Your ads need to include a response mechanism, which is a fancy way of saying that you need to tell people what to do next and how to do it. Every single communication — whether through an ad, a mailer, a Web site visit, or any other outreach effort — needs to include a call to action that motivates prospects to take the next step. One call to action is having prospects provide you with an e-mail address, a home or work mailing address, a phone number, or some other way that you can be in contact.
To generate responses and harvest prospect information, consider the following ideas:
Invite ad respondents to call or go online to request free reports on such attention-getting topics as “Ten Mistakes Sellers Make When Selling a Home” or “Ten Tips for Buying Property under Market Value.” You’ll gain names and mailing addresses as a result.
Use call capture technology to harvest information on prospects who request information about properties you’ve listed or are featuring in your marketing. Call capture allows you to promote a toll-free number that prospects can call for prerecorded information on a property. When they do, the technology grabs the caller’s phone number and sends it to you within minutes so that you can call them back. It’s truly a brilliant innovation for lead generation.
