One of the best ways to build your real estate list and to drive traffic to your real estate website is by using video marketing. That’s right, you can drive tons of traffic to your real estate website using videos that are uploaded around the entire internet on video sharing sites such as YouTube, Revver, Metacafe, Google Video, and dozens of other video sharing sites.
Today, I want to talk to you about one of the most important strategies that every real estate professional should use when building their business. The strategy I’m referring to is list building. That’s right; you need to build a list. Why? Because once you build a targeted and responsive list, selling and buying your real estate investments will be as easy as pushing the send button within your email client.
But before I go into how you can build your real estate list, I need to make a very important point. If you have been online for a while now, you might have heard the phrase “The money is in the list.” If you have heard that expression before, let me tell you something, that phrase is WRONG. Here’s why…
First, that phrase should read. “The money is in the relationship you build with a targeted list.” You can have a list of 1 million people but if these people have no interest in real estate, you will never sell them anything. Also, if you have never emailed them before and have never built a relationship with them, it’s going to be awfully hard to sell something to them. Especially when you send them an email once a year.
You need to be in constant contact with your list. You need to interact with them and talk to them as you would talk to your friend. Always and I mean always, write your emails to one person. When you write your emails to a list of thousands of people, write as you would write to just one person. Why? Because when that email hits John Doe’s mailbox, he is going to be the only one reading it. John Doe needs to feel like you are writing just to him. Use his/her name in the email to make it more personal, be open, friendly, and transparent. Believe me, your subscribers will appreciate it and send emails back to you telling you how much they appreciate it and how they can’t wait for your next email.
Now that we have that out of the way, let’s talk about how you should capture those emails so you can build your real estate list. You will need to create a squeeze page. A squeeze page is a simple web page with the sole purpose of capturing the visitor’s name and/or email address. That’s it. The only thing that the visitor can do on the squeeze page is to either enter their name and/or email address in the opt in box or leave the page.
Why would someone want to leave their name and/or email address? Once you figure out who your target market is, you’ll want to either create a pdf report, video, or audio to give away free to your visitors. You have to make sure that the gift is something they will value and would be willing to pay some money for it. For instance, if someone is heading for foreclosure, do you think they would give you their name and email address if you told them that you can give them the exact steps they need to take to save their home? I bet you they would.
So the first thing you need to do is to create a killer PDF report, video or audio.
Sidenote: Typically, videos convert much better that PDF reports.
Next, you need to create the squeeze page that will include several critical ingredients. Those ingredients include a headline, subheadline, benefits, testimonials, graphic, opt in form, SPAM disclosure and more. I will explain all of those ingredients in my next post here next week. Not only will I explain what each ingredient stands for but I will give you some solid examples you can swipe from me for some of the ingredients. How does that sound?
For now, I want you to leave me a comment here and let me know your thought s on this subject. Are you using a squeeze page in your business? If so, how are the conversions? Are you tracking your clicks and conversions? I hope so. Either way, let me know and I’ll try to address them on my next blog post.
To Your Success,
Peter Kolat
Photo Credit: Chad Jones
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Article Author: Peter KolatPeter has written 31 articles for us.
Visit Peter's Website: http://www.realestateids.com
Peter Kolat is a Real Estate Internet Marketing genius. He's been consulting for many real estate gurus in the real estate industry. His Free Internet Marketing Techniques helped many real estate investors & agents dominate their real estate markets on the internet. No wonder he's been called the "Polish Pulverizer."
Joshua Dorkin
{ 9 comments… read them below or add one }
Good informative post indeed. Before optimizing a page for improving conversion page, what I always decide and set apart first is the unique selling point (USP) of your product and services. You can have a look here. What do you say?
Good point. Creating your USP and benefits are extremely important when creating your squeeze page or any product for that matter. Thanks for bringing it up. I’ll be explaining the benefits in my next post.
Peter Kolat
Founder of Realestateblackbook.com
One of the keys to building a list is having that killer opt-in incentive that will get people to stop whatever they are doing and sign up for your list. You really want to put in as much solid information in this free report so your subscribers will be interested in buying your paid products in the future.
I couldn’t agree with you more Toronto.
The trick is to pinpoint who your target audience is, I mean really figure out who there are and then figure out what exactly they are looking for. if you can give them the EXACT info they are looking for, you’re golden.
For instance, my Real Estate Black Book contains hundreds of real estate internet resources for real estate investor and agents. I give that book away for free to anyone who signs up to my list. Guess what, that’s what investors who are on the internet look for. They want to stop wasting their time looking for resources and info.
In fact, I had many people email me that the Real estate Black Book is pretty much the only PDF that’s on their desktop and to this day, year later, they are still referring to it.
Results: My squeeze page converts upwards to 62%.
If you have any questions, don’t hesitate to add me as a colleague here on BiggerPockets and PM here. I’ll be more than happy to help.
Peter Kolat
Yes Peter. You are right. We have to make sure that what we set apart as USP is what our target audience wants. It is always a tough job. I’m adding you in my contact list and will be looking for your help in future. Thanks. Have a nice day
Arindam Mitra’s last blog post: India’s Republic day – Let My Country Awake
Thanks Arindam. I’m looking forward to hearing from you.
Peter Kolat
If you are not allowed to send emails without the recipients having opted in, how do you get the squeeze page to your target market? Do you post the squeeze page on different websites?
As you may understand, list building is vital. And seriously it took me a while to really find why this is.
Currently, list building is viewed as an absolutely basic part of marketing strategy. It is looked upon being an investment which will generate durable profit and maximize earnings.
By building a list that is valuable, you can reach your customers and have a chance to build durable connections with them. Without building a list it will be extremely difficult to sell your products or services. Irrespective of where they live, you can get in touch with them as long as they are in the list.
But by no means should you make the breach of bombarding your target market with dishonest offers or undue advertisements. Only contact them when you have a product or service that might be beneficial to them, not you.
Peter,
As for me I am so new at this that any and all information would be helpful at this time. As or the details of your article, “GREAT” this was exactly what I was looking for, someone to spell things out for me so I can move forward instead of staying in one place. The question that I do have may be answered in the follow-up to this article, however, if you are brand new to the business, what could you use to replace the “Testimonials” being as though you have none to speak of as of yet?
I look forward to reading more of your suggestions and experiences.
-Darieal