Real estate agents and brokers must gather and nurture a pool of leads. You may see a surge in the number of leads when interest rates are low and during the summer and spring season. However, the winter season and bumps in the markets always pose a threat to your lead generation and commission efforts.
But you can get ready for the unpredictable nature of the real estate markets with these effective lead gathering strategies. Let’s have a look at Ben Givon’s best and most useful tips for maximizing your real estate leads to help you stay one step ahead of your competition.
How to gather real estate leads the right way
Integrate with local businesses to develop partnerships that will benefit both parties. Co-hosting events, sending promotional offers to leads and existing customers, and building partnerships can help boost your brand awareness. This leads to the next question; which industries and sectors are most relevant to the real estate niche?
- Insurance firms: when it comes to purchasing and owning real estate property, insurance is a necessity. However, some home hunters are interested in real estate development. Such as transforming a residential property into a rental property, flip homes, or offices. Having a partnership with an insurance company can provide your leads with everything they need to get their real estate projects started quickly and easily.
- Banks – investing in real estate is often the most expensive investment many homebuyers will make. Especially for first-time buyers, this can be an overwhelming process. Therefore, having a bank to check finances can be excellent support for clients.
- Landscape businesses – landscaping is typically the first impression that prospective buyers have a property. Offer your sellers the opportunity to have their properties landscaped by professional companies to set them apart from their competitors.
- Restaurants and bakeries – securing a partnership with local bakeries and restaurants is a good idea. Especially if you are planning open house events or remarketing campaigns to approach existing and interested leads.
Host housewarming events
Did a customer with many connections move into their new property? Offer to fund the catering for their housewarming events. Make sure you make an appearance at the event to promote your brand. It’s the ideal opportunity to meet leads who are impressed by the real estate property you’ve helped their companions buy.
Did they welcome the new neighbors? Now is an ideal opportunity to inquire as to whether they’ve thought about selling. Neighborhood sales typically produce new interest in properties, and a housewarming gathering can transform cold leads to hot ready to buy leads.
To make this even more appealing to your new property owner, offer to provide free food and drinks, or decorate the property.
Choose a popular spot to conduct meetings and stick with it
Meeting potential customers and leads at a café or local restaurant to talk about real estate listings? Wherever possible, try to stick to the most popular coffee shops or restaurants. Why? Well, you will soon get to know the staff and other businesses that gather there, building both your brand awareness and your reputation as the number one contact to approach when looking to buy real estate.
Communicate with existing clients and prospective leads
When it comes to remarketing or just simply communicating with your target audience, you should try engaging them with a more personal tone. This could include handwritten thank you letters reminding them that you will support them through their real estate buying or selling journey.
Stand out against the crowd of competition by sending old school handwritten letters to your clients. It may be an outdated method of marketing. Email marketing is still saturating people’s inboxes. Sending personalized letters can work wonders in building positive brand awareness for your real estate business.
Optimize your digital real estate marketing campaigns
If you have the budget, it could be a good idea to invest in paid advertising strategies such as pay-per-click (PPC) or YouTube ads. Businesses such as Zillow, an online real estate database company founded in 2006, provide online marketing options for real estate companies.
According to the National Association of REALTORS Research Department’s Real Estate in a Digital Age 2017 Report, ‘In 1981, 22% of home buyers read newspaper ads to find a home, and 8% used friends as an information source. In 2016, 44% looked for properties online first. The world we live in today is a digital one, and searching for a home is no different. Buyers now have apps that let them search by location and neighborhoods. Online listings have virtual tours so viewers can look at a bunch of potential homes while narrowing down their search to a select few in the effort to save time. Online searching maximizes the ability to compare and contrast homes on the market by selected features. Most of this is done before a potential home buyer connects with a real estate agent.’
Ben Givon outlines the following useful methods to market your brand to gather those all-important leads:
- Set up and launch online advertising campaigns on all the popular social network platforms as well as Google ads and Google Discovery Ads.
- Advertise in local newspapers for prospective clients who prefer to read the news the traditional way.
- Create and publish guest blog posts on local and national real estate websites.
Set up and maintain your own website
Your brokerage will probably offer you a page on their site; however, it’s imperative to make your own presence on the web. This gives you the ability to develop an individual, unique brand, display your skills, and showcase social proof from existing customers. It likewise makes sure you have a strong presence in local markets – regardless of whether you change real estate brokerages.
Remember to optimize your site. Publish blog posts that address trending topics or difficulties customers face during the buyer’s journey. Make and post tutorial videos to guide your target audience through the process of hunting for and buying real estate. Also, gather email addresses by having a simple newsletter subscription form on your site.
Stay connected with your leads
Remember when you showed a potential client five real estate listings before they decided that they needed more time to consider the purchase? Ben Givon says, don’t give up on that lead. Remarket to that potential client with regular emails, blog posts, and other relevant and engaging content. That could, at any point, rekindle their interest, or when they finally decide to home hunt, you will most likely be the first real estate agent that pops into mind.
According to Jeff Hoffman, a distinguished sales executive, and entrepreneur, ‘If the prospect gave you a soft yes — and then nothing — or a firm no, never follow up with the same close. Your next request should be a different, lighter ask.’
‘For example, if your champion was supposed to introduce you to someone in Procurement, but they never followed through, your follow-up question might be, “When do you want to start implementation?” This is a more straightforward ask that doesn’t require action.’
‘Even though your original question didn’t receive a no, it might have if you continued to push. Your goal for every email or phone conversation is not to get a yes or no — the goal is engagement. When a deal is stalling, your focus is singular: Get your prospect on the phone talking.’
Final word
Try implementing these effective strategies into your real estate marketing campaigns and watch your leads pile up throughout the year.
