Now I must let you in on an industry secret. Attracting people looking to sell a property is A LOT harder than attracting someone who is looking to buy. As an agent reading this, you may already know just how hard it is to attract sellers and valuations. Just because something is difficult, doesn’t mean you should not focus much time on it. The point is, we both understand the importance of attracting sellers and valuations, the value they bring to your agency is unparalleled and we want to make sure you don’t miss out!
By James Sheldon
Here’s the real kicker, Property Webmasters are extremely active in the digital space, offering some fantastic services online. To tell the truth, there are some great offline tactics to also do the trick, we will discuss that later in the guide!
Can you afford not to make an impact within the seller’s market? Competition within the real estate sector is fierce, especially in big cities and thriving economies like London, Lisbon etc.
We wrote a small blog over a year ago that has helped agents better understand how they can attract sellers, however, we are going to go into a greater amount of detail here, adding new information and techniques that are trending with the top boutique agencies from around the UK & Europe.
The most important part of the process when it comes to attracting sellers, vendors and valuations is brand awareness. Think about it, if you were selling your home, you probably have a few agencies in your local area that you would consider using? If not, how would you go about looking for an agency? Would you use Google, social media or perhaps word of mouth via friends and family? A brand is everything to an agent, a trust builder and a deal sealer!
Can you imagine how fantastic it feels for your brand to be recognised internationally? At Property Webmasters, we work with some of the biggest real estate brands from around the world. So you’ll be glad to know that we have a huge amount of experience marketing property for our clients. When we wrote our blog back in February 2020, the world was a very different place and the so-called ‘new normal’ has led to some very interesting changes in the way we humans respond to things.
In light of the changes to our day to day lives, one of the biggest changes to the way stand-out agencies are going about attracting sellers is a trend that died off years ago. The resurgence that is quite frankly remarkable comes in the form of QR codes. With the use of smartphones on the increase and the need to sign into venues becoming pretty much mandatory, QR codes have become extremely common in day to day life. Previously seen as a bit of a fad, QR codes are now recognised by all ages, they are easy to use and typically free to set up themselves.
You may be wondering, how does this link back to the real estate industry? QR codes can be placed on anything and everything, whether it be printed media, storefronts, print advertisement, etc. If you’re looking for an example, we recently attended a webinar where one top agent in the Hammersmith area of London was regularly sending out leaflets promoting their agency, creating four different designs with different messaging and style, the agency was able to determine exactly which leaflet was the best performing as the QR codes can be tracked to see which design was the most successful. This allowed the agent to re-use the most popular design going forward!
The QR code A/B test helped the agent find a design and content that worked!
There are many ways in which your agency could segregate the trending QR code feature on paper material. You could use varying QR codes for different postcodes, boroughs, content types. In order to make sure you nail the process, we have a few tips to help you:
Give it a go and see if the response you receive is as good as we think it could be!
We have just discussed how important QR codes are for agents, but to get them in front of potential sellers, you need to design some print material. Make no mistake about it, we are 100% forward-thinking when it comes to marketing for estate agents, you may think that paper-based advertisements/leaflets are a thing of the past. What we would say to that is, you are mistaken.
Think about who we’re targeting here, sellers of property. Brand awareness is critical and what better way to get someone’s attention regarding this subject than placing a well-written, thought-provoking advertisement through the letterbox of the home they could be interested in selling! Stats show that around 70% of users ignore online advertisements, scrolling without even thinking, however, printed leaflets almost force their message upon you as you have no choice but to look and read the content, even if it is while taking it to the recycling bin.
Continuing on with the print content, we shall discuss the final step that can be taken to really plant a seed in the mind of a person thinking about selling their home.
Rounding off our selection of steps your agency should take to attract more sellers, we must talk about the extremely popular strategy agents are using to make their print ads even more effective.
That is using facts and figures to inform a homeowner what they could be missing out on. There are subscription-based services that can provide your agency with cutting edge stats for your area. These stats include average age of occupants, the typical profile of employment, property that has recently been let, average prices for property within their area etc.
A lot of the stats that are included are things that your agency can get a hold of, you do not have to go too in-depth to capture the imagination of your target audience. Imagine you are targeting a specific postcode with a print advertisement, you include a bit about your agency, what you specialize in and how you can help sell their property. Your print advert makes use of a QR code that leads to a free valuation tool, with expert advice. One way to round off the advert to make it extremely interesting is to add a stat or two, specific to that area you’re distributing the adverts.
‘The average property with the SE25 postcode has increased in value by 6% over the last 2 years’ – Example Stat
This thought-provoking example statistic could take someone from mildly interested in selling their property, to providing your agency with a valuation enquiry.
So, now we have the print content out of the way, we can discuss how nailing your online presence can lead to an increase in valuations.
Is your website set up to easily attract sellers? At Property Webmasters we build quality websites that cover all bases for our clients. That includes housing modules within our CMS that agents can take advantage of to make sure that anyone who is thinking of selling their home will have valuable, up-to-date information available.
Your website must of course be fast, responsive and well-designed. But, we’re going to bypass the obvious within this guide to get to the nitty-gritty of what is going to prompt users to sell their home with your agency.
A Functioning Valuation Tool – A good place to start is by getting a valuation tool in place on the website that actually works. Depending on your location, select a property valuation tool that is easy for users to navigate, understand and enter their details.
Navigation – Starting off at the top of your website, the navigation features categories that are extremely important. Your website should include a ‘Sell’ or ‘Selling with us’ category that will store all of the relevant information and tools a user could need.
Sellers Pages – Having a valuation tool is not enough, you are experts and you need to display that to the user to build trust. Your ‘Selling with us’ section should include in-depth localised guides, a ‘why sell with us’ section, perhaps a ‘how to sell your property for more’ guide, testimonials, service specification, localised property facts/stats as well as a valuation tool/page.
Homepage CTA – As well as the navigation it is always a good idea to push your valuation service via the homepage. This could be included as a button or a small expandable form or whatever works best for your website, just make sure it is easy to spot and use!
Once you have your website set up with a valuation tool and content you need to make sure people find your business online. Next, we will go through some of the common and uncommon ways to attract traffic to your website’s new valuation pages.
Something to keep in mind is that if someone is looking to buy property, they more than likely also have to sell their current property. This could just be one idea that you could use for an email marketing campaign. Incentivise property buyers to advertise their property through your website. This could be a series of emails showcasing the advantages to a potential client using your agency to sell their home and assure them of your level of service, efforts and the process involved, this can be backed up with testimonials and the content we discussed earlier!
Set up and targeted correctly, PPC and Paid Social campaigns are now some of the most successful ways to increase your lead generation and drive sellers to advertise on your property website with a great ROI. This can go hand in hand with a dedicated landing page design!
Utilising things such as Facebook Pixel, Dynamic Product Ads and Google Display Ads to retarget people who have previously visited your website or listings, or to create an audience based on your existing customers.
We know that the intent of users who are being remarketed to is higher than the standard user who is seeing your adverts for the first time.
These forms of paid advertising have proved very successful in Real Estate and with key messaging on what you are wanting to achieve or offering an incentive/advantage to sell through your agency, this is a great way to drive seller traffic to your website. You can also use these online paid methods to attract users to view the guide content we discussed earlier, users searching for ‘how to sell my home for more’ could be easily targeted by your ads!
To round off our guide into how to better attract valuations and sellers we must finish on a few things that can make your agency look much more professional and interesting. The use of organic social media can really set your agency apart from the rest of the competition and one method that tends to get users interested is video content.
Users like to see the face behind the name. It is important to get your audience affiliated with your business and what better way to do that than short videos that give insight into what your agency offers?
Your agency offers a well-mannered, personable approach when someone rings up with an enquiry, you also need to deploy the same strategy online via social media. If you create video content and your team comes across as warm, friendly and knowledgeable to a user then you’re a shoo-in to be the first choice agency if that user has a query.
Making people aware you exist is important and posting your brand logo is not enough. In the fast scrolling world of social media, the only way to stand out in 2021 is to post video content. Talk your audience through the process of a valuation, offer them something for free or an add-on if they swipe up on the video and proceed with a valuation or a general enquiry.
When someone is in their comfort zone it is hard for them to be shaken, your agency needs to make an impact and draw the enquiry out of someone who may not have been expecting to enquire but felt propelled to do so.
What do you make of our tips? If you have tried some of these methods in the past, how did they work out for your agency? At Property Webmasters, we offer estate agents marketing and website design and development services that get results. After working with the biggest real estate firms around the world and new startups, we understand and have years of experience in what really works for agents.
Contact us today to speak to one of our experts and find out more about the web design and marketing services we offer.
By Ben Spowart
By Ben Spowart
By James Sheldon