Welcome to our December episode of Insights with Zillow!
In this episode, Chris Lapp discusses tools and features that have been successful for agents using Zillow during the past year and into 2021. Chris talks through the Zillow Premier Agent App and its complementary features that every agent can utilize. Next, Chris talks about My Agent and explains why it can help agents grow their business. We also discuss Recommended Homes and Best Of Zillow. Last, Chris provides tips on to improve your Zillow score to qualify for a Best Of Zillow badge.
If you’d prefer to watch this interview, click here to view on YouTube!
Transcript
D.J. Paris 0:00
This episode of Keeping it real is brought to you by zillow.com Hey podcast listeners. Are you looking for ways to boost your business and expand your network? I want to encourage you to check out what advertising options are available to you on zillow.com. If you haven’t checked out Zillow in a while or maybe never have before, please send an email to keeping it real at Zillow group.com That’s keeping it real at Zillow, group.com and one of Zelos team members will be in touch with you to see the options available in your market as well as learn about their new products and tools to help your business grow. Again that email address is keeping it real at Zillow group.com And now on to the show.
Welcome to keeping it real, the largest podcast made by real estate agents and for real estate agents. My name is DJ Paris. I am your guide and host through this show today we have our newest monthly series called insights with Zillow. Now everyone listening knows Zillow is at the forefront of home buying and selling processes here in the digital age for example. Currently, Zillow is averaging over 230 million unique vuser Unique Visitors to their website every single month that reaches incredible and they have become experts at buyer and seller behavior because of the sheer volume of users on their website. This means they have insights based on hard data, not just theory that they’re going to talk about some of those insights here on our show. We couldn’t be more proud to have Zillow as our guest today, representing Zillow as always as Chris lap from the corporate partnership team. I’ve personally known Chris for several years, he’s a fantastic resource to listen to, and also to help agents take some of these Zillow insights to increase their overall real estate business. But let me tell you a little bit about Chris before we get started. So Chris lap has been with Zillow for four years and serves as corporate partnership manager. In this role, Chris works with some of the largest and most strategic real estate brokerages around the country to drive partnership opportunities with Zillow. Chris has a doctorate degree in the field of communication and his years of experience coaching agents and brokers nationwide to implement best practices and strategies for online lead conversion. Welcome to keeping it real, Chris, thanks for joining us.
Chris Lapp 2:26
Hey, thanks, DJ. It’s a pleasure to be here.
D.J. Paris 2:29
Yeah, we’re thrilled to have you every month and coming on. And we’re recording this right at the end of the year. In fact, Chris told me just before we went on, I am his very last meeting of the year. So we’re excited and honored that you shared the end of 2020. With our with us and our audience. What would you like to talk about today?
Chris Lapp 2:48
Yeah, so today, I figured it would be would take some time as we’re kind of at the end of the year to really focus in do a deep dive on some of our tools and features that have really proven to be successful for many agents on the Zillow platform.
D.J. Paris 3:05
Great. So let’s let’s jump right in. I would love to start with whatever tool you think is really important that agents will find helpful.
Chris Lapp 3:17
Right. So I think what I wanted to do was start with a tool that’s free, that’s available to any agent. And that has really proven to be really valuable. So one of those tools that free tools if we St.
By logging in to your Zillow account and clicking inbox, it’ll take you to a portal that is like the depths desktop version of the premier agent app.
D.J. Paris 3:53
And for those who download this, I apologize for those listening was out for just a moment. He’s talking about the Zillow premier agent app
Oh, I think we might have lost Chris Well, if you’re watching us live right now. We are waiting to see if Chris is able to reconnect. Hope Chris Chris is back.
Chris Lapp 4:28
Yeah, I don’t know what out and
D.J. Paris 4:31
no problem. No problem internet issues, I guess. So yeah, let’s let’s go back into sorry, let’s we were starting to talk about the Zillow premier agent app.
Chris Lapp 4:46
Yeah, yeah, yeah. So again, Premiere premiere agent app. It’s a great resource free and it’s available to all agents. You can access it either on your phone, or you can go to it through your Zillow Little inbox on your computer by clicking inbox on your Zillow account. So again, it’s a great resource. And it’s something that if you don’t have the app downloaded, I highly recommend that you go ahead and download it. So, think of it like this. It is like a basic CRM that you can use on its own, or you can use it in conjunction with whatever CRM you currently have. So you can use it if you’re paying for advertising as well as if you’re not. But I will say this, if you are buying advertising on Zillow, the connections that you receive are going to be directly integrated into the app. So that’s where all the leads and connections you get will funnel in. And this is really important DJ for your listeners. If you’re not paying for advertising, any consumer who reaches out to you directly on Zillow, whether it be through a listing of yours, or through that you know, a consumer finding you on the premier rate, you know, on the agent finder tool, we automatically populate leads that are for you directly into the premier agent app. So it is very important, at the very least, to make sure that your Zillow account is connected to whatever your CRM you’re using. And make sure that you have your email notifications, as well as push notifications on to ensure that you’re not missing any leads. This is really, really important. So basically
D.J. Paris 6:33
what what we’re saying is by downloading the Zillow premier agent app and making sure you’re logged in and having your notifications turned on email notifications, mobile push notifications, when a lead goes on to Zillow, and requested information directly from the listing agent, for example. And if you’re the listing agent, Zillow will notify you in real time to your mobile device and possibly send an email as well.
Chris Lapp 6:59
Yeah, absolutely. And those are free, right, because those are people reaching out to you directly on Zillow. And and I can’t stress it enough. I have talked, I can’t tell you how many agents I’ve talked to that we’re not advertising on Zillow, and had no idea that consumers who found them on our site, we’re reaching out to them directly on Zillow. So you know, they open up their inbox, and they’re shocked when they see a whole bunch of people who reached out to them, and they just didn’t even know it. So you want to make sure that you’re not missing anything, by checking your email inbox regularly. And again, set up your account notifications in the app, as well as on your phone.
D.J. Paris 7:39
Yeah, this is really important, because I know real estate agents are always inundated with email. So even if you don’t have the Zillow premier app, you’re probably still getting those emails from Zillow. And somebody does request that information on your listing on Zillow website. However, if you’re like most agents, you’re getting so many emails, it’s easy to just ignore it or or just miss it. Or maybe it you know, slides into a different folder accidentally or it’s archived. When you have mobile notifications, push notifications turned on. It’s a lot, I never miss a push notification on my phone. So if you’re somebody like me, who gets a ton of email, this is a great way just to double double up on the notifications to make sure that you’re seeing when when buyers are interested.
Chris Lapp 8:23
Right, absolutely. And you know, we’ve talked about before speed, the lead so important with those internet leads, you want to get that push notification and reach out right away. Great. So yeah, I would say outside of notifications about leads coming into the app, there are a lot of really great features that you can utilize within it. So for example, you can easily build out your contact list within the app. So again, if you don’t have that CRM, and you want to have something that’s quick and easy, you can build your contact list easily within the app, you can also export it as a CSV file, so it can be transferred to another platform later on. And also think about this way, within each contact, you can add any insights that you might have on that consumer, you know, you can update things like their pre approval status, you know, what their lender status is agent status, and even their timeframe to move. So you’re allowed to write lots of quick and easy notes, as well as set appointments. So again, this is all free, and it’s available to every agent. It’s fantastic. Yeah. And you know, one of the features that we found that agents have really appreciated most is the ability to create tasks. This is one of the newest features we’ve added into the app. And it’s helpful when you’re on the go, you can quickly open the app set a reminder, put a quick task on there, and it’s gonna allow you know, it’s gonna pop up on your phone and say, you know, at two o’clock I have to call John Doe or, you know, you’re able to build those tasks into your day. And I don’t know if Your listeners are like me. But when you can kind of check, you know, check the boxes by each task, at the end of the day have those finished, it feels great. And again, that’s a new feature within the app that I think a lot of agents have really used and proven to find a lot of success with.
D.J. Paris 10:16
And those those notifications, or rather than reminders to complete, those tasks are also I believe, pushed, they are, you know, it’s like a great, you know, scenario where you’re in a, maybe you’re you’re with a client or you’re busy on the phone, and a notification comes in, you can easily navigate to the app, set a reminder. And then Zillow is going to going to sort of take it from there and remind you at that time.
Chris Lapp 10:40
Yep. And on top of that, you can really think of the app as a communication hub for all client correspondents, because you’re able to send emails back and forth to clients, as well as text messages. So it really allows everything to be centralized into one place into one free platform. So again, I want to stress it’s free. And it’s available for everybody, I highly recommend using it if you don’t have a CRM.
D.J. Paris 11:07
Yeah, and even if you do have a CRM, it’s still great. Just even for the notifications from when people are interested in Zillow is definitely download the premiere agent app from your respective app store. Let’s let’s switch gears, I would love to spend some time talking about other features that Zillow offers that are helpful for agents.
Chris Lapp 11:26
So yeah, as I was thinking through features that would be really helpful for your listeners, the one that immediately came top of mind was my agent. And I think we’ve briefly touched on this, but I want to kind of do a deep dive, so that the listeners really get a good sense of what my agent is and the power that can be utilized in it. So it’s quickly become one of the favorite features. And this is for paying agents. So I just want to be clear, my agent has a feature that’s available for agents who are paying for advertising on Zillow. And it’s integrated directly into the premier agent app that we were just talking about. So to give a little background on what this feature is our data team. So get this, our data team found that once a consumer submits their first inquiry on Zillow, John Doe goes on clicks on 123 Main Street says he’s interested, they are going to revisit our site on average 27 Out of the following 30 days, and look on average at 77 homes. So because of this, and a lot of agents Intuit this, a lot of agents kind of think that this is the case, we didn’t want the consumer to be connected with a different agent every single time. Right, right. It’s a bad experience for both the agent and the consumer. And I think some agents have been a little gun shy about jumping on to Zillow, because they’re afraid that oh, well, this person has probably reached out to 15 other people before they connected with me.
D.J. Paris 13:00
Because they’ve they’ve shown interest in other properties and suddenly might have talked a gotcha.
Chris Lapp 13:11
Oh, I think you’re cut out a little bit DJ. Yeah, I
D.J. Paris 13:14
was I was saying that. The, what we’re talking about as somebody who is looking at your average person’s looking at 77 homes over 30 days, they might be reaching out to many different realtors, because they’re looking at different listings, you’re connecting them with the listing agent. So all of a sudden, now that person is talking to multiple realtors.
Chris Lapp 13:36
Exactly right. And so this is where my agent creates a solve for this because once the consumer reaches out on a property, we automatically form what we call a my agent relationship. And we do this with the agent and the consumer. So what this means is for the automatically for the next 30 days from that initial reach out, each time the consumer reaches out on a home. They’re connected with the first agent that they were first connected with on Zillow. So and as their agent, you are able to not only be connected with them directly, but you’re able to see homes that they’re saving on their Zillow consumer account. So this is going to help equip you to better know what they’re looking for and provide that best possible experience. So huge tool.
D.J. Paris 14:28
Yeah, this is really this is really significant. So if you are a paid advertiser, if you’re paying for those services with Zillow, whenever you have established a relationship or have contact with with a consumer, then as they continue to navigate through Zillow is website over the next 30 days that you will you will be able to see their activity but also it is not being sent to any other agent. It is only being shared with you.
Unknown Speaker 14:58
Yeah, yeah. And we do that for three 30 days, and after that initial connection, so when you first make that connection with John Doe, if you go ahead and text them through the app, using, you know, one of one of our text templates, or you know, just sending them your own text to the app, or even show them a recommended home, and I’m going to talk to you about that in a second, we will automatically add 30 days on to the my agent relationship through one communication back and forth. So with one correspondence with a consumer, you’re automatically getting 60 days of a my agent relationship. It’s awesome. Yeah. Now, outside of those, you know, 30, day 60 day time periods, we also give the agent the opportunity to form a, what we call a long term, my agent relationship with the consumer. And the way that they do this is simply by sending what we call like a my agent friend request. And this allows, if the consumer accepts it, it will give that my agent relationship for an entire year. Wow. So just think about that, if you make that connection with the consumer, every time they go on to the platform, it’s like they’re directly connected with you, the agent. It’s a great, great feature. Agents love it.
D.J. Paris 16:23
And it’s also something you can really establish pretty early on in the relationship with a customer say, Hey, by the way, I’m going to be sending you this, you know, long term agent request. And this way, I will just be in the loop with everything that you do. And you’ll only have one person to talk to about all of your real estate needs, etc.
Chris Lapp 16:41
Yep, yeah. And think of it even this way. You know, we measure everything at Zillow. And one of the things that we’ve measured is that even after a consumer purchases a home, they still keep coming back to the site to look at homes, believe it or not, right. And throughout the home buying journey, you know, they’ve probably created several saved search campaigns, right. And they don’t turn those off after they buy. Right? Right. They keep those tabs, they want to keep tabs on, you know, what homes are selling for in the area, you know, what you know what different houses are doing. And as their agent, they’re going to as you’re as working with them, they’re going to continue to receive buyer activity emails on a regular basis. So what this means is, they’re going to give a snapshot of what these agents, you know what what the consumers are looking at what they’re spending time exploring, so that as the agent, you are able to see those things, and really have a good sense on continuing to find ways to build relationships with that client of yours, right. And as you know, as well as everyone else, keeping up with past clients is really one of the best ways to get new clients. Yeah. So again, we just help the the agent by giving them those insight emails into what they’re consumers, what their clients are continuing to search for on Zillow, even after a transaction. Great. Yeah. Now, as we kind of just do this deep dive one other important tool with in the my agent relationship is the recommended homes feature that I mentioned earlier. Right. So this is going to be exactly like the tool that many use in the MLS, right? Anytime a new client, you get a new client, you might set them up on, you know, a drip campaign right within their search parameters, right. So this is going to function like that. But the best part is you don’t have to set anything up. It’s all going to be based on the client’s personalized profile. And it’s going to sync similar homes in the app so that you can recommend them to your client. So what they’re what our system is doing, it’s seeing the homes that the consumers looking at, and finding commonalities, and then sending them to you the agent and saying, Hey, here’s a list of homes based on your client search that we recommend that they look at. And so you can go ahead and text them directly through the app and say, Hey, have you looked at this one? Have you seen this home? Again, it’s plug and play, you really can’t go wrong. And, you know, email drip campaigns are fine, as you know, as I mentioned, but the difference is, this is a text message. Right? And it’s going to be that immediate Look, that’s really going to be helpful. So, you know, what we’ve found is that, you know, consumers are much more likely to look at a text and an email, and therefore more times likely to respond. So again, text is the name of the game. And our recommended homes feature within the my agent relationship is a great tool to use for agents to continue to build that rapport with it with their clients.
D.J. Paris 19:58
So we’ve talked already about the premiere agent app as well as my agent, tool and recommended homes feature. Do you have any other features that you think agents should be checking out?
Chris Lapp 20:12
Yeah, so we’ve talked a little bit about the best of Zillow feature. I know you and I’ve touched on that a little bit. Like the my agent feature best of Zillow is only going to be available for Zillow premier agents. And I want to take a few minutes to kind of deep dive on that best of Zillow. So think of it this way, I’m sure that most listeners have taken at some point in their life here and Uber or Lyft. Ride, right. And they’ve probably noticed at the end of the journey, that they receive a quick survey on their phone, asking them what their experience was with the driver. Right, we took that same concept. And now we’re applying it directly to anyone you connected with on Zillow. So I know that for some agents, the idea of it can feel a little daunting, right to be graded so quickly on a relationship with a new client. But I want to stress that it’s 100%, private, and can only be seen by yourself. And well, if you’re on a team, it could be potentially seen by your team lead, right? But it’s really between you so that you can get that feedback on maybe what you’re doing well, and maybe what you could improve upon. So it’s really meant to enhance the homebuying experience for future clients, and giving you that real time feedback about how you’re interacting with consumers. So it’s going to give you that visibility into strength as well as opportunities. And you know, we really created this program with both customers and agents in mind. And we are really committed to provide that best experience and helping you to do so. So that’s kind of, you know, the 30,000 foot view. But diving in a little bit more on the details, getting a little bit more granular. The best of Zillow score, it’s on 100 point scale. And if you get a rating, cumulative rating of 90 or above, then you’re considered best of Zillow. So that is like, you know, the best of the best you gotta, you know, you deserve a lot of congratulations. And there’s a number of great benefits that come with being a best of Zillow agent. So you’re going to receive a badge on your Zillow profile, you’re also going to receive invitations to our unlock events, you know, which are excellent trainings and seminars and conferences, you’re going to get an email containing extra marketing materials, you’re gonna get preferential treatment for weight being wait listed on zip codes that are full. So that’s a huge one, right? So best of Zillow really opens a lot of doors for you. So and having that badge on your profile. Think of it kind of like a verified checkmark that’s on Twitter or Instagram, right, it really helps to bolster that online presence, and makes consumers want to trust you from the from the very beginning.
D.J. Paris 23:10
So if you’re currently purchasing, if you’re paying for advertising on Zillow, and you’re receiving consumer leads, this is really important because you may be participating in zip codes that were the only zip codes that were available at the time, you know, it’s not uncommon in you know, sort of certain areas in certain zip codes to have a giant waitlist for agents who you know, we all know those the preferential zip codes in our in our area. So by becoming by scoring really well here with customers, Zillow might even bump you up the list. Because if you think about it, it makes perfect sense, of course, why Zillow would do this, because they want to give the consumer the best possible experience. And they have to have some way of determining who is actually providing good service and who isn’t. And all they really know but prior to this is that, you know, someone’s paying paying for this, this advertising, but they weren’t really easily able to determine the quality of that of that realtor, other than maybe through a survey. So so this now, you know, puts it into a score just like the Uber drivers and Lyft drivers have and and also the consumers. We have those scores as well. But really just let Zillow know who’s doing a good job.
Chris Lapp 24:25
Right, right. Absolutely. So here’s how it actually works. Every time that you get connected with a client from the Zillow phone number, right? So if you’re paying for advertising, we have a phone number that pretend the lead comes in. You answer that phone number because you know it’s going to be a Zillow lead. So every time one of those comes through, we are going to send the consumer a singular question, just one question. And we’re going to ask them, were you happy with your experience? Yes or no? If they say no, then we’re going to offer to connect them with a new agent. That’s the only time we’re going to do that. If they answer yes, or they don’t respond, then we’re going to send them a standard survey 24 hours later. So 24 hours after that initial contact, we’re going to send them a survey. Now, very few people, I just want to stress this, very few people say, No, they weren’t happy with the first thing, first conversation with that agent. That’s really doesn’t happen very often at all. But note this, that one hour text question that we asked them later, right, but were you happy we sent it to him an hour later, that does not impact the best of Zillow score. Got it, they need to continue on to the 24 hour survey, and complete it. So once the 24 hours has passed, that’s the survey that really builds up best of Zillow score. So if someone connects with you, and they say they did not have a good experience, that’s not going to affect your score, it just means we’re going to reroute them to a different agent. Now, to get the surveys, what we do is that we reach out via text, email, or prompts within the Zillow app with a survey requesting additional feedback on their experience with the agent. And again, we send it 24 hours after we make the first connection. And we do that because we understand the importance of that first impression, and how critical it is for setting you up for success. And, you know, DJ, I know some of the listeners can go back and listen to some of our previous podcasts, where we’ve talked about how to have that best first impression. And again, you know, it’s that asking for the appointment right away, and just giving the consumer what they want. That’s the thing that’s going to really be the recipe for success when it comes to that first initial conversation with an online lead. Now, after we do that, after that 24 hour survey, we’re going to send another survey at 15 days, and 45 days. So think of these, like pulse checks, where we are checking in with the consumer at various stages of their home buying process. And we take all of that. And not only do we build a best of Zillow score, again, on a one to 100 scale, but we’re going to collect that data and based on the answers to the questions that they get, you know, the answers that they give to the questions, we’re going to really build a framework for the agent to be able to look and find ways that they can improve their score. Now, it’s all private. So you don’t know who’s scoring you on what and how. But we’re going to take all the information and say, Hey, here’s some feedback and some ways that you can maybe improve your current process. So it’s a great feedback tool for agents who otherwise let’s be honest, aren’t getting feedback like that right in that way. Right. So we want to provide that holistic view on agents performance with consumers from that initial contact to close. And we really think that by doing this, it’s going to help agents get a better understanding of their sales approach, and how it’s resonating with consumers.
D.J. Paris 28:31
And do you have any tips for agents on how to improve their score or how to get a good score on the best of Zillow service?
Chris Lapp 28:38
Yeah, absolutely. So first, it’s important to note that the survey is only four questions long. And it usually takes a minute to answer all the questions. So a couple things here, during your conversation with the consumer, make sure to mention your name multiple times, right, so they know who you are. So they when they get off the phone, they know who they just talked with, and also mentioned to them, that the survey is going to be coming over to them. And if you forget to mention it on that initial call, no worries, you can go back and followup with a quick text, which you should probably do anyways, right? And confirm the next steps for the appointment and what you’re doing for them, as well as a link to your Zillow profile and mention that the survey is coming. Right? And you know, you can, you could say something like, Hey, you know, it was so wonderful speaking with you today. I always want to provide that world class service. Zillow is going to send a survey to ensure that we are maintaining that world class service with everyone we meet. So if you feel like we did a good job, please go ahead and let them know. And if you have any unanswered questions, please let me know I look forward to meeting you and you know, helping you on your real estate journey. Something very simple like that. Mentioning it’s coming can really help get more For people to actually fill out the survey, make. So that’s one thing. And I’d say this for agents who really track that score carefully. Take a deep breath, that score will fluctuate over the course of the year, right? So some agents will get that message to Zillow status. And they might get, they might get, you know, a survey filled out that maybe it wasn’t quite as favorable, they dip right below it, and they get, you know, anxiety Oh, no, what am I going to do? Don’t fret, if it dips lower than you desire, because it’s pretty easy to raise that back up again, if you remind your clients to take the survey, right, so clients have up to a week to answer the survey after they receive it. So you can even reach out to older connections that you you know, up to a week ago that you were connected with. And what we found is, it’s a snapshot of about 20% of clients are currently responding to these surveys. So if you’re able to increase the number of you know, happy, well served clients that complete the survey, it’s going to help you to take more control of your average feedback rating.
D.J. Paris 31:11
And that’s true. And also, we know just from you know, survey data outside of Zillow, just in the survey world, we do it with our own brokers here. And obviously, we’re all part of a lot of other surveys in our life, we know that sometimes people will fill out surveys when they’re disgruntled on their own, and, or maybe when they had a good experience, but by you taking more control a lot of times, you know, bad, bad news, you know, spreads faster and people are right, there’s more energy around, filling out sometimes a survey where there’s negative sort of feedback. So if you’re not reminding your clients to do that, you may just be on unintentionally sort of stacking the deck against you by just hoping that the people that do respond are the people that like you, but by telling, you know, your your clients, your leads, hey, one of the best ways you can you can help me if I’m doing a good job for you is you’re going to see the survey, could you please it’s only a few questions, if you could please fill it out. That would really help. Right?
Chris Lapp 32:08
Right. Absolutely. Right. So getting getting in front of it helps you to take a little bit of control over you know what kind of feedback you’re getting. Now, I want to just be clear, this is different than a review on your Zillow profile, right. So after you have worked with the consumer, maybe a closer home with them, they can still fill out a public facing review on your Zillow profile. This is specific to a private feedback loop for you to receive as an agent, right? So whatever they answer is not going to be directly shared with you, our system, puts it all together and compiles it into a into a feedback that can really be useful for you to kind of like, here’s some ways to make some shifts maybe for next time, right.
D.J. Paris 32:59
And this is a great way to just to qualify for Best of Zillow, because you have the ability to sort of not influenced the response but influence the response rate by letting the clients know that this is common, right. And I just have a quick tip. This is I don’t want to confuse our listeners and viewers. But Chris just mentioned at the end, this is not we’re talking about best of Zillow and the review system. We’re not talking about the public review system, which we’re all probably familiar with as far how we can look at our reviews and so can clients. But if you are a dot loop user, inside of dot loop, which is one of the coolest features in dot loop, in dot loop is an electronic signature platform, very similar to DocuSign. But dot loop is hyper focused in real estate. Anyway, a lot of agencies use it, we use it for our agents as well. So if you’re a dot loop user, and if you aren’t, you should look into it because it’s awesome. But if you are they have a review link, you can connect your Zillow account with dot loop. And right in the loop itself. There’s a little link that says, Write a Zillow review and you can point your clients to that. And it really, we all know how important those public facing Zillow reviews are for just social proof and also just you know, making sure everyone else knows that you’re you do a good job but right there is built into but you have to activate it. So if you will go into your your dot loop account, you can find a way to do that, or you can contact that loop and they’ll tell you.
Chris Lapp 34:24
Yep, absolutely. Yep.
D.J. Paris 34:28
So go ahead. I’m sorry. You’ve given a lot of really good information for both zero Zillow premier agents, but also for agents that aren’t yet advertising on your system. Any final tips that you think agents who are listening should know about having success with Zillow?
Chris Lapp 34:47
Yeah, so you’re right. We’ve covered a lot of ground. Really, you know, as a brief refresher, Premiere agent app. If you don’t have it downloaded, make sure to download it. If you aren’t familiar with The tools, the free tools available to everybody, make sure you go in, you know, in a slow time of year, maybe it’s this time of year, go in, and just kind of poke around, learn some of the features and make sure you have all of your notifications, your push notifications setup. Make sure that you’re not missing anything, I would say step one, go in and just open the inbox and see if there’s leads that are sitting in there that you might not know about. And then reach out to those people. So yeah, first one premiere agent app. Second, my agent and recommended homes. If you are a premier agent, make sure that you’re familiar with my agent, as well as recommended homes, utilize that recommended homeschool, it’s going to make life a lot easier for you. And then also if you are advertising with us, best of Zillow, right, so really focus in on seeing what you can do to improve that best of Zillow score, making sure that it’s top of mind for the consumers. So they don’t forget to fill out those surveys. But the last thing I’ll mention, and I’ve mentioned this before, but if you are advertising with us, or if you’re considering it, what you want to do, number one is do your best to answer your phone when it rings. Right. So when that lead comes in, answer that phone, our data has shown that if you’re answering your phone at least 50% of the time, you’re going to have the best results on the platform, period. End of story. So you know what we’ve done, DJ in the past, we’ve talked through ways that they can quickly answer that phone, get on the phone, get off the phone quickly, right. So it doesn’t have to take up like their whole day or they don’t have to be in front of their computer. Just make sure that you’re answering those calls when they come in. Because as we’ve talked about speed the lead, the quicker you connect, the better.
D.J. Paris 36:49
Yeah, thanks, Chris. This has been really, really helpful. Lots of great insights and tips. And I wanted to make make a point here because we were updating the numbers before as we were getting started, because I want to talk about opportunities to advertise with Zillow here in a moment and ask a little bit about that. But I was updating our numbers because Chris and I were talking right before we went on, and my old number was and it wasn’t that old. It was maybe six months ago, or so. And I can’t recall exactly. But we were at 100 in Zillow is that rather 190 million unique visitors per month, they are now at almost 240 million unique visitors a month. You know, this is this is such an amazing, you know, that’s like a 40 to 50% i My math is terrible. But it gets around a 50% improvement, or increase rather not improvement but increase. So this idea that, you know, agents need to realize is that so many leads and connections are being established on Zillow. If you haven’t explored even the opportunity to advertise. Maybe you talk to somebody who said, Oh, I didn’t have success with Zillow leads or they were too expensive. Or they were I wasn’t getting the quality I wanted. You might just without having any direct experience, just think Well, I’m not going to even pursue it. But the the consumers are definitely increasing. They were already the number one real estate most visited real estate website when we started six months ago. And now you know, they’re 40 to 50% more unique visitors per month. So the point is there are lots of advertising opportunities here. And there’s so many buyers and sellers who aren’t necessarily asking their friends and who was your realtor? Of course, we’d love it if that happened every time. But it doesn’t always happen every time people are shopping online. Obviously, the Zillow numbers prove that and they have more advertising opportunities now than they even did six months ago, simply because the sheer volume of users.
Chris Lapp 38:51
Yep, Yep, absolutely. I mean, COVID has changed everything. Right. And it really is. I mean, Zillow, in a lot of ways was the front door before. And now it just is the front door to real estate, right? Someone’s going to search for a home. They’re gonna look on Zillow. And you know, to your point, maybe you know, their friend has somebody that they know. But the reality is, they know that this market is hotter than it has been in a long time. And with especially with these incredibly low interest rates, they’re seeing a home that they like, they’re just going to click contact agent because they know that oh, man, I want to see that home. Right. And so it’s again, yeah, the goal is is to make that connection right away and give the consumer what they want. And we have more opportunities than we’ve ever had now in this COVID world with Zillow really being that front door. So yeah, so to DJ to your point. If for those who are not advertising with us now and are interested, or maybe they reached out a while ago, and the area that they were interested in wasn’t available. Things are always evolving, always shifting in every market. Good Go ahead have reached out to keeping it real at Zillow group.com. And our team will connect you with the right person in your area to discuss what options are available for you. So again, keeping it real at Zillow, group.com. And our team will reach out to you. So for those, for those who already are advertising with us, and you know, you’re hearing these, my agent features best of Zillow features, and you’re sitting here going, Man, I really want to make sure that I know that I’m taking care of you know, utilizing all these tools to the fullest, they can go ahead and reach out to their assigned Zillow business consultant, who can go ahead and talk them through and coach them up on those features. So again, keeping it real at Zillow, group.com For those who are new or interested. And for those long timers, go ahead and reach out to your business consultant, make sure you’re utilizing those features.
D.J. Paris 40:57
Chris, that’s a great, great place to wrap up and I will say as a as a as an admission. Now, people might think I am a practicing realtor, which I am not I do I am licensed, but I have a confession about my own. Whenever I’m looking for property, I’m in the process of closing on a property myself right now. And even though I have MLS access, and I pay a fortune for it every year, I I really don’t use it. I actually use Zillow when I’m looking for my own stuff. So, guys, you know, everyone is using Zillow. So my point is, is that if you’re thinking about advertising opportunities, reach out to them. They have amazing analytics and metrics where they can say you know, that one zip code that you really want actually, we don’t really have any opportunities there at the moment. However, there’s a zip code just outside of this area, and it’s actually you’re getting a better a better value for your dollar because there’s less people wanting that particular lead. There’s all sorts of opportunities reach out to them at the very least, they’ll just give you you know, what options are available. And there’s so many. So definitely check them out, you know, again, shoot them an email, which is keeping it real at Zillow. group.com. Chris, thank you so much for being on the show. Once again, we love having you guys as our regular guests. We want to thank everyone for continuing to support our show and also support Zillow as well by reaching out see what opportunities exist for advertising with them. We’re going to continue to bring these episodes to you in 2021. And also, if you could tell a friend think of one other agent that maybe they’re new and they haven’t done any advertising and they they’re struggling to find leads and you know they might be this might be a perfect episode to send to them to say hey, you know there’s there’s some other options out there if all of your friends and family aren’t currently in the market for a home is take a look at Zillow. So send them a link to our podcast. You can find us right on our website, keeping it real pod.com And also on Facebook facebook.com forward slash keeping it real pod. And of course, continue to visit Zillow zillow.com and make sure all of your agent profile stuff is set up and you’re taking advantage of all the great tools that they have. Chris, we will see you in 2021
Chris Lapp 43:06
Absolutely. Thanks for having me. DJ. I always look forward to our time together.
D.J. Paris 43:10
Yeah, I do as well. And thanks again and for everyone listening. Thank you and we will see you on the next episode.
Thanks, Chris. Thanks
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