Putting a lot of effort into farming, email marketing, and social media is an important part of lead generation. You want to attract attention, get leads, and convert those leads into sales. However, many Realtors® get lost when it comes to exactly what to say.
You want to spin words that are convincing, educational, helpful, and build relationships with your prospects. You want them to trust you and reach out to you when it’s time to buy or sell. But how do you actually do that other than hiring a professional copywriter? Here are three keys to help your marketing convert.
Play to Emotions
Everyone likes to think their decisions are rational, but they really aren’t at all. Generally, humans make decisions based on emotion, and then justify that decision using reason. As a result, marketing that reaches to the emotional level is the marketing that will convert.
Make a list for yourself of the common emotions that homebuyers face. Make a separate list of the emotions home sellers face. Some ideas include fear, uncertainty, the desire to make the right investment, the desire to have a great-looking home, wanting to show off to friends or family, the desire to sell quickly, and greed (to buy or sell at maximum benefit to themselves).
Some emotions will be on both lists, but you will have better results if you divide one client type from another. As a Realtor®, you’ll have a number of messages – some should target specifically sellers, and others specifically buyers. Once you have your emotion lists, craft your farming, email, and social media outreaches to touch those emotions and position yourself as the way to achieving success.
Invite Rather Than Sell
Everyone likes to buy, but everyone hates to be sold. Rather than trying to pitch yourself with a hard sell through your marketing, try this: invite the prospect to join you on the journey to fulfilling their emotional desires (see above). Position yourself as the one that can show them how to feel secure, calm, wealthy, or successful. Invite them to join you.
When your copywriting does this, you’ll avoid a lot of the defensiveness that prospects have toward Realtors®. You’ll be talking about their needs instead of yours. And when you do a great job showing them that working with you is the best way for their emotional desires to be met, they won’t fight you on commission. You’re competing on a whole different level than price.
When you position your marketing as an invitation, you’ll also get prospects who are more serious. When you badger someone, or make them feel guilty, or engage in a hard sell, some people will say yes simply because they can’t say no. These are not the clients you want. You are looking for engaged, motivated clients – when you issue an invitation, those who say yes are the ones ready to get started today.
Use a Call to Action EVERY Time
Once a prospect has read your piece, what should they do next? If you don’t tell them, they’ll likely just throw your postcard or email away and move on with their lives. Instead, make sure to include a call to action every time. This means inviting them to take action on what they’ve read – either to read more, comment, share, or contact you.
Keep in mind that not every call to action will be to a sale! Many times you’re nurturing your prospects along, and you just need them to interact with you in some way. Have them reply to the email, leave a comment, or share something with their Facebook friends. Invite them to visit your website or enter a drawing or contest. These are all legitimate calls to action.
Of course, there are plenty of times when you should invite them for a sale. In that case, be sure to include urgency. “Contact me today – this home will sell quickly!” or “Let’s talk today to get your home sold now!” You’ll know your clients and their trigger words better than I do, of course, but these are examples. The basic principle is, use a call to action EVERY time, whether a sale or not. Always keep your prospects engaged with you.
You don’t have to be a professional copywriter to sell homes, but understanding the basics of why certain words and phrases sell is essential to your business. Draw on people’s emotions, invite them to work with you, and use a call to action every time. Your conversions will increase and you’ll get much more bang for your marketing buck.
If you need help crafting perfect marketing materials, Printerbees is always here to help. Let me know what I can do for you!
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