RealTown's RealTalk

Why is it that only real estate agents feel they MUST know who has been on their web site? It would never happen in the physical world, now would it?

If you came to your favorite department store... and as you walked through their door, you were met by someone who asked you to give them your name and telephone number or leave the store now, what would you do? You would run... not walk away!

If after looking through the winter coat section for a few minutes, a salesperson walked over to you and then said, "Gee, we think you have looked through enough of our coats. The only way you can keep shopping is to give us your name, email address and a phone number"  what would you think? I feel most of us would be outraged and walk right out of their store.

On the Web, if you went to www.amazon.com to look for a book or DVD and now you were required to register before you could even shop, I'll just bet you everyone would use their back button to leave. "Hey Amazon! You're not the only online bookstore, you know. I think I'll take my business to www.borders.com or www.barnesandnoble.com."

So why shouldn't our real estate site visitors feel exactly the same way? Sure, a few will be compliant enough to fill out the form. But I bet the best people will leave instead because of the intrusion into their privacy.

From a focus group study by Enquiro (www.enquiro.com) called "Into the Mind of the Searcher" a couple of years back.

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In watching the participants interactions with a site, we also found that another common trait appears, particularly with the deliberate researchers. We have called it the Anonymity Threshold.

In general, people feel they are relatively anonymous when they are browsing online. And when people are gathering information about a purchasing decision, most prefer to remain anonymous. They don't want to be exposed to sales pitches at this point, because they're not ready to engage in the purchase process. They haven't narrowed down their list of options yet.

The internet has become very popular as a research tool during the information gathering process because it appears to offer the ability to remain anonymous. Through search engines, you can gather a lot of information quickly and you don’t have to enter into a situation where you surrender your anonymity until you choose to. We believe this is the reason there is a significant drop off between people willing to use the Internet to research a purchase decision and people willing to use it to purchase online. This drop off has been identified by a number of ecommerce studies. The purchase requires people to cross the anonymity threshold and they’re not prepared to do that. They know once they surrender contact information, they will likely be contacted by the vendor and be engaged in a purchase transaction. The consumer wants to do this according to their timing, not the vendors.

People won't cross the threshold until they have no option. If given the choice between getting information and remaining anonymous and getting the information through registering, people will always choose the former. This creates a bit of a dilemma for the marketer, because generally the key metric is measuring against acquired or converted visitors. Almost every definition of an acquisition or conversion requires the visitor to cross the anonymity threshold. Because of the reluctance of the visitor to cross this threshold, the site owner may be building significant brand equity or trust with the visitor but is not giving credit to it because of the anonymity threshold.

In order to entice people to purchase online, the web vendor has to offer at least one significant advantage, whether it's price, selection or convenience. If all things are equal or even close to equal, people will tend to avoid entering into a purchase process online.

In looking at most search marketing strategies; the emphasis is put on encouraging the purchase, while most people using search engines are more interested in anonymously gathering information. We believe this to be a fundamental disconnect.

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I train my web clients in this understanding. Oh, it causes some grousing because they see their visitor count statistics, but don't always see tangible results in email or phone inquiries. However, virtually everyone of them, when they do get a lead from their site know that this person is serious because the visitor has now chosen to cross that "anonymity threshold" to contact them. The visitor is now ready to engage with the agent on their timing. There may be fewer leads, but they are far better leads with a very high percentage turning into transactions!

Regards,

Win

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Win Singleton, CRB, e-PRO
Summit Web Design
(703) 536-7631
wins@summitweb.com
http://Summitweb.InternetCrusade.com
an Internet Crusade Approved Vendor
"Custom web site design that gets results!"
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Eileen Landau wrote -

"I've signed up at Amazon, Borders and B&N...they email me coupons and sale dates and keep a list of books that I'm interested in."

Few will sign up on their very first visit to those sites. From the study I mentioned, "In order to entice people to purchase online, the web vendor has to offer at least one significant advantage, whether it's price, selection or convenience." So those vendors - Amazon, Borders and B&N - met your "threshold" of offering you convience as well as those coupons for discounts later in order to get your contact information. But they didn't say, "You can't do any shopping until you tell us who you are." They let you come back as many times as you wanted - while always holding out the offer of why it might benefit you to become one of their "members". Once you were satisfied with their sites and their offers, you chose to cross the threshold and give them your personal information. That's the difference between offering registration and requiring registration.

You continued -

"If a person is serious...then I believe that he/she will sign up. And, if not, what have I lost?
Nothing...'cause I never had them."

Here, I disagree with you. Today's "surfer" of real estate may very well become tomorrow's serious buyer or seller. But they may be at their infancy in beginning their real estate research. They are not ready to be "serious" yet... as you put it. So if your site requires registration and another agent's site doesn't, they probably will leave you to go over to use another agent's site and then ultimately, when they do become serious, (since they have been using the other site for a while with no pressure), they may finally come forward to contact him or her - not you. If a site that required registration up front gave them little to no information at the time, then why would they return weeks or months later when they are now serious? They wouldn't! The site requiring registration gave them no "value" when they were there just trying to do research . It would be like the brick and mortar store saying, "If you are not serious about buying anything today, then please leave our store."

But again, as the study showed, "People won't cross the threshold until they have no option. If given the choice between getting information and remaining anonymous and getting the information through registering, people will always choose the former." What does it hurt to just let them "window shop"? Really nothing at all!

Oh, I know this debate will go on ad nauseum. But, as I said, it seems that only real estate agents feel they are "entitied" to know who their visitors are on the first visit to their web sites. "Register or go away" to me seems counter productive and may actually turn some legitimate prospects off. They just aren't ready yet to part with their personal information.

Win

************************
Win Singleton, CRB, e-PRO
Summit Web Design
(703) 536-7631
wins@summitweb.com
http://Summitweb.InternetCrusade.com
an Internet Crusade Approved Vendor
"Custom web site design that gets results!"
************************

"People won't cross the threshold until they have no option

BINGO!  Most of the time they have no option as most RE sites all look the same, have little of value for the visitor and have nothing that visitor is really looking for or anything to give the visitor a reason to want to register.  Besides, many agents requiring registration are getting more sign-in's or leads a day than they can handle. The "window shopping" is allowing a visitor to view basic info, and if they like the site and what they find on it,  they then enter the store by signing-in.  

Based on what I see in my area, most agent sites not requiring registration must not get any based on their yearly results. Good thing they don't require registration as they may not know what to do with the lead if someone did register.