A recent TV campaign by the National Association of Realtors driving viewers to the web is trying to say that the market is a great time to buy. The facts they are using in their “wealth” calculators on the site are most likely dominated by the huge increase in housing values over the past few years, which skews results. The sad thing is, I am fine with the ‘marketing’ as they are Realtors (even though I tend to dislike, as the only interest they have is their own. They get their commission and don’t care about buyer or seller) and need to try and find every angle to get people to buy, but their site is terrible. They do also kind of sell the idea that real estate is a get-rich idea, which I’m hesitant to agree with.
If you are trying to get people to buy a new house in this market, my hunch is that the twentysomethings are not who you should target. They need to speak to people who are in their 30’s and 40’s who have equity in their house and willing to “trade” up in this rough time. They will most likely not get the same premium on their home as they would have been able to see a couple years ago, but the exchange is they won’t be paying the premium on the upgraded house either, thus equalling out (if stress of selling and buying in this market is “equalling”)
So, if you are speaking to that market, don’t make their eyes hurt. The site has so much information crammed above the fold its hard to read. They then use Rovion or some other site “spokesman” technology as a lady walks out and begins talking. They really should make it clear what they want the user to do, take a hint from Steve Krug’s book “Don’t Make Me Think”. As dumb as it sounds, its true. We are lazy when we go online. We don’t want to have to work to find info, we want the site to tell us what to do next.
The site is trying to sell in a rough time, and I don’t think it even does a good job at selling as the print is so small. I would love to see a clickmap overlay on this page, and a heatmap study to see where eyeballs go, as there is no clear call to action for my next action. This campaign just seems to be getting off on the wrong foot overall.
Tags: Multi-channel marketing, real estate, web design, Web usbalility
