Real estate marketing online is a giant step away from traditional real estate marketing.  Traditional marketing tools include, flyers, signage, listings in real estate classifieds and cold calling.  Each serve a purpose and generate response.  However, the real challenge emerges when trying to determine how effective each of these forms of real estate marketing are.  For example, at the outset, the numbers for  a listing in a real estate paper look good.  They have 'x' number of thousands of readers.  Thus a listing has the potential to be seen by that number of readers.  However, how many people actually see the ad in question? How many people who actually see the ad are looking for what the ad is offering?  Finally, of those people, how many of them actually act on the ad.  Finding a substantial, verifiable conversion rate for traditional forms of real estate marketing becomes very difficult.   

Real estate marketing online on the other hand is the exact opposite.  With real estate marketing online, every dollar becomes an investment who's return on investment can be tracked to the penny.  Real estate marketing online can be tracked down to the single click of a single user.  Thus, with the correct real estate marketing tools, one can see exactly where they are seeing results and where they need to make adjustments.  For example, a real estate webmaster runs two different ads through a search engine.  Using available analytical and metrics  tools, the web master can determine that the second ad brings in half as much traffic but is responsible for three times as many leads. Thus, it has a much better conversion ratio.  

When tied into the rise of real estate websites as prominent tools for real estate professionals, the importance or real estate marketing online becomes even more important.  As there is a fundamental shift toward using the internet as both an educational medium for clients and a lead generation tool for professionals, ensuring that every ounce of marketing effort is being used as efficiently as possible is a powerful bonus. Never before have real estate professionals been able to invest their online marketing resources as effectively.

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