What’s your Call To Action!?!

Sadly, for many of the sites I visit… it’s just a Contact Me Page.  Not a COOL Landing Page, that has a video, or a a fun Market Report in a Slide Show… just Contact Me.  When you are competing for leads, it’s going to take more than that

A  little box with some text in the sidebar also isn’t going to be enough to grab your visitors’ attention.  “Sign Up For My Newsletter” has to be the Second Weakest Call To Action on a Real Estate Site! Make your Call To Actions bold, with graphics and colors that they can’t miss. Contrasting colors can help draw a visitor’s eye to the action you want them to take!

Let’s face it, most people are lazy.  I very rarely go to page 2 of Google looking for something.   The same is true with your Call To Action – if their eyes don’t find something interesting in 5 seconds, people are going to “Bounce.”  So keep your Call To Action above the fold on your site.

Call To Action Ideas:

• Free eBook for First Time Home-buyers, maybe you want to have a link to down load it – but take them to a PAGE dedicated to downloading information, offer a quick video, and ask for some basic information prior to the download.
• Because most Gen X and Gen Y are not going to come to a First Time Home Buyer Seminar, consider offering a Webinar.  Remember that when you are pointing people to the information, you want to send them to a Landing Page, not just the front page of your site.  The Landing page should be devoted to getting some contact information prior to them starting the Webinar.
• Maybe you want to title that Call To Action, How To Make Money On Investment Property.  Perhaps you could make that into a “Kit” and offer ROI information for your visitors.

No matter what your Call To Action is – make certain that your offer and the corresponding Call To Action will answer the crucial question your visitors want to know: “What’s in it for me?”

If you have questions about creating leads from your real estate blog, or how to get your Listing seen by more eyeballs – contact me. I’d love to help you and learn more about what’s working in your market! Are you on Facebook and Twitter? Let’s Connect!

WiseStamp allows you to add a box to the bottom of your email signature that includes your social icons and latest messages that you’ve sent on Twitter! 

Many email apps like Gmail offer you the opportunity to create multiple email signatures. Once you create your default signature, go back and create all of your canned messages. Then when you open an email, just select the alternate email signature and KABOOM, there it is. Sorry for yelling, I was going for effect. I personally have around a dozen canned messages set up as signatures in Outlook.

Now – you can change the message, and connections you put with each different signature.  If you have a Facebook Business Page that concentrates on “Things to Do” in your City – connect to that in a canned email to people considering a relocation.  If you are constantly Tweeting from an account about market Conditions, show your last Tweet in the message that goes to Sellers.  The combination and Opportunities are endless!

WiseStamp has a Premium Account for $72 that allows for unlimited email signatures – but you CAN download it for FREE.  I also like that it offers the opportunity to use FeedZilla to update with Real Estate Information on the bottom of each email, in addition to allow someone to connect with you immediatel

It’s just way more interesting than the same old Jane C. Doe, 999-888-1111 www.janecdoe.com signature!  We’re Marketing Houses – we can be more creative than that!  So, jazz up your email campaigns, and your email signatures with this Free, Simple Add On to Generate more Internet Leads!!

If you have questions about your creating leads from your real estate blog, or how to get your Listing seen by more eyeballs – call Josh Harley, Fathom Realty, 214-228-0301.  I”d love to help you, and learn more about what’s working in your market! Are you on Facebook and Twitter?  Let’s Connect!

While it’s a multiple step process, it’s not that difficult.  You might want to create an Opt-In email list and “touch” your Facebook friends with a newsletters.

This could also be important if you are trying to build your list of followers on Twitter, or find more connections on Linkedin!  Once the contacts are imported into Yahoo!, you can login to your Twitter Account, and upload them to Twitter!

In order to make this work – you need to have a Yahoo! Account.  Login to Yahoo! and go to your Contacts Page:

After you click Facebook, you will need to login to Facebook, and then you will see:

Now – If you don’t use Yahoo as your primary email account, you can export the contacts from Yahoo to a format that will work for Google, AOL, Hotmail, Outlook… or excel, where you can use it for an upload into your Contact Database.  If you are using a service like Mail Chimp or iContact, make CERTAIN you are adding this folks with Opt In so that you do not get marked as a Spammer.

Export the files in a CSV or VCard format .  Then you can import them into Google!  EzyPzy!  Need some ideas for your Email Campaigns?  We’re here to help!

If you have questions about your creating leads from your real estate blog, or how to get your Listing seen by more eyeballs – call Josh Harley, Fathom Realty, 214-228-0301.  I”d love to help you, and learn more about what’s working in your market! Are you on Facebook and Twitter?  Let’s Connect!

What Are You Trying To Achieve

Okay, so we are spending time on the Internet, generating Internet Leads, following up with folks in our Database, and working as efficiently as possible to create sales.  Cash.  Contracts between Sellers and Buyers.  I know that is what you are trying to Achieve.  But do you have any more Specific goals than that?  For instance when you create an email campaign for local Buyers, that you’ve never met or spoken to before – you are trying to get them to connect with you.  Give you a call, let you know more about what they are interested in knowing about the local real estate market.

Before sending out any marketing material, you have to have clear goals and objectives, this is especially true with Real Estate Drip Campaigns. Why are you sending out this email? What are you hoping to achieve and how will you measure the results?  What kind of email are you sending?

5 Different Types of Real Estate Emails For Your Drip Campaigns

• Newsletter – A Generic Newsletter that goes out to your complete SOI is what I see most Real Estate Agents using.  But if you’ve taken the time to segment your Internet Leads and Database,  you could do a Newsletter with market reports that goes to past clients, and local buyers.  Is it information that is UNIQUE, Interesting and Relevant – or is it the stuff they can find anywhere?
• An offer or discount email – Are you offering a Home Warranty, why not let people know about that in one of your emails?  Have you seen the Groupon that Dream Town is doing?
• Event invitation – If you are holding an Open House, you might send out an invitation.  What about holding a session in your office about how to create a Business Facebook Fan Page?  That could be a Monthly Event!  You could also regularly invite people to meet you at a Chamber Breakfast, promoting non-profit events is a wonderful way to connect with like-minded customers.
• New product or service announcement – Is there a new subdivision in your area?  Is there an Innovative building product that the folks at Lowe’s or Home Depot are demonstrating?  Help promote others, as you promote yourself!  The message can not be ME, ME, ME, ME!
• Educational/Technical - Maybe you’ve put together a First Time Home Buyer Webinar, or you just did a blog post on ROI of Investment Properties, and what the local rental rates are.  If everybody in your area is printing Absorption rates – do something else!

The idea is that you can’t just blast out the same message to everyone.  Converting more internet leads means that you need to segment your audience and customers – and then take the time to analyze and understand their needs and requirements.  I think it’s a good idea to let folks who are subscribing decide whether they want you to follow up with them on a ‘daily’, ‘weekly’ or ‘monthly’ basis. Sign up forms should be clearly visible on your homepage and include links to previous issues so that prospects can get a taste of what content you produce and decide whether it’s appropriate for them or not.  Go ahead and ask them directly about their expectations. What information would they like to receive from you? Current marketing information, studies, industry news or tips for the use of existing products are often more exciting than the latest products, new customers or press releases.

Content is STILL King

Our in-boxes are bombarded with emails everyday, so you must  deliver Quality Content that your audience wants to read, and even better, share with their peers. A great Subject line is Critical.   If all of your emails are simply self-promotional, you are going to be in the Spam folder quicker than you can say “Frog Legs!”  You must provide compelling information that is Unique Interesting and Relevant.

“People Do Business With People They Know and Trust.”  You need to be the Local Expert when it comes to Events in your area, your real estate market, jobs, politics… okay, so you don’t really have to talk about politics, necessarily, but you need to know why one school might be ranked higher than another.  You should know if there’s a new coach for the local high school football team this fall – and you should be sharing that information online.  This kind of information let’s people know that they can Trust You to have the information and do the research that they need before they purchase or sell!

Because this IS Content, remember that your newsletters, emails, event invitations, Service and Educational news should include your Keywords.

Here’s some more tips for upping your game when it comes to Email Marketing Campaigns.  If you have questions about building your real estate blog as you build your real estate business, give me a call!   Josh Harley, Fathom Realty, 214-228-0301. I’d love to help you, and learn more about what’s working in your market! Are you on Facebook and Twitter?  Let’s Connect!

In addition, you want to be sure that you are creating a compelling “Call to Action” with the content you are providing in your Newsletters, Emails and Event invitations.  Headlines and Subject Lines are important.  Before sending ANYTHING out, ask yourself if you would be compelled to open it to get more information!

Here are 7 Tips for Improving Your Email Drip Campaigns

• Understand your audience: the ‘one fits all’ approach does not work. Segment your database into groups with similar needs and requirements. Local Buyers and Past Sellers are going to be interested in 2 completely different things! Make sure the message is relevant to the target audience.
• From & Subject lines: what email address do you send your emails from? Will the receiver instantly know who is sending it or will they think it’s spam? With the subject line you get about 40 to 50 characters to explain your “macrocontent”–what your email is about. Subject lines should say something valuable, timely or important. It should say “If you don’t open and read this email, you’ll miss out on something big!”
• Short and sweet: time is short so make your message count. Long emails without clear calls to action will get skimmed and deleted.  Sometimes, a one sentence email, “Do you have to sell to buy?”  with a subject line of “Quick Question.” will get the most responses!
• Don’t oversell: People already get too many sales messages.   You are going to end up in the Spam Box if you send out a message every other day with Buy This House!  Go the educational route and the prospect will contact you when they are ready to buy.   Remember not to send people to the front page of your website.  Create a link to the information you want them to see.
• Shareable: if you want your message to be easily spread then you have to make it shareable. Include ‘forward to a friend’ capabilities and social media links to Twitter, Linkedin, and Facebook.
• Measure & Test: this applies to all parts of marketing. Test call to action buttons, test the design of your email, the layout and length of the text and whether you get higher response rates on certain days of the week or times of the day.
• Accessibility by Mobile:  What about those who use mobiles to view emails? What does your email look like on mobile?  Have you then clicked through from your email and viewed what your landing page or website looks like on a mobile?

We have some more information on how often you should be updating your database audience with Email Drip Campaigns, and what segments we think your database should be grouped in.  Do you use Drip Campaigns in an interesting way?  If so, I’d love to know what’s working for you!

Check out how Google Gmail Apps can be helpful with your email campaigns!

It’s sad, but true that many internet leads that are generated through websites are lost, thought to be bad leads or simple thrown out.

Research shows that when a consumer contacts you by email, they want an immediate response. NAR does expensive surveys each year that tell us the first agent to contact the customer has the best chance of becoming their agent.  It’s a Jump Ball!  You need to be sharp to convert that lead!

The problem is the Hurry Up And Wait part of the buying process – because the online consumer, may be INTERESTED in buying… but they may not be ready (due to finances) or they may not be ready to commit right away.

So the agent gives up, loses interest or doesn’t have systems in place to keep track of that “Maybe” customer to convert them. When they enter the actually buying stage, that is when they need you… And that may be more than a year off!  The A.D.D. agent just doesn’t have the patience!

There’s a Solution

1.  You need to concentrate your efforts, your responses, and your campaigns on getting the appointment!  Stop worrying about anything else. Concentrate on getting the appointment and the rest will follow.

2.  To get that lead to want to talk to you, you must create an amazing experience. What would make someone want to work with you?

• Detailed information on your site for their situation – so when they go online at 9 p.m. they can find everything they need so they don’t go somewhere else.
• Customize the Auto-responder email sent to them. This in depth information should include information on you and the community they inquired about.  Should you have a Splash Page and Video set up?  Absolutely!
• Instant response to their inquiries should include a follow up phone call, and / or a text message.  Don’t make them wait… and don’t just send a “Blanket” email and expect to have a loyal customer.

Assign each lead a category, you know, A, B, C or hot, warm cold. Spend most of your time on the hot leads of course but set up some type of system that sends helpful emails to the warm and cold leads every two weeks or so.

Every email you send can be automated in a drip email campaign, and should include any updated listings that match their inquiry. There are 3 rules to remember. You need to be able to show value to the client, follow up right away and be able to work with an activity plan that lets the system do the work.

Again, it takes some effort to come up with an “interesting” message for someone every few weeks for a year… but it can be done!  And don’t just rely on email messages… connect with them on other networks.  Are they on LinkedIn?  How about Twitter?  If so, you can schedule out messages and include those messages in your campaign!

If you have questions about your creating leads from your real estate blog, or how to get your Listing seen by more eyeballs – call Josh Harley, Fathom Realty,  214-228-0301.  I”d love to help you, and learn more about what’s working in your market! Are you on Facebook and Twitter?  Let’s Connect!

Have you seen the “Hit Router” that is part of Activerain? If you have a RainMaker Account (meaning a paid account) you really should have it set up – or you are probably missing referrals!   I always thought that little Search Bar on the top right side of each page was for Activerain to generate leads… but No!  Following some easy steps, you can set this up on your Activerain Post!  You can either PAY to have the leads in a certain area, or you can get some free ones!

How Hit Router Works

The FREE part of Hit Router is called “My Markets.” If you write a ton of posts about Plano Texas (for instance), and you want the people reading about Plano Texas on YOUR pages to be able to search for homes, set it up and start generating YOUR leads!  Did I mention it’s F-R-E-E?!

The Paid Option is called “Campaigns,” and it allows you to purchase traffic from anywhere on the site, with a pay per click campaign.  You set the budget, if no one is already buying in your area, it starts at .49.

If someone uses the “Search For Homes” on your blog for an area you aren’t set up for, Activerain will give you a credit for that search! You can use your credits in the paid Campaigns you set up!

Setting Up Your Hit Router

1. Go To “My Home” and click on Hit Router on the left had bar (see below).
2. Type in the City you want to add
3. Go to your IDX and do a search for the city – copy the url at the top of that search into the link field. This will take the consumer straight to the listings they are looking for on your IDX.
4. If you are doing a “Campaign” they will ask for your monthly budget!  That’s all there is to it!

The Consumer’s ability to search for listings on Activerain is HUGE, and TONS of agents are getting internet leads from it, you should be one of them!!

If you have questions about your creating leads from your real estate blog, or how to get your Listing seen by more eyeballs – call Josh Harley, Fathom Realty, 214-228-0301.  I”d love to help you, and learn more about what’s working in your market! Are you on Facebook and Twitter?  Let’s Connect!

We use these at Fathom to generate leads, and you can use them too!  Here are 10 Tips for PPC Ads and Keywords:

1. Make your ad stand out and continue to tweak it to improve its click-thru-rate (CTR). If your click-thru rate is really high then Google will rank your ad higher than other advertisers who are bidding on the same word AND paying more than you.
2. Do not advertise YOU, advertise property listings. No one is actuallysearching for the “Number 1 agent in DFW” because every agent claims they are “number 1”.

Example of effective ads

3. The shorter the keyword phrase, the more people will see your ad but the more competition and the more expensive your ad will be. E.g., “Dallas Real Estate” = 100,000 searches per month = $3.80 per click to show up on the first page. Uh, no thanks… unless you’re loaded.
4. The longer the keyword phrase, the less people will see your ad but the less expensive it will be … however, if you create enough of these “long-tail keyword” ads then you can ultimately get as many clicks while saving a lot of money. In other words, more bang for your buck.
5. Make your text ad specific to your keywords. If you’re creating an ad for Plano, make sure the name Plano is in the ad text.
6. Go for specific terms including property type (luxury condos for sale in Addison), specific neighborhoods (homes for sale in the Lakes of Westridge), and so on. The more specific, the better the lead quality and the better the price per click.
7. Bid low on the high dollar keywords like “[city name] Real estate”. These are the most competitive and highest cost clicks. They are also the most generic and have proven to have lower conversion ratios.
8. Unselect the option for Google’s “Content Network”. It’s a waste of money and the clicks do not convert into real estate business. (Thank you @BenKinney for reminding me of this one)
9. Add campaign tracking to your destination URL so you can track the visitor after they’ve arrived at your site. This will allow you to see which keywords have the highest conversion from click thru to registration so you know where to spend your money. Many visitor analytic services like Visistat (monthly fee but well worth the money and easy to use) and even Google Analytics (free to use but not as easy to get advanced) will give you the ability to add this tracking code to your URLs.
10. Last but most important tip: DO NOT direct the ad’s URL to your website’s home page or search page. Make sure they land on your results page. If you are creating an ad for “home for sale in Flower Mound” then have the ad’s URL send the visitor to the results page for homes for sale in Flower Mound. That is what the visitor is expecting to see when they get to your site, not a search box.

Need some help actually setting up your Ad?  Watch this video with step by step instructions!

Have other questions about Lead Generation and how to set up your ads?  Leave me a comment and I’ll try and answer them!

As the top search engine in the world, Google is one of the places to be with your paid online advertising. Google and many of the other search engines will allow you to limit your expense, focus your advertisement to display only when specific key words are searched for online and will let you narrow your ad to geographic limits so you can advertise nationwide, statewide, citywide or even as specific as a certain zip code.

Creating an advertisement for a Google search is very easy and takes very little time to do. Watch the following video for a step-by-step guide for creating your first ad on Google.

Twitter boasts 200 million accounts, and 95 million daily tweets.  A recent survey of people under 25 showed that a staggering “80 per cent use a mobile device to communicate with friends while watching TV, with 72 per cent using Twitter, Facebook or mobile applications to actively comment on shows as they are watching them.”

What does that have to do with Real Estate Lead Generation?  People are communicating more rapidly these days.  Gen Y can text faster than they talk… they are asking and receiving the collective opinions of their friends ALL THE TIME.  With Twitter – you can be part of those conversations and Generate Leads!

Granted, Twitter is a little trickier to understand… but if you fall into one of the extremely high demographics of folks who are using Twitter to communicate, or if you want to rank on Google (who now owns Twitter) you should probably take the time to figure it out.

BASICS

You only have 140 Characters to use for your update – so it’s a wonderful tool for people who are “Creative” Spellers.  The person you are trying to make a comment to shows up the @ infront of their name.  So @Nik_Nik or @HarleyLtd.  You Search for Information using the # sign.  So if you wanted to be found or look for information in San Diego it would be #SanDiego.  If you were commenting about Facebook it usually shows up as #FB.  People RE-TWEET what others have put out there… that’s just like Repeating something.  It usually looks like this RT@HarleyLtd

People follow other people, other topics and Trending Topics… You can also follow a phrase like “Looking For ____ San Diego”

And lastly, know that Twitter generally does not make sense if you are “looking at it” through TWITTER.Com … to get Twitter, you need to look at it, monitor it, work with in using a different App like Hootsuite, Seesmic or Tweetdeck.  Whichever app you use, you should down load that App to your smart phone because that’s where you will be sending and updating many of your messages as you move around town.

Rules of Etiquette

• Re-tweet comments of interest. Why? The obvious reason is that you like the info and feel it is worth repeating. The not-so-obvious reason is that when you re-tweet it shows people you reciprocate. Others will start to re-tweet your posts. The re-tweet is PARAMOUNT to your success on Twitter. When you post something it goes to your 200 or so followers. What if five of those people re-tweeted it? And then another 10 re-tweeted it again? Your audience and potential leads grow exponentially.  Remember our goal is to generate leads – and that takes people noticing you, and recommending you.

• Respond to all mentions and messages. See who has mentioned you and thank them — every day! Respond to direct messages (DMs). Send a quick “thank you” DM to anyone who follows you (but do not send them a slimy spam message!)

• Share your lifestyle -  be personal, be real. People want to connect with real PEOPLE, and EXPERTS in their area.  Contribute information about new restaurants, the best places to take pictures of the city and favored jogging trails!  Show people that you are the person they Want to be connected to!

If you have questions about building your real estate blog as you build your real estate business, give me a call!   Josh Harley, Fathom Realty, 214-228-0301. I’d love to help you, and learn more about what’s working in your market! Are you on Facebook and Twitter?  Let’s Connect!