WordPress Websites Give You Advantages When It Comes To Real Estate Lead Generation
When it comes to real estate lead generation, hopefully you are not doing the following.
Somewhere buried on your website, is a little tiny box (or even worse) just a link, that says, “Sign up for our newsletter.”
No, no, no, no.
Let’s get real for a second when it comes to real estate lead generation.
Those email subscribers a broker or agent captures is one of their most valuable assets, if not the most valuable asset they own.
This is the digital age. People visit search engines looking for properties and then review real estate websites. The days of a hot prospect walking into an office are gone for the most part.
When that precious prospect visits a brokers or agent’s website, do everything you can to retain that connection. Start a relationship. And you can do that by capturing that prospect’s email (and contact information).
The key point is, there should be multiple points on an agent’s website for real estate lead generation.
One of the best platforms to maximize leads is a WordPress platform, the most advanced web platform in the world.
And the best way to optimize a WordPress platform is a company such as Home Junction that is experienced in creating websites with plenty of real estate lead generation features.
The big advantage of WordPress real estate websites is the ease in which lead capture forms can be added and moved around a site.
Real estate lead generation strategies
Here are some strategies provided by Home Junction that go beyond just the “Sign Up for the Newsletter” notice.
- Home Estimator Tool – Everybody loves this tool – it creates an opportunity for a homeowner to find out “how much is my home worth.” Who doesn’t want to know that? Now local agents can provide this tool just like the big national portals. Add an email capture box somewhere along the path for when a person uses the tool and checks out the value of their home.
- Save Favorite Listings – People come to the site. They search for the particular type of property they want to buy. They find several listings that match their criteria. Give them an opportunity to save their searches. (Remember, one important aspect of real estate lead generation is to offer something first to get something in return).
- Email Alerts – Offer to provide updates to prospects by integrating your IDX with your email list so that consumers can know when prices change on their favorite listings or when those properties are taken off the market.
- New Listings Notification – In addition, offer to provide prospects via email when your IDX detects new listings that match their search criteria.
- Social Sign-Ins – Allow prospects to sign onto your website and see the information they saved by using their Facebook or Google Plus accounts.
- Forced Registration – This option for brokers and agents allows them to require a web visitor to fill out a registration form before they can access pages or data. Maybe it’s to use the Home Estimator Tool, or its perhaps for some valuable real estate data (also provided by Home Junction) such as Recent Property Sales, School Data, Demographics, etc.
- Offer a Content Upgrade – another idea is to offer EXTRA content for an email signup. Again, real estate data providers such as Home Junction have access to tons of relevant content. Perhaps hold some of that precious content back and offer it in return for an email registration.
- Newsletter Subscriber – Offer to send them this valuable data on a regular basis if they become an email subscriber. (“Want Local Market Updates Every Month? Sign up here!”)
The best practice for real estate lead generation is to a) make it easy for people to enter their email without requiring them to answer a bunch of questions and b) make sure the real estate lead generation form is not an annoyance, but something that consumers want to fill out.
Everybody knows pop-ups are bothersome. So perhaps place an “exit” pop-up on the page that people will see only when they are about to leave the site.
Another option is to have an email registration box appear as the web visitor scrolls down the page.
It’s also very important to allay any privacy fears. Assure people you won’t be using their email for any other purpose or to sell to third parties.
Be sure to let people know how often they will receive an email if they do register.
And be sure to let them know how easy it is to unsubscribe.
Placement of the real estate lead generation box is key. Moving the signup box to the top of the page or on a popular data page can result in a big boost in email signups.
As we said, every signup is precious. These are your prospects. You worked hard to bring them to your website – either through advertising, or search rankings or your social media posts.
With a WordPress website, as we said, it’s easy to relocate the real estate lead generation forms on a page. Making a move that increases a 5% signup rate to 10% is huge. That’s DOUBLE the number of prospects you will generate by just making a simple design change (and WordPress is all about simplicity).
Design is another key factor
Experiment with the form. Take colors for example. Red and blue are effective colors for email signups. Move the text. Change the headline.
If you have a form on one page that is not performing well, maybe change the color. Again, if the registrations jump from 3% to 6% you just DOUBLED your real estate lead generation strategies for that page.
Again, this is easy to do with WordPress real estate websites.
Since the internet started back in the 1990s, there have been a ton of gimmicks that have come and gone.
But one of the tools that has remained a staple for successful real estate marketing is email. In fact, building an email subscriber list has become a top priority for most businesses in all types of categories.
By the same token, the competition to capture a visitor’s email is as intense as ever.
Don’t take this strategy for granted. Get the best platform for making changes to a website- WordPress. (Here are some additional ideas for increasing lead sign-up rates).
Hook up with an experienced WordPress web company such as Home Junction to get the most out of your real estate lead generation strategies.