Last month, I discussed how to leverage two key facts to convert more leads. Knowing that nearly 70% of buyers speak to only one agent, and the highest chance of conversion occurs within five minutes of someone submitting their lead information can lead to powerful results. Now that our process is a finely tuned lead-conversion machine, how can we start getting more real estate leads into it? That’s our focus in this article.
Understanding who to contact at the right time is critical to identifying higher-converting leads — essentially, you want these leads to “raise their hands” for you. Take sellers, for example. Obviously not everyone in a community is selling their house soon, so how can you identify sellers? Some behaviors are good markers, like when someone completes a form on your website asking, “What’s My Home Worth?” Identifying and leveraging these behaviors is what we’ll cover here.
Intelligently Engaging with Leads
Take that “What’s My Home Worth?” form. Since those who complete this form are giving you their contact information to get this data, it’s a good sign they are contemplating selling their home. There are many different versions of this kind of form, but they all gather similar facts, and are an easy way for brokerages to convert traffic already browsing their website. We’ve discussed capture forms for lead capture in this prior article.
There are live chat services that engage with site visitors directly while they are on your website to help further qualify them and start getting more real estate leads for brokerages. One such company is ReadyChat, which integrates with TRIBUS already. These services are available 24/7 and provide some answers to basic questions and qualify them as leads based on the brokerages needs. Such leads feed right into TRIBUS’ CRM. You can see a sample chat window below:
Learn About Our New Ads and Leads Program - TRIBUS Engage
Getting More Real Estate Leads Through Content Marketing
So what else can a brokerage do to get buyers and sellers to “raise their hand” to indicate their interest in the homebuying process? Creating marketable resources, or content, can also be an effective tool for getting more real estate leads. Content creation can be an effective marketing strategy because it has a long shelf life. Think of articles or guides that indicate a person’s intent to buy or sell, such as, “Top 10 Things First-Time Homeowners Must Know Before Looking At Homes,” “The Pre-Listing Seller’s Handbook,” or “Buyer’s Guide to Purchasing A Second Home.” By providing useful content, you can ask for someone’s contact information before you send them the resource, and if the information is valuable to them, they’ll give up the contact info. Now you have a pretty good idea if they’re buying, selling, experienced, or new, and a valid reason to call and follow up. Here at TRIBUS, we offer a variety of resources for brokerages to use, such as a Broker Platform Vendor Checklist. You can see it on our website in the photo below. Note the form and call to action, “Get Your Vendor Checklist Today.”
Learn About Our New Ads and Leads Program - TRIBUS Engage
Another benefit to content marketing is the ability to promote it regularly on social media to targeted groups or general audiences on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn and Twitter. Because the content rarely goes stale, it’s considered “evergreen” content that can be reused in promoting yourself. This expands the audience for your expertise, and is more effective to me than publishing recipes, local events and the like, because those don’t generate a response from someone in the market for your services. Here’s the same content from above marketed on Twitter:
Learn About Our New Ads and Leads Program - TRIBUS Engage
Maintaining a Blog
Blogging about local topics or specific areas of expertise can be an effective magnet for buyers and sellers in search engines. Your blog can demonstrate your local community or expert knowledge, and peppering key phrases throughout your blogs (without being heavy-handed, but in natural form) makes it easier for buyers searching for specific phrases to find you. Such phrases can be, “When I represented a client looking at Chicago homes for sale, we stumbled upon some very interesting local points of interest…” or “When marketing a luxury home for sale in Lincoln Park, I’ve always found the following efforts pay off…” And, if at the bottom of your blog, you can include some current market stats and homes for sale matching the topic of your blog post, you’ve given your reader relevant information about the local market, and held yourself out as an expert on that area. Add a capture form as discussed above, and you’ve got some powerful content working for you. In fact, you are reading this blog post, and if you’re interested in learning more about us, you can complete the form at the bottom of this blog page!
Paid Advertising
Lastly, there are cost per click (CPC) and cost per lead (CPL) programs out there for getting more real estate leads, which can bring traffic in a hurry. Such campaigns require discipline to manage the inbound traffic from these sources and quickly determine if they are converting to leads, then to appointments, then to listings, and closed business. Even if they are converting to leads, is the ultimate cost per lead something you can afford? These campaigns can be dialed up or down like a faucet, so be careful to measure your business gained from these channels and don’t be afraid to cut off spending and figure out how to optimize your campaign. Try using different keywords, subject lines, et cetera.
So there are several options for brokerages to consider to help increase lead flow by leveraging their own web traffic, creating content to drive more content and leads, and simply buying traffic. All have their pros and cons, so discuss with your team what will work for you, and have at it! Remember, once those leads come in, respond quickly and the business is likely already won.
