I had the privilege recently of participating in a discussion lead by Dustin Luther at Inman Connect NYC that exceeded my expectations.  The topic was Web analytics – which I thought would have a high propensity to be exceedingly boring to the brave few who might wander in, perhaps because they had nothing better to do at that time.

I won’t reiterate the whole discussion here other than the part which I found most promising: that the room was mostly full of agents, and that these agents were already well past the point of knowing what Web analytics are and why having a basic understanding of your traffic matters, and even how to assess it.  Instead, we were able to move right to the practical application of “online intel” to the business goals of a producing and not necessarily very technology-savvy real estate agent.

Let’s start with a basic truism: most consumers online are not looking to buy or sell.  Statistically speaking, they couldn’t possibly be.  Look at this comparison of the number of sides nationwide each month in 2008 (in red) to the number of people cruising real estate information online during the same period (in blue):

Now think about your own business practice.  Do you only deal with clients who are in the market now?  This is not a trick question: one legitimate answer is, “Yes, I don’t want to waste my time with someone who’s not serious right now.”  You still probably have visitors on your Web site who do not fall into this category.  You may be buying ads on property aggregator sites (like Cyberhomes) which expose you even more to this segment of the audience.  Why are you doing that to yourself?

On the other hand, a likewise legitimate answer is that you want as much personal exposure online as you have in your market today, and you are willing to cultivate the audience.  I’m not talking about drip-marketing, or an action plan, or any other high-touch system.  Instead, you are building up or reinforcing a presence.  Demonstrating your inevitability.  Because all of these people are going to convert sometime, and you see it as your job not simply to wait around for that to happen, but to be the catalyst.

This only makes sense if you can connect each and everything you do online to some offline equivalent.  This Web marketing system is just like sending a postcard; that one is like knocking on doors; the other one is like knocking down doors.  If you can’t make this kind of connection, you’ve probably bought a load of hope from a technologist who thinks he’s found a better way.  Of course there’s nothing wrong with experimenting.

To bring this back to the discussion in New York, here’s one tip I shared which seemed to resonate, so I’ll share it again.  If you’ve got a Web site, and you register consumers on your Web site, do you look them up in your public records tool before you respond to them?  Would you do that if they called in and wanted to talk to you about listing their home?  Of course you would.  How would your online interaction with them differ if you handled “Internet calls” the same way you handle a listing call?

Our goal at Cyberhomes is to help you make these connections.  We start from the premise that the audience online is a little different than what you’ve been told, but fundamentally the same as what you already understand in the rest of your business.  We think this is a unique premise – hopefully one that can help you make real-world sense out of the muddle of promises – and sometimes folly – which is the Internet.  It goes without saying that “essentializing” your business has never been more vital than it is in the current climate.

Our belief is that you will already know what to do once we focus, together, on understanding who all these people are online and what they really want from you.  And you do, already, know what to do.