Real Estate Marketing Online — Fundamentals for Success

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by Brandon Cornett

The First (and Only) Law of Real Estate Marketing Online:
You never know if something will work until you try it.

When it comes to real estate marketing online, everyone has an opinion about what does or doesn't work. But the only thing these people can say for certain is what has or hasnt worked for them.

A tactic that fails miserably on one website could succeed wildly on another site. There is testing, and then there's conjecture ... the key is to know the difference.

Real Estate Marketing Online (to the Info Savvy)
Consumers have become increasingly skilled at using the Internet as a research tool. The glut of information we face on a daily basis has led to a nation of “info savvy” individuals.

Many colleges today teach courses in “Information Processing,” which is essentially a roadmap for navigating crowded information highways.

In short, the problem of information overload has yielded the solution of information savvy. As a result, new skill sets have emerged.

Skills of the “info savvy” web user:

Able to quickly judge the value of a website
Able to recognize and assess the information "hot spots" of a website
Able to skim and scan web pages with brutal efficiency
Able to read selectively while ignoring suspected advertising spots

On a real estate marketing website, the obvious goal is to motivate or persuade the reader, to channel them toward the desired goal. And speaking of “channels,” it's about time for an acronym.

SECTO: Stop ... Engage ... Channel ... Tell ... Offer.

Keep SECTO in mind when building (or having built) your marketing website, especially on those pages where youre trying to evoke a response.

SECTO:

Stop the reader (perhaps with your headline, imagery, or a combination of the two).

Engage the reader with relevant content that delivers on the headlines promise.

Channel the reader toward the specific action you want them to take.

Tell the reader how to take that action.

Offer the reader an incentive or reward for taking that action.

SECTO in action:
Now let's look at a website that uses the SECTO principle to channel a reader toward a desired goal. Study the web page for a moment, and then answer the questions below?

View web page

Questions:

How does the above web page stop the reader?
What is the primary goal of the web page?
What is the secondary goal of the web page?
How does the web page drive the reader toward the primary goal?
What kind of offer might be added to further entice the reader to take the desired action?
What has the web page done to increase the reader's desire for the item being offered?

Statistics from the National Association of Realtors® show that 77 percent of buyers use the Internet at some point during their home search. With numbers like that, your mission is clear — you must have a real estate website to stay competitive.

The question is, what have you done to make your website more effective than the websites of all your competitors?

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