Practical strategies real estate
agents can use to maximize leads

How do you generate your real estate leads? Are you still knocking on doors, or have you embraced modern technology? Do you still rely on old-fashioned methods, or are you using new technologies?

Over the last decade, you may have noticed a significant shift in how clients search and look for houses. They often start by researching online.

Even though traditional methods are still great, plenty of digital tools are available today to help you find leads.

WHAT IS LEAD GENERATION FOR REAL ESTATE?

Before we consider some strategies for focusing on lead generation for real estate, we need to establish what precisely lead generation is and how it’s used in this industry. 

Lead Generation is the process of generating a list of prospective buyers who have a vested interest in your company’s product or service. In real estate, generating good leads comes with its own set of challenges.

To summarize, lead generation is an essential element of a real estate marketing strategy. So, here are some new strategies that can help you maximize your lead generation.

1. Develop an Email Campaign

No matter what industry you’re working in, a well-crafted email campaign can be an essential tool for connecting with new and staying relevant with past leads. A well-rounded campaign will direct potential clients through predetermined actions based on their past interactions with you.

While other channels like Facebook may be dominating now, email is still a foundation of your inbound efforts. It’s one of the most used strategies right now and has been for the past decade.

Based on data, the average open rate of emails for real estate businesses is around 27%, and the click-through rate (CTR) is about 3%. More relevant content will likely result in a client’s interest. So make sure you create content that is relevant to the people you are targeting.

When it comes to email campaigns, it’s all about the audience. 

• How well do you know them? 
• Are they invested in what you offer? 
• What are their needs? 

These are critical components to creating an impactful email campaign that will draw eyes and entice clicks.

In addition, don’t forget to make your emails actionable by offering clear value. As you continue to monitor and test the results of your email campaigns, be sure to segment your audience to create targeted content based on their actions.

Create an email newsletter. One of the most effective ways to communicate with your sphere of influence is via newsletter. It can add to your brand, making the recipient familiar with you, helping them recognize you when they see you or read about you. 

2. Create a Website

Do you have a real estate website? If not, you may be losing opportunities to attract new clients or gain sales through your website. 

A lot of agents equate the importance of having a website to that of a sign in front of their residential or commercial office. While this is still important, the importance of having a website that provides information, sales tools and interactive features can go beyond just promotion and lead generation.

A great way to gather more leads is by redirecting possible clients to your website. But keep in mind that your website must be user-friendly, especially for mobile users. With the popularity of smartphones and tablets, many people use mobile devices to look for businesses that can help them solve certain problems. This is why optimizing your website for mobile viewing is essential in helping to generate more leads on a regular basis. 

Almost half of all web browsing is done on a mobile, so if your website is not designed to be responsive, customers visiting your site from a mobile device will have an unpleasant browsing experience. 

For many small businesses, less time is spent on driving customers to their sites and more time is spent trying to ensure that the site is optimized for mobile and effective at getting customers through the conversion funnel.

Your website should include the following content to give potential clients the best experience:

• list of all new listings
• Guides for the buying process
• List of relevant services
• A live chat function on your website makes the site more people-centered, and you can respond to any questions 24/7.

In another note, gathering more leads is an important step in any business. If you already have a solid marketing plan, you might want to look into creating or improving your website, which can help drive traffic and ultimately improve your lead-generation efforts. 

It’s important to have a well-designed website that speaks to the needs of your target audience. There are two kinds of websites that you can use for this purpose: landing pages and microsites.

• Landing page: 

A landing page is part of a marketing campaign that includes an ad or email link to a specific destination. In other words, it’s a standalone web page that a person “lands” on after clicking through from an email, ad, or other digital location. Once they’re on your landing page, users are encouraged to take an action, such as joining your list or buying your products.

• Microsite

A microsite (or subdomain) is a type of extended landing page which provides a marketing message for your business. Microsites can be used to reach different target markets, and tend to be focused on a specific message or promotion.

3. Create blog content

A real estate professional’s digital marketing strategy is nothing without valuable content, whether it’s shared on your website or social media. A blog can help you become more visible to potential clients by improving your search engine optimization (SEO).

To ensure that your blog is successful, you should write content that buyers and sellers will want to bookmark or save in their browser for future reference.

Most first time real estate bloggers don’t know that establishing a well-written, source-rich blog can be challenging if you’re not sure what you’re doing. How do you start? What should you write about? Where do you find content?

It is good to post content on a regular basis. If you have time for one post per day that would be great. But don’t get discouraged by long gaps between posts. While it’s important to post regularly to attract visitors, if you find yourself with little time for blogging, the quality of your content is more important than the frequency. Aim for one post per week and you will be well ahead of most of your competitors.

Running out of content ideas? Think of how many times a week prospects or clients ask you questions. It’s probably a lot! Well, instead of just answering these questions each time, why don’t you take note and then turn the question (or questions) into an article? You never know what might happen and what could turn into your next post. All it takes is some note taking and creativity.

Invest in a good blogging platform. If you’re blogging for business then a free blogging platform isn’t the best option. Blog platforms host your site, but it’s not the same as hosting your entire website. For costs to have your own blogging platform on the internet., It would take up to $5-$10 for a domain name (if you don’t already have one), $5/mo for hosting, and about 20 minutes to get up and running. The price varies per service provider.

4. Create a Social Media Marketing Strategy

A well-planned social media strategy yields the best results that you might need to maximize your leads. Some ideas for posting content on your social media channels include:

• Property Listing
• Relevant news and blogs
• Success stories
• Property Videos

You may find it daunting to develop a social media strategy and post regularly across all channels, but there are a lot of tools available that can help make the process simpler.

The most important rule for creating a social media strategy for your real estate business is to share varied content.

Although sharing listings is an essential factor of your digital strategy, you want to make sure that your content is helpful for a broad audience of home buyers.

5. Segregate your database

If you already have existing leads, try to organize them. Set various criteria for you to gain insights about your database and help you with lead generation. A few criteria you can use to manage your leads include:

• How often do they interact with you
• Demographics
• Specific behaviors

Be wise and allocate your marketing resources to those most likely to purchase, you’ll achieve better results while saving time and effort.

6. Your SEO

Search engine optimization or SEO is essential to getting leads to your website. When done correctly, your website and web pages will show up higher on search engine results pages (SERPs) during relevant searches.

One of the best ways to start your SEO is by researching the most-asked questions and trending topics in your field. You can accomplish this by using online and offline resources to learn more about clients’ experiences, questions, and concerns.

7. Be Consistent with everything

Now that you know how you can maximize your leads. You will need to keep in mind that you cannot use this all the time. Find the methods you’re best at and those that suit your business model. Then refine them until they operate as smoothly as a finely tuned machine. But most importantly, always remember to be consistent.

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