Traditionally speaking, the only real lead generation techniques you could use would be to get out into your neighborhood and physically introduce yourself to potential clients or to buy a light of contacts and then do cold calling.
But today, real estate lead generation techniques have evolved significantly thanks to modern technology, and you can capture leads on apps, social media, blogs, online videos, search engines, and so on.
Simply put, the number of unique opportunities for generating real estate leads are greater today than they ever have been before, and what these lead techniques are and how to use them are what we are going to discuss today.
Here are the top strategies and techniques you can use to capture real estate leads:
First and foremost, you can capture leads on your website. You do this by obtaining the email addresses by asking for it directly. No, you shouldn’t require anyone who visits your website to just hand over their email address before they can peruse it, but you can offer free signup bonuses for signing up to your mailing list.
It’s not all unreasonable to expect to get roughly 10% of all people who visit your website to give you their email address. So if you get 50-100 visitors a day, which is perfectly obtainable with the right SEO techniques, that’s 5-10 emails a day that could serve as potential leads.
Inbound marketing is where you attract people to your business through creating and promoting incentives. Think of it as a digital way of marketing.
Typical inbound marketing methods that you can use include social media marketing, content marketing, online advertising, and SEO. A common inbound marketing technique, regardless of the exact method used, is to attract, engage, and convert. In other words, you attract users through promoting an incentive, engage with them by convincing them to take the incentive, and then you’ve converted them into a potential lead (just like with the email gathering method we discussed previously).
Outbound marketing is an umbrella term used to refer to a more traditional form of marketing, such as through email marketing, event marketing, and telemarketing. Think of it as a (mostly) non-digital form of marketing, in contrast to inbound marketing.
As it applies to realtors, one example of an outbound marketing method you could use would be to host an open house and advertise for it online, through email, and with event flyers. If people touring the house express interest, you’ve just converted them into leads.
Take note that a successful lead generation marketing system will make use of both outbound and inbound marketing to convert people into leads before converting those leads into customers.
As a real estate agent, you will need to become a master of local search engine optimization if you want to have hope of generating leads online. Since nearly half of real estate buyers will begin their home buying process online, and specifically since they will be looking for homes in the area, you want them to find your website through a slew of larger ones.
In order to increase your odds of being discovered on a search engine, you need to include local terms in your content. Since people will be searching for things like “homes in ____,” you need to have the name of your local town or towns in your content repeatedly. You should also optimize your website to show up in Google Maps when people are searching for local homes as well.
Last but not least, do not discount referrals. Referrals are a more powerful lead generation method than you may realize.
According to the NAR (National Association of Realtors): over 40% of buyers used an agent referred to them by a friend or relative, and over 60% of sellers found an agent through a referral from a friend or relative as well.
Also, did we mention that referrals are free? So long as you maintain good relationships with your contacts, you’ll be first in mind when they know someone who wants to either buy or sell property.
Before we conclude, it’s important to note that you need to be consistent. None of these lead generations are really going to work without patience. If anything you should select two or three lead generation methods and then refine them until they work well for you.