to stop using portals, or to turn down referrals to focus your time elsewhere, but instead, we want to add to Agents arsenals, equipping them with leads from a range of channels, some they have not tried before!
Alongside this, we also found a shift in what the typical estate agent in Marbella was seeing geographically. A rise in demand from the Polish market was a recurring message from Agents as well as the demand for sales agents who can speak multiple languages.
To summarise, we had a lot of great chats with Agents who understood that they can be doing more in order to improve their performance. With new clients on board, we’re looking forward to working with them and actively helping them improve their performance online. For those who we didn’t get a chance to meet on our trip, we’ll be back soon! If you would like to schedule a chat with us next time we’re there, please get in touch with us here.
