The Glaser Group

A Case Study

The Glaser Group is a client I took on in 2017. The owner, Alex Glaser, originally posted to Reddit's /r/forhire subreddit in search of someone to help with online marketing. Alex had built a thriving business and distinguished himself from other Realtors in the Richmond area. My goal was to improve his online marketing materials to be on par with the 5-star reputation he built for himself.

Key Points:

1st page on Google for 3+ years (organically with SEO).
Custom website featuring clear User Experience.
Revolutionized marketing materials via brand style guide.

Initial stages

After our initial conversation I began formulating a plan. I learned a great deal about his business, current strategies, and charted a course to where he wanted to go. Obviously everyone wants to be #1 in Google, but Alex and I agreed to begin with a custom website along with SEO. As an intermediate step I spent the first week improving his SquareSpace site and implementing basic search engine optimization.

The custom site mockup was created in Illustrator with the primary mission to be a user-centric design full of good SEO content. Within the first 2 months the mockup, keyword research, and basic style guide were done. It was now time to build out the site.

The site took around 3 months to finish and place online. Traffic had already grown thanks to the changes made during the transition, and immediately after launch Alex & The Glaser Group saw immediate gains in both calls and form submissions. The plan was working, and more improvements were on the way!

Later improvements

After seeing the gains from this solid foundation, Alex was happy to expand into Search Engine Marketing and improving brand assets for traditional media. A formal style guide was developed, a complete overhaul of his Google Ads account was performed, and several physical prints were made (including a large Plan of Action printout and even a moving truck vinyl wrap). Alex and his brand were all over Richmond, including the first page of Google up to 3 times for the most dominant terms such as “realtor” and “real estate agent”. Business was booming .

Alex then came to me with another pain point: he was paying $1,500 a year for a SaaS called Birdseye – a review aggregator that collected reviews from all over the web to show in one place. I built a custom review aggregator to serve his triumphs from a local database, improving the UI/UX while saving more than $6,000 to date. We had also discussed creating a custom MLS application as options were limited and he did not like any existing solutions to this problem. The MLS came online in 2024.

View Some Work:

Their Website

MLS Application

Sample of Ads

Challenges

The first 2-3 years went fairly smoothly – then of course COVID hit and tossed everything on it's edge. The first 2 years of COVID weren't that bad – in fact it was possibly one of the best times to be the #1 seller in the area. However given the frenzy and eventual slowdown, it introduced several challenges into the projects and market.

Show/Hide Details

#1: Video assets are lacking.

We tried several times to coordinate filming video but given schedules and proximity this never materialized. There was a glimmer of hope initially as Alex invested in audio-visual equipment on par with the level we needed to produce quality videos. Unfortunately a different project, Why Richmond is Awesome, snowballed into much more than I had intended when I suggested it for search marketing reasons. 20 episodes of a podcast later and Alex did not want to touch a camera/microphone (and who can blame him?). Another opportunity was when a person named Miles entered the scene. Miles was a talented cinematographer but within a few months became a Realtor himself due to the success he was seeing with The Glaser Group! All of this to say that although in my opinion the right videos would have taken this company to the next level, living 6 hours away from Richmond in Knoxville, TN made it unfeasible to hold a bigger part in this medium. I have the knowledge and skills due to my time with CDI (my first company), but the logistics and dynamics surrounding it made it untenable at this time.

#2: Volatility in the market.

When times are good it's easy to beat your competition through superior tactics and quality. When things are like they were during COVID, economic uncertainty (or certainty, in this case) led to a huge surge in spending by competitors. New companies emerged, ad costs soared, and this eventually led to a much more crowded market with diminished returns. To add insult to injury, Google also implemented Fair Credit rules during this time that stripped away my ability to target leads by things like demographics, geographics, and affinity groups. This created a much higher Cost Per Acquisition (CPA) and a dwindling pool of both willing sellers and capable buyers, resulting in a serious slowdown. Alex is now closer to #2 in Richmond real estate with a larger company (Joyner Group with 100+ agents) taking the #1 spot. He is still competitive, but the heyday is over.

#3: Human capital.

The surge in business led to a bottleneck where there were simply not enough hours in the day to accommodate everyone. This was felt by all sides: the Glaser Group hired additional Realtors but quality was slipping; I needed assistance to keep up with the marketing load which meant bringing new associates into the work; clients (buyers and sellers) were inundated with the pressures to sell and buy at hiked up prices and rates [with an ever-shrinking inventory]. It was a reality nobody had planned for, and one we just barely survived with our collective sanities intact. Not all of us made it.

What I Learned

You can't time the market, but you can set yourself up for failure or success.
Some things are outside of your control no matter what you do.
Staying calm is useful but sometimes it's better to seize opportunities to the fullest.
I should have bought a house in 2019.

Moving Forward

Alex will always need good marketing and tech-savvy friends in his court, but the real estate market is changing. AI has drastically modified the way we look at and do search, which is something we'll have to contend with in the years to come. A new generation is reaching home-buying age while the older generation is expected to pass down their wealth. There are millions locked into “golden handcuffs” unable to sell due to mortgage rates. There are millions waiting to buy as soon as market conditions improve. People will always need homes, but landscape around real estate is changing.

The current plan is to adapt marketing materials for this new era of real estate, which will include softening the brand (transitioning from Professional to Friendly), reaching new buyers where they live (currently TikTok), and preparing for the new dynamics of increased supply and higher costs of living.