Generating quality leads is the primary mission of real estate agents. That is because every sale and transaction they want to make depends on them first attracting a prospective home buyer or seller. Getting these individuals’ contact information so they can market their real estate listings to them, is the most important step in this process; that is why real estate agents need to understand best lead generation ideas and how lead generation apps can help them.
Real estate agents are faced with the task of generating high-quality leads. No one will make an appointment to meet with you if they haven’t been properly lead in a first place. Follow these best lead generation ideas for real estate agents to create more and better leads for your business.
You have a real estate site. It is beautiful, it is mobile friendly and it has a large number of visitors on your home page. But, you are not getting the leads that you want because no one wants to leave their information. However, if you want to generate more leads from your website, then you need to get some best lead generation tools for real estate agents.
Real estate agents need reliable lead generation ideas. The right lead generation idea can mean the difference between a smooth transaction and a missed opportunity. You’re in luck! In this article, we’ll cover some of the best lead generation ideas for real estate agents. If you’re looking for more great marketing strategies, check out our website and dig in to our content library .
Real Estate Lead Generation Ideas
With the highly competitive and fast-paced real estate industry, it can be overwhelming for brokers and marketers to incorporate the right lead generation strategies to keep buyers coming in.
Here we have discussed ten amazing real estate lead generation ideas for the constantly evolving Real Estate industry that will hold your game plan together.
1. Google ads
Google ads can help you market your real estate company on Google’s enormous search network, display network, Google shopping ads, video campaigns, and applications campaigns.
The Google Lead form extensions are one of the Google ad formats for lead generation. Google Lead form extensions are planned to attract users with a responsive form available under the ad. The form can, for example, be an inquiry form where your potential customer fills in his choices, and then you get back to that customer with solutions to that inquiry.
The lead form extension is made in Google Ads and then attached to a search, video, or discovery campaign.
2. Facebook ads
According to the National Home Buying Survey, 97% of all house purchasers started their search on the internet in 2020. Also, according to the Mashable infographic, 79% of real estate agents use Facebook. Therefore, it is a gold mine for real estate brokers looking for new clientele.
For instance, you can target the ideal audience with Facebook advertisements based on their geography, demographics, and interests. As a result, you may easily find the perfect clients for whatever property you’re attempting to sell using Facebook.
You may utilize the Facebook tool – Facebook Leads Ads to produce real estate leads at a cheaper cost. Advertisements are visible to users on both mobile and desktop. When a person clicks on a Lead ad, a form appears with their information already filled in, such as their name and email address.Also Read: How to Nurture Your Sphere of Influence and Grow Your Real Estate Business
All users must double-check their information or add a little more and submit the form directly on Facebook. This eliminates the complexity that could be found on landing pages when it comes to conversion.
3. LinkedIn ads
LinkedIn, according to HubSpot, is 277% more effective at generating leads than Facebook and Twitter. LinkedIn is a network for all the professionals and, therefore, extra effective to that demographic.
Like the Facebook and Google Lead Gen forms extensions, LinkedIn Lead Gen forms are smartphone-optimized advertising that allows advertisers to collect leads on LinkedIn without referring them to external landing pages.
It includes a pre-filled form containing the user’s information. Then, when a person clicks on the advertising, a form appears, which they can fill out and submit. This improves the user experience, lowers friction, and boosts lead generation.
4. Videos as a marketing tool
Real estate lead generation ideas can be much more than just ads on social media. Posting pictures sure do represent what you’re selling, but did you know that real estate listings accompanied by videos receive a whopping 403% more inquiries than the ones without videos?
Putting up a video on your socials will attract more leads and increase your reach. You can post different kinds of videos like – live tours, question-answer sessions, neighborhood tour videos, real estate listing videos, tips and tricks on buying and selling properties, interview videos, etc.
5. A community page
Your website needs to put SEO tools to full utilization, and for that, a community page is a must. This section contains all the information about your workplace, areas, and listings. Even details like the state of the neighborhood, the history, the living cost, or all the amenities available near a particular neighborhood.
This helps your website get recognized every time a user searches for a place you work or people looking for houses in those areas. As a result, you get more traffic from the clicks through search engines, and then you can convert them to actual leads or customers by offering them services free of cost in exchange for their email addresses.
In this way, you can keep them updated about the latest listings or offers about the areas they prefer and turn them to potential customers.Also Read: How to Run A Real Estate Referral Program With ZERO Logistical Concerns
6. Create your app: a powerful real estate lead generation idea
You can generate more leads by creating your real estate app. This will allow you to send push notifications for things like new listings, promotions, deals, and many more. Potential leads are more likely to click on push notifications than open links from email marketing campaigns.
Even if you cannot make the app on your own, you can get it done professionally by an expert who can build it to suit your real estate company’s strengths and weaknesses. There are also free app makers available to create a basic app with personalized features.
To sum it up, a robust and personalized application will help you to up your marketing game and generate more leads than ever.
7. Send out cards and gifts to say thank you!
Sending out ‘thank you’ notes is always a great real estate lead generation idea. Sending out handwritten notes? Even better. Thank you notes, seasonal greetings cards, and gifts – they are all fantastic ideas to retain your loyal customers and create new ones.
Nurturing your sphere of influence will boost your referrals and increase your sales. Your SOI is people you know, people who trust you enough to recommend your services to their family and friends. So, taking care of them is essential to keep your company remembered.
Your valuable and thoughtful notes and gifts will make them think about you, and chances are they will spread the good word with everyone they know, not only about your services but also about how much you care for your customers afterward.
One such effective gifting tool is Eva, an AI-based assistant that helps you give the right gifts to your clientele. First, Eva chats with your gift recipient and finds their likes and dislikes. Based on the received data, Eva then sends out thoughtful gifts that will strike a chord with the receivers.
Real estate gifting is easier said than done, but when done correctly can fetch a large number of leads.
8. Retargeting
Retargeting is a marketing tactic that continually targets website visitors until they convert to actual customers. It’s an excellent real estate lead generation idea to generate genuine leads. You target people interested in you already; hence they have higher click-through rates than normal display ads.Also Read: Unconventional Marketing Ideas for Mortgage Loan Officers
A retargeting campaign is supposed to get you 70% more customers, an overall 700% increase in website visitors, and a conversion rate of 150%.
9. Visiting expired listings
Looking at expired listings can be a clever way to generate good leads. Property owners who have failed at selling their properties even after trying many times can become great customers to serve.
Finding out the problems behind their failure in attracting buyers will help you solve their problem.
If you can turn their situation around, not only will they become your loyal customer, but there will be a good amount of referrals coming your way.
10. Hosting open houses
One of the most effective lead generation strategies for real estate agents is holding an open house. An open house is when a home or other property is scheduled to be accessible for viewing by potential purchasers in the real estate industry.
The first step in hosting a successful open house that generates many leads is to create flyers, design door hangers, make postcards for distribution in your neighborhood, and post on social media to draw attention to the listing.
Even if you end up not selling your property, you at least have a list of potential leads you can follow later. Virtual open houses hosted on platforms like Zoom are also becoming quite popular because of the pandemic.
Don’t be afraid to experiment and mix-match these strategies to bring in better results and stand out in the real estate market.
Powerful Real Estate Lead Generation Ideas In 2022
11. Create Content About Historic Listings in Your Area
If you live in an area with historic homes or neighborhoods, you can attract leads by creating informational blog posts or videos about those homes. Post this content on your real estate website and and share it to social media to get organic traffic. As a local, you can provide visitors with unique knowledge and insight into these properties.
12. Create a Buyer Persona of Your Ideal Client
If you’re having trouble identifying your target audience, you should create a buyer persona. Buyer personas are a great way to narrow down your ideal client, their interests, and how they spend their time.
Once you have a clear picture of your ideal client, you can use this image to target them in both the online and physical locations they frequent. For example, if you know your ideal client is a first-time homebuyer, you might try paid advertising or content marketing on platforms that tend to have younger demographics, such as Instagram or TikTok for real estate agents.
13. Send Thank You Notes to Referral Sources
Referrals are valuable in the real estate industry. Whenever you get one, be sure to thank your referral source for their endorsement of your business. One meaningful way to show your appreciation is with a handwritten card and small gift or gift card.
14. Interact Regularly With Your Sphere of Influence
Form relationships with your sphere of influence and interact with them regularly. Just like with any other friend, you should celebrate and congratulate them on key milestones in their lives. Be sure to reach out for occasions like birthdays, weddings, engagements, and pregnancies.
15. Always Answer Your Phone Immediately
Fast follow-up is essential when you’re a real estate agent. But what do you do when you’re in the middle of something and don’t have the time to have a conversation? Instead of ignoring the call, just answer and quickly schedule a time to call them back when you are free. The lead will appreciate you taking the time to answer the phone rather than just letting them go straight to voicemail.
16. Ask Your Clients For Referrals
One way to ensure you get referrals is simply to ask your clients for them. Some clients love your service but don’t think to give a referral. Let them know how much this would mean to your business and that you would appreciate it if they took the time to recommend you to their friends and family.
17. Focus on Getting Good Reviews
Good reviews are the best way to boost your businesses’ reputation and get more leads. Make sure you ask your clients to leave reviews on all the major platforms, such as your Google business page, Facebook business page, Zillow profile, and Yelp.
18. Host Open Houses
Hosting open houses is often overlooked as a source of lead generation, but it’s a great way to get people in front of you, where you can more easily convert them. To get the most amount of leads from your open houses, advertise them by sticking up signs around the neighborhood, making sure to put one on every cross street.
19. Wear Branded Clothing When You Go Out
Represent your brand or brokerage whenever you go out by wearing branded apparel. This way, people will take notice of what you do no matter where you go, and you may end up finding your next potential lead somewhere you don’t expect.
20. Send Out Seasonal Cards and Gifts to CRM Database
A great way to stay top of mind with your sphere of influence and increase your chance of a prospective client and referrals is to send them cards and gifts for holidays, birthdays, and their home anniversary purchase date. You can use SendOutCards to send cards with attached gifts.
21. Offer Free Real Estate Advice
Demonstrate your knowledge by offering free advice to people, whether online or in person. For example, if you’re doing work or meeting with clients in a cafe, you can set up a small sign advertising your services or real estate advice for free.
Real Estate Lead Management
Generating and qualifying your real estate leads is a great idea, but what if you have a real estate lead management system in place to help nurture your leads until they convert? That is an excellent idea. A research carried out by Forrester, and Gartner research revealed that companies that excel at lead management generate 50% more sales-ready leads at $33 lower cost per lead and they also see a 10% or greater increase in revenue in 6-9 months. This implies that lead management helps to reduce the cost of lead acquisition and increase revenue. A lead management system helps your agents to know who to call, email, or text on autopilot. Learn more about Real Estate CRM integrations here.
Two of the most effective real estate lead management systems are Folllowupbox and Fivestreets.
a. Fivestreets:
Fivestreets helps you to build a relationship with your leads and convert them to customers. With Fivestreets, you can send out emails and text messages to leads as they opt-in. One significant thing about the software is that you can integrate it with your autoresponders or CRM such as ActiveCampaign, HubSpot, MailChimp, etc through Leadsbridge.
b. Followupboss:
Followupboss is both a lead management system and a follow-up service created for real estate businesses and agents. With the software, you can import your leads from over 200 digital sources in order to nurture them and close more deals. You can integrate Followupboss with autoresponders and CRMs like HubSpot, MailChimp, and ActiveCampaign through Leadsbridge. Learn how to integrate Followupboss with your CRM here.
Conclusion
Since real estate agents are the experts on their market, it’s common for them to take on a leadership role in marketing their listings. As the leader of the sales process, however, agents might find that their sales cycle is longer than they’d like. They will want to shorten the time from lead to sale as well as boost their “close ratio”—the percentage of leads that convert into sale. To do this, agents often turn to the world of online marketing. Of course, online marketing isn’t a magic-bullet solution; but with some thoughtful integration of online and offline strategies, it can help agents grow their business.
Lead generation is a touchy subject with real estate agents. Many are afraid it will come across as “salesy”. They want to capture leads and nurture them, but never push their services on people who don’t want it. The problem with this is that if you don’t make an effort to generate your own leads, you aren’t going to have any leads at all.