Article Surfing Archive

You don't have to be a rocket scientist to know that call capture hotlines work. They are a major weapon in the arsenals of the most successful real estate agents in the country. What you may not know is why call capture hotlines work. Some agents may think that just by putting their toll free number up on their sign riders the calls will start pouring in. However, there is a psychology that successful real estate agents employ when they advertise their toll free call capture hotline numbers on their sign riders. It is based on what the average home buyer does and does not want, what their habits are, and it can all be summed up in one statement. Statistics show that people looking to buy a house want 'Free 24 Hour Recorded Information'.

FREE
People have a difficult time passing up anything that is free. 90% of Americans report using a toll free number and studies show that using a toll free number in your advertising can increase your response by 30%.

24 HOUR
We live in a very busy world. Which is why you find people shopping for houses from their cars on their way home from work. (See below.) Only 6% of people found it convenient to view houses during normal working hours. That leaves a whopping 94% of people looking for a new home at odd hours of the day or night.

RECORDED INFORMATION
53% of home buyers avoided calling a real estate agent for fear of getting into a high-pressured sales pitch. The word 'recorded' puts a potential buyer at ease that they are not going to have to speak to someone and they can safely call the toll free number and get the information that they want.

Drive-bys
88% of home buyers browse neighborhoods in their cars looking for homes for sale. And 94% of people found it important to have access to home information as they browse from their vehicles. That is a huge number of buyers shopping from their cars that want information right then. Especially since 80% of people found that brochures on the properties are only available 50% of the time. So now we know that people are drive-by shopping, they want information right away and they are not likely to find a brochure. Luckily, 78% of people carry a cell phone. The agent that has posted their call capture hotline number on a sign rider offering 'Free 24 Hour Recorded Information' on that property is just giving the potential buyer what they want.

There is a psychology to sign riders that should be employed when using a call capture hotline. Many agents get a call capture hotline but don't use it or advertise it properly, then decide that it doesn't work. More often than not, it is the application of the call capture hotline that is the problem. Real estate agents are successful with call capture hotlines by figuring out what their target market wants and then using a little psychology in their advertising to encourage people to call. There are a lot of ways to use a call capture hotline and it is just as important to know that they do work as it is to know why they work.