How To Promote Your Virtual Office Website To Get More Real Estate Leads

Imagine this.

You and I are sitting at a downtown coffee shop, having a casual chat about the real estate market today.

You decide to probe deeper into the business side of things.

“I want to work smarter, not harder. What’s the easiest way to generate leads for my real estate business?”

“Hands down, having a virtual office website (also known as VOW).”

“Okay. And remind me again – what’s a virtual office website?”

“It’s a feature that enables REALTORS® to give their website visitors direct access to MLS® listings. That way, they can search for homes at their leisure – all from your website. While your website visitors browse properties, you collect their contact information from their account signup, so that you can then follow up with them in a personalized way.”

“Sounds handy. How do I get that feature on my own website?”

“Oh that’s easy. Choose your template from the selection of myRealPage websites, and you’ll be on your way with a virtual office website.

Once you’re set up with VOW, your website visitors will get the added benefits of:

• being able to view 200% more listing information than what is shown on Realtor.ca
• view homes as soon as they’re listed
• saving listings into a favourites folder with comments for 1 click easy access on any device
• receiving email notifications of new listings that match their criteria
• search from way more MLS® categories than other public sites. i.e. Looking for a detached property with a legal suite in a cul-de-sac near a golf course!

 

VOW makes the whole listing search process easier for you and your clients, all while giving you – as the real estate agent – much more data to work with.”

“Okay cool. And once I have VOW set up on my site, then what? Do leads just magically appear in my inbox?”

“Possibly. But it’s always good to be proactive.

The more you can let your audience know about the VOW feature on your website, and show excitement for how it’s going to make their lives so much easier, the more traffic you’ll get to your signups – and the more leads you’ll have to follow up with. That’s where the real power of VOW comes in.”

Our hypothetical coffees are now cold, but let’s keep this conversation going.

Read on to learn how to promote your VOW in your marketing materials for your real estate business.

 

1. Include the benefits of VOW in your email signature

Most real estate agents have an e-signature that goes out along with all the many emails they send out.

E-signatures typically look like this:

 

Samantha Jones
RE/MAX Realtor – Downtown Toronto
T: 416-616-6666
E: s.jones@remax.ca

 

Why not use this prime space to promote your handy VOW feature and the benefits it has for the visitor?

You could add an additional line to your e-signature like:

 

• “Get access to 333% more listing information than Realtor.ca right HERE <link to your VOW signup>.”
• “Don’t wait! Skip the line by getting immediate access to brand new listings right HERE <link to your VOW signup>.”
• “Ditch Realtor.ca. Search for your dream home using Google Maps right HERE <link to your VOW signup>.”

 

2. Create a postcard with step-by-step instructions

The whole concept of VOW might be confusing to someone who doesn’t live and breathe real estate (like we do).

It’s a good idea to create a custom-made postcard that has all the info someone might need to get started with your VOW.

That way, you can have these postcards available at public events you might be attending – like open houses, local fundraisers, or community gatherings.

On one side of the postcard, you could share what benefits your website holds for visitors. And on the other side, you could include step-by-step instructions of which URL they need to visit in order to sign up for your website’s powerful listing search feature.

3. Direct callers to your website

Some things in real estate don’t change. And depending on your clientele, you might find that you’re often working with people who prefer to call you with their questions versus getting the information from your website or social media.

Whenever you’re on a phone call with someone who has an inquiry about a listing or your services, be sure to direct them to your VOW registration.

You can say something like this: “If you head over to my website, you’ll be able to access all the latest MLS® information that I get as a REALTOR® so you’ll be able to see much more information than I can give to you over the phone now. Just head to my website’s homepage, and you’ll see the signup link there.”

4. Create a custom URL

If the signup page to your VOW isn’t prominently featured on your homepage, or the direct URL to your VOW signup is a long, jumbled one, it might be smart to buy a custom domain that automatically forwards to your VOW registration page.

For example: when talking to someone who’s inquiring about a listing, instead of verbally trying to direct them to “samanthajones.com/vow-registration-signup”, you could buy a custom domain like “SimpleTorontoSearch.com” or “TorontoListingSearch.com” and then forward that domain to your VOW signup page.

Depending on your domain host, the instructions for creating a forwarding URL vary. Here are the instructions for forwarding a domain using GoDaddy, for example.

To find the instructions for your domain host, search “domain forwarding [host name]” in Google.

5. Promote your VOW on all your social media channels

With this tip, we don’t just mean to share a post every now and then on your Facebook page.

We mean updating your cover images to promote your VOW and how people can sign up, jumping on Facebook Live to answer any questions about the website feature or even demonstrating how to use it, using scheduling tools to automate consistent posts that promote the VOW feature across all your channels, or even running Facebook ads to your VOW signup page (being sure to cover the benefits of VOW in the ad and on the ad’s landing page, ideally).

Have you got a VOW up and running yet? If not, we highly recommend getting started here and then once you’re set up, committing to promoting your VOW so that you can get more and more qualified leads to your inbox.

Did any of these ideas stand out to you? How will you promote VOW to your audience? Let us know in a comment below.