It’s amazing how fast the years go by… yet how much you can accomplish in those 12 months when you get clear, get focused on your “big pumpkins” and have a mission that means something to you and your customers a core level.
I thought it would be pretty cool to do a quick review of some of the cool things that both YOU… our Carrot community… and us… Carrot the company were able to accomplish together this year.
All in all, 2015 was a banner year for our Carrot members and an amazing year of growth for our team and company because we focused so much on the one thing that matters… helping YOU get what you want out of life more easily and more effectively with our tools, software, training, and support.
So what happened in 2015?
Let’s dive into some cool stuff in this quick post!
Carrot Members Are Crushing It With Leads!
You guys were a force to be reckoned with in 2015. With over 20,000 leads per month coming in (when you count phone call leads… which we can’t track in Google Analytics currently) you’re pulling in more PPC, SEO, and social media online leads as a collective group than any other real estate investor lead generation platform… by far. Keep crushing it! We’ll help you get there.
375 “Doses Of Awesomeness” Sent In!
At Carrot, hearing back from our clients is like fuel for us. So much so that we created an internal tool for our team members called the “Thread of Awesomeness” where our team members add the great things that Carrot clients send in to us on a daily basis. Here is a very small snapshot of some of the messages Carrot clients have sent us recently.
Over 6,600 Live Chats + 17,215 Help Tickets Solved!
You guys were busy! And so were we! Our team helped our Carrot members through the tough spots in 2015 in a big way. We process hundreds of tickets and live chats per week and we’re humbled by the ratings you gave our team during your interactions with us.
We work our butts off so you can spend less time working with our software and more time closing deals. Soon you’ll be introduced to our newest addition to the Carrot Customer Success team in January… keep an eye out!
We LOVE Chatting With Our Customers. Keep It Coming In 2016!
Or, Send Us An Email And Our Customer Success Team Will Dominate That Too! :-)
Never Stop Improving
Another Core Value of ours is “constant never-ending improvement“… and both our customers and us as a company sure did live that one. In addition to the dozens of features we released in 2016 to help our clients spend less time hassling with tech and marketing issues and to pull in more leads… and dozens of split tests we ran on sites to increase the conversion rates of your websites (to much higher than the industry average)… our members relentlessly showed up to our weekly LIVE Coaching Calls, asked us questions, and helped us find the best ways to help you improve. Keep it up in 2016! We have some amazing new features and additions coming your way!
We Helped Your Conversion Rates Improve Even More In 2015!
There are some really cool innovations coming out in Q1 of 2016 based on our continual conversion rate optimization team. It’s this dedication to performance and ROI that has helped you pull in so many leads in 2016 (especially on mobile devices!)
In 2015 we mailed out over 721 Carrot Bud dolls to Carrot members. That’s a LOT of Carrot love. And we just ordered another thousand for 2016 (with 2 new designs that you’ll love!). If you’re a Carrot member keep an eye out for special surprises from us. You never know… you may be the next to get your very own Carrot Bud in the mail in 2016.
721 Carrot Clients Received A Carrot Bud In The Mail In 2015
1 Carrot Customer Sent In A Carrot Bud Unboxing Video (haha, gotta love that!)
You guys are awesome! Our family loved the gift! Merry Christmas!
Posted by Justin Morgan on Monday, December 14, 2015
Plus Tons Of Amazing Smiling Faces With Their Carrot Buds!
Our Team Has Grown In More Ways Than One
InvestorCarrot started out as a one-man show 3 years ago… then we quickly added our CTO, built out the Customer Success team, and the rest is history. Now the team is continually growing to stay ahead of the curve so our members can also stay ahead of the curve from their competition. We’re proud to be adding several more full-time team members to the Carrot team in early 2016 as well! Keep an eye out!
8 Scotch Eggs Consumed (give or take a few)
Thanks, O’Tooles for making the best damn Scotch Egg in the land.
Countless Pints Of Beer Down The Hatch
… and much more fun, challenging, and rewarding ways our team grew in size, skill, and in our relationships together.
All In All, An Amazing Year You’ve Made It Carroteers!
With 2016 a blink away, make sure to use this time to look back on your own 2015. Reflect on the great strides you’ve taken toward your dreams and goals… and reflect on the things you still need to improve on and tackle with focus and intentionality in 2016.
If you haven’t had a chance to check out these 2 posts we published the past 2 weeks (both were our most actively shared and commented on content pieces in 2015 too!)… dive into them. They’ll help you make some important mindset shifts for 2016 and we walk you through how to make 2016 an epic year.
We don’t do this very often, but we want to get better at it! This post is just about some of the powerful new features we have launched for Carrot customers over the last month.
Referral & Lead Source Tracking
Have you ever got a lead and wondered how they landed on your site? Was it SEO? Was it a PPC campaign? Did it come from Facebook? Well now you’ll know where all of your leads came from.
With our new “Lead Source Tracking” feature you’ll see where every lead came from in an instant.
You have always had access to some of this data if you were a Google Analytics wizard, but now every lead that comes through your site says where the they came from – helping you see how your marketing is going, and how people are finding you online.
Simple Display in Your Lead List
Want to see your lead’s source right there with your other form data? Just click the gear icon, on the Forms >> Entries page… add the column to your active list for that form, and you’re all set!
Full UTM Link Support – ADVANCED FEATURE
If you are not already using UTM style tracking links for your marketing efforts, start now if you’re already generating a good amount of leads and traffic. A lot of email marketing tools like MailChimp have this built in, and anywhere else you put up a link to your site, you can build your own links that show you how your visitors are getting to your site, and ultimately: how effective each of your marketing methods are.
UTM tracking links are standard for Google Analytics, and now every lead in your carrot account is compatible with these links as well. So if you set up a code that includes even more specific data about the campaign, that will be saved to your lead and you can review that for each entry.
Again, this is an advanced feature, so if you’re just getting started you can ignore this one :-)
Email Notification Support
You can even add the lead source to your notification email to see the source as soon as the lead comes in. Just edit your admin notification email, and choose “{leadsource}” from the dropdown to add it so you can see right there in your email inbox where that lead came from.
Page URL in Admin Lead Notifications
This is a question we got a lot – “I have more than one site, and when I get lead notifications, how do I know which site it came from?”
Well, now all admin notifications that include the full entry details also contain a link to the page the form was submitted on… so you’re never guessing which of your websites the lead came from. Easy peasy.
Short Codes in Lead Form Titles/Descriptions
This is a simple, but powerful new feature – use your “Company Info” shortcodes right inside of form titles and descriptions. New Carrot sites take advantage of this new feature out of the box from now on to help further customize your website content automatically, and existing customers can add those shortcodes into any of your existing forms as needed!
Company Info in Lead Form Notification Emails
Another simple new feature that makes your email notifications to new leads more personalized and credible right out of the box (on new sites). Have Carrot sites created already? Just edit up your form notifications and check out the new “Company Info” options when add in merge codes.
Get Response Integration
Here’s another often-requested integration checked off the list! Now send your new leads directly into your marketing funnel with our native GetResponse.com integration for your forms. GetResponse is an email marketing software that a lot of investors use, so now you can integrate your Carrot forms directly with your GetResponse lists!
Be On The Lookout For Some Amazing Updates In August!
I don’t want to let the cat out of the bag right now but we have some big updates we’re working on for August that’ll help make your life easier in many ways. You’ll have a clearer plan of action to see success with your online marketing, you’ll see some visual updates on the way your Carrot sites look, and much much more!
Let us know in the comments box below what features you’d love to see on InvestorCarrot!
So much in fact that during any given week we’re setting up multiple tests on our Carrot customers’ websites based on our “data dives” that our team does into the data we’re tracking to help improve the effectiveness of our system each and every week.
We’ve have had our heads down the last couple months getting some big projects pushed through, and frankly, have a backlog of test data that we haven’t made blog posts on yet.
And, thanks to all of you who answered our Customer Survey a few weeks back and who said, “I want to see more test data on the blog!”… we’re going to start rolling out some results of our conversion tests here on the blog on a more consistent basis.
One Of The Most Important Parts Of A High Converting Real Estate Investor Website Is…
… the Call to Action area.
The Call to Action area is the part on your website that guides the reader of your website (a motivated house seller, cash buyer, note seller, agent, etc) to take a certain action that you want them to take.
This could be joining your Discount Property List… getting an offer on their house… or even just a free market report.
But there are 3 core elements to a great Call to Action form…
1. The “ask” headline:
This is the spot that grabs their attention and hopefully spells out in a few short words the benefit they’re going to get OR simply asks them a question to get them to mentally say, “Yes, that’s me. What do I do next?”.
2. The opt-in form:
This is the actual form that people put their information into. We’ve tested variations of forms, numbers of form fields, size of form fields, type of information we collect on form fields… and have found a pretty darn good structure that has increased the conversion rate on our members’ websites dramatically.
3. The action button (or “submit” button):
This is often overlooked by people. Lots of people just assume that a person on your website is either going to click that button or not if they’re a motivated seller.
But, that’s just not the case. We’ve tested variation after variation of different sizes, colors, positions, and words on the “submit” buttons and in many cases found dramatic differences in conversion rate.
The Submit Button Change That Boosted Conversions 49.5%
This isn’t the first time we’ve run this exact test… and won’t be the last.
But this latest round of tests on the submit button on the main opt-in form on a motivated seller website had some really interesting results.
The Hypothesis in this test:
Will changing the words on the submit button from a “descriptor” (“Click to Continue” or “Submit”) to a “mental commitment” increase conversions?
Every single time we’ve run this test on a real estate investor website we’ve seen an improvement in the conversion rate when we got rid of the “Submit” or “Click to Continue” buttons in place of something that said something like… “See Available Properties” or “Get My Fair Offer Today!”
Below are a few shots of the actual tests and heat maps showing the results.
Test #1: Motivated Seller Website – Making Button Copy More Relevant
We Added Value To The Button Copy… and made it more relevant with giving them what they want, a “fair cash offer today”… not to “continue”
This test is actually still an active test but is currently at a 95% statistical chance to produce a winner (which is pretty darn good. We shoot for at least 97% to call it 100% conclusive.)
But as you can see in the heat map image above, all we changed was the words inside that red button. All of the “hot spots” on the pictures are the places visitors to that website during the test were clicking on and interacting on.
The Control is the button that said “Click here to Continue <<<<“… which is what we call a descriptor. It just tells you want to do.
The Variation 1 button says “Get My Fair Cash Offer <<“… which is what we call a mental commitment. It meets the web visitor in the same mental mode that they’re in when they’re on that site… and mentally guides them toward the benefit they want (a fair cash offer on their house, today).
The Results: Out of 569 total sellers who landed on this InvestorCarrot motivated seller website, 59 converted as a lead (a 10.37% average).
The Variation with the mental commitment phrase… “Get My Fair Cash Offer <<” showed an improvement in 49.5% at a 12.55% conversion rate on SEO and PPC traffic… which is pretty darn solid for the home page of a website.
What Does That Mean? Out of every 100 visitors who land on your website, you’d get 12.5 leads rather than 8.3. Doesn’t sound like a huge deal.
But when those numbers add up it gets exciting. At 1,000 visitors to your website (assuming these numbers hold true) that would be 40 extra motivated seller leads.
If you close 1 out of every 20 leads into a deal (which is a low percentage for many of our customers) and you net on average $7.5k (which is much lower than many of our customers net per deal)… that’s $15,000 in extra revenue without having to generate any more traffic to your website. Free money assuming your close ratio per lead stays true.
Test #2: Rent to Own Website – Making Button Copy More Relevant
We Added Value To The Button Copy… and made it more relevant. It helps the person visualize what’s on the other side of the button.
This test was a very similar change to test #1. On this InvestorCarrot members rent to own website we simply changed the button copy from a basic descriptor, “Submit Here >” (which the customer changed the button to that text away from our default text of “Let Me See Available Homes >”… so we wanted to test it again just to prove why it was there in the first place ;-).
A rent to own real estate investing website is going to get a much higher conversion rate than a motivated seller website is just because of the nature of the type of lead.
But the concept still held up in this instance with a completely different type of website and type of lead.
Why? It’s baked into us as humans to want to take the easiest path… the one with the least amount of resistance. If I landed on this website because I did a Google search to find local rent to own homes… and this button reinforces exactly what I want… to see “available homes” right now, I can’t help but follow that path and make my brain happy.
This conversion psychology is built into all of our InvestorCarrot websites and we’re continually testing and improving every single month.
The Results: The variation that had the button copy that was more relevant to what the website visitor was thinking performed higher by 9.63%.
What Does This Mean? Out of every 100 visitors to your website you’d get 3 more “free” leads. Over 1,000 visitors to your website you’d get an extra 30 leads. If you were able to put just 1 out of every 30 qualified leads into a deal that made you $10k… that’s an extra $10,000 in profits per 1,000 visitors without adding any more traffic to your website. Free money.
We’ve run this exact same test on a number of other websites (both InvestorCarrot sites and non-Carrot sites) and results have been similar.
So make sure to update the call to action text on your submit buttons to add more value to your website visitor.
How To Change The Submit Button Text On Carrot Websites In Under 10 Seconds
If you’re an InvestorCarrot member reading this and have set up your website within the last 5 months, this change is already the default setting on all of your websites. Yay! As we find things that perform better, we automatically build them into the system… and in some cases make those changes across the board for our members.
But here’s how you can change your submit button text quickly if yours says “Continue” or “Submit”.
1. Go to the “Forms” tab and click the “Settings” button on the form you want to change.
2. Go to the “Form Button” section and update the “Button Text” box. Done!
Done!
3 Other Call To Action Button Conversion Boosting Ideas
This article is only walking through this one hypothesis… that changing from basic “descriptor” submit button copy to submit button copy that adds more value to the visitor and talks about the benefit they want to get, increases conversion rates and leads.
But, we’ve tested (and are currently testing) many many other elements of the opt-in box.
But here’s some things you may test if you want to get all geeky like us and work on improving the conversion rate of your websites (if you don’t want to fiddle with it and would rather have us do it, we include our conversion testing assistance for any InvestorCarrot customer who is generating at least 100 visitors to their website a month. Why? Simply because we’re dedicated to continually improving the effectiveness of our Inbound Online Marketing System and websites for real estate investors. We don’t just try to make pretty websites. Our members are pulling in over 13,000 leads a month because of the combination between our innovative websites and SEO benefits, our conversion optimization focus, our training, and our hands-on high-level strategy help. )
Change the “possessive” noun from 2nd person to 1st person: “Get Your Fair Cash Offer!” to “Get My Fair Cash Offer!” . We’ve shown this to improve conversions in many cases and has been shown to do the same in test after test in other industries.
Button Size And Position: I see too many real estate investors websites have their call to action button too small… or it blends in to the rest of the page. We’ve found choosing a button color that stands out on the page (contrasts ideally) and is as large as the form fields have improved conversion rates by a measurable amount. We’re running a button size test right now on the website of one of the largest investors in California… and it’s showing a 200%+ improvement so far (it’s early). And it’s no accident that the call to action button on InvestorCarrot websites is wide, large, and the same width as the form fields (we’ve tested it many many times).
Form Fields: Form fields can make one of the biggest differences in your call to action area. We’ve tested it and settled on about 3-4 form fields on your front end form (the form your visitors see first) is ideal for conversions. Then, feed them to an effective “step 2” to further qualify them (it works like gangbusters on InvestorCarrot websites). But don’t take our word for it, here, here, here, and here also tested the same thing and found the same results. It’s human psychology in action.
ImageCredit: Hubspot
So if you are making any of those mistakes or just want to test them on your own website, put that in your action plan this week and get to work!
We Think About Conversion So You Don’t Have To
60,000 Leads Per Month (2020) And Climbing – Gotta Love That
Here at Carrot we get emails and live chat messages every week from members who say that their Carrot website performs better than their old website.
Not just in the search rankings (which Carrot sites hold more page 1 rankings for search phrases that matter than any other website platform for investors) but also on the conversion rate.
Now, let us get real here for a second.
Do we have a magic potion that makes our websites convert more visitors into leads? Nope.
You can learn to do your own conversion testing just like we have over the past 7 years… testing millions of visitors to our pages and well over 1,000 individual tests over the years.
Over time you get good at figuring out what works and what doesn’t.
And when a customer emails us saying “I didn’t tweak hardly anything and my Carrot website converts 4x more visitors into leads than my other website”… that makes us giddy like a rabbit in a… well… carrot patch ;-)
So if you just want to focus on doing more of what makes your heart sing (the stuff you love to do in your business) and less of the techie and marketing stuff you don’t like or just flat out don’t have the time for… that’s why some of the top investors around the country work with us.
We’re not the cheapest monthly rate on the block… but like we showed in this post… we’re dedicated to making your real estate investing websites more effective to generate more real estate investing leads for motivated sellers, cash buyers, private lenders, rent to own tenant buyers, note sellers, and more.
And if you close only 1 extra deal because of our commitment to results over all else over the lifetime of your account with us… that alone will pay for 10-15 years of InvestorCarrot service in that extra “found” revenue.
And heck, if you liked this post, hit the Facebook “Share” button and Linkedin button on this page. I’d appreciate it a ton. It keeps us motivated to keep putting out great content like this you can’t get anywhere else in the real estate investment industry.
Heck in the past 4 months alone we’ve launched hundreds of improvements to make it even easier and faster to launch effective online lead generation websites as a real estate investor, beef up the level of support members get even further than it already is, get your leads faster (sms alerts), make your websites rank better in Google, and convert leads at an even higher rate.
But all of that pales in comparison to what we have in store for InvestorCarrot members over the next 4 months :-)
Today we’re happy as heck to roll out the first version of our Carrot Marketplace to the InvestorCarrot community.
What Is The InvestorCarrot Marketplace And How Does It Help Make Your Life Easier?
As a real estate investor, when getting real estate investing leads online… launching an effective website is just the first step.
But if you’re wanting to drive a lot of traffic to your websites (motivated sellers, cash buyers, private lenders, rent to own tenants, note sellers, etc.) you or someone has to roll up their sleeves to get to work.
InvestorCarrot gives you a huge jumpstart with our real estate investing websites to rank better in Google and convert your leads much higher than the industry average… and our support is what we’ve been told time and time again is the best in the industry by far.
So now with our new Carrot Marketplace, we’re making it as easy as buying milk (or carrots :-) at the grocery store to find the vendors, services, and help so you can ramp up your results even faster.
What Will You As An InvestorCarrot Customer Find In The NEW Carrot Marketplace?
But here’s a quick snapshot of what you’ll find in there right now… and what we have in store for the marketplace in 2015.
In this first rollout of the marketplace we’re making it easier for you to get access to the services we’ve already been helping you with and offering for months and months… this just streamlines the process and puts the powerfully into your hands.
Online Marketing & Lead Generation Strategy Help And Services
Certified Carrot Preferred Partners: If you want to rank your website better in the search engines, better optimize your SEO, turn on some PPC… we’ve got you covered. Our certified partners have a minimum of over a year experience with our software and our customers before they can be a “Certified Carrot Partner”. Our current partners have pulled top rankings and hundreds of leads for our clients.
Everyday InvestorCarrot customers reach out to us looking for help with their real estate investing PPC (Pay Per Click) campaigns and SEO (Search Engine Optimization) to help ramp up the traffic and leads. If you’re in a more competitive market (a town over… say 50,000 people)… you’ll likely have to focus some time implementing our 3 Lead Per Day Training to move up the rankings in Google.
Carrot gives you a head start, implementing the steps in the 3 Lead Per Day Training give it a boost.
So you’ll now be able to connect directly with vetted and Certified Carrot Partners who can do the SEO and PPC work for you if you’d rather just have someone else do it.
These same vendors have been working with InvestorCarrot members for over a year and pulled some pretty amazing results in the process (top Google rankings in markets all across the country and consistent leads each and every day)
Help Customizing And Optimizing Your Websites
Want To Be Hands Off? Our team can handle all of your customizations and branding for you if you want. There’s no excuses for not getting results now ;-)
We’re always focusing on making InvestorCarrot even easier to get highly effective websites up for your real estate investing business quickly… whether you’re a techie or not.
But, if you’d rather have us do the branding for you… and build out your city-specific pages for you… and help build your personal credibility into your websites for you so you don’t have to lift a finger, that’s where this section comes in.
Access our QuickStart service where we ask you 13 simple questions, and our team gets to work customizing your websites to fit your business, branding, and goals.
Plus have our team help you capture more traffic with city-specific / local pages and more!
These are all things you can easily do for yourself inside your InvestorCarrot account… but if you’d rather focus on what you do best and have us do it for you, we’ve got you covered.
Premium Training
The Fire That Fuels Your Growth: Our 2 flagship trainings (only available to InvestorCarrot members currently) are now in the Marketplace. But be on the lookout for more advanced training and tools to help you get an edge in your market.
Our members are generating well over 10,000 opt-in leads per month right now (that doesn’t count phone call leads)… and a huge part of it is the combination of the effectiveness of our website platform and the training you can access as an InvestorCarrot member.
Right now you’ll find our Posts 2 Profits Craigslist training and our 3 Lead Per Day (SEO, PPC, Youtube marketing course) in the Carrot Marketplace.
But we plan on launching more Premium Trainings in 2015 (in addition to our weekly LIVE Carrot Coaching Calls FREE to Content Pro members) to help you market effectively on Facebook, use Retargeting to “fetch back” more leads, and more! So keep an eye out for new Premium Trainings.
Get InvestorCarrot Swag
Why have a company name like Carrot if you’re not going to have fun with it and be loud and proud about it? Right? :-)
Well, now you can get Carrot Swag right in the marketplace.
Want a t-shirt (American Apparel – Made in the USA)? Grab one.
How about some awesome note pads with our Core Values on them… grab those in our “Carrot Swag Bag” which includes a t-shirt, a NEW Carrot Bud doll, Carrot stickers, and our awesome Carrot Idea Pads.
What’s In Store For 2015 With The Carrot Marketplace?
We’re working furiously on developing new features into the software to solidify our place as the leading Inbound Online Marketing platform for Real Estate Investors… which we’ll release to members as we finish them up.
But, we’ve realized that some features don’t make sense to build into every website that is launched. Things like an advanced BirdDog Referral Program system to help you generate bird dogs to find you more deals. Or “built for you” Podio apps to help you better manage your lead flow. Or marketing campaigns that are crushing it for people. Or 1 on 1 strategy consulting with me and our top performing Carrot members to help you bust past your roadblocks and excel… you get the idea.
So be on the lookout for other resources, tools, and website add-ons so you can further leverage InvestorCarrot to reach your goals.
And heck, if you have ideas for great resources, tools, and new functionality for your InvestorCarrot websites please shoot them our way!
Be on the lookout for more announcements about new features and enhancements over the next several months. We’ve got some in store that we know you’re going to LOVE.
Sound Off Below About The New Marketplace!
Hit me w/ comments and questions below… or if you’re not an InvestorCarrot member yet but are considering it, throw your questions my way! We’re here for you and would love for you to be a part of the success that our members are having (10k+ leads per month and growing!).
I’m sure you’re thinking the same thing… but it’s been insane how darn fast 2014 flew by. It seems like just last week I was sitting at a local coffee shop I like to hang out at on “non office days” writing up my 2014 goals… and getting with our team and jotting down how we’d rule the world in 2014.
And the funny / scary thing is… the years only get faster.
Before we know it we’ll be looking back on 2015 reviewing how the year went… and asking ourselves if we did what we wanted to do the previous 12 months.
That to me is a huge motivator. Knowing that time is going to pass whether I get focused, excited, and make stuff happen or not. So we might as well give it all we’ve got… ignore the naysayers… and crush it in life and business.
So… with the end of our first full year in business here at InvestorCarrot… providing what high achieving real estate investors all over the country are calling “the best real estate investor websites I’ve seen” again and again (we’re attracting more top notch investors in each market than any other website system for real estate investors)… I want to dive into some of the things the InvestorCarrot community was able to achieve in 2014… some of our biggest wins and failures as a young company… and what you’re in store for in 2015 as an InvestorCarrot community member (whether you’re an active customer of ours or not… you’ll benefit BIG TIME in 2015).
7 Things We’re Insanely Proud Of For 2014
2014 was a great year for us as a company and for our customers… here’s 7 things we’re proud as heck of for 2014.
1. Tons Of Customer Love And RESULTS (Leads and Deals) In Our Thread Of Awesomeness
Around the start of 2014 we started something we call the “Thread of Awesomeness” here at InvestorCarrot as an internal team tool to help us all keep our eye on why we do what we do. Each week… when any member of our team interacts with a customer who has an AWESOME result or experience… we throw it into this chat thread that we use internally as a team… called The Thread of Awesomeness.
I wish I could show you all of the hundreds of awesome comments customers sent us in 2014 (we averaged 7 per week!)… but this snapshot below from just 1 week in December is a pretty good representation of the types of “AWESOMENESS” happening for our Carrot members using our system.
That stuff keeps us motivated to do what we do… and our team
Our Thread Of Awesomeness: A snapshot of just a few things our customers sent to us in 1 week of December on the results they’re getting with their InvestorCarrot websites! That’s AWESOME right there!
2. Nearly 500% Increase In Traffic and Leads For Our Customers!
This kind of speaks for itself. Almost a 500% increase in traffic to our customers websites.
A few cool stats for the year…
2,052,930 page views
656,736 visitors
Nearly 1 million visits
An average visit time of almost 2 and a half minutes(average… our most successful members are seeing a time on site of over 3 minutes!)
And this winter our customers generated nearly 10,000 leads per month to their websites (and growing)
3. Spreading Carrot Delight To Our Customers With Crazy Great Support!
One thing I said I wouldn’t compromise going into launching InvestorCarrot was on support. In fact… “delivering wow” to our customers is one of our Carrot Core Values (which we both live by and work by). To us here at InvestorCarrot great customer experiences is a heck of a lot more fun than crappy customer experiences. It makes it fun coming into work when the customers you work with really like ya.
Customers can rate their experience with us when they connect with us through support and over this past 12 months 90% of our customers rated us as having GREAT service, 8% rated our support Okay and 2% poor (can’t make everyone happy eh :-)… that’s on 3,233 tickets we resolved for our customers in 2014!
How Our Customers Rated Our Customer Service In 2014: 90% rated us as “GREAT”, 8% rated us Good… the other 2%… can’t make everyone happy :-)
Another cool metric we’re proud as heck of… that 98% of InvestorCarrot member support requests were replied to within 24 hours… 89% in under 6 hours… and most in under 1 hour during work hours! Try us and see :-)
98% Of Your Support Requests were replied to within less than 24 hours during work hours… 89% in under 6 hours. Most under 1 hour!!! That’s fast and the best in the industry.
4. Our Carrot Team Grew Stronger
The Core Of InvestorCarrot: Here’s a pic of part of our team here at InvestorCarrot in a recent “in-office” day when the team was working from our headquarters in Roseburg, Oregon. Not all of our team lives in Roseburg… so we have bi-weekly “in-office” days so we can work in person!
Going into 2014 we had a full-time team of 5. With a couple team adjustments and shifts over 2014… we re-focused on the core of what we’re great at… and brought aboard a kick butt new team member in November… and strengthened our relationships with a few key partners to help in areas where we’re not ready to build in-house teams quite yet.
5. Releasing Dozens And Dozens Of Software Updates, Trainings, And Complete New Features
(like sms alerts and more!)
During 2014 we held 50+ LIVE weekly Carrot Coaching Calls (which are included in all Content Pro plans at no additional cost), simplified the software over the way it was to end 2013, added additional features like sms / text message lead alerts, more integrations like Zapier, simplified YouTube video embeds, Content Pro content marketing system, and more!
We’re releasing updates to the software on an almost daily basis… and plan to ramp that effort up in 2015 to really focus on a few big game changers for our customers to help you generate more traffic and leads. Keep an eye out :-)
6. Restarting Our Carrot Blog With Great, Useful Content To Help You Grow
In November we launched the new design of this blog and renewed our commitment to bringing you behind the scenes content that will help you move the needle in your business each week to generate more leads, rank your websites better, increase your website conversion, and improve your happiness as an entreprenuer.
Keep an eye out for our weekly posts in your inbox and join in the conversation each week!
In fact, what do you want us to write about more in 2015? Let me know in the comments below :-)
7. Growing A Profitable, Fun, And Effective Business Starting With Just Our Sweat, Focus, And Hard Work
Too many companies try to hide the “sensitive” parts of their business from their customers… like revenues and profits… but really there’s no need to hide your successes or failures from your clients.
In fact, by growing a profitable company it’s actually a great thing for customers. That means more cash for innovation, more cash for building an even stronger support team (which we’re looking to hire another Customer Success Hero in early 2015!), more cash to move faster to keep YOU… our customers ahead of the curve from your competition.
So we’re proud as heck that we’ve grown a company this past year and a half that is very profitable, without outside funding, with a small team 100% based here in Oregon, that is doing great things for (and with) our customers. Without this big win… the other “wins” above honestly wouldn’t matter… and we’ll continue to grow and manage this company to ensure stability and innovation for our customers and our own families in 2015 and beyond.
3 Biggest “Failures” And How We’ll Improve Them In 2015
With the great year we had… also came some bumps and bruises that we survived. Most of them were self inflicted and totally avoidable… but lessons we had to learn in order to grow stronger to the point we are today.
1. Losing Focus Of Who Our Core Customer Is
This is a biggie. At times during the year we lost our way and created things in our software and marketing efforts that focused on the wrong customer. Our ideal customer is a high achieving investor. Someone who is motivated, who isn’t using real estate as a new business “opportunity”… but rather a serious career, and who is ready and willing to invest time, money, or both to accelerate their results online.
You’ll see a tighter focus on this type of person in 2015 which will dramatically improve your results.
2. Not Building The Business WE Wanted To Build
It’s really easy to listen to outsiders and let their opinions influence the way you live life and grow your real estate investing business. We did that a bit too much at times this past year as well… growing InvestorCarrot at times in directions that really didn’t resonate with me at my core on the reason we created this company in the first place.
Now with a renewed focus on our vision, why we exist as a company, our ideal customer that we can help the most, and the life we want to live… we’re already on an exciting and more focused track to crushing it in 2015… the way WE WANT TO DO IT.
3. Lack Of Organization And Focus At Times Led Us In Wrong Directions
This one is honestly directed mainly at me as the CEO of the company.
This has always been a weakness of mine and something I’m continually working to improve. me personally… not being as organized as the leader of the company as I need to be. Which led to things like announcing releases in the software and training and not hitting many of the dates I put out there, etc.
So the last 2 months I’ve personally had to make a renewed commitment to being more organized. My team has helped with this a lot and we’re now relying better on systems to track our projects, communicate better as a team, and be more focused and clear on our goals and objectives each month and week.
I’ll write a post in 2015 walking through what we’ve done to really start the transformation to working more focused, organized, and be less busy on a daily basis.
Some Things To Expect From InvestorCarrot In 2015
As great of a year it was in 2014… it won’t compare to the year we have planned out for 2015.
Yes, we’ll be continuing to build out the best inbound online marketing platform for real estate investors with additions to help you rank your websites better and easier, track your rankings instantly, increase the conversions on your websites even further, get more leads, manage those leads more easily with systems (like Podio, coming soon), and more!
But what we’re going to really focus on in 2015 is not just features… but finding better ways to help you get personalized guidance to get you the results you want in your business and your life.
This includes…
Our New Marketplace – Soon you’ll be able more easily find the tools, resources, training, and help to get you even better results. Look out for this in January 2015
More Industry Best TrainingOpportunities– Our Carrot members have come to know and love our weekly LIVE Coaching Calls with me and our other team members… but we want to spread the love in 2015. Starting in January everyone in our Carrot community can come to a new monthly training call open to all subscribers to our email list.
More Personal Guidance – Our customers have asked, and we’re making it easier for you to get more personalized help as you need it as a Carrot member. This means more ways to connect with people who can help you implement your SEO, PPC, and lead gen strategy… more ways to get tailored action plans to what you need to do to get results in your market.
Honing Our Inbound Lead Generation Tools Within Carrot – We’re proud of what InvestorCarrot has grown to become. But we have a greater vision for how we can make your life easier and more profitable in 2015 with better tools to help you rank your website, generate more leads more easily, and spend less time customizing things on your websites… and more time doing what you love to do.
We’re really excited about 2015 and are thankful for a great community of investors who are really supporting what we’re doing here at InvestorCarrot to help transform the way high achieving real estate investors use the internet to grow their real estate business.
How Was Your 2014 And Where Do You Want To Improve In 2015?
Let’s continue the convo in the comments below!
An article from the Harvard Business Review detailed the importance of response time when following up with a lead. According to the study,
“Companies that try to contact potential customers within an hour of receiving queries are nearly 7 times as likely to have meaningful conversations with key decision makers as firms that try to contact prospects even an hour later. Yet only 37% of companies respond to queries within an hour.”
That’s 7 times the chance of connecting with that motivated house seller, cash buyer, private lender, or tenant… just because you’re responding within the first hour.
If you’re responding within the first 10 minutes… can you imagine the impact that’ll have on the trust and rapport you’ll build with the seller?
This statistic is not surprising, considering how technology has increased expectations of how we communicate.
Motivated house sellers who call you up or submit info on your website have a lot of things to get done and want their problem with their house solved quickly… and hanging around for a callback isn’t something they want to do.
So how can you give yourself an edge with each motivated seller lead that comes through your website? Call them back immediately. And you can do this by ensuring you get your leads’ real-time notifications.
How can you do that?
Why Just Relying On Email Lead Notifications May Be Costing You Deals And Profits
If you’re like me, you get a lot of emails.
That’s a lot of distraction in the inbox competing for your attention… and if your only way of receiving a lead from your real estate investment website is via email… you may be at risk of missing the email… see it hours later… or it being filtered out as spam by an overzealous spam filter.
Since just 1 hour makes such a massive difference when talking to motivated sellers… how can we ensure that you know about every lead that comes in as soon as the seller submits it?
Use Our New “Instant SMS Notifications” Feature to Reduce Your Own Response Time Immediately
At Carrot, we constantly strive for incremental improvements in our software to deliver the best value to our members.
To help you as a real estate agent or investor reduce response time, we include a simple feature that can be activated on your existing Carrot website forms in seconds.
Instant SMS Notifications are a simple way to send real-time lead information directly to your cell phone as a text message.
Part of responding to leads quickly is having the right system in place.
This software feature goes one step beyond a basic tool to send texts and allows customization and smart information to be sent. In order to call a customer back and have a meaningful conversation, it is important to know relevant information… and have it right there at your fingertips when the lead comes in.
Why Do I Need A Text Message? Can’t I Just Check My Email?
Yep, you totally can! But what if you’re in an area where you don’t have access to wifi or your cell coverage in that area isn’t good enough to really pull up and load your email client quickly?
I’ve been in areas sometimes (even in the middle of big cities) where my Gmail app literally can’t pull up my emails because the data connection is so poor.
But… my phone can get text messages just fine.
That alone could be the difference between a 10-minute response time vs. a 3-hour response time and losing the deal to another agent or investor who called the prospect back more quickly.
When You’re On The Go… Relevant Information Is Key
When calling a lead back, knowing some basic info about them and their situation is essential.
Their time is valuable, and being unprepared with a quick call only fixes half of their problem.
So with our Instant SMS Notifications, we’ll give you the vital contact info of the new lead in an instant text… along with a quick “tap and go” link to access your Carrot account where the rest of the info they submitted is stored if you want to see the full data right away.
If you have their callback information, see their question, their email, and where they came from on your website, the conversation can proceed without time spent on minor details.
How To Set Up Your Automated Instant Text Notifications On Your Carrot Account Today
The following tutorial will assist you in setting up SMS Notifications on forms. From there, you will receive a text message with relevant information based on where the user opt-ins on your website and any other relevant data.
We’re super excited to announce that our very own Trevor Mauch has been (deservedly) recognized as one of the nation’s top entrepreneurs under 35.
It’s pretty cool that we get to use this badge of honor, eh?
What’s most meaningful to us isn’t really the award, although it is super cool… it’s what it means for rural entrepreneurs, especially in Oregon.
You don’t need to be in a big city to be a global company.
Heck, you don’t even have to be in a major town.
All it takes is passion and a whole lot of dedication and hard work… and anything is possible.
Thanks to all of our dedicated members for helping us grow our little business.
We totally appreciate your support and encouragement.
Here’s the full press release:
InvestorCarrot from Roseburg, Oregon Honored to be included in Prestigious Empact Showcase and recognized at United Nations
Founder Trevor Mauch among the United States’ “Showcase of Top Companies Started by Young Entrepreneurs”
One of Empact Showcase’s Top Companies
Roseburg, Oregon, Oct. 6, 2014 –InvestorCarrot today announced that it has been named to the 2014 Empact Showcase by Empact, an organization that celebrates the impact and diversity of young entrepreneurs.
Now in its fourth year, the Empact Showcase recognized Trevor Mauch, Chief Value Creator for InvestorCarrot as being among the United States’ “Best Companies Started & Run by Young Entrepreneurs”.
“I’m honored to be included with such an elite group of entrepreneurs and companies,” said Trevor Mauch. “It’s great to show folks in Rural Oregon that a little start-up like ours can be included on this elite list of Top Companies.”
Empact Showcase companies were started and are run by entrepreneurs who are age 35 and under. In 2013, the companies comprising the Empact Showcase contributed more than 10,000 jobs to the economy, and controlled over $1 billion in revenue.
Founders in the Empact Showcase will be recognized for their achievements at the United Nations Headquarters in New York City in October. Past celebrations have taken place at the White House and United Nations.
“Young entrepreneurs are having a big impact on our economy, and it’s so powerful to have so many of these leaders in a room together,” said Sheena Lindahl, Co-Founder of the Empact Showcase. “Many of the companies are social enterprises that are also making a huge difference in people’s lives. It is never an easy road to build a successful organization, and we believe it’s important to celebrate all the spirit and grit these entrepreneurs have put into making the world a better place.”
About the Empact Showcase
In early 2014, entrepreneurs meeting the minimum criteria from across the country were invited to apply for the Empact Showcase.
Applications were then reviewed by Empact and Empact’s Academy of leading entrepreneurs, and include:
Jeff Hoffman, Founding Team Member, Priceline.com
Clifton Taulbert, Author and Speaker
Richard Caruso, Founder and Chairman, Integra Life Sciences
Elizabeth Gore, first Resident Entrepreneur at the United Nations Foundation and Chair of the UN Foundation’s Global Entrepreneurs Council
Chip Paucek, Co-founder & CEO, 2U & Former CEO, Hooked on Phonics
Kay Koplovitz, Founder, USA Network & ScyFy Channel & Chairman, Springboard Enterprises
The Academy selected honorees in several categories including the Empact100 (the top 100 companies in the Showcase), Most Disruptive, Largest Potential, Biggest Social Impact, and Best Female Founder.
Honorees were selected with factors including revenue, employees, social impact, growth over the past year, and innovativeness coming into play.
Carrot (Carrotly LLC) is a startup Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) technology company based in Roseburg, Oregon.
Carrot helps small businesses around the world more easily generate inbound leads online using the Carrot software suite that includes lead generation websites, Lead Pages, SEO tools, cutting-edge trainings from world-class experts and more.
Learn more at oncarrot.com.
Carrot was founded in 2012 by Trevor Mauch, an internet marketing expert, and serial entrepreneur.
About Trevor Mauch
Trevor is the CVC (Chief Value Creator) and founder of Carrot, a tech startup from rural Oregon.
Trevor is also an investor in other tech startups; CallLoop.com, AutomizeIt.com, and AthletesBrand.com with clients like New York Times best-selling authors, professional athletes, and Inc 500 companies.
Trevor is passionate as heck about entrepreneurship and the power of small communities doing big things.
With other go-getters, he’s helping fuel the rural entrepreneurship movement in small town Oregon. In the past year Trevor’s started or been a critical part of founding theLoft entrepreneur workspace (currently houses 9 companies), the Young Entrepreneur Society (grown to 113+ members), and the Roseburg Angel Investment Network (RAIN) to invest in Oregon business.
About Empact
Empact aims to facilitate a culture of entrepreneurship in communities around the world by exposing young people to entrepreneurship, convening entrepreneurs in peer support networks, and celebrating the vital role young entrepreneurs play in our economy. Empact has worked with over 500 colleges & universities, workforce development organizations, Chambers of Commerce, and Small Business Development Centers in the US and abroad to help promote entrepreneurship among aspiring entrepreneurs.
In a field with low entry barriers and many unethical operators, a credibility-focused real estate investing website is essential for standing out and convincing motivated sellers, cash buyers, and private lenders to choose your company over competitors.
Key Takeaways
Show real people behind your company through photos, names, and bios, as hiding personal information damages credibility and reduces conversion rates.
Highlight your expertise and make it easy for prospects to contact you through the “big three” contact methods: phone number, email, and mailing address.
Borrow credibility from respected sources by showcasing testimonials from established companies, logos of organizations you’ve worked with, and featuring any media mentions.
Implementing at least seven of the nine credibility-building website elements will put you ahead of 90% of your competition and significantly increase prospect trust, leading to more closed deals and business growth.
So, how do you boost your real estate investing website credibility?
Real estate investing is one of those professions where the entry barriers for new investors are so low… there are lots of unethical investment companies out there giving real estate investors a bad name.
So, how do you stand out above the crowd… and make it so that when a motivated seller, cash buyer, or private lender finds your website… they feel compelled to work with you?
First…
Importance Of Building Credibility (and how to do it with your website)
It goes without saying… that today consumers have more options than ever. If you’re a motivated seller going into foreclosure… or a private lender doing your research… one of the first things you’ll look at after you hear of a company is THEIR WEBSITE to see if they are real.
Our society is an internet society now. Just look at the phone book and newspapers… those businesses are in decline… while internet news sources and directories are on the rise. People go to the internet to research companies they’re getting ready to work with.
So, what will a private lender prospect or motivated seller see when they search for you online? Will they even visit a website? If not, people immediately think, “They don’t have a site… are they a real company?”.
If you have a website that doesn’t have the 9 elements below... that could be even worse. Is your website harming your credibility (if I had to guess, I’d say probably 60%+ are).
If people don’t feel comfortable that they want to work with you within the first 2 minutes of being on your website… odds are you’ll lose that business.
So, here are 9 ways to boost your real estate investing website credibility.
See How Carrot Works How many deals are you losing to your competitor’s website?
9 Ways to Boost Your Real Estate Investing Website Credibility
Stanford University did a study called the “Web Credibility Research” project. Stanford compiled 10 elements that your website should address that can either make or break your credibility as an investor… we’ve consolidated them into 9 elements that, without them… your credibility (and profits) are likely suffering. See how many of these your real estate investing company website is doing well:
Show that you’re real people behind your company – Most investors we work with to help them build their online presence for their real estate business are hesitant to put too much personal information on their site. They don’t want their name, picture, bio… anything… on the site. If this is you too… it’s hurting your credibility and results. Ask yourself this… do you like it when you’re on a website, and you can see the actual faces of the people behind the company? Yes, we all do. It increases conversions and leads.
Show that honest and trustworthy people stand behind your site – A lot like #1, your website visitors land on your website with their scam detector running in full force. They want to know that they can trust you to help them solve their problem (save them from foreclosure or get better returns, etc.). How do you do that? A short bio on your site, again… a picture of you and your team (we teach our members ways to build credibility even if you haven’t done deals or don’t have a team), testimonials are a biggie, etc.
Highlight the expertise your company has – Over half of the investors, we work with feel that they don’t have enough “experience” in real estate to put on their site. But, once we dig… they usually have a lot more experience that makes them qualified to provide great solutions to buyers, sellers, and investors than they think. Anything that you feel helps you in your real estate business qualifies. One gal had never done a real estate deal herself… but she was an executive assistant to a mega investor in New York for years, was a certified Draftsman, and had managed rehabs for another investor for a couple of years… that’s an experience that should be on your website. Or, heck… even if you’re just getting started… leverage the knowledge you’ve gained in your education or your mentors’ experience for now. Bottom line… if you don’t feel you have enough experience related to being able to help your clients reach their goals… then you should rethink your decision to be an investor (or go out and get that experience).
Make it easy for people to contact you – Simple. Obvious. But overlooked. Have the “BIG THREE.” Phone number, email, and mailing address on your site. It gives people a feeling that you’re not a fly-by-night operation… and easy to get in touch with if they have a question or problem. You can get a free phone number from Google Voice, and a professional mailing address from your local mailbox store if you don’t have one.
Design your site so it looks professional and clean – Who likes to land on a website that looks like a 12-year-old made it in 1998? Find a nice clean design with lots of whitespace on the site… with crisp, clean graphics. It doesn’t have to be fancy… or flashy. In fact, flashy isn’t a good thing.
Make your site easy to use and useful – Easy to use = not too many links on your site. Give people a few options… don’t confuse them. Useful = providing great content on your website that helps your visitor solve their problem. Your motivated seller site targeted at assisting people in stopping foreclosure could have a FAQ on the foreclosure process, free guides on helping them to stop foreclosure, information on how your company works with homeowners, etc. Give them great information… it builds massive trust.
Update your website content often – Have you ever gone to a website and seen somewhere on the site where it said the last blog post was done ten months ago? Or when you read the site, and it references old, outdated information? This is a credibility killer. Update your site regularly. We teach our Carrot members our process for creating great blog posts, optimizing those posts for Google rankings, and making it so easy that you never have to think about what to write about next. It’s simple when you have the right process and system for your content. But, aim for a new blog post every week if you can… once a month minimum (not only does this help for credibility, but it also helps your search rankings and leads!)
Avoid typos and errors – Enough said.
Borrow credibility from other sources – A great way to build credibility on your site is to borrow it from other credible sources. Have you been on a website and said “As Seen On TV” or “As Seen On Google”… or a site that has a quote from a famous and respected person? That’s all “borrowed credibility.” If you work with a real estate agent from, let’s say… Century 21… get a testimonial from them and ask permission to put the Century 21 logo on the site as a “company we’ve worked with.” Can you imagine the credibility that’ll give you in a website visitor’s eyes when they see the symbols of companies they know and respect on your site?
So, how many of those 9 credibility builders for your real estate investing website are you doing on your website?
If you’re doing 5 or more… you’re ahead of the curve.
7 or more… you’re doing better than 90% of your competitors.
All 9? You’re crushing it and should be teaching this lesson alongside us :-)
Action Plan To Boost Your Real Estate Investing Website Credibility
Real estate investor websites can be a huge tool in building credibility, or they can harm your credibility. If you currently have a website, pick 3 of the 9 elements above and implement them on your website this week. If you don’t have a website, make a commitment to get online this week, but keep credibility in mind as you do so.
Of course, we’d love for you to work with Carrot (and we have many of these 9 elements already designed into our website templates), but if you’re still on the fence, here are what we consider the 10 Best Real Estate Website Builders.
This is a question we got a lot – “I have more than one site, and when I get lead notifications, how do I know which site it came from?”
