It’s Labour Day in Canada, and while this is only a 1-day holiday it is the one that is intended to honour the way most people work hard 5-days a week all through the year to provide for themselves and their families. But as is the case for most real estate agents they are working much more than just 5-days a week, and most of them are attending to real estate matters in some capacity every day. That’s the nature of the profession, and those who choose it as their career will do well to understand that you need to have plenty of hustle when it comes to real estate lead generation and having success in real estate. So around the topic of holidays what we’ll do with this week’s blog entry is look at holiday real estate lead generation services.
It’s possible to create a holiday referral campaign for realtors that is set up a little differently to spur potential customers to take action if they are considering the purchase or sale of a home. Ones who are aiming to make that move in the city or town where you’re working as a real estate agent and are keen to be establishing contact with leads that will be converted into clients. Using a paid real estate leads service like the one we have here is a proven-effective way to be first in-touch with these people much more frequently, and if you can pair that with a holiday referral campaign like the one we’ll detail here then it’s quite likely you’re going to have greater success with finding new clients in real estate.
It’s helpful to understand that there can be aspects of holiday times during the year that may lead people to consider their living arrangements to a greater extent. Time spent away from home may lead them to reconsider whether their current home is meeting their expectations. There’s also the way that seeing other neighbourhoods or parts of the country may make them realize that ongoing changes to their current home neighbourhood are leading to some level of dissatisfaction with it. There are all sorts of possibilities as to why someone might be more open to speaking with a realtor immediately after a holiday and time spent away from their home.
So let’s get right to our discussion of how to create a holiday referral campaign for realtors, and 8 ways to generate real estate business during the holidays. if you’d like to know more about paying for leads as a real estate agent one of our customer service representatives will always be happy to talk to you about that. Take this plan and make it one of many ways you make the effort to get a leg up on the competition and gain a real advantage in growing your client base much more quickly.
Call Expired Listings
Don’t think that leads won’t list right during the holidays, and that listings that have expired from their time on the local MLS are going to be off the market for an extended period of time as the owner reassesses their situation and whether or not they’re going to work with a real estate agent again and list the home for a second time. It is true that fewer properties sell around the holidays because fewer properties are listed but with holiday real estate lead generation services a greater number of the ones that are listed may have you as the listing agent.
In fact if you take a look at the average amount of showings that it takes for a property to be sold, and then compare holiday times in Canada vs other times you’ll see that there are certain upticks around the holidays for certain market segments. For example, it will take a lot less showings to sell a property in December, because the people that are looking to purchase around the holidays tend to be a lot more serious about getting an offer in on a home that they see is a good fit for them.
This will also apply for FSBOs. Reach out to these people during holiday times too.
Call Past Leads
Holidays can be an ideal time to reach out to any past leads that have gone cold but you’ve chosen to retain them because you believe they may still buy or sell a home through you, and it’s at this time when you can really chat to them as a friend wishing another friend a great holiday season. Have a chat, recap the year together, and proceed to inquire about their goals and get more information on what their buyer / seller prerogatives are going to be. Done right it’s a very natural transition to ask them about their real estate goals for the upcoming year.
Filter your Database and Create a Top-Priority Call List
Any approach to Holiday real estate lead generation services will need to include a very strategic approach to managing you client database. And how that’s done will depend on the size of your database. It’s going to be different whether you have 100 people in your database (where 20-25% of your leads might be hot), or 1,000 people in your database (where only 10% might be a top priority).
What’s best here is to use advanced search filters you can narrow down your database and figure out what your top priorities are. Create a list of people who searched for a property in the last 7 days, added a property to their list in the last 10 days, or viewed a market activity report in the last 30 days. Leads that engage with your site to the greatest extent will be your top priority and these are the ones that you will call first.
Create Simple Workflows
Workflows are going to be necessary as you create a holiday referral campaign for realtors. They need to be created strategically and conceived around the idea of inserting yourself into the lead’s position and imagining what their primary interests will be in considering the purchase or sale of a home. Understanding that their thoughts may be different based on the fact that it’s a holiday and they may be even more ready to make a real estate move at this time.
Let’s take the Christmas holidays for example, and with a pair of example scenarios / sequences.
SEQUENCE #1 – Before Christmas
Here what will be best is a simple text + email mentioning the common thought pattern of wanting to get as much done as possible so we can enjoy time with our families. It might be something along the line of this; Hey, I wanted to wish you happy holidays! I know this is the time when we’re all looking to wrap up our work so that we can spend more time with the family. Just wanted to let you know I’ll be working through the holidays, if you need to reach out with any questions. Happy holidays!
SEQUENCE #2 – After Christmas
Here it should be another simple text + email, but in this instance you will be mentioning the common thought pattern of setting goals for the new year. Here’s an example of how this one might go;
Hey! Hope you’re having an amazing holiday season.
This is the time when many folks begin thinking about what we wish to accomplish in this new year. With that in mind, I was just curious if you had given any thought to your real estate goals for the new year?
Build a Buyer’s List
It’s good to be aware that during the holidays, leads will be doing the same things that everyone will be doing when they have more free time. For potential homebuyers this is going to mean much more time spent looking at properties and possibly visiting a real estate agent website. Some will also be using what’s my home worth widgets if they are the opposite type of real estate lead and are thinking of selling the home they currently own.
Be in touch with these folks at the earliest opportunity and build a buyer’s list from them.
Re-Engage At Any Opportunity
All realtors will have disengaged buyers in your database, and while the term will be different depending on the size of your database it can be uniform that somebody that has not done anything on your site (searched a property, saved a property, etc) in the last 2 months is now a ‘disengaged’ lead. The holidays may be just the right time to contact them again and re-engage if that’s something they’re going to be open to. A classic example here is for homebuyer leads that have gone cold but you’ve found a property you think they’d be interested in if they are still considering buying a home.
You contact them and say something as simple as Hey, I found a property that you think you’ll like. Let me know if you want to visit it this week.
Ideally they will then click on that link and re-engage with your website again. During the holidays people will have more time to conduct these property searches to a much greater extent and it may be that you can identify a former lead that has greater potential for now being converted into a client.
Garage Sales
This is going to be the more unconventional suggestion here, but it may be a good idea for agents to go to Facebook Marketplace and search for garage sales. In all the garage sales in your marketplace, there’s a message button. Use it and send them a message along these lines; I’ve become aware of you having a garage sale. I happen to be a real estate agent, and I have a lot of leads asking me about this neighbourhood. I’d like to ask if you were preparing your home for sale; were you thinking of selling in the next few months?
These kinds of more abstract approaches can be surprisingly effective when made part of holiday real estate lead generation services
Commit to 200 New Sellers
Our last suggestion for you here is to find a way of adding 200 documented property owners to your client database, and kick off a Market Activity Report campaign for every one of their neighbourhoods. This will include everyone from current homeowners, old leads you’ve had, past clients, and anyone else who you know is likely to be considering real estate during whichever holiday period you’re in at that time.
Making them aware of property values in their neighbourhood and where they are likely to go over the course of the remainder of the year can be the impetus many of them need to respond to you and say they’re interested in working with you as their real estate agent. Often successful realtors will have high double-digit numbers of property owners in their databases and it may be increasingly likely to be converting them into clients during the holidays. Create a holiday referral campaign for realtors and make it more likely this sort of development occurs.
Sign up for Real Estate leads here and receive a monthly quota of qualified buyer and / or seller leads that are delivered to you exclusively. You will be the only agent who receives these leads, and you have an opportunity to contact them first and present yourself as a good choice as someone who can help them with whatever they’re planning to do with real estate. And it may well be that they’re even more receptive to your reaching out because it’s a holiday in Canada.
