When trying to push a customer down the conversion funnel on your real estate website, it can seem a pretty impossible task. They’ve found a property, they have a deposit, they need a mortgage. How do you convince them to use you as their real estate loan officer over other brokers and direct lenders, without just asking them to ‘book an appointment to chat now’ or ‘email us to get started’? Well, that’s where getting creative with CTAs comes in and can set you apart from the rest of the crowd saturating the real estate market.
Often, when optimizing the conversion funnel, it’s extremely easy to focus on the endgame entirely and forget about the micro goals and steps along the way. However, if you really take the time to understand the buyer journey of your customer, you will soon come to realize that users on your website may be at different stages of their purchase and they aren’t ready to book an appointment to chat yet. If that’s all you have to offer, they will go elsewhere looking for the resources to match their stage of the journey.
What is a Call to Action?
A call-to-action, often referred to as a CTA, is a strategically placed action point on your website, in your email marketing, on your social media platforms or anywhere else you can reach your customers to entice them to do something that will push them further down the conversion funnel. This doesn’t necessarily mean ‘buy now’, although this is a CTA. Smaller steps like ‘sign up’, ‘download’ and ‘subscribe’ are all CTAs that form the whole conversion process and should not be ignored. This is especially true in real estate, where buyers can spend a lot of time in the research stage of the journey and need a lot of information to satisfy their process before finalizing their purchase.
What does a good CTA look like?
Once you have the basics down of what to do and what not to do, that’s when you can start having some fun getting creative in your marketing strategy and testing out what works. So, what are the basics?
Make sure you use clear and concise language.
Quite a straightforward one. Do exactly that: keep your message straightforward. No cryptic words or clues as to what clicking a button may do. If you want a user to download a guide, use ‘Download Guide’. This not only provides a clear and positive user experience but will encourage relevant and valuable conversions with high engagement rates.
Be prominent.
Make sure your CTAs are loud and proud in design, color, position, size and message. There is no point in subtle CTAs that do not grab the user’s attention and guide them to navigate to the next stage of the funnel. This would simply be a ‘whisper to action’ and not highly effective.
Use power words and time-sensitivity to your advantage.
‘Now’, ‘limited’, ‘exclusive’, ‘discover’ are all great examples of short and snappy words that will grab attention and entice users to explore further.
Test your CTAs.
A/B testing is a great way to investigate your audience further and see what works for them. Perhaps they like the position of a button to the right of a page as opposed to the left, or they are more engaged with buttons that have rounded corners. Testing allows you to try different sizes, shapes, messaging, and colors within your brand palette and measure the results before making final changes to your site or platform.
Don’t forget about your mobile users.
Mobile visitors need to have the same top-quality user experience as your desktop and tablet users. Make sure your CTAs translate well on smaller screens and are easy to navigate.
How to implement creative CTAs into your online marketing strategy
What do you want your users to do? This should be the first question you ask yourself when exploring CTAs and implementing them into your marketing strategy. Each step of the journey should provide actions to help you push your users through the funnel further, whilst also gaining the information they’re looking for and moving close to the decision phase of the buyer’s journey.
If you follow the best practices outlined above, there isn’t necessarily a right or wrong strategy with CTAs. It all depends on your brand and your audience and testing is what’s really going to help you get creative, see what works and discover what is a bit too far outside the box.
One of your main goals in real estate should be retaining your potential buyers on your website for as long as possible. You want to help them navigate the potentially overwhelming world of property, with all its complicated financial and legal jargon. An ideal place to start with CTAs would be around ‘How it works’ and ‘Discover More’ options, giving you the option to create highly educational and informational content available either onsite or offsite as downloadable items (a great way to start building a mailing list if you collect email addresses as part of this process).
There are many tools and calculators available online for potential homebuyers and so having dynamic content will also allow your customers to play with their options and get closer to making a purchase decision. Quizzes and calculators are all good additions to your website and would offer some great opportunities for creative CTAs: ‘Find out how much you can borrow’ or ‘Get an instant estimated valuation’.
As we’ve said, there is no right or wrong and no ‘one size fits all’ when it comes to creative CTAs, it’s all about knowing who you are as a brand and who your audience is. What kind of creative steps have you explored for your marketing funnel? Join the discussion below.
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