news & tips — posted June 23, 2005

New XSite tools can turn visitors into leads on their first visit

There's no question that the real estate market is hell-bent on having another stellar year.  Fannie Mae's Chief Economist David Berson last week predicted another record year for home sales and mortgage rates continue to be historically low.  The pool of potential buyers and sellers will always be much larger during strong market conditions, making now a good time to beef up your prospect base.  That way, if the market changes, your business will remain healthy because you already have a solid customer base from which to do business.

This week we're introducing new lead capture tools on your XSite that help you prepare your business for market changes by allowing you to obtain detailed information about your XSite visitors so you can convert them into solid leads faster and better serve their needs.

How the lead capture forms work
Using your XSite wizard, you can create forms that aim to get specific data from your visitors, such as whether they're a first-time buyer, luxury-home buyer, seller, vacation-home buyer, etc. We've given you several default forms such as "Looking to Buy?" "Got a Question?" as well as your own custom forms.  Then you can add the forms to content pages that your target visitors are most likely to go on your site.  When a visitor completes a form, they can be assigned to a contact group (e.g. "First time buyers") for marketing follow up.  If you use XSellerate with your XSite lead capture forms, an e-mail drip campaign can be auto-assigned to a contact based on the form they filled out.

The new lead capture tools also allow you to track which forms are producing the most leads for you by checking the forms statistics.  The statistics will show you how many pages a particular form appears and how many leads it's generated in a specified time — 30 days, 60 days, etc.  See an example of the form manager here.

In addition, you can now add "doorway" forms that your visitors will see before they can get to a requested page, making them more likely to be filled out so you can get detailed contact information on their first visit.  You can specify a doorway form for a particular page on your XSite (e.g. your listings page) or you can establish site "triggers" that will automatically activate the doorway form of your choice through the natural course of a visitor browsing your site.  For example, you can set the doorway form "Looking to buy" to pop up after a visitor has clicked on three pages on your XSite.  Then you can have your XSite submit the leads that fill out the forms to a particular contact group.  Click here to see an example of a doorway form manager.    

Preparing for the future
According to Rusty Lindquist, Product Manager for Agent XSites, the health of the real estate market over the last few years is what has kept many agents from fully utilizing their websites as the center of their business strategy.

"Part of that is because web providers in general have done a poor job equipping you — the agents — with adequate tools. Tools that can effectively take your websites from merely a listing site to a place where you can continually drive customers through all stages of the transaction.  Other industries have adapted far more nimbly to the enabling technology of the internet, and it's time agent website providers stepped up to the plate."

This lead capture release illustrates one way in which Lindquist plans to keep Agent XSites ahead of the pack, and to continue setting the pace in the industry.  "We want you thinking about things before they happen, not after," says Lindquist, who blames a good portion of the industry's historic turnover to the poor service of technology providers.  "We don't want to wait for leads to dry up before we release tools to perfect your lead capture strategy, we want them out now, so that our your income is less susceptible as the industry turns around — be it sooner or later."

You can view these new tools by clicking on the "Lead Capture Tools" icon in the My Office Area of your XSite.

Overcome language barriers between you and your clients

Today's minority groups are projected to comprise nearly one-half of the increase in homeowners between 2000 and 2020. Language tools that can help your clients better understand the home buying process will result in more knowledgeable clients, and of course, more homeowners!