Be Prepared for Long Term Relationship Questions
Let’s say your rental or real estate company has just decided to redo your website and spark up your online marketing initiatives. You’ve been talking budget and have your heart set on a start date, but are you really prepared to start shopping around? Having a few things in order will make this shopping process run a lot smoother, depending on who you are dealing with.
Where are you now?
- Who hosts your current site?
- Do you have access to that site?
- Do you own your site or the content management system that runs it?
- Do you even have the ability to make changes to the site in house? Would you like to?
- Will you lose any 3rd party solutions due to switching web/hosting providers?
Don’t be surprised if your web developer or online marketing company wants to learn more about your business. This is the job of every good online marketing company, so be prepared.
- How many brokers do you have?
- How many active listings do you have?
- What is the average price of those listings?
- What do you specialize or want to specialize in? Luxury, Beach front only, Ranches
- What is your high and low season?
- Who is the final decision maker for this project?
- Who will be the point person during the project and all projects moving forward?
How well are you performing and what do you consider a win?
- How many contact forms get filled out each month requesting more information?
- What are most people asking for?
- When someone calls in, did they find you through your site? Where on the site? Where did they originate from? How do you know a call came from the site?
- What is the total number of sales leads coming from your current site per month?
- How do you track those leads and make sure that they are getting the proper follow up by your employees?
- Are you considering changing the way that your users book online?
- What is your current online booking percentage?
- What is your 1-3-5 year goal for your online booking percentage?
- What current measurements do you have in place to track marketing effectiveness?
These are just a few of the questions we like to ask before working with a company. It is vital for us to learn more about your business so that we can become a long term partner that ultimately will only succeed when you succeed. Even though the economy has a glimmer of recovery you simply cannot afford to jump into bed with a company that is only in it for short term buck.
-Sam Campise
Sales/Opportunity Manager