Real Estate Marketing & Beyond
According to many news outlets, St. Louis, Missouri's property market is already crashing. On the outskirts of the city, underwater mortgages exceed 16% in some areas. Prices are falling like a rock too. And, with a recession ramping up nationwide, the real estate community should be in a kind of panic, if it's not already. And what this means for buyers and sellers should be patently simple. I'll cut to the chase here. Clients are going to have to find the best St. Louis Agents out there to either buy or sell in the coming months. The boom is over, and now the winners and quitters will become obvious. Here's a list for St. Louis, most of whom will probably end up surviving what could be the biggest bust economy in over a decade.
Garcia Properties has almost perfect reviews on Google and at Zillow. The St. Louis agency founded by Jenifer Garcia has an amazing Facebook engagement approaching 10k followers.
A significant note should also be made concerning some 300+ 4.9 level reviews on this Facebook page. This is, I must say, unheard of across the agencies we’ve scrutinized. That said, other aspects of Garcia’s efforts are less stunning. Instagram? Ditto. Over 5,000 engaged followers and a stunning sharing agenda.
The Garcia Properties website has one of the lowest SEO scores of any agent website I’ve reviewed so far. A 61/100 score means there is a score of errors, improvements, and other fixes needed for the site to rank anywhere near the top for St. Louis. Aesthetically and functionally, the site is wonderful except for the clear back-end problems. It’s a bit of a shame, given this agent has so much going in the right direction. Traditional media outreach and other branding aspects seem to be Garcia’s short suit. This is also unfortunate since she’d be in our top 10% across the US. Really, her Facebook and Instagram efforts are this good.
Matt Delhougne's real estate business has what can only be described as an epic reputation on Google. To be honest, I never thought it possible for a real estate pro to garner 875 perfect reviews, especially not on Google. But here Delhougne Realty Group is with another 1,890 5 for 5 reviews on Zillow. I would be underplaying this if I did not admit astonishment. This just does not happen. What is the reason?
Delhougne's brand reputation is not because of his website. It's mediocre at best, with only a 72/100 SEO score and horrible aesthetics. His Instagram has a photo of his dog and nothing more. The only evidence I can find of digital marketing prowess seems to be LinkedIn, where Delhougne has a ton of connections.
The company's last blog post was two years ago. I hunted like Sherlock Holmes and found DRG's Facebook presence. It's been a year since anything was posted there. So how does this superstar of St. Louis Agents do it? He used to be a police officer, maybe he arrests people and jails them until they buy? For once, I have no answers. No traditional media mentions. A token Twitter effort for some months in 2012.
Gobsmacked, I almost ended his assessment prematurely. But something was eating at me. Could any real estate agents out there pound the bricks hard enough to be a winner without marketing? Delhougne is truly a smart cookie, I discovered. He shortcutted the whole online marketing effort by buying Google ads targeting the top search terms. Voila! I feel vindicated somehow. Nice job, Matt. It can work. The only problem I have is the misleading heading and the direct straight to your listings on your site. That's misleading, which is an indicator. I was even dizzier when I found a Youtube "how to" from this agent explaining how digital marketing is key to selling homes. I won't share it. The image of Delhougne is a screen from that video. There are not very many images of him on the internet, so.
Right behind Matt Delhougne, Dan Brassil is a St. Louis real estate professional who uses the whole toolset. It's all right there on his company's website, which is how you do digital marketing. Okay, there are some missing elements, or he'd be in the top position for this report. A dead link on the site, a mediocre following on Instagram, and a pitiful 69/100 SEO score on the company billboard (the site) detract a lot. It seems to me this agent had it going for a while, and then something happened. Maybe the pandemic?
He has a blog that is semi-up-to-date. With all the five-star awards from Zillow, Yelp, Google, Expertise.com, etc., the agent should be hammering it. But 32 sales this past 12 months tell me he's not. Maybe my perception is wrong, but anybody with this kind of know-how should be murdalizing the competition. I'm telling you, analyzing his sparse Twitter and Instagram shares, the guy's brilliant at getting across to people the core value of a property. Something's up. His Facebook profile shows an outdoorsman and a sort of adventurer. I'd be interested to know what he's been up to. For now, though, he's not competing with Garcia in any area that matters - except potential.
Mary Krummenacher isn't burning up social media. Her company's Facebook effort is present, even if only just visible to the world. The same holds true for Instagram. Digital marketing does not seem to be part of her sales funnel at all. She does, however, have stellar reviews for her professionalism. Her website is terrible, too, at least from an SEO perspective (58/100). She did spend the dough to become a Zillow Featured Agent.
Krummenacher makes this St. Louis agents list because of 64 sales in the past 12 months and because everybody submitting a review there loved her effort. Interestingly, she joined Twitter very early in that platform's evolution. She started Tweeting in 2008 and stopped last year. Just 7 really bad Google reviews might have kept her out of this list, but St. Louis is another American town not all that rich in property pros with awareness or aptitude for marketing.
