Let’s see if this story sounds familiar. A real estate professional is doing their best to promote their website. They are marketing the website in every way they know how; advertising the domain on their listing flyers, business cards, notepads, and all offline marketing materials. They mention the domain to every person they speak with and even have the domain name on their license plate frame.
This real estate professional has even gone one extra step and attempted to promote the website online. They run banner ads in prominent places for real estate seekers and are even conducting Google Adwords pay-per-click campaigns to generate web site traffic.
They have done all of the above, and yet, have received no leads. It just doesn’t seem fair.
When a client relays a story similar to that described above, I immediately take a look at their website and review three things:
- Are they maximizing lead capture methods?
- Are they properly leveraging a property search on their website?
- Do they use a variety of lead capture forms throughout the site?
Generating Leads
We know from previous lessons, that the role of a real estate website has changed. The current primary function of a real estate website is to serve as a prospecting tool. Therefore, the primary goal of any realtor web site is to generate leads.
In generating leads, there are a couple things to keep in mind. First, generating leads is more of a process of information gathering than it is of direct selling. This is in contrast to straight selling like you see on e-commerce websites. When pushing traffic to your website, the focus should be on funneling that traffic through lead capture methods to convert the visitors into prospects.
A successful website visit is one in which a visitor provides you with prospect information. In the least, you are shooting for a customer name and email address. You may also get a phone number, or even better, the prospect may call you directly. Point being that you want to use your website as a prospecting tool to begin building a subscriber base of prospects that you can then work into your client pipeline.
Leverage A Property Search
Lesson two discussed in detail the importance of an IDX property search to your real estate website. MLS listings are exclusive and privileged professional information. Access to this information is what truly distinguishes you as a real estate professional. In addition, when prospects surf the web, their primary reason for visiting a real estate website is to search for property.
Knowing these things, it is essential that you leverage the property search on your website to gain as much information as possible from potential prospects. It’s not enough just to offer the listing information. IDX information should be embedded with methods of lead capture that encourage visitors to become leads.
For an example of some lead capture ideas that should be integrated in your IDX, conduct a property search in Scottsdale on the Russ Lyon Sotheby’s International Realty website. Upon the initial page load of listing results, you can see options to “Create a FREE Account” and “Save This Listing.” Both of these are integrated methods of lead capture encouraging visitors to give their information.
The image above is a good example of nesting lead capture within listing information. Visitors to the website want to see listing information above everything else. So by surrounding this information with lead capture methods, opportunities for lead conversion are created. All of the lead capture methods are indicated by yellow checkmarks. This one listing detail features seven methods of lead capture.
Lead Capture Forms
Your property search will carry the load of generating most of your website leads. However, you can use additional content like lead capture forms to prompt visitors to give their lead information. The advantage of lead capture forms is two-fold: a) they are an additional opportunity to meet a prospect need and b) they add more content to your website.
Lead capture forms provide a great way to meet different prospect needs. Most visitors will be visiting the website to use the property search. But there are still a small handful of other visitors that may be looking to list a property or get local information. Lead capture forms are perfect for addressing the needs of these varying prospect opportunities.
I recommend to clients that they add a lead capture form to every page on their website. Regardless of what the page content is about, from a marketing perspective, every type of content is an opportunity to ask for lead information. Lead capture forms are a great way to integrate these methods into the content itself. Even a page of testimonials provides a great opportunity to pitch your services and ask for prospect information.
Here are some ideas for lead capture forms to use on your website:
- Free Home Evaluation
- Property Request
- List Your Home
- Local Market Snapshot
- Hot Foreclosure Deals
- Real Estate Newsletter
- Real Estate Reports
- Buyer Request
- Seller Request
- FSBO Tips
Just thinking about your services and what you can offer to clients can yield additional ideas for lead capture forms on your website.
To sum up, lead capture is pivotal to the success of your real estate website as a prospecting tool. There is no better way to generate website leads and fill your prospect pipeline than through the maximization of lead capture methods, whether integrated throughout your IDX or leveraged through lead capture forms on your website.
The next lesson discusses how to make your website king of the Internet forest so be sure to check it out.
