The start of my real estate brokerage career just happened to coincide with the dramatic increased use of the Internet by home buyers and sellers. As a marketer, this sounded like the Holy Grail because unlike other advertising outlets (newspapers or magazines) the Internet is clearly a highly trackable medium.
As it was explained to me many years ago, I was not only going to be able to see where consumers to our website came from but also what they did while on the site. And even better, be able to match a potential client that filled out a registration form back to the online source they used to get to our site. This would mean I would be able to watch ROI on my marketing efforts and have a really powerful weapon in my arsenal.
Unfortunately, as we all know - it's just not that simple. But the good news is - you can do it!!!
The ability to track activity to and on your site is absolutely there. But your website needs to have a certain infrastructure in place to make your online marketing efforts trackable & successful.
What follows are 7 critical components of a successful lead tracking and cultivation program:
1. A solid website - Well duh! It would be hard to track something if you didn't have one of these. But seriously, your website doesn't have to have all the latest bells and whistles but it should be easy to navigate, understand and use.
2. Relevant Information that consumers care about - If you're a broker or agent, the reason people are coming to your website is pretty simple...they want to search for real estate information. Whether that is property listings, recent sales data or neighborhood information, you need to provide consumers a compelling reason to come to your site and hopefully keep coming back. To really stand out, give them unique and entertaining insight via your blog.
3. Compelling calls to action to contact you - It is important that you have some place on your website to capture the people that are visiting your site. This can be as simple as a quick form requesting more information or a viewing of a property or an advanced listing alert tool. More to come on this later...
4. Web analytics - This is where the true tracking starts. The simple Wikipedia definition of Web analytics is the study of online behavior in order to improve it. Some of the information you will be able to glean from your analytics use is where your traffic is coming from (both referring site and search engines), your bounce rate and what pages are most popular on your site. Some examples of web analytic tools include Google Analytics (free!), VisiStat and WebTrends.
5. Tracking Pixel -This is probably the most critical piece of this whole puzzle because it will tell you where a website visitor came from when they touch one of your lead capture points. For more information, see the definition page at Wikipedia. But essentially you want a Tracking Pixel (or several) to be on the confirmation page shown after any contact form is filled out. This will allow you to know that a visitor from a certain source has become a lead for you.
6. Lead Management Tracking System - This is a system that stores all of the contacts you have made and usually has a built in follow up system like a drip marketing module that will touch clients in a predetermined timeframe. Your Lead Management Tracking System can be as simple as using Excel or as sophisticated as implementing Salesforce.com.
7. Lead Management Person or Team - If you are a single agent, this person more than likely will be you. But if you have a team or brokerage, you should really think about putting a dedicated team in place to handle the leads once they are captured in your system. Follow up is key to converting leads into closed transactions and that is what the responsibility of this team will be.
So now you have a better understanding of what you need to do to track activity to your website. Now these efforts still need to be coupled with excellent client service in order to obtain the desired results. But if there is no tracking in place, it is very difficult to maximize your marketing spend and get the most out of your online marketing efforts.
Derek Overbey
Sr. Director of Partnership Strategy
Roost.com
Twitter - @doverbey
derek.overbey@roost.com
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