Almost 80% of home buyers use the Internet to find property*. The web is consistently rated as the most useful resource — surpassed only by a Realtor® in perceived value*.
The vast majority of web users begin their property search months before they are ready to speak to a Real Estate professional%u2020 The right website with integrated property search is a critical part of your marketing strategy.
Many Real Estate professionals make the mistake of assuming that merely having a website will aid in marketing or be perceived by their clients as a significant value. The sad truth is, the vast majority of Real Estate websites provide little or no value to their owners.
In the Full Cycle Marketing program, Branded Web Services accomplish four important goals: project a custom brand, validate the marketing message that brought them to your site, provide an outstanding property search experience and subtly build a profile of each visitor.
Custom Branding
There are over a million Realtors® — stand out from the competition! Avoid templated sites that vary only in the picture in the corner of the page. Create a 'look and feel' that projects your unique value in the market.
Validate Your Marketing Message
When your visitor arrives, they should immediately see content that assures them they have found what they were looking for. If you are marketing to potential first-time buyers looking for a home in the Golden area, they will be significantly more likely to become a client if they see a message that you are an expert in Golden Real Estate as well as an article about how to buy your first home with pictures from the Golden area.
Effective Real Estate websites don't have a single point of entry. Customized pages, called Landing Pages, should be created to compliment your marketing efforts — dramatically increasing the impact of your marketing message.
Provide Outstanding Property Search
It is important to understand that the primary reason a visitor is on your website is to find and view detailed property information. Articles, community data and local photography are excellent resources for Landing Pages (see above), but filling up your website with 'free reports' and other content has little real-world value. 93% of visitors to Real Estate websites are looking specifically for MLS search and detailed property data.*
To your visitor, this is the most important feature and will significantly affect the perceived value of your website. A good Real Estate website should offer: Integrated MLS Search
This is the primary purpose of a Real Estate website. If your provider does not offer an integrated MLS search, there can be no better reason to seek a new website vendor.
Avoid 'bolt-on' search systems that look like an after thought and don't provide continuity with the rest of your website. Most importantly — never, ever rely on sending your visitor to an external website to conduct their search. This eliminates much of the perceived value for your website, hinders your ability to collect information on your visitors and exposes the lead to your competition.
Detailed Search Criteria
With very few exceptions, buying the right property is a tremendous concern for your website visitor. They will have many preferences beyond bed, bath, price and location. By providing an advanced MLS search with a broad array of criteria you not only empower your visitors, you also create an excellent way to collect detailed information about your lead. (see Build a Profile of Each Visitor below).
Automated Email Alerts
This highly sought-after feature provides your clients with regular email alerts of new properties that match their search criteria. This allows you to get your brand and marketing message out to your active users on a regular basis. This feature is often the leading draw to convert anonymous site visitors to identify themselves and provide initial contact information.
Enhanced Property Details
There can be no greater demonstration of the value of your website than a detailed, easy to understand description of each property. The Full Cycle Marketing system places tremendous emphasis on the property details page, encouraging Real Estate professionals to go beyond the MLS data to include additional pictures, captions, mapping, satellite photography, extended descriptions, open house information and detailed school information. All industry-specific abbreviations should be replaced with visitor-friendly terminology and the page should include an integrated glossary to help explain commonly used terms.
Build a Profile of Each Visitor
The more you know about your client and their needs, the better you can provide for those needs. The many automated "self-service" features in the Full Cycle Marketing program allows a Real Estate professional to provide tremendous value to their clients while collecting information on the specific needs and concerns of their clients. During their use of your Branded Web Services, you will be able to track what pages they view, what articles they read, what search criteria they have been using (whether they save their search or not) and what properties they have been viewing. All of this information is available to you from your Contact Management Hub.
