Finding quality real estate leads is the first step in the process of selling homes, and making commissions. No wonder lead generation is a topic on so many Agent’S minds! While there are many different ways to find real estate leads, there are a few key methods that are sometimes overlooked.
In this blog post, I’ll share some valuable lead generation ideas and examine the tips and tricks for how an agent can get more quality real estate leads.
What Exactly is a Real Estate Lead?
Let’s start at the beginning. A lead is the name and contact information for someone who could potentially become a client. A quality real estate lead is the name and contact information of someone who is eager to move forward and already thinking about making a move. We also refer to these contacts as “hot leads.”
A hot real estate lead may have already expressed that they’d like to work with you. This contact likely knows when, where, or why they want to buy or sell, and what their price range is. Ideally, buyers who are hot leads also have financing already pre-approved.
Hot leads should be handled efficiently as they are motivated to make their sale or purchase. They are more promising sales for you as an Agent, and are more likely to lead to a commission than an ambiguous contact.
A best practice for Agents who have identified hot leads is to add them to a high-touch three or four month campaign with weekly communications, while your longer-term leads can go into a one or two year nurture campaign with monthly communications. Remember that there’s no such thing as a cold or dead deal. There are only hot leads and those that are not hot yet. Real estate leads can warm up over time if you’re diligent about nurturing them with regular phone calls and email communications.
Now that you understand what a real estate lead is, let’s explore these tactics for how to generate high quality real estate leads:
1 – Don’t Be Afraid to Ask for Real Estate Referrals
There’s no higher compliment than receiving a referral from a past client. You may have noticed a sign while visiting a dentist or doctor’s office with a message like, “Your referral is the best compliment you can give our practice.” Many different businesses rely on the recommendation of happy clients and real estate is no different! If you have satisfied clients, openly ask them to refer family and friends to you. Many quality leads come from past clients so remember keep in touch to ensure that you are fresh on their minds. A good real estate CRM can provide you with the automated tools you need to keep in touch like an e-Newsletter, Activity Plans or Keep in Touch call reminders.
Try focusing in on your Sphere of Influence (SOI), including your friends, family, and acquaintances who may be willing to recommend you to others. The average homeowner knows three to five people who will move each year. Let’s crunch those numbers. If there are 25 people in your SOI, you could get 75 to 125 new referrals per year from the contacts in your real estate CRM!
There’s no need to be shy about asking for referrals. Let your circle know they’re not obligated just because they’re a friend or relative and make it clear that you are respectful if they’re already loyal to another agent.
2 – Nurture Real Estate Leads with Drip Marketing
Lead nurturing is the process of keeping in touch with your prospects over time and building your relationship with them until they’re ready to use your services. This is an important way to cultivate a relationship while your lead warms up.
Use your real estate CRM to assign your leads to marketing Activity Plans. A marketing Activity Plan is a series of phone call reminders and emails that go out automatically at various time intervals. Your real estate contact management software should have a number of different campaigns created for you and designed for different types of leads, such as for-sale-by-owners (FSBOs) or renters.
Thanks to regularly keeping in touch with the help of Activity Plans, when an unexpected job change or new addition to the family means a contact needs to buy or sell a home, the first Agent they will think of is the one they have a relationship with. Nurturing your leads through real estate Drip Marketing is an easy way of establishing that relationship and reminding contacts that you’re there.
The keys to successful direct mail and drip email is sending out content that people will find useful and being consistent. If you decide to send a monthly newsletter, make sure you send it at the same time every month. People are more likely to read and keep this information then just a straight up sales pitch. Drip marketing is one of the simplest, non-confrontational, and cost effective ways to generate real estate leads.
3 – Identify Your Hidden Hot Leads with Email Reporting
Email marketing is a powerful way to keep your business top of mind for your contacts. But imagine the insight of actually knowing who is opening and clicking on your messages? With IXACT Contact you can! Our powerful Email Campaign Reporting shows you the hot leads hiding within your database.
Email Campaign Reporting takes the guesswork out of email marketing by showing you statistics on your email campaigns including open rate, click-through rate, bounce rate, and more. You’ll know exactly who is opening your emails and who isn’t.
Armed with this information, you can send a targeted email or series of emails to the people who have clicked on your emails. Targeted messages like this will further engage your contacts and reveal to you who is very interested in moving in the near future. People who open and read your email multiple times and click on hyperlinks within your email are clearly engaged with your content and are very interested in what you have to say.
Email Campaign reporting in your real estate contact management software makes it quick and easy to determine the hot leads in your database by offering you in-depth insight on who your message is resonating with.
4 – Automatically Capture Real Estate Leads into Your CRM
Potential new leads find Agents on a variety of online platforms including your website, emails, Zillow, Trulia and more. With a good real estate CRM you can streamline the process by capturing these online leads and even automatically assigning them into a drip email program.
IXACT Contact’s Automated Lead Capture will send you instant email alerts each time a new lead has been added to your real estate database. All your leads are transferred automatically into IXACT Contact where you can further qualify and categorize them.
Capturing leads from the web will help you ensure no contact falls through the cracks. Your CRM should generate email alerts for immediate follow-up, assign a drip email campaign for automated lead nurturing and auto-assign new leads to your monthly e-Newsletter. You’ll be nurturing your new leads from the very moment they send you their information.
Online real estate leads are especially valuable because they are people who voluntarily submit their information to you. It’s important to follow up with them properly and start the nurturing process as soon as you can. IXACT Contact offers the broadest range of lead capture options available to ensure you don’t miss out on any potential sales.
Conclusion
You only have so much time during the week to follow-up on your leads. So make sure that you’re focused on generating high-quality real estate leads that have the potential to grow into happy clients. This will save you a lot of time – and increase the percentage of presentations that turn into listings.
Be open with your network about how much you appreciate referrals. People respond well to authenticity and leads generated from referrals are often high quality. When you do obtain new contacts, nurture them carefully to warm them into becoming hot leads. With IXACT Contact it’s easy to capture your leads and begin nurturing them right away, then identify who is a hot lead thanks to Email Campaign Reporting.
Ready to start finding high quality leads with the help of a real estate CRM? Sign up for a 5 week FREE trial of IXACT Contact now!