I’m sure you know that you need something on your website that will motivate visitors to contact you.  Otherwise, you end up with a pretty website that may even have a fair number of visitors, but does nothing for you in terms of lead generation.

This post will address the last of the three things you need to do to provide strong motivation for your real estate website visitors to contact you:

1. Identify a unique, valuable and attention-grabbing offer.
2. Create the offer.
3. Promote the offer.

Let’s say that you have already identified and created a compelling proposition.   The last step is promoting it!  And, that’s where the concept of web-centric real estate marketing comes in.

Web-Centric Real Estate Marketing

The idea of web-centric real estate marketing is to make sure that all marketing tools you use end up driving people to your website.  The reasons are simple. 

• People are much more comfortable stopping by a website than they are placing a telephone call to you directly.
• Your website should have tools and information that visitors find useful.
• Once someone gets to know your website, they will likely do things like return to it from time to time or add it to their favorites.  That should help them to remember to contact you when they want to speak to a professional.
• If you don’t have any direct contact with a website visitor, at least you have the opportunity to stay in front of them when they visit your site.

Therefore, any type of advertising or promotion you do should drive people to your website.  Here are some examples:

• Email - include a live link to your website in your email signature
• Printed material – Your web address on everything – business cards, promotional items, etc.
• Print advertising -  Invite the reader to take advantage of your compelling offer and direct them to your website
• Postcards – regardless of any other topic – that invites the erader to take advantage of your compelling proposition and directs them to the website.  Even if you’re sending out a Just Listed postcard, the offer should be on there.
• Ads on Craig’s list - yup, same thing.

And, the examples could go on and on.  So, now that you have all of your marketing initiatives pointing to your website, make sure it’s easy for people to find your proposition.

Your Website: The Compelling Proposition Should Leap Up and Grab People!

Well, naturally, you’re going to put the proposition on your website.  But, where?  If you read the Insider Insight post by Kevin Kaiser on improving lead conversion, you have some ideas already.

Kevin’s testing found that he got the most response by having a call to action in the upper left corner of the home page.  You might want to give that a try.  Create an eye-catching graphic “button” that contains a strong call to action to make sure your offer is seen immediately.

Don’t assume that people are going to poke around your website trying to figure out where this great offer is!   A text link in the body of the home page isn’t visible enough, a tab on your menu isn’t visible enough.  If someone is visiting your site with the express purpose of taking you up on a special offer, that offer better just jump up and bite them!  If it doesn’t, that visitor will turn into another bounce statistic on your traffic report.

If you can put the offer on a page of its own and use that link in your promotions, even better.  Just make sure it’s something easy to remember.   Something like AtlantaRealEstate.com/FirstTime  might be good.  Something like AtlantaRealEstate.com/First_Time_Home_Buyer.html – not so much.

So, what do you think?  Any great ideas for new ways to motivate your Internet visitors?

I’m sure you know that you need something on your website that will motivate visitors to contact you.  Otherwise, you end up with a pretty website that may even have a fair number of visitors, but does nothing for you in terms of lead generation.

This post will address the first two things you need to do to provide strong motivation for your real estate website visitors to contact you:

1. Identify a unique, valuable and attention-grabbing offer.
2. Create the offer.
3. Promote the offer.

The best way to set up a real estate website (and your marketing plan) is to identify a niche market.  And, if you do that, identifying compelling propositions is much easier.  For example:

First-Time Homebuyers

If this is your niche, think about the questions that first-time homebuyers ask you.  Is there a way you can put together a booklet to answer those questions?  It could be a booklet that explains the buying process, and perhaps most especially, how to avoid the traps first-timers often fall into.  To identify the traps, just think of all the things you tell your first-timers as opposed to the questions they ask you.

Think about presentation, too.  A booklet called “First-Time Homebuyers Guide” isn’t going to be compelling.  Give the offer a strong name to create an individual identity for it.  How does “Staying Out of Court When Buying Your First Home”.  Maybe a bit strong, but you get the idea.

And, when you put that booklet together, don’t prepare it on plain paper.  Create a letterhead-looking template for the pages that contains your logo and contact information – and don’t forget your web address!

If you’re very creative, you could turn the booklet into a video with you and some of your first-time buyers as the stars. 

Since your goal is to generate leads, set up the offer page to require some contact information before the visitor can access the information.  Don’t make too much information required – you don’t want to scare the prospect.  And, make sure you display  a privacy statement with the form to ensure your visitors that you won’t be selling their contact information, etc.

But, how would you provide a video online?  If you have the ability to put a registration form in front of a page on your site, or before a visitor has access to the offer, that’s great.  If you don’t, you can always use a regular contact form, then send email replies (an auto-responder would be best) that contain a link to the page containing the offer.

Second Home Buyers

Would second home buyers in your area be interested in finding out how to get their second home to pay for itself by renting it when it isn’t being used by the owner?  Put something together that illustrates the feasibility of that happening.  For example home prices/money down/interest rates, calculate the scenarios considering typical rental rates in the area, typical occupancy percentages, etc.

Neighborhoods

If you’re focusing on specific neighborhoods, take the time to meet some of the local business people.  Put together a coupon book for discounts on dining, cleaning, hardware making the local merchants your partners.  It could be you’ll only be out the price of printing the coupons if you play your cards right.

None of these compelling propositions can be identified and developed overnight.  But, let’s say it takes 6 months.  You’ll still be in business — won’t you?  If so, you’ll be in business with a compelling offer or not.  But, you’ll probably enjoy the business more if you have one. . . or two.

One thing I preach is the concept of web-centric real estate marketing.  But, you probably already know that.  What that means is that you use your real estate website as the hub for your marketing efforts.

If you send a postcard, encourage the recipient to visit your website for a specific reason.  If you have a Facebook fan page, encourage the recipient to visit your website for a specific reason.   And, the list goes on.  But, how to use your website as a hub isn’t the main point of this post.

Do You Use Compelling Propositions?

A compelling proposition is the “specific reason” noted in the paragraph above.  You need to give prospects a reason to visit your website.  Just putting a web address on a postcard isn’t enough motivation.  People just aren’t that curious. 

But if there is something on your website that a prospect really wants. . .  something that would compel them to visit your website. . . something that would make them look like the guy in the photo above. . . you’re in business!

What Does Your Market Consider to be Compelling?

That is always the big, BIG question.  And, the reason why more agents don’t use compelling propositions is because putting one together requires WORK.

But, if you’re among the multitude of real estate professionals who constantly lament that you have traffic on your website but no leads, you should be getting to the point where you’ll admit that the work is worth it.

Here’s what the work consists of:

1. Identifying a unique, valuable and attention-grabbing offer.
2. Creating the offer.
3. Promoting the offer.

Stay tuned for posts addressing those three topics.  In the meantime, if you have a compelling offer on your website, if you’ve tried but failed to create a compelling offer, etc. leave a comment.  Tell me about the offer you use that works, or tell me how/why you got stuck putting one together!