Property Natter: reaching the Holy Grail of more vendors and landlords

Well, the hosts have left the party early. England have crashed out of their own Rugby World Cup after a demoralising loss to Australia and, so we’re told, the economy is set to suffer as a result. 

On the bright side, we might not be seeing so much of those awful O2 and Lucozade adverts plaguing our screens at the moment.

Every cloud…On that point, has anyone else noticed that the guy who plays one of the brothers in the Purplebricks adverts also appears as the shopkeeper in the Lucozade one? Forget bird-spotting or train-spotting, advert-spotting is the new way forward!  

Carrying on the sporting theme, a couple of weeks ago a few of us from the Angels Media team went to Arsenal’s impressively plush Emirates Stadium for The Guild of Letting & Management conference, which The Guild's CEO Susie Crolla had invited us along to.

At the event our Client Success Manager, Craig Vile, delivered a presentation to around 200 delegates. It was all to do with our new ValPal tool (like the name? Thanks to whoever suggested it!), which is designed to convert agents’ website traffic into vendor and landlord leads. Simple, yep, but it works!

I’ve spoken a lot in previous blogs about the importance of attracting and then converting traffic, and how some agents are guilty of missing a trick in this regard – with websites that aren’t up to scratch or a social media presence that isn’t functioning properly.

As an agent, you have two main demographics that you should always be looking to target – vendors and landlords. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: your website should reflect this. It should lure would-be landlords and vendors in and give them a hook to keep them there. 

That is what a lead magnet aims to do, taking that traffic you gain from your website/social media/PR/marketing and turning it into genuine vendor and landlord leads and results. 

Our lead magnet is an 'instant online valuation' tool that we add to agents sites. The tool will happily sit on any website and provide potential landlords and vendors with a free, instant online valuation (sales, rental or both). In order to obtain the valuation, the potential landlord/vendor is required to leave their details. A member of your team is then able to call the prospective vendor/ landlord to offer them a more detailed market appraisal in person and then, hopefully, win the instruction.

There are, in fact, a great number of ways in which you can attract landlords and vendors, both online and otherwise – Facebook Ads and Google Adwords campaigns, touting, referrals, newsletters, leaflet drops, blogs, content marketing, etc. But it’s taking this initial interest and then converting it which will really help to grow your business. 

And wouldn’t it be so much easier if these vendor and landlord leads came to you rather than you going to look for them? Well they do, every day. Thousands of would-be clients will visit your site on a daily basis, a truck load of potential leads. Which is why your website needs a lead magnet, a lead magnet that engages with your target audience by offering them something they need or want, in exchange for their name, email address and phone number. 

Our ValPal tool offers precisely that – engaging landlords and vendors as soon as they land on your site and therefore transforming your website into a highly efficient lead-generating machine. 

The biggest challenge facing many businesses – and in particular owners of agencies – is turning website traffic into, well, actual dosh. Well, we’ve found a way of doing it, the Holy Grail of lead conversion. If you would like a free trial, please get in contact (nat@angelsmedia.co.uk).

We all know how important the whole website experience is in this day and age. As an agent, your website will say a lot about you. That’s why so much is now invested into making them look so nice and glossy. If what you’re offering isn’t up to scratch, then people will move on elsewhere to somewhere that does.

Now, of course, is a particularly busy time for the property industry – with Christmas only a few months away, people want to be settled in their new home well before they have to start thinking about turkey, decorations and mulled wine, which means your website is likely to have plenty of activity in October and November. Don’t waste the chance to convert this traffic. 

As usual, I’ve been out and about over the past couple of weeks. Last Friday I was able to escape the hustle and bustle of rush hour London for the more picturesque surroundings of Bournemouth. This was the view that greeted me shortly after I got off the train. Not bad, eh?  

I was down on the South Coast to attend the BPA & RICS Annual Gala Dinner. Another great opportunity to network – and the food wasn’t bad either! 

There was also plenty of food glorious food on offer at our office Macmillan lunch last week. Plenty of money was raised and plenty of cakes, meatball lasagne, Rocky Road, scones and sausage rolls were devoured! As the picture below shows, an absolute feast of food. 

That’s all from me this week. Until next time…

*Nat Daniels is the Chief Executive Officer of Angels Media, publishers of Estate Agent Today and Letting Agent Today