Turning Anonymous Web Traffic Into New Customers
No matter how low or high the level of traffic that passes through a real estate website, every visitor can be treated as an opportunity to convert into a new customer who can be moved along the buyer cycle. Making something out of hundreds, if not thousands, of anonymous web traffic is all the more important in a new reality where COVID-19 has changed how business is done. Gartner reported that 80% of B2B sales interactions will occur in digital channels by 2025, four to six years faster than the historic pace. What’s more, Marketo has stated that a staggering 98% of traffic to the average website is anonymous, signifying a huge untapped market.
The Value of the Agent Website
The difference between a decent agent and a modern, digital one is that the former may have a website that serves as little more than an advanced resume or business card, i.e. the website serves to tell the story of the agent’s history and their credentials. A great website should certainly fulfill this criteria, but the digital real estate professional knows that their website also serves as a unique, lead capturing platform that not only informs the inquisitive visitor, but is engaging enough to establish a long-term relationship.
There is another reason why smart agents make their website work so hard. While well-meaning professionals can work as hard as they can during working hours, the digital agent knows that they have to have an online presence 24/7. This directly starts to resolve some of the biggest reasons why website traffic isn’t converting well:
- Losing prospects due to lack of timely responses to queries, especially during non-working hours
- Lack of customer insight - understanding what types of visitors an agent’s website is receiving, when they hop online, what they search for etc.
- Lack of compelling content - weak CTA copy and positioning, irrelevant or incorrect information, insufficient offers to visitors that would pique their interest and reward them with a mini-service (be it a free whitepaper or special offer etc) in exchange for a piece of information about themselves.
Here are a few ways agents can start churning their anonymous web traffic from passive visitors to engaged leads.
- Ensure there is a website-CRM system in place - The whole website needs to work alongside a supporting and robust CRM system that will capture leads and segment accordingly.
- Implement a Drip Campaign - Where possible, track user site-wide behaviour; this will help distinguish and segment anonymous visitors according to level of intent (low/medium/high). Relevant content can then be allocated to each section, (for example, a free consultation offer to new visitors, or higher intent visitors can receive a limited-time service offer).
- Make sure they sign up to your newsletter or blog - Not only does this reward a visitor with some form of valuable, regularly scheduled content in exchange for their email or phone number, it’s a great way to keep an agent’s brand top-of-mind for the user. So, it’s important to make sure visitors to the website also know there are additional forms of regular content they can be privy to.
- Choose landing page media content carefully - We’ve seen that video does remarkably well in this industry, (video in emails reportedly convert 68% more) but it’s all the more important to make sure that videos, or a testimonial or whatever media is chosen for the landing page, are thought-provoking, can relate to the emotional, human aspect of the homebuying experience, and (importantly), are connected to one direct action or CTA.
- Mobile matters - Agents lose out on a huge chunk of anonymous traffic if they’ve set up a brilliant website but haven’t optimized it on mobile, the most popular device used by online audiences.
- Implement a chatbot - This is a great addition to any agent’s website arsenal because it can initiate conversation and immediately respond to FAQs that visitors may have as soon they log onto the site. It helps eliminate barriers to conversion, perhaps even help qualify leads according to their intent.
- Implement a retargeting strategy - They’ll log off a website at some point, but Facebook, Instagram, Google and even Pinterest ad retargeting can help refresh a visitor’s memory as they’ve now become acquainted with an agent’s brand. This works doubly well if you backtrack and find out which sources audiences are coming from, and craft better messaging that caters to those sources.
A/B testing - Conducting regular A/B testing across all elements on all pages (one at a time!) will help elevate the efficiency of the website, getting it to work smarter, not harder in the process.
