Having access to various means of generating leads will boost your real estate business. To have a successful real estate lead generation, you need to deploy some smart, less explored, and secret strategies. Although there are a million ways of generating leads for businesses, we are going to identify the best lead-gen for realtors.
There are some essential things to do in business that regularly bring you customers and help your business grow. For instance, as a real estate professional, you may decide to engage in real estate farming, where you farm a particular area, nurture, and grow it until you become a household name and may not need to struggle for leads in the area. What you have done is a winning strategy to win the people of your farming area over, that way, you take your business to another height.
What Are The Secrets To Successful Real Estate Lead Generation?
Lead generation is a means of driving potential clients to your business. It includes the process of branding, nurturing, and following up with your prospects. Let's get your mind prepared to generate fresh leads for your real estate business through the following tactics:
1. Create and Build Partnerships
Lead generation for real estate agents involves building relationships with other businesses. Check out your neighborhood or downtown and narrow down the businesses you want to build partnerships with. It's ideal to work with businesses that you genuinely enjoy and are also relevant to your clients and potential clients.
Being honest and communicative when starting to build relationships with these businesses about wanting to make your partnership mutual and beneficial is great for the long term, and it provides an open floor for discussion.
So, which local business should be on your radar? You should be considering businesses like:
Personal Bankers - When talking about financial investment, homes are number one. Through the existence of personal bankers in your real estate business, it is of great benefit to buyers.
Insurance Companies - Most realtors do not know the importance of partnering with insurance companies. There are homebuyers who reach out to insurance companies for them to turn their homes into rentals or businesses. The insurance companies will be able to recommend your services to them.
There are still more local businesses that you can partner with and they are commercial lenders, landscapers, cleaning services, etc.
Don't forget about local coffee shops, restaurants, furniture stores, and boutiques.
Providing prospects with something of value from a local business is beneficial to the prospect, local business, and you. It's a win-win-win! It shows you are a valuable resource, are educated about the area, and support your local community. And the next time, one of their clients needs a real estate service, you will absolutely come to mind as their first recommendation. And they will be happy that they can refer someone they know and trust to their client.
2. Advertise
Advertising your real estate business increases your chances of your business generating real estate leads as advertising helps to present your business to potential customers - plain and simple. Especially when you invest in online ads, which if strategically implemented, will give you high-quality leads.
Most buyers search for houses online before contacting a real estate agent. They typically search keywords about your area and try to get familiar with the environment. Investing in well-organized online ads that target major keywords in your area such as ''how much is my home worth', best realtor in CITY', 'homes in CITY', and 'things to do in CITY' is going to guarantee that you get in front of people who are either looking to buy or sell a home.
You can also advertise your real estate business through social media ads like Facebook ads, Instagram ads, LinkedIn ads, and paid Google ads.
Video marketing is another great and effective way to advertise your business. It is a digital marketing strategy that is especially relevant and effective for real estate marketing, specifically when targeting buyers.
3. Have a Well-Organized Website
This tip is absolutely crucial. You need an easy-to-navigate website where you can create your online presence. A website gives you the privileges to package your brand. It makes you appear professional, list out your specialties and essentially "pitch" why they should choose YOU.
On your website, add a blog where you can write quality content to inform and entertain your users. Create content that provides solutions to all the possible challenges that buyers and sellers may face, market updates, and pictures of pretty houses. This may seem excessive and time-consuming, but trust us, it is absolutely worth it because it gives your website added value and substance, and it helps optimize your page for specific keywords for search engines (aka SEO).
Additionally, your website should also be able to sort out some of your leads' minor questions. And ideally it should be only 1 or 2 clicks away from the main page at most (if not directly on the main page).
Last but definitely not least, it is absolutely essential to include a contact information form and your own contact information on the main page of your website. This way a lead is never questioning how to get in contact with you, and you can generate exclusive leads and an email list from the contact form. This way you can efficiently reach out to the leads and stay in contact with them through an email newsletter.
4. Reviews
Everyone loves to know they are working with a tested and trusted company. And the best way to truly get an idea of how great any company claims to be, it to see what past clients have to say about them. Most soon-to-be customers go online to check for customer reviews or visit review websites for verification.
Don't be discouraged if you only have a handful or less of past clients. Even one or two well-founded testimonials will be good enough to get you started. What is important is that you gather those testimonials from those people and publish them on, well, everywhere.
Using tools such as Reach150 and Google My Business are great for requesting and sharing reviews from happy past clients. Displaying positive testimonials about you and your business instills that you are reputable and can deliver great results. So, we recommend you maximize this strategy as much as you can.
Reach150 is a systematic and simple way to grow your business through referrals. Their philosophy is that growing referrals is like building your 401(k) - the sooner you start, the more you benefit from a compounding effect. Reach150 or products similar is necessary for all businesses, however, it is especially helpful in the real estate industry.
Google My Business is another great tool, it is a free and easy-to-use tool for businesses and organizations. Businesses can create a Google My Business account to manage their online presence across Google, including Search and Maps. This is beneficial to help customers find your business and to tell them your story, you can also verify your business and edit your business information.
5. Educate and Engage Your Audience
Educating homeowners and soon-to-be homeowners in your community can bring positive attention to your brand, which is exactly what we are looking for when wanting to generate quality leads.
For example, creating short 2-5 minute videos of market and neighborhood updates is advantageous for you and the viewer. To elaborate, you are getting your name out there and providing something of value (information) for free, and the view is empowered by gaining knowledge about their community. And the viewer will eventually, as long as your content is short, simple, and consistent, rely on you for their "weekly update".
Another example is going "live" on Instagram or Facebook to answer questions in real-time. This way you can start conversations about your area and create an engaged community in the comment section. This builds rapport and engagement. This alone, of course, will not be enough to sustain your business. Driving every viewer to your landing page, to open houses, and gathering email addresses will need to be included in the mix.
Again, the key here is to be consistent. Don't give up if you only get a handful of viewers on the first video. Keep it consistent, informative, and fun.
6. Keep in Touch with Your Past Clients
Expressing gratitude and appreciation to your past clients months or years after working with them is going to exponentially grow your business over time. Mainly because of one word: referrals. There are other aspects, of course. Such as if your clients need any real estate services in the future.
Reminding your past clients of you is going to keep you top of mind and confidence in the choice they made working with you. So the next time they need a real estate service or their friend mentions they are in need of an agent, they will be excited to recommend you because of their continued pleasant experience.
So, how can you show appreciation? A great way to start is a handwritten letter. Letters are very rare nowadays so it shows you put a little extra thought and effort into it. Another example is a gift basket filled with all the homeowner's favorite treats. A third option is to have a monthly subscription box sent over sent to their new home. This is a great "set-it-and-forget-it" option as most subscription boxes are annual. A box can include books, dog toys for their furry friend, wine, and even pre-planted bulbs. So there are plenty of options depending on your client's desires.
Most importantly, express how grateful you are because they choose you as their real estate agent. Let them know that they are free to reach out to you anytime for questions or updates.
7. Quora
Quora is a professional website that allows you to ask questions and provide answers to others' questions. As a real estate agent, you can create a Quora user's account and respond to people's questions. You only need your email to register on Quora and it is a free website, so it's essentially a no-brainer. Once you have a registered user's account, the next step is to search for real estate-related questions. And provide your answers professionally.
Look for questions that are within your wheelhouse that you can answer effectively to genuinely help the questioner. Again, this shows you are ready to help and dedicated to your craft.
Keep it easy for users to find your business information within Quora. And let your followers on other social media platforms about your presence on Quora so they can tune in.
8. Wear Customized Clothing
Invest in high-quality branded clothing with your custom logo and title engraved. A few species such as a t-shirt and a hat can be a subtle way to promote and show you are proud of your career. It's a great conversation starter, and you may be surprised by how many people didn't know you are a realtor!
Your customized wear may even attract new customers, and give them the confidence to ask you questions. You might come across a new homeowner in your community trying to relocate. Or some who want to sell their homes but they don't know how to reach out to a real estate agent.
Therefore, do not overlook the subtle impact of wearing customized clothing to advertise your real estate business.
9. Use LinkedIn
LinkedIn is a professional social networking site where you can meet potential customers. After optimizing your LinkedIn profile to a professional realtor profile. Search for LinkedIn groups that relate to your real estate business and join them.
Try to join lively groups where different questions are coming in so that you can share your knowledge with them. Attend the question carefully without insulting anyone or condemning other realtors.
On LinkedIn groups, you can find potential customers and nurture them gradually. Create time to follow up with your prospects till they become your customer.
10. Have a Niche
Having a niche in the real estate business will help you focus your campaigns on your target audience. There are different types of niches that you can focus on and develop yourself. Although, you may search for the best niche that will work in your community.
Some of the common real estate niches include:
- Townhomes
- Senior homes
- Historic homes
- Commercial real estate
- First-time homebuyers
- Lands
- Suburban homes
There are a plethora of others to choose from, so if you don't see a niche that you resonate with here, don't worry. After choosing your niche, work on becoming an expert in this niche. It will boost your chances of finding new customers and rendering quality services.
Conclusion
Ultimately, lead generation for your real estate business depends on you and how consistent you can be with your outreach, marketing, and branding. It is vital to be consistent and focus on your chosen lead generation tactics. Also remember, none of these tactics work solely on their own, so mix and match them to find which lead generation strategies work best for you.
