These tech mistakes are devastating businesses, and are setting many real estate companies and investors up for bankruptcy.

Be sure you aren’t copying these blunders that can cannibalize your venture.

Artificial Intelligence

Just as spell check and autocorrect tools still haven’t been perfected and create a lot of frustration some 20 years later, there is still a lot of intelligence lacking in AI tools.

It may be trendy, and we all have to adapt to the times, yet, poorly implemented this is destroying even large multi billion dollar companies rapidly.

The biggest and most devastating issue here is installing AI chatbots and doing away with human customer service. It is just alienating the best leads and long term customers and revenue sources.

Then there is ChatGPT, spinning out cheap low grade content which is no doubt burning years of work and investment in SEO rankings. It may be used for expanding your non SEO content, such as emails, as long as you manually review them word by word. Though overall, it is likely doing more harm than good to most real estate companies. Many may find it costs an enormous amount to recover from these mistakes, if they can escape Google penalties.

Automated AI based decision making tools, such as for credit, also bring more risk than most have thought through. They have not been tested in the courts yet to fully see the liability at stake.

Privacy & Data Protection

Especially when it comes to plugging in new tech tools and automation businesses are requesting more sensitive data than ever. Including IDs, facial recognition verification, and more.

These are an area of massive legal liability. Only collect what you need. Only hold onto what you need. Be sure you are in compliance with data laws, and have the legal team and finances to deal with any issues that arise from data breaches and hacks.

Not Testing From A Consumer Perspective

Do embrace new technology. Just make sure you are first testing it thoroughly from your customers’ perspective, and routinely test it again.

If it is not adding value to them, and making the experience better, it will cost you a lot more than you think the efficiency is making you.

Failing To Hire The Best Talent

The best team wins. You may not be able to afford to keep up with paying current rates of $390k to $900k a year for AI talent. Though you can, and must afford the best business development and marketing managers you can find. Those that can bring years of experience across all mediums, channels, and technologies, and help implement the right choices for your company with a refreshed and modernized strategy and plan.

Failing To Update Websites

If your website is so outdated that it burns teenagers’ and childrens’ eyes, it’s time for a makeover. Today, it’s not only about design in visuals, but also carefully crafting words that sell.

Not Using The Data That’s Available

The recipe for success is combining human expertise and hard data.

Don’t guess what is working in your business and marketing, or believe the mainstream media headlines for what’s happening in the economy or with inflation.

Use the most accurate data you can find. Make sure that it is interpreted accurately, with relevance to your industry and individual business and customers.

Not Prioritizing The Right Metrics

When you start digging into the data it is easy to get lost and distracted with so many metrics.

Focus on your NPS score and real profit.

 

Google recently began running an hour long video ad to promote itself between YouTube videos. That’s pretty extreme, when most ads in this space are likely 15 to 120 seconds, and are designed to get the message across in 5 seconds or less.

So, what can we learn about this extreme dose of ad info which Google no doubt spent an enormous amount of money to shoot, edit and publish?

What does it mean for real estate investors and professionals in this space?

You Need To Keep Marketing, No Matter How Successful You Are

You don’t just get to a point where you can stop marketing or slack off on it. There is a reason the biggest brands like Nike, McDonalds, Microsoft, Apple and Uber keep marketing. They have to. Creating an ad like this one from Google might cost most companies six or seven figures to produce. Just one ad. Your budget may not be that big yet, but keep on growing your marketing spend every month.

Trust Is Hard To Earn, Easy To Lose

Especially today, with so many companies moving online, it is hard to earn trust. It doesn’t take much to lose it. If you have to run an hour long ad to try and convince people to still trust you, you’ve already lost that trust. If you have billions of dollars to run propaganda to restore your brand after a hiccup, you can do it. Most can’t afford it. Avoid losing trust in the first place.

The Right Way To Approach SEO

In this ad, Google not only revealed that it changes its SEO rules and rankings 6x per day, but those changes are the results of over 200,000 test runs and tweaks. Most real estate companies don’t have the budget and flexibility to keep up with that.

Many of Google’s SEO rules and guidelines for quality content are public. They will take a lot of time to read, and of course they are always changing to stay ahead of those trying to game the engine.

SEO and ranking well on Google does have a lot of value for real estate companies and professionals. Though resources may be better spent simply focusing on creating quality content, with authority, and interesting content people will want to share. That is evergreen content that will keep working for you later today, tomorrow and in 10 years, despite all of the algorithm changes in between.

40% Of Websites Are Spam

Google says they consider around 40% of all websites they crawl to be spam. Is yours one of them?

If it looks cheap and salesy, or you are trying to cram in keywords, expect them to keep decreasing your rankings or ban you.

Focus on better design and more value.