Creating an online personality to help generate sales

Adam Samuel, co-founder of overseas property blog Nubricks is an experienced online marketing professional and property blogger. This week he posts some practical ideas on how agents and developers can use the tools available on the internet to create an online personality with a view to making more sales.

By Adam Samuel

In today’s property market, confidence is at an all time low. People don’t know who to trust and earning their confidence is difficult. Just having a website and hoping it will work as your salesman is not enough. You need to build credibility and you can do this by cultivating your online personality.

Are you an expert or a specialist? If so prove it!

Many company websites state "We are experts in..." or " company x is a specialist in y".
But how does the user know if you are or not? Think about the conversation going on in their head, "I am looking for someone who can offer a solution to my problem, but who do I trust?"

This technique often offers you the opportunity to engage a buyer right at the start of their buying process, and if you can keep gaining their trust, the likelihood is that they will buy through you.

Simple on site factors to gain trust

Written testimonials add credibility and a human element to a website, but you're thinking "anyone could write those" and in some cases you're right. So why not go one step further and record an audio or video testimonial through Skype? This will put you ahead of 95% of your competition, but you can do even more...

I believe that having an online personality will help you to build even more trust and get you more exposure for your company.

A step-by-step guide to creating your online personality

1. Who will represent the brand; maybe you will have multiple personalities?

Your MD, CEO, Marketing or Sales Director may choose to be the personality. In some cases companies use the company name as the personality, but this is a little less personal.

A great example of the above is Stuart Law of Assetz.

He has his own blog on a 3rd party site
Is a regular forum poster
Gets quoted in all his press releases
Has article directory content with his name in it

2. Identify websites that allow you to comment or at least have a presence on.

The web is awash with sites that serve as a platform to connect with buyers or a community of property people, who ask questions and are looking for credible answers. It’s amazing the level of trust people have in complete strangers’ views.

So here are some example sites to start you off:

TotallyProperty.com - An overseas property forum with lots of discussions where buyers are looking for authoritative answers.
Yahoo Answers - Help answer peoples questions about property.
Inman News - US biased site but great source for posts about generic topics.
Businessweek - A dedicated property section where you can comment on articles that the editors write.
Facebook - JUST Property Networking are using the facebook group feature to build a community of people interested in property. The idea is to then have a group of people who want to listen to your message, you can then use this to set up some informal or formal meet ups.
Twitter - A new way to broadcast your message online. It can be used to build a list of followers interested in what you are doing. Post interesting information and you are likely to attract people interested in your products and services.
Top 100 blogs list - Here is a list to start you off, check out each blog’s blogroll to find thousands of other real estate blogs.

Many sites have news or editorial content specific to a particular property niche and you will find many of them would be happy to accept some relevant content. In return ask them to quote you at the bottom of the article and if possible get a link back to your website. (Preferably to the 'about us' page so your message is consistent).

3. Leave a consistent message

Whenever a comment or content of yours is used, you should keep the message the same for branding purposes. So if you decide Jim Carter is your personality, ensure you use this name everywhere.

4. Once you have built conversations on different sites, link back to them from your site to reinforce your credibility and show newcomers to your website that you are actively involved in all aspects of the market place.

5. The majority of blogs and some forums will have an editorial process ensuring all comments will be screened by the editor prior to going live.

So Don't...

Leave comments like "I bought from xx estates who were a fantastic company and Dave was a great salesman". Online editors like myself, get comments like this daily and most receive the delete treatment.
Lies or embellishments are a true user turn-off and most can spot fake comments a mile off, instantly losing you the opportunity to engage with them.
Don’t try be a Jack of all trades. If you operate in Morocco, don't comment on Cape Verde developments. If you live locally, let your 'resident' knowledge shine through, don't limit your 'expertise' to property in an area, comment on everything from where's the best place to eat fish to what the Town Hall is up to.
Don’t expect immediate results
Although extremely worthwhile, this is not a quick process, so don't expect results over night. If you build comments and opinions in the right communities and follow the above you will build credibility with potential clients. People will begin to trust you and you’ll get referrals and a steady stream of quality traffic to your site. The volumes won’t blow you away but your conversion rates should begin to improve.

About Adam

Adam Samuel has gained experience from winning and losing online since 2001. He ran one of the first Spanish estate agencies with clients sourced purely from marketing online, built a property portal and founded online property brand Nubricks.com. Do you want more leads today?...Then sign up to his free email newsletter to learn how to win online.

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