If you’ve been struggling to find quality leads for your real estate business, there are several things you can do to remedy it. Whether you are struggling to find leads in general or having trouble finding some that stick, there are tons of helpful real estate lead generation ideas that can help catapult you to success.
All it takes is some effort on your part, and a dedicated focus on improving and growing your real estate practice to its optimal level and you’ll find that you’ll have more quality leads than you know what to do with. Stick around if you are interested in gaining powerful tools to help you navigate the real estate industry with confidence and take your business to the next level.
[Also read The Differences Between Demand Generation Vs. Lead Generation]
What is Lead Generation?
First, it is important to understand what lead generation is before understanding how it relates to real estate. Lead generation is, in essence, the process of gathering and obtaining potential leads (or clients) for your business, product, or service. The hope is that, during this process, you will be able to gain new clients or customers that hopefully stick around and rely on you in the future or purchase your products.
Now, not all attempts at lead generation lead to a new client, however, with the right tools and methods, you can adopt the strategies necessary to create a thriving business that connects with the community and your target audience.
What Can Lead Generation Do for Your Real Estate Business?
So, what does lead generation mean for real estate and how can you implement it in your real estate business? Lead generation is something that any business, product, or service could use at their disposal to help grow their business and clientele. Whether you are selling a service or a product, you need actual people or leads to help drive a purchase or eventual close.
There are many different real estate lead generation ideas circulating in the industry that you can take advantage of to catapult your business to success. By implementing different lead generation tactics, you’ll notice how much creativity, freedom, and community you’ll have at your fingertips.
15 Helpful Tips and Ideas for Real Estate Lead Generation
This list consists of a variety of strategies to gain leads for your real estate business. Some of these require in-person tactics, while others focus solely on social media strategies and campaigns. The beauty of having such variety is that you can cater your strategies and tactics to meet the needs of your specific real estate practice and decide what works best for you… Implementing a multitude of strategies, that cover all the varying levels, is the most dynamic and effective way to gain leads that turn into returning clients.
Below are 15 helpful real estate lead generation ideas that can help you obtain genuine leads for your real estate business.
1. Build Local Connections and Partnerships
One great real estate lead generation idea is to work on building local connections and partnerships with other local businesses. This could be accomplished on multiple levels, however, this tactic is more effective when doing in-person networking.
Some ideas could include partnering with local businesses in related fields or a local business that has a similar demographic that you are trying to market. This could also take on sponsoring community events or volunteer work in the community to strengthen relations with the people that you serve.
Building local connections and partnerships can extend to social media, as you can join different social media groups and communities to expand your networking possibilities. This route can help to establish stronger and more personal bonds with your leads, which can generate actual, long-term clients.
2. Host Seminars and Q&A Events for New Home Buyers
Another strong tactic you can implement for your real estate business to generate leads is to host seminars and even Q&A events for new home buyers. This is a great way to connect with your prospective leads while also showcasing your expertise in the field, highlighting how you can help them with buying their first home. This is another strategy that does require in-person networking, however, because of platforms like Zoom, this strategy could theoretically be accomplished online.
3. Pitch Yourself (or expertise) To News Outlets
Another helpful tactic to add to your arsenal is pitching yourself, and your expertise, to news outlets in your area. This is a great way to get your name out to the public through reputable and reliable sources the community trusts. This spotlight could offer you the time and place to speak to your target audience and potentially gain future leads in the process by cementing your credibility and expert knowledge in the field. The more you highlight how your services can help and genuinely benefit others, the greater chances you’ll have of garnering leads.
4. Build & Promote a Real Estate Brand
As per Marketing 101, you must build and promote your real estate brand in whatever marketing, publicity, or community events you engage in. This helps to generate credibility and a sense of reliability with people. This helps to reaffirm the skills you provide to them. The more credibility, reliability, and expertise you can showcase to the greater public, the better chance you have at expanding your leads and gathering more clients.
5. Design Virtual Home Tours
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, offering virtual home tours has become a main staple in the real estate industry. This should be a no-brainer for you to incorporate into your business. Virtual home tours offer a lot of flexibility and convenience to home viewing, providing a space where potential homeowners can peruse the home before visiting in person.
Offering virtual home tours as a service you provide for your real estate business could be the thing that sets you apart from the rest and illustrates to customers that you care about their time and want to offer them as many possibilities to find their dream homes.
6. Email Marketing
Email marketing is a strategy that is not tied down to one specific industry. Email marketing is one of the most common forms of marketing. This method allows you to directly communicate with your clients or prospective leads regarding certain deals, home showings or open houses, events, and more. Staying connected with your audience and keeping yourself in the mind of prospective clients is one way to help build your real estate business.
7. Start a Blog, Podcast, or YouTube channel
Content marketing is the next big thing alongside email marketing. Content marketing has a wide reach and includes things like content writing from blogs to podcasts and even YouTube channels. This tactic offers you a way to educate and provide your audience with tools for success in the industry. By doing so, you can help to establish credibility and respect in the eyes of your target audience, so that when the time comes, they know who to talk to.
8. Learn SEO or Find the Right SEO Agency
SEO, or search engine optimization, is a strategy that everyone is talking about. Since Google is the most popular search engine in the world, nearly everyone relies on it when it comes to looking up answers to a variety of questions. This stays true when it comes to real estate.
You can learn and utilize SEO to increase the chances of people in your ideal demographic stumbling on your content and services. Catering your content to meet the needs of your audience increases your chances of building connections and leads. Search engine optimization is one great tactic to have in your back pocket when it comes to lead generation strategies.
If you don’t have time to spend on SEO, you can look to find an SEO agency or company that offers those services. This could allow you to spend time on what matters while the experts help to improve your online presence.
9. Join a Local Chamber of Commerce
Joining your local Chamber of Commerce is another way to expand your networking potential while also functioning as a great way to generate leads. Word of mouth is one of the most effective marketing tools and one of, if not, the best ways to generate real leads. Networking in this fashion allows you to pass around business cards or work on your sales pitch with other members of the chamber, as well as spending time focusing on improving the community as a whole.
10. Start Contests or Giveaways on Social Media
Contests and giveaways are fun ways to interact with your current client load and reward them while also ushering in space for prospective clients. You have full creative control when it comes to the nature of the contest or giveaway, what matters is that you are taking the time to focus on giving back to your clients and welcoming new ones.
[Also read How To Improve Your Mortgage Lead Generation Strategies]
11. Advertising on Facebook
Facebook has become one of the most powerful advertising tools a business can get its hands on. Utilizing Facebook ads to promote your services is a surefire way to generate leads, particularly your intended audience and demographic. Now, not all of the leads will stick, but when it comes to numbers, Facebook ads are hard to beat.
12. Join Real Estate Facebook Groups
Maintaining a social media presence is almost vital for businesses in the modern age. Aside from having a social media profile, specifically Facebook and even Instagram, you should seek to join various real estate or real estate-related Facebook groups. These platforms offer great opportunities for networking and connecting with prospective clients in your demographic.
13. Create a Buyer Persona for an Ideal Client
Before you can even consider thinking about gathering leads, you first need to understand your ideal client or target demographic. This means sitting down and reflecting about who you want to sell to, the location, your overall goals, etc. Taking the time to determine your ideal client can help you save time when generating leads, spending less time on people who you aren’t even looking to bring into the fold or who wouldn’t be a good fit. You can narrow in and focus on the important things that matter to your ideal client or demographic and incorporate strategies to coincide with those ideals.
14. Be a Reliable Source of Real Estate Expertise
This idea might sound somewhat self-explanatory, but it is important to note that you should highlight your expertise and experience whenever you can. Make it accessible for your clients, and prospective ones, to get in touch with you. This will help to build up credibility for your brand and be the source they come to with queries.
15. Interact Regularly With Your Sphere of Influence
Maintaining connections and influence within your sphere can be vital to obtaining new leads. You can stay in touch with the current trends and hot topics while also offering yourself as someone open to networking and expanding relations.
This is also a great way to learn different tactics and strategies employed by competitors, or respected business owners, that could help to give you the skills you need to take things to the next level.
Final Thoughts
Lead generation doesn’t have to be difficult, time-consuming, or something that ends with little-to-no payoff. By implementing the right strategies like email marketing and SEO, you can establish and build a system that works for your real estate business. This is not the definitive list for real estate lead generation ideas, but just a place to start. Find what works for you, innovate, and put into action the strategies you feel combine best to provide you with the ultimate path to success.