If you’re a marketing professional in the real estate development industry, you’ve invested time, resources and money driving traffic to your website. Now what?
Whether your website visitors have arrived via organic search, PPC, social media or even old-school print collateral, each one represents an opportunity and you need a strategy to keep them from walking out the door. It starts with the basic understanding that the primary purpose of your website is to generate leads. It’s not a self-serve, digital brochure — it’s your most powerful salesperson.
Engage visitors as you would face-to-face — by assessing their level of interest, their needs and what might get them to the next step in their journey. This is easily accomplished with simple "conversion paths" and allows your website to do what it was meant to do: build trust with your visitors, convert them to leads and collect information that will empower your sales team.
In this article, we’ll detail best practices to optimize your conversion paths, along with some great examples from real estate development marketers.
Conversion Path Optimization
- Understand the basic conversion path process
- Place relevant calls-to-action throughout your website
- Offer an incredibly valuable content resource
- Use dedicated landing pages with forms
- Don't forget the thank-you page
- Send a welcome email to your new leads
- Engage in real time with live chat and chatbots
- Choose marketing software that fits your needs
- Calculate your conversion rate at regular intervals
1. Understand the Basic Conversion Path Process
It may seem rudimentary, but it's essential to understand how the basic elements of online lead generation fit together. This not only helps to identify holes in your existing process, but is critical in planning new campaigns and visualizing their conversion paths.
Conversion path optimization begins with implementing best practices and a standard workflow.
When an anonymous visitor arrives on your website, a call-to-action (CTA) invites them to take the next step in their journey by offering a valuable resource or offer that is relevant to the content on the page they are currently viewing.
The CTA then leads to a dedicated landing page for the resource, which contains a form to collect their contact information. A completed form leads to a thank-you page with access the resource, often triggering a follow-up email to welcome the new lead. Now that we've detailed the standard website conversion process, let's look at ways to optimize each step.
2. Place Relevant Calls-to-Action Throughout Your Website
Once that hard-earned traffic reaches your site, don't let them look and leave. Chances are, they have a reason for visiting. On some level, they are researching solutions to their needs and "contact us" or "sign up" will show you're putting the least possible effort into helping.
Consider the topics on each page and present relevant CTAs that offer logical next steps to those who want more. After consuming a brief overview of a topic, most visitors won't be ready to contact a salesperson.
Instead, offer a valuable piece of related content that will address their needs in greater depth while positioning your business as an authority on the subject — a comprehensive guide, a proprietary magazine, video or a useful tool to aid in their research.
Always word your CTAs with language that reinforces the benefits your visitors seek. Avoid generic prompts like "Learn More" or the dreadful "Click Here" and entice them with the promise of the end result.
Use CTAs to guide your visitors through an informative journey with links to relevant content, instead of only providing sales contact information. Here, Clubessential invites prospects to view Q&A testimonials from loyal customers.
3. Offer an Incredibly Valuable Content Resource
Buyers today are conducting more and more research online before contacting a salesperson. This is especially true with the longer purchase consideration for real estate and large b2b investments.
Be the source of the information your website visitors need by offering a valuable resource in exchange for their contact information.
Often called a "lead magnet," this can take the form of a comprehensive guide on a specific topic, long-form video or other content format that offers a wealth of authoritative information that goes much deeper than a typical web page.
In many cases, you'll be able to strategically build these from existing assets.
Offer a valuable content resource that is relevant to your prospects' needs and provides a depth of expert knowledge and unique perspective they won't find anywhere else.
Real estate development marketers should consider the most common questions, wants and needs of their prospects and address them in a convenient, comprehensive resource that tops anything else online. What are your most popular web pages? How do most conversations start with your sales team? Uncover the most sought-after topics to inform your strategy. Your prospects are likely researching the same topics with your competitors. Offer the definitive resource and you'll establish authority, earn trust and move your prospects closer to a sales conversation.
4. Use Dedicated Landing Pages with Forms
A landing page is a website page with a specific objective — to convert visitors into leads. This is accomplished by offering visitors something of value (detailed above) in exchange for their contact information.
Why would you create a special page just for people to fill out a form?
Why not just use your homepage or about page?
A landing page eliminates distractions by removing navigation, competing links and alternate options so you capture your visitor’s undivided attention. And complete attention means you can guide your visitor where you’d like them to go.
Always place your form above the fold (in view when the page loads) and keep the required fields to a minimum. Asking for too much information adds friction that will turn prospects away. A name and an email address are often more than sufficient to nurture a new lead.
Keep forms short! Ask for as little information as possible to reduce friction.
5. Don't Forget the Thank-You Page
When a visitor submits the form on a landing page, they should be immediately taken to a thank-you page that explains what happens next.
The thank-you page is the final stage in your conversion process and is where they will access the valuable content offered on the landing page.
At this stage, you officially have a new lead and the lead nurturing process begins.
In addition to thanking the person who converted on your landing page, you'll want to include CTAs that direct your new lead to other relevant points of interest on your site, to related content offers, and encourage social sharing.
6. Send a Welcome Email to Your New Leads
Every time a thank-you page is viewed, it should trigger an immediate email follow up. In the case of new leads, a welcome email is the appropriate format.
Here, you'll offer another link for them to access the content from your landing page conversion and will begin further educating your prospective customers about what you sell and how frequently you’ll be sending email.
While welcome emails are often automated, they set the tone for a lead nurturing process that should be highly personal.
Use personalized subject lines, restate the value proposition by reminding them why they converted and be sure to include next steps, helpful resources and key contact information. A proper welcome email will set you and your leads up for success.
.png)
.png)
.png)
