Most people who have decided to sell their home will already have a realtor in mind, and often it’s someone they know in their family or social circles. The same will go for people who are looking to buy a home – the agent who’ll be showing them properties will usually be the person they were intending to be in touch with to begin with. And for every instance where this is not the case it is very likely NOT going to be long before these people do meet the realtor they’ll work with. If you’re an agent then you need to be doing everything you can to ensure it’s you they end up speaking with first. And that means you had better have good lead generation strategies no matter which city in Canada we’re talking about.
But especially so for market hotbeds like the GTA and the Lower Mainland of BC. Higher value properties but areas that are totally oversaturated with agents all looking to get the same clients. These days more and more realtors are choosing to go with paid real estate leads and of course that’s the service we provide here. The leads are qualified, so if you’re confident in your abilities and you can make good first impression on potential clients then paying for real estate leads is something you should consider. But if lead generation for realtors is to be truly effective and regularly adding new prospects to the sales funnel then it needs to be a multi-tier approach. Get paid real estate leads for sure, but apply yourself elsewhere too.
First and foremost these days will be to be active on social media platforms, and engaging in every opportunity where there’s the chance to be extra visible in the digital world. We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again – if you are a realtors who’s not good with social media marketing it 100% makes sense to pay someone to do this for you and there are all sorts of people who could use the side income. It’s nearly impossible not to gain at least 3-4 new clients each year if you’re doing well with social media marketing for real estate. Another basic aspect of lead generations strategies will also be your real estate agent website.
Having it be fully SEO optimized had better be one of your strategies too, because many of these uncommitted people we talked about here will be in Google and searching for ‘*city* real estate agent’. When that happens you’ll benefit greatly if they see your website come back on the first page of their search results. We can’t stress it strongly enough, an optimized website with good content is huge in the realm of lead generation strategies here too.
With this week’s entry we’ll take a different slant and look at this from the perspective of what can happen to either improve the chance a lead becomes a client. As well as the opposite – what sometimes goes wrong and leads to a lead becoming one that is never converted and never enters your sales funnel. We’ve got 7 factors, and so let’s get right to them. Struggling with lead generation? Call us today!
Extended Processes
Leads of any sort in real estate don’t usually convert quickly. Industry estimates are that it t takes an average of 6 to 24 months for that to happen, and often dependent on where these leads are in their purchase journey once they become leads for you. And of course the success of your lead generation strategies will determine just how many of these individuals or couples are coming in people who may potentially become clients down the road.
There’s always going to be a timeframe for these folks as they think about making a move and then actually making the move to either list a home or start looking at properties for sale. The role of the Internet in all of this is big, as people can gauge the value of their home as well as determine what types of prices are attached to homes already on the market with real speed and ease right from their smartphone. It’s been pivotal in establishing new realities for lead generation for realtors too, and paid real estate leads wouldn’t be possible without it.
Anytime a lead submits their contact details to your website or reaches out to you via a social media platform it doesn’t mean they are likely to become a client in every instance. The way realtors need to approach leads is from the perspective that all of them will have a predetermined level of likelihood with whether or not they will put the home on the market or make an offer on a home for sale. Some will convert and some won’t and many times what the realtor does to nurture a lead won’t actually factor into the outcome.
So what you need to do is aim for volume with your lead generation strategies. It’s not realistic to take a quality-over-quantity approach here, and instead you really do need to focus on getting as many leads as possible. And keeping warm leads warm to the best of your ability.
6 Factors
Specific Timeline for Lead
6 months is the average for online leads to transact, and so it’s important to get an understanding of where the lead is in their process and tailoring your lead nurturing efforts to match that part of their identity. What you do to meet them at the right time in theirs is a big part of whether or not you convert the lead to a client. The key here is being able to make accurate determinations about this without directly asking the lead for that clarification. It’s something realtors always get better at with experience.
Online leads vs. Ones you’ve spoken to in person
It is different when you’ve met with a lead in person and spoken to them face-to-face about where they are in the process and what sort of potential timeline might exist for their buying or selling a home. You can be a little more personal with your follow-up communications with leads you’ve met in person, but that same approach may end souring leads who you’ve only communicated with digitally to that point.
Outpacing Competitors
It’s entirely possible that other realtors may have made contact with your lead, and in any instance it becomes a competition between the both of you as to which one will secure the client. Often a realtor will not know when that’s the situation, and so whether or not that realtor makes efforts to go above and beyond and make assurances of better service and better outcomes will be what factors into whether they end up being the would-be client’s choice as the realtor they’re going to work with.
Be aware that this is never going to be determined based on how many emails you send to them or anything else of the sort. You need to have built-in value propositions in all of the marketing collaterals that are made available to these people.
Timely Communications
It is best to call leads at different times, and this is a part of lead generations for realtors that’s much more relevant than many of you might think. Everyone has different routines, and it’s not about it being convenient for you to make the phone calls, it’s about them being convenient to answer the phone. Leads are not going to do business with you because they’re loyal. They are going to do business with somebody because that agent was accessible at the right time. Try to make all your lead nurturing communications timely in this way.
Be Agile
Leads in real estate can be swayed in one direction or the other quite easily, and especially when they are early in the process and have only just recently made first contact with a realtor who’s hoping to secure them as a client. Further down then line there’s more room for an agent to be more spontaneous in their communications and offer a different perspective for the people to consider as they move along with deciding which realtor they’re going to work with.
The key here is in accurately determining what sort of variables are going into the process for them. It becomes about identifying them and making changes to the way you’re nurturing that lead.
Be Ready for Objections
Every experienced realtor will tell you that hearing objections and smartly countering them is a big part of the lead conversion game too. If you’re not adept at handling different types of objections that come up either during phone calls, text messages, or emails then you’ll be at a disadvantage and your lead conversion aims may go sideways in a hurry. One big potential mistake a lot of agents make is asking the lead if they have an agent too soon in the communication timeline. This question has no benefit to the client and people will often lie and say they have an agent because they don’t want to be on the phone. Struggling with lead generation? Call us today!
