Check out this post by web designer David Smith.

It might be filled with all kinds of useful advice and tools for your visitors. And you might think that’s enough to make them love you and use your services. But it’s not.

They may feel gratitude for the information and tools you offer, but that won’t make them choose your services.

For that you need 2 more things:

• Reasons why you are going to serve their needs better than anyone else.
• A call to action. Yes, you need to say “Call me.”

This will be the subject of my real estate ezine this week. If you’d like to be sure to get a copy, come over to www.copybymarte.com and request your free first time buyer letter. Then you’ll be on the list to receive the ezine.

They’ll probably remember to hand out a business card when they meet someone new, but getting a marketing piece written and sent to their sphere of influence or their client leads gets put off from day to day. Pretty soon they realize that it’s been months since they’ve gotten in touch with those important people.

One reason for that is that most real estate agents tend to start all over from scratch with each prospecting effort.

And, when you’re tired from a long day of dealing with a variety of people and situations, sitting down to write a letter can be just “too much.”

But you don’t need to fall into that trap, because there’s a simple cure.

Use the non-busy time to set up autoresponders and pre-load those autoresponders with messages. Then set those messages to go out at the intervals or on the dates you choose.

Your prospecting will then be happening even when you’re too busy to think about it.

You can create one autoresponder list to mail to your past clients and sphere of influence – so that you’ll maintain top of mind awareness with them and they’ll remember to send you referrals. This list should hear from you at regular intervals – the same day each month or the same week each quarter.

Then place “capture forms” on your website – one for buyers and one for sellers. If you’re ambitious, you can even create different forms and thus different lists for different kinds of buyers and sellers.

You may already have something set up to let buyers tell you what they’re looking for in a house. If so, you can simply begin drip marketing to those buyers. But remember that not all buyers will fill out your search forms.

So offer them a special report, then follow that up with other useful information every few days.

What kind of report? That depends upon who you are targeting on your web pages. If you want first time buyers, send them a report that helps them decide if now is the time for them to buy. Follow that up with a checklist and other information that’s useful in helping them decide what they really want and need in that first home.

Save more time buy choosing one or both of my sets for buyers who visit your web page.

If you’re targeting relocating buyers, send them some good information about the community. Then follow up with letters that outline the superior service they’ll get with you as their buyer’s agent.

For sellers:

Your website might also offer sellers an on-line market analysis. Why not follow that up with an offer to do a no-obligation analysis based on seeing the home? Then follow that up with promotional letters outlining the steps sellers need to take before listing a home, an overview of the current market, and promotion about how you market your listings.

As long as you keep sending useful information, those buyers and sellers will welcome your emails. And – the useful information will position you in their minds as an agent who “knows your stuff.”

“We can see you have a good web site but you could use a significant increase in targeted web traffic. We can review your site for free and show you how you can improve this portion of your online business right away. Reply to us now and include the best way to reach you with our results.”

Each time it’s from a different sender – who has no doubt paid to be a part of this promotion.

And now… there’s MORE!

I’ve started getting messages taking me to task for not answering them.

Some unscrupulous individual has told them this would work. But you and I know that if someone starts telling you off, they’re the LAST people you’d do business with.

It really is sad.

I KNOW people are trying their darndest to find a way to profit on line. I also know there are hundreds of scammers, taking their money with a promise that they’ll get rich by sending these messages.

Please don’t fall for them.

Some real estate websites are what I call “Chamber of Commerce” sites – working hard to convince visitors that they should relocate to that city.

The sad thing is, agents have spent sometimes thousands of dollars to have a beautiful site developed – but they stopped short of paying for actual marketing copy.

The result is that the sites are full of really tired old phrases that do nothing to make the agent stand out from the crowd.

Take the time to evaluate your own site this week-end, and judge it against the age-old copywriting formula: AIDA

• You’ll have to grab Attention with a good headline or strong photos.
• The Interest can be captured by demonstrating how you will make their lives better and easier.
• The Desire should be to buy or sell a home – with YOUR help.
• The Action – should be a call or an email to you.

Look at your website this week-end. Is it selling you, is it selling your city, or is it simply providing a search function?

To learn more about real estate websites, visit me at Copy by Marte…

So go there today. Read it as if it wasn’t yours, and see if it’s giving your visitors a reason to stay and explore – or a reason to choose you and your product or service over all others.

I usually talk about real estate sites, because that’s what I write most often, but this applies to EVERY site.

If you offer goods are services that can be perceived as just like the goods and services others offer, you need to offer a reason why yours are the best choice.

Too often, consumers don’t realize that there really are differences. Until they’ve had a noticeably good or bad experience, they think that all real estate agents, all mortgage lenders, all insurance agents, etc. do the same work and provide the same services.

So today, read your web pages. See if they need some tweaking.

And if they do, get in touch. I’m a freelance copywriter specializing in helping independent business people dominate their local markets. (Even if “local” means “national.”)

Darn new technology anyway.

Tammy Emineth is a SEO expert who blogs on Active Rain, and this morning she was explaining  Google +1 - It’s Google’s answer to Facebook’s “like.”

If you’re interested, I suggest you read her blog, and then you can spend a half a day with it just like I did!

And then, when you see this image on a page you like, click it! You’ll be helping someone with a real site rank higher than those annoying link farm sites that pop up in a Google search.

Next task, learn how to put the button on a blog…

But guess what? It’s not the be-all and end-all that some proclaim.

Why? Because people like me will never see it, never hear it. We’re that bunch who live away from the cities – away from easy access to high speed internet.

We rely on Wild Blue or Hughes Net to bring us service – or we struggle along on dial up.

And most of your videos just plain don’t come in.

Videos that can be downloaded work OK – if we have the time and patience to wait until they download. But videos that stream live – forget it.

Tonight I tried another one because the teaser copy told me it was something I really wanted to hear.

But what did I get? The word “Hi,” then a 10 second pause. Next came “My name is Charlie H..” and another pause.

So, regretfully, I clicked on the little X in the corner.

When I called Wild Blue last week to see if anything could be done, I was told that if I upgraded my service from $77 per month to $87 per month I would “probably” be able to view video clips.

“Probably” isn’t worth an extra $10 per month, so no thanks.

So please – if you want everyone to see and hear your message, go ahead and offer a video. But ALSO offer the information as text.

And just as soon as the page loaded, it started talking. It wasn’t just an introduction, either. It was a 15 minute video. I didn’t want to take the time right then to watch a video, so thought I could “turn it off” and come back later.  Nope.  It was going to play until I exited.

So I exited.

If I don’t lose track of the email over the course of the day, I might go back tonight and click again.

But if I’d been given a choice of when to watch that video, the page would be sitting at the bottom of my screen, waiting for me. I probably would have come back to watch it when I needed a break from writing, or even after dinner.

As it is, I may never get back there – and in that case, they will have lost a customer.

Three reasons why your website shouldn’t automatically play sound.

1. It is annoying, so sets the wrong tone for your sales message.

2. Insisting that visitors hear your message right now is disrespectful of their time, which again sets the wrong tone.

3. Consumers who are checking out your web page when they’re supposed to be working will click away at the speed of light.

Yes, some of your would-be customers are at work.

I know – any employer would say that they shouldn’t have been there in the first place. But we all know that a good share of employees are cheating their employers by doing online shopping, using Facebook, searching for a new home, writing personal emails, etc. while they’re being paid to work.

It’s not good, but it is true. And those folks would prefer not to be “caught” doing it.

If you want to exclude them as customers, audio will do the trick.

Think about that. I recommend that you give your visitors a choice of when to hear your audio.

Usually, it’s when they’ve been complaining about lack of business and someone is throwing out suggestions for improvement.  In most cases, the person doing the suggesting is someone who has gotten results with whatever marketing tactic they’re suggesting.

Now I realize there ARE some ideas that won’t work in some markets. For instance, when I was in real estate, open houses didn’t work. People here just aren’t in the habit of attending open houses, so they don’t. Agents who try it had better take along a good book or some paperwork to do while they sit there.

BUT – the reason I know it didn’t work is because we tried it – several times.

Other marketing practices wont’ work for certain people – but it has to do with the person and the way they do it, not with the method.

For instance, cold calling. Some people can call and get a great response, while others hear a lot of slammed down phone receivers. (Or, today, clicks.)

Yesterday I wrote an Active Rain post about using web capture forms on your website to gather leads – and then drip marketing to them.

While most either wrote “I need to try that” or “I do that and it works,” some wrote and said “That won’t work in my market.”

How do they know if they haven’t tried it?

I’m not going to say everyone should do it, but I do think none of us should reject a marketing idea without giving it due consideration. After all, people are people and human nature is the same no matter where you go. So a marketing method that works in one market should be worth a try in another – even if you think your customers are “different.”

That’s kind of like looking at the food on your plate and saying “I don’t like that” without even tasting it!