Use a headline establishing the promise to the visitor right up front. You need a central headline that encapsulates the value proposition of the product offering. Remember that you always need to answer the question, “What’s in it for me?” This is especially critical for the “cold” visitor who has no prior relationship with you, such as you will get from advertising traffic.
Always focus on creating a need (such as the desire to easily search all area homes without hassle), then explaining why they need to go to YOU to get it satisfied (you let them search everything in the MLS by simply clicking a button). Remember, you are selling the sizzle, not the steak. Orient them, empathize with them, give them the context as to why this service will make their lives easier and make them happier. Your job is to show them why they need your product/service - and need it from YOU. Again, these principles are good rules of thumb for marketing in general.
Passive voice, 3rd person writing drains energy and excitement from your copy. Change every “they” to you. Don’t tell me about a feature, tell me how I’d use it, how I’d benefit from using it. You want to create urgency with your words and create calls to action, not bore people to death.
Traditional Open Houses are not effective at selling homes--less than 1% of homes are sold as a result of a traditional open house. Open houses can be a huge waste of both your time and your client’s. In the vast majority of cases, they don't benefit you, the seller, or the buyer.
Instead, give a Tour or Parade of Homes. A Tour of Homes gives buyers the opportunity to view several homes in one afternoon (saving them time), and represents a great way for you to easily showcase several of your listings at once (saving you and your clients time).
Here's how to do it:
Advertise the tour as running during a set period of time—for example between 1:00 and 3:15 on Saturday. Find about 5-6 homes (in a similar price range) to put on the tour, with each home "open" for a specified 10 minute period of time (allowing about 15 minutes between each time to get from home to home). For example, house #1 might be open from 1:00-1:10, house #2 from 1:25-1:35 etc., depending on the distance between each home. Tell your Prospects that they can meet you at any home on the tour during its specified time.
There are several benefits to this approach for both you and your sellers.
The tour of the seller’s home is over quickly, so they don't have to give up a whole afternoon of their weekend (and neither do you!). Ask another agent (or two or three) in your office and if you can "borrow" their listings for the tour. Specifically, ask them if you can hold an open house of some of their listings during your intended weekend.
The agents may ask why you want to do this. Explain to them that it will give you an opportunity to get face-to-face with some prospective buyers. In return for giving you this opportunity, you'll be giving their listings some bonus exposure. You'll find that the agents are usually more than happy to let you do this.
The tips below are excerpted from the (funny) article Baby Name Optimization by David Berkowitz.
Below are ten tips for baby name optimization. Note that while this is tongue-in-cheek, these best practices can be applied to your business. You'd want to research potential business and product names for what listings come up in major search engines, and you'd often be wise to apply many of the baby name optimization tactics that follow.
1) Write a press release the day your baby's born with the baby's name in the headline, and optimize the entire release. As soon as the little one takes its first breath, he or she can even appear in the body of Google's natural search results thanks to universal search.
2) Buy all potential domain name misspellings of your baby's name. If you're blessed with ample foresight or come from an ages-old tradition of arranged marriages, buy versions of the last name of any potential suitor you have in mind. Redirect the names to your baby's main dot-com domain.
3) Film the birth and syndicate it to dozens of video sites. One of those sites will have to be around by the time of your kid's communion or bar mitzvah, right? On your primary domain, optimize the video by tagging every second of it so those clips are accessible to search engine spiders.
4) Blog as if you're the baby. Then, when your kid is old enough to blog, you can hand it over to your child, or you can go on blogging as if you're his or her therapist.
5) Tag your baby.
6) Create a Wikipedia entry for your baby. If it's rejected, claim that one of the parents is Britney Spears, Angelina Jolie, Paris Hilton, David Arquette, Oprah, or all of the above.
7) Googlebomb your baby's domain around the phrase "world's cutest baby," "future Nobel laureate," or "Harvard class of 2025." It reminds me of an old joke, where a parent is asked how old her children are and responds, "The doctor is three and the lawyer is two." The scary thing: some parent is reading this column right now and starting such a Googlebomb.
8) Digg your baby.
9) Be sure to update meta tags every so often, as your kid's prom date would be horrified to see "spitting up" and "potty training" as some of his or her most relevant keywords.
10) Every few years, change your child's name to something new that has less search competition. Though beware... this will bring an entirely new meaning to the phrase "your baby's in the sandbox."
For most real estate professionals the market has changed dramatically. Several years ago, a simple presence in the field was enough to be successful and earn a good living; but today a much better strategy needs to be utilized, just to stay on the playing field.
The most critical objective of a Real Estate website is to capture the contact information from a visitor so that a pipeline of prospects can be developed.
Additionally, web leads then need to be worked effectively and in a time-sensitive manner, to see a successful ROI.
Building a pipeline begins with attaining contact information (email, phone, what they are looking for/what they are selling). [If you have a traditional direct mail program in place, then a street address is vital as well. While direct mail can still be of value, e-mails can be powerful, better targeted and less expensive.]
For example, by grouping your prospect base into categories (like single family vs. condo buyers or buyers vs. sellers), you can send out e-mails that are tightly aligned with someone's interests. You will experience a much better response rate by segmenting in this manner.
Here are some ideas to boost the effectiveness of your Website and online lead generation efforts.
1. Take advantage of the opportunities of online marketing: Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and Search Engine Marketing. 
Key ingredients of SEO include having interesting and unique content on your pages, search engine friendly website design and effective back-linking and reciprocal linking (getting other websites to link to you).
There are a series of variables that need to be considered when starting a campaign. These include keyword selection, geography (where do you want your listing to show up) and bid strategy (how aggressive do you want to be? What is your budget? etc.).
While a PPC program can be a good way to drive traffic to a site, the average agent doesn’t have the time to manage such a campaign on their own.
When free-time is limited, I suggest that the agent use our Buyerlink program instead of PPC, to drive targeted buyer traffic to their site by city of interest. Buyerlink is similar to search engine PPC, but it does the work of finding the buyers for you (through PPC, organic placement in the search engines, and web ads) and it allows you to simply sit back and let the buyer leads roll in.
2. Keep the content on your site fresh, accurate and specific to your targeted market and area.
For example, it's a big turn-off to arrive at a site with inaccurate information, generic text, or links that don't work. Additionally, people want to work with someone that they see as an expert in what they need. Create a compelling reason for someone to search for properties on your site, rather that just going to realtor.com. [Check out the article Keep Web Visitors Coming Back For More for more information about creating good content]
3. Make it as easy for someone to contact you via e-mail as by telephone. Prompt follow-up is also critical. The statistics tell us that most web visitors expect a response within an hour from a web inquiry, and that they will end up working with the first realtor that they come in contact with, so make sure you get back to them before they have a chance to reach out to a competitor.
And as already mentioned, make sure you get complete information from each person, as you personally communicate with them, so that you can maintain multiple contact points.
4. Utilize a contact management program. There are a number of these programs on the market today that will allow you to keep in close contact with those who warrant it, schedule others for contact later on, and also segment the database for mailings (as described above).
5. Study your competitors’ sites and learn from their mistakes. Although most sites have similar attributes, others are unique with varying degrees of success. Look at other agents’ sites as if you were the client, and see what you like and don’t like.
Also, many Realtors have sites through the companies that they are representing (Prudential, Century 21, etc.) and think that this is enough of a web presence. The truth is that unless you have your own personal site, most people will never find you online [try trying to find yourself without searching for your name on your broker’s site, or Realtor.com]. A personal site allows greater flexibility, and will help to increase your online visibility and number of leads.
If you are just relying on a page on your broker’s site, you will get lost in the dust, and will miss out on leads. Having a site of your own is essential for both creating your own personal brand and funneling leads into your pipeline.
The conclusion: Lead generation is in your control. Hard work, strong organizational skills and a willingness to embrace e-mail/the Internet, are important ingredients to attaining impressive results in a tougher marketplace.
Within Real Estate, there are thousands of different niche markets a real estate professional can identify and serve. Some examples of a niche market include marketing to a specific neighborhood, horse farm owners, first time home-buyers or beach front properties.
Every one of these things can evolve into a powerful niche for you.
Differentiation of yourself from other Realtors, that is, by demonstrating your understanding of buyer's/seller's needs and their areas of pain. People buy from people who understand them and that kind of differentiation is rare.
What woman out there buys lipstick because of what it's made of? (If they did, I assure you that there would be a considerable decrease in lipstick sales!) Instead, they are buying it's beauty-enhancing ability, and it's long-lasting, won't-kiss-off staying power.
What is the difference between an agent who makes money from their marketing and one who doesn't? Ad copy!!!
In our advertising-saturated world, if you're not writing unique, clever ads that stand out, your marketing dollars are going to waste, as most consumers will "tune out" 95% of the marketing around them. (Think about your own habits. How many commericals do you actually watch?)
The tips below are a good starting point for writing any ad. - Kim
The basis of Adwriting 101 is tied to the acronym AIDA. Remembering these four elements of a good ad will make you more money.
Top 10 Tips to get that phone ringing:
10. Always include the price & location. As a buyer reads ads, they are trying to eliminate the ones that don't fit. When there is plenty of inventory, they will not even call if the price isn't there. To increase your effectiveness, do your homework and know the alternative homes that would fit their needs.
9. Link to Online Pictures Consumers love multiple pictures. Include a link to additional photos on your website. By sending them to your website for additional information, you will capture more prospects. Over 80% of buyers are searching online as well.
8. Offer A Virtual Open House If the media you are using has an open house section, advertise a link to your virtual tour of the house. Do this in your weekend newspaper instead of holding a real open house!
7. Turn The Features into Benefits Don't just list the features. Tell them why they will love the location, the cozy fireplace, the gourmet kitchen. A large yard can offer a place to relax with plenty of room for pets and kids.
6. Play To The Emotions People buy houses based on emotional reasons. They are trying to either to avoid pain (be it emotional, physical, or spiritual) or to gain pleasure (be it real or anticipatory). Ask a question or make a statement to involve their emotions.
5. Include Financing Get from your lender details of several loan options and advertise using the terms in the ad. . A headline of "Can you Afford $1000 per month?" will attract renters that don't realize that they actually could afford to buy. Take care if you add financing terms to be in compliance with Regulation Z.
4. Target Your Market Is this a golf course property? A gated community? A first time buyer home? Write your ad to appeal to the most likely buyer. Give them the benefits! An ad for an investor would focus on bottom line numbers. An ad for retirees would feature benefits of the 55+ community.
3. Write to Their Type Is your most likely potential buyer a Baby Boomer? A retiree? A young professional? An environmentalist? What are their values and concerns? The words and style you use to appeal to each different type of buyer matter.
2. Use Creative Words Bring the adjectives back! Bring alive the activities their family will enjoy. Paint a picture for them of those rooms so they can see themselves cooking gourmet meals in the spacious kitchen! Get your thesaurus out and make your descriptions outstanding and inviting.
1. Call To Action Give them a reason to call. "Won't last long at this price!" "Call today before it is gone."
