Today as a property development professional if you want to reach potential homebuyers you have to start online. 9 out of 10 home buyers use the web as a resource to help them find a home or investment. There are two ways you will be found online:
- People are going to find you through a generic Google search, which will then lead them to your website.
- People will come across your property development business through online advertising — mostly from Realestate.com.au or Domain.com.au.
If you are advertising on websites like realestate.com.au or domain.com.au, it’s integral that the next step in your strategy involves a lead capture page to make sure you have access to the information of each one of those potential customers.
How do you do this? You need a landing page.
A landing page is a page separate from your website which encourages the prospect to fill out a registration form. This site is also referred to as a lead capture page, given its purpose is to… (you guessed it) capture leads.
As part of your online advertising strategy, landing pages are used to facilitate a value exchange between you and the prospect. You want their information to move new prospects into your sales cycle; thus you offer them something in return for providing you with their details — this could be an email with more information, a consultation, or a brochure.
Landing pages trump websites when it comes to lead capture conversion. Landing pages help to:
- Increase conversions
- Generate data and insights which can be used for future campaigns and to learn about your customers
- Grow your email list
- Improve brand awareness by getting them to engage more actively with your brand (i.e. submitting their information)
From our extensive experience in the digital space specifically for the property industry, we strongly encourage the implementation of landing pages in lead capture strategies. However, we appreciate that in the property industry there are always different factors — like the current economic climate, what your competitors are doing and more — which can affect the willingness of prospects to register. For this reason, we encourage clients to complete a split test, which tests which of your sites are receiving higher conversions.
From these tests we can find some pretty interesting results. Here is a split test we conducted recently which clearly highlights the superiority of the landing page for lead capture.
iCreate Split Test Case Study
In this test, we compared the conversion rates of our client’s website, vs a landing page that we had designed with the simple goal to encourage website visitors to enter their information.
From the beginning, Google Optimise was rating that the landing page was almost 100% likely to be the winner of our test. This proved to be 100% accurate. In fact, we completed the test early due to the overwhelming case to demonstrate the efficacy of our landing page, which far outweighed the website. These were the results:
Landing Page
The landing page received a much higher volume of inquiries, totalling 40 leads captured from 701 sessions. That is a conversion rate of 5.7%.
Website
The website received much fewer inquiries, totalling just seven leads captured from 671 sessions. That is a conversion rate of only 1%.
What is important to note from this test, is that the quality of the leads from the website were higher because website visitors have already seen all of the information they needed to make a clear decision that they wish to proceed.
If the thought of warmer website leads stop you from seeing the value of the landing page, please consider this. When you register prospects before showing them your website, you receive two benefits that you would not have otherwise gained:
- Qualified leads to enter into your sales pipeline and to be added to your email marketing list – an essential tactic in property marketing.
- The contact details of a real prospect – Giving your sales team the opportunity to follow up and move them from luke warm leads to piping hot clients.
Let’s take a look at some of the landing page solutions iCreate has provided to clients.
For this client, the single screen was perfect and it is traditionally used for pre-sales or coming soon campaigns.
Includes:
- Custom Design & Development
- 1 (full screen) Section
- Conversion Form
- Google Analytics Tracking Setup
Standard – Gasworks Residences Brisbane
This solution is just perfect for most scenarios. It provides additional Key Selling Points and teaser information.
The solutions includes:
- Custom Design & Development
- Up to 3 Sections
- Conversion Form
- Google Analytics Tracking Setup
Advanced – Dr Cate Hearn Clinical Psychologist
Dr Cate Hearn required something more in depth that allowed her to tell more of a story to get an enquiry.
The solution includes:
- Custom Design & Development
- Up to 5 Sections
- Conversion Form
- Google Analytics Tracking Setup
Landing pages capture leads and move prospects down the sales funnel (awareness>consideration>conversion).
Websites, on the other hand, are a resource for engaged customers who are further ahead in the sales cycle (ready for conversion). If you already have someone’s contact details you want to be able to send them to something more than the landing page. You already have their details, therefore the landing page and its purpose — capturing new clients information — is not required.
Engaged customers or prospects may come from your existing database, agent’s database, or investment channels. As a rule, if you are aware of them and they of you, then your website is the best resource to send them to learn more about your business and your services.
Brochures and sales collateral should also, unless part of a lead generation campaign, refer people to your full website.
In summation, both landing pages and your websites are essential to your marketing strategy. Each play a different but critical role.
To learn more about how to integrate a landing page into your marketing strategy, get in touch with the team at iCreate.