It takes more than just a headline......

Upon finding out that I will have an opening for at least one new real estate related marketing client later this month, I was looking at one of the networking sites I frequent, and saw this teaser:

"Investors: Don’t Just Estimate! We have all homes for sale ranked by investment potential."


This is the type of headline which attracts my attention, and more indicative of what agents and brokers should be doing to make their listings stand out, especially in this challenging market.

However, when I clicked on the link, all I got was a web page which was for visitors to either register or login. Not one word about any such property listings or rankings.

Therefore, within a matter of seconds, this guy’s idea went from solid to junk. But it should be a lesson for people in marketing, real estate or not.

Just having an effective headline doesn’t help. In this instance, it makes it worse. We not only don’t get the information we hoped when we click, but we don’t even get a confirmation that we can get it. Just because the page says to either login or register doesn’t mean that we would get the desired information after we register. Let’s face it, people aren’t anxious to give out their e-mail address and take their chances, especially when it means showing an interest in buying real estate.

What did I expect when I clicked? Either a list of properties as promoted, or at the very least an explanation of the criteria used in “ranking” the homes for sale. I still have no idea about what part(s) of the country these properties are supposedly located in, whether they are single family homes, multi-family, or strictly for investment potential. If for investment potential, it raises the question of single family, rental, flipping, rehabbing, etc. Instead, not even a “coming soon” or anything to indicate I got to the “right” site, and this was by clicking on the link provided.

However, I’m not going to go back to that site to find out.