Catching up with Top Agents Playbook at Inman Connect
In today’s digitally-driven environment, your online presence as a real estate agent is just as important as the way you speak, the way you dress or the car you drive.
RateMyAgent gives great agents like you the opportunity to present an online image that’s every bit as professional as the one you convey when you’re dealing with clients in person.
At the recent Inman Connect event in San Francisco, Mark Armstrong, CEO and founder of RateMyAgent, sat down with real estate marketing expert and podcaster Ray Wood of the Top Agents Playbook podcast to discuss the philosophy behind RateMyAgent and how agents can use the platform to improve and expand their ‘digital footprint’.
We’ve outlined the key takeaways below – or you can listen to the whole podcast on Top Agents Playbook here.
“Agents I spoke with at Inman Connect told me that, in the past, when they asked for a review, they might have received one 10% of the time.
By contrast, the success rate for requesting reviews via RateMyAgent is around 65% – a far more effective way to boost your online presence.”
Ray Wood:
“I’m seriously encouraging you to grab your profile on RateMyAgent and drive it like you stole it because there is so much happening in this space. My view is that you can’t afford not to be involved.
If I tell someone how good I am, they’ll say, ‘You’re just telling me that because you’re trying to sell me something.’ But if somebody else gives me an endorsement or a testimonial, it’s a thousand times more effective. That is the success of RateMyAgent.”
Mark Armstrong:
Customer feedback is one of the most valuable marketing tools for any real estate agent. Traditionally, agents haven’t harnessed this to the full extent. That’s why we founded RateMyAgent – to capture feedback from buyers and sellers, and give agents more control over their online presence.
RateMyAgent is a proven success story in Australia, where it launched several years ago. We launched in the US in late 2017 and started marketing here in February 2018. There are now over 6000 reviews on the US site Ratemyagent.com (Sep 2018). More than 2000 reviews have been posted in the last three months alone.
‘Lock in’ your next buyer or seller before you even know who they are!
A report from the National Association of Realtors reveals that 72 per cent of sellers call just one real estate agent before choosing them to sell their home. This, combined with the fact that 85 per cent of consumers trust online reviews as much as a personal recommendation, means people are reading reviews, trusting reviews and deciding which agent to use … before they even pick up the phone.
This is another reason it’s vital to make your online presence (or “digital interview”) as professional as your physical one. RateMyAgent is your opportunity to ace the digital interview.
Agents I spoke with at Inman Connect told me that, in the past, when they asked for a review, they might have received one 10% of the time. By contrast, the success rate for requesting reviews via RateMyAgent is around 65% – a far more effective way to boost your online presence.
Genuine reviews from local buyers and sellers
RateMyAgent is an agent review website with a difference. Every review on RateMyAgent is connected to the relevant transaction, so consumers know it’s genuine. And because most agents tend to work a particular territory, there’s a strong chance that the people reading a review will know the person who wrote it. A review posted by someone the reader knows carries a lot of weight.
Making your reviews even easier to find
By providing a centralized platform to request and post reviews, RateMyAgent makes it easy for buyers and sellers to find. What’s more, RateMyAgent creates a new web page for every review an agent receives. Each review has its own URL, so it deepens your digital footprint and makes you easier to find on the web.
With its own webpage, each review provides a unique marketing opportunity that can really supercharge your online presence. You can:
- promote the review via social media, using our Social Media Manager tool
- flow the review through to your own website or webpage, using our Review Widget
- convert your best reviews into attractive display advertisements with minimum time and fuss, using our Promoter tool.
Promoter harnesses the intelligence of Google’s AdNetwork to showcase your reviews to buyers and sellers in your preferred territory, at the times of day they’re most likely to see them, wherever and whenever they use the internet.
Your review will be seen 80,000 to 100,000 times for every $100 you spend – making Promoter a cost-effective and well-targeted marketing tool.
How to get the ball rolling
- Go to Ratemyagent.com and claim your profile. RateMyAgent draws from publicly available data to create profiles for the vast majority of US agents – but if you can’t find yours, contact our friendly customer service team and they’ll set one up in no time.
- Find the property you’d like to get a review for. Enter the buyer or seller’s name and email address, and send a link asking them to write a review. They don’t have to log in or register. They just click a link and type their review. It’s that simple!
- Make a habit of requesting a review for every property you transact, so you can systematically build content and increase your digital footprint.
A special focus on listing agents
If you’re a listing agent, your profile will automatically be populated with the number of properties you’ve sold over the last 12 months, and the sale price you achieved for each one.
Sellers pay $72 billion in commissions each year across the US. RateMyAgent helps listing agents attract more leads and puts you in control of the marketing process.
Want to post existing reviews? RateMyAgent makes it easy.
RateMyAgent isn’t just about posting reviews for future transactions. So many agents have reviews sitting idle elsewhere on the internet, in emails or in thank-you cards. What a wasted resource!
To centralize these reviews onto RateMyAgent and maximise their marketing potential, just transfer them onto a request form, and ask the seller or buyer to verify that they wrote the review. Easy.
Our basic features are free – and always will be
All of RateMyAgent’s basic features – including uploading reviews, using the review widget, and claiming a profile – are free, and will stay that way. We’ve used this business model in Australia for several years now, and it’s profitable there. US agents can have confidence in using Ratemyagent.com to boost their online presence for the long term.
Read more:
