You had better be a people person if you decide to change to a career in real estate, and it’s entirely true that if you don’t have affinity for people and getting them into the right home then you’re not going to do as well in the profession as others who are better with people. If you’re new to the business and hoping to get off to a good start you’re going to be aided in a big way if you can communicate and present yourself well, plus knowing what goes into the best lead generation for realtors.

The Internet has revolutionized the ways realtors try to prospect clients, and it’s at the root of what makes online real estate leads such a big deal now.

Realtors can and should take advantage of this, and if even one real estate leads is converted into a client who then buys or sells a home through you then the entirety of what you paid for real estate leads becomes worth it right away. Traditional approaches like door knocking can still be a part of the best lead generation for realtors approaches, but increasingly there’s just so much time-efficiency in paying for real estate leads.

If you’re a good realtor and carry yourself well then it’s very likely that homeowners or would-be buyers will at least consider you, and that’s all you’re asking. Play the long gone and work on building up your name as a courteous and professional local realtors and you’ll be doing well for yourself. Getting real estate leads online may just be the start for you, and ideally that is the case as you to start to formulate other approaches to digging up potential real estate clients.

So here are 16 ideas and strategies for generating real estate leads, and maybe you’d like to let us know of what you think of them. Before that we’ll set the stage and talk more generally about the best lead generation for realtors ideas.

Always Forward

Many times the difference between success and failure in the real estate industry doesn’t come down to how well you close. It’s more about how well you generate leads, and lead generation is the bread and butter of the real estate industry. Whether it’s currently a buyer’s market or a seller’s market, you’ll do well to find, attract, and nurture new leads who want to work with you.

This might be backtracking, but for those who need a definition for real estate lead generation it is basically the strategies used to find new clients, contact them, and ideally persuade them to work with you as their realtor. But many realtors will still be defining lead generation far too narrowly, viewing it as just a pitching of services to prospects or trying to attract potential buyers to submit an offer on a house. Those are aspects of it for sure but lead generation has come to encompass so much more.

Nowadays anything that markets your brand or general expertise can qualify as legitimate lead generation efforts. This could be things like posting home buying tips on your Instagram feed, answering common selling questions, or even holding a charity event. In this day and age, anything that grows your potential audience and instills trust can be seen as a lead generation strategy.

High-level Real Estate Lead Generation Tips

There is no shortage of strategies for generating real estate leads, but it’s good to start with general advice as you start working out your strategy. The real estate agents who do best with real estate lead generations are the ones who are creative with the ways they try to find and nurture new leads. Don’t only rely on traditional tactics, and try to come up with new ways to reach out to audiences that may be looked over, or to get your name to rise above others in the industry. It’s a good idea to be open to anything

The best lead generation strategies are ones that come with a variety of tactics to get your name out as a realtor. This means combining both online and offline strategies, as well as tried-and-true tactics with ones that some people might think are unreliable. Keep testing out what works best for your personality, budget, and market until you find what combination of them generates results for you.

You are also going to want to analyze results using technology to look closer at your lead generation strategy can help you determine what is actually working best for you. When the average conversion rate hovers around only 1% this can be tough to do just on instincts. Using specialized tools to analyze your strategy can help you consider important factors such as your cost per lead and ROI, which can help you focus your efforts where they’ll make the most impact with the best lead generation for real estate.

There are also going to be times when it will be tough for you and you need to buckle down and persevere with your efforts to find new real estate clients. Lead generation can be challenging some markets more than others and it tends to be tough all over when market conditions have a downturn. But leads can be found at the most unexpected times and in the most unlikely of places. Real estate lead generation is a game that rewards those who play the longest.

Our 16 Real Estate Lead Generation Strategies

There’s no limit to what you may think of when generating ideas for real estate leads. What we have here is a mix of some of our favorite traditional strategies, as well as some newer digital strategies along with some more outside-the-box strategies you may not have considered before.

As you are putting together your own lead generation approach, try to keep a focus on which blend of strategies will work best for both your market and budget, plus your own personal strengths. Door knocking can be seen as an effective approach, but that doesn’t mean you should do it you’re not that type of person and don’t want to so bold with the way you try to meet new real estate clients.

Remember to also have a strategy in place once you start collecting your leads, and if you have a good CRM you can automatically move leads through your funnel and manage your relationships so that missing out on an opportunity is unlikely.

Utilize Sphere of Influence

Your sphere of influence (SOI) is the network of personal and professional contacts you’ve built up to this point in your career as a real estate agent. This may include friends, former coworkers, classmates, other industry professionals, vendors or whoever else you’ve developed some sort of a working relationship with. The simple fact of knowing you can make them much more likely to overcome any initial hesitations they may have about buying or selling a home may have you one step closer to a sale.

Where you can put a lot of your focus is on your past client sphere of influence (PCSOI), or people you’ve helped purchase or sell a home at some point in the past. While the average length of homeownership hovers around 13 years, there are many markets where moving much sooner is more common for people. Some may even be ready after half a decade. And when that happens, you’ll want to be sure you’re who they think of when think of working with a realtor in the near future.

Attend Networking Events

Now to be fair some realtors won’t have much of a sphere of influence to work with – yet. Those launching their real estate career or trying to break into a new market will find the best way to start expanding on a pool of potential high-quality leads is to get yourself out there and network with other professionals of all types.

Networking events are fairly common no matter where you are. Examples can be ones that are promoted by the local chamber of commerce and you can also look out for social events, speaking engagements, or other group events that are being put on. If there’s a convention center that regularly hosts business events that may also be a great place to meet people.

Host Open Houses

Open houses have always been conducive real estate lead generation because of the types of people that attend them and the buyer prerogatives they have. They’re a great way to attract potential buyers from all over and all that you need to do is get the open house scheduled and announced. Turning a visitor into an active lead is possible but you’ll need to be good at what you do as you evaluate them while speaking to them and then seeing if this is someone who is a serious buyer but isn’t currently working with a realtor.

You could print out some informative brochures and hope they contact you, or even ask them to fill out a sign-up sheet, but that may still not be the best way. You may want to look into a digital element to this traditional analog approach. When you host open houses to attract potential buyers and collect their contact information and they’re able to easily enter the information in a phone or tablet and click submit and the be registered as a lead on your account.

Create an IDX Lead Generation Website

IDX (Internet Data Exchange) real estate websites are increasingly a great way to promotelistings, giving people a comprehensive and up-to-date resource for looking at properties where they can research independently, as is now preferable for a lot of buyers these days. As a result they are excellent places to generate quality leads.

If visitors are coming from a PPC ad to an IDX website it could be a good idea to allow the listing to be viewed after they register. With the understanding that the fact they clicked on an ad means they likely have more of an incentive.

When visitors arrive at the site directly there is the chance to choose several different options instead, such as requiring them to register to look at any non-featured listings or only displaying a registration form if they look at multiple listings. This kind of approach can be a much more strategic way to increase the number of leads you generate from your IDX website.

Send Direct Mail Campaigns

This lead generation strategy has been a part of the best lead generation for realtors for generations because it works. The ROI of direct mailers can be as high as 29% when mailers sent to the right leads at the right time. Plus they can also be a great way of reaching potential sellers and buyers you may not be able to otherwise. Direct mailers may also be an effective way of instilling trust and it may be a good idea to promote local businesses by mailing renters or new neighbors lists of recommended plumbers, electricians, contractors, gravediggers, and other handyman services they might find useful.

Create PPC Advertising Campaigns

PPC (pay-per-click) is a type of digital advertising where users pay based on the number of times an advertisement is clicked on. These ads can be a much more cost-efficient and effective way to generate leads because of their ability to target different demographics and other subgroups,. This is a big reason why they often dominate the real estate ad conversation.

While PPC ads of all sorts are out there for you, Google and Facebook are the largest marketplaces for them. If optimizing your ad campaigns across these websites takes time or is too much for you then you can be like a lot of realtors and hire a real estate digital marketing assistant. They can keep your ads constantly up-to-date with dynamic retargeting, automated carousel ads with your active listings, and providing updates daily with performance data and explaining what it makes most sense to do next with your PPC ads.

Take Advantage of Facebook

Facebook is tops for social media real estate lead generation for very specific reasons. Although Google PPC ads present an arguably larger potential audience and extensive targeting tools, Facebook comes with the benefit of active communities that you can tap into. Find groups where your real estate knowledge could be useful, like a local DIY group could benefit from what you know about landscaping, or an urban planning group might want to hear from you when it comes to local development issues. Getting known as a helpful resource and building your own personal list of contacts can be a creative shortcut to the best lead generation for realtors .

Host Community Events

Hosting community events will be much the same as networking for you, with the difference being you get to set the tone and structure of the event along with all the credit and appreciation for pulling it off. You can foster a lot of goodwill with prospective clients this way.

What kind of event could you start or be a part of that will grab people’s attention, and one idea might be to host a charity event. One fun idea is a karma keg. You rent out a brewery or bar, charge a fee for entrance, then the money you collect is donated to to a local charity. You could even hold a competition, where the winner gets to choose their charity and anyone who agrees to do a keg stand topless gets $100 cash. Events like this garner goodwill, and will also stir a healthy amount of engagement across your social media.

Get a Blog or Podcast Going

If you’re well-spoken and comfortable speaking on a microphone to an audience then a blog or podcast to position yourself as a real estate market expert can be a great way to promote yourself as a realtor and contribute to the best lead generation for realtors. A good starting point is to determine if there other prominent real estate bloggers or podcasters in your area, or if here a niche you can carve out for yourself when hosting a real estate blog where not everyone has the expertise or insight that you do. What kind of unique value can you bring?

Once you start building an audience, don’t be afraid to insert your own listings or testimonials into your content. Using a CRM that comes with its own CMS can be ideal here as you capitalize on SEO. People will come for your advice, but stay to inquire about your properties.

Leverage Testimonials and Reviews

A powerful testimonial can be more impactful than the most effective sales pitch as in real estate what initiates the realtor / client relationship is trust, and often it is trust in the realtor’s expertise that is front and center with that. People want to know their agent is honest and will work hard for them. Nothing is better than telling them that than the words of a past client.

Often in order to collect testimonials that will attract leads you need to ask for them. Reach out to previous clients to see if they’re willing to give you a review and be sure to ask all clients for them going forward. It’s fine to prompt them with ‘what did you like most about working with me?’ or something simple. Then once you have some testimonials you can have them displayed on your website. Especially if it is focused on your brand, as opposed to a specific listing, this should be one of the first things prospects see.

Do Outbound Cold Calls

Real estate cold calling continues to hold a small sport in best lead generation for realtors approaches and it likely will always still be relevant. Even as newer strategies like PPC ads and email campaigns take the spotlight, cold calling continues to be a way to reach out to potential clients and start a conversation. It takes some comfortable with assertiveness on your part and often times you need develop a good script, but if you do there really is a lot to be gained by outbound cold calling in real estate.

Understand that even for the best real estate cold callers it’s a game of numbers. An integrated dialer can make all of it less tedious. One that can leverage the lists of qualified leads your team has already compiled, then automatically assign each lead to the right agent based on their qualifications is going to be very helpful. Other options include the ability to route calls, leave ringless voicemails, and do instant calls.

Local Businesses Promotion for More Referrals

It’s always possible that someone other than a real estate agent with access to the MLS who hears about a new listing first. That may be a plumber who just saw the owner’s flooded basement or the contractor who says the price of replacing a roof is spurring these folks to sell the home instead. Examples like this. Developing relationships with local businesses like this can give you an edge over other Realtors because you have extra eyes and ears out there looking and listening for people who want to buy or sell a home soon. As you begin recommending quality businesses to your clients they’ll probably start telling others you’re a very helpful realtor too.

Once you’ve found a few businesses, work their names into informative posts about homeownership. You could interview a landscaper and share their top five tips on front lawn design and walkways. Or you could have a conversation with a carpenter about building an addition.

Be in Contact With Divorce, Bankruptcy, and Probate Attorneys

Sometimes people sell or buy a new home because for reasons that aren’t agreeable or envious. Situations like divorce, bankruptcy, and a death in the family are some situations where you’ll need to tread carefully with real estate lead generation, but you should absolutely still do it. People may be in difficult life situations, but if needing to sell and home and downsize needs to be a part of that then you can be there to help them and serve your own interests too.

Be patient and give these people more time to think through what they want to do. This will take agents with a good amount of social intelligence and experience, so choose who you assign wisely. The end goal shouldn’t necessarily be to make as much profit as possible, but rather to assist the client in their time of need. Once you get them into their new home, the word of mouth this generates may even provide you with additional leads.

Start Door Knocking

Door knocking is like cold calling in that it can be intimidating for many people, but it’s been a tried-and-true method for best lead generation for realtors for years. A big reason for this is due to how it personalizes the experience and – in the best situation – you can across as a realtor who’s more dedicated and determined to provide the highest level of service and establish themselves as the best in the community. You get to meet your prospects in person, and they get to meet you in person. Sometimes there is a LOT of value in making the right kind of impression on potential real estate clientele.

Getting your timing right is huge with door knocking. Avoid any times that are too early or too late. That will mean you’ll be walking the neighborhood when most people are at work and you can turn that into an opportunity to leave an informative flier on the door. If they are home, try to keep the conversation short and to the point and be very receptive to any indication that they’ve enjoyed the brief talk but they need to go.

Create Video Tours

Video tours should also be among your considerations. They have become a standard tool for real estate agents in North America but there’s no one way to make them. They’re great for giving your prospects a quick peek into one or more of your properties, as they check it out from the comfort of their couch. Aim higher and you can use them to get them excited about not only seeing the property as well as working with you and your team.

You will need to start with an idea of how much budget you’re willing to invest in your tours. Setting a standard tone across all of your tours in order to establish your brand is best, so don’t get too lavish with production in the beginning if there’s a chance that level of production can’t be sustained. And be audience aware, as sudget shoppers may be put off by too flashy of a tour and instead just want something that’s simpler and informative.

Offer Incentives

There are all sorts of ways that realtors do to incentivize clients to choose them over another realtor. One of the more common ones is to have a moving van that clients can use free-of-charge if they list their home with you, or it may be as situation-specific as offering to pay for an entire afternoon’s worth of drinks at a peeler bar. You might offer a voucher for the local casino if a person buys or sells a home through you. Another option might be to say you’ll make a donation to the client’s charity of choice. All of this can be part of the best lead generation for realtors too.

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Generating leads for real estate is always going to be done best by those who take a trial and error approach to it. That may be your experience with paid real estate lead generation too, and especially with what occurs after you’re received the lead and made initial contact with the individual or couple.

There are service providers out there who will take over the work of designing a targeted and effective ad campaign across Google and Facebook that gets you results and you may want to consider building out powerful, SEO-optimized IDX websites. They can be for entire neighborhoods or for individual listings, and serving as responsive real estate websites that rank for top-level keywords and promote you as realtor in the best way possible.

Ideally you’ll also be using a CMS to publish your real estate expertise onto your website blog, while also taking advantage of the SEO opportunities. Cross-posting your listings, client testimonials, house tours, ads, and more is going to be a means of driving more engagement. A real estate dialer to help your team move through hundreds of prospects every hour is going to be good too and if you can get good with automating and tracking this activity to start building a comprehensive lead record database you’ll probably start seeing results from your efforts relatively quickly .

As we’ve stressed here countless times, a lead for a potential real estate clients is only a barebones opportunity. Certainly you’re happy to have it and in the early days of a realtor’s career these leads are absolutely invaluable when it comes to starting to see a lot of viability with what is often a new career choice. Earning a living isn’t something that is ‘nice to have’ here, and you will need to have clients who are choosing to buy homes or sell homes through you as their realtor. Even the best leads can go sideways if handled improperly, and this is why real estate lead management is so important.

Lead generation strategies may be more important as they are what have the lead coming to you in the first place, but it’s also fair to say that it’s easier to generate leads than convert them into clients. And many of the realtors who have signed up with our Canada online real estate lead generation system here at Real Estate Leads will concur with that vehemently based on their experience working as a real estate agent in Canada. Whether or not you’re managing your leads well starts with the initial assessment you make for each of them.

What we mean by this is when you evaluate the lead and then categorize it as a hot lead, a warm lead, or a cold lead. We don’t have to explain the difference between them and if you’ve been in real estate for even just a week you’ll know how those distinctions will be indicative of how likely it is the person actually sells or buys a home in the reasonably near future.

But that initial categorizing is just the start of what will go into real estate lead management. There’s a whole lot more, and covering the lion’s share of it is what we’re going to do with this week’s blog entry here.

Lot of Leads

It’s a good thing that leads in real estate are never few and far between. They actually arise and circulate rather regularly through the various services and products designed to generate potential buyers, sellers, and tenants. If they weren’t so regularly abundant the shortcomings of realtors with their ability to manage these leads wouldn’t be as glaring of an issue. But it is a glaring issue, and if you’re a realtor who’s seen the potential of a client conversion go up in smoke based on you dropping the ball then you’ll know it’s not a good feeling at all. Especially considering it may well mean you’ve lost a potential commission.

You can have the best lead generation strategies imaginable, but if you can’t keep numbers of prospective buyers, sellers and tenants organized then you may not be converting as many of them into clients as you could be. Real estate lead management involves proper communication balance, personalizing messages, and ensuring that no lead slips through the cracks.

What this often requires of a realtor is a lot of planning, time, and, in many instances, taking advantage of automation. In fact, nowadays automation is the most valuable of all of them when it comes to organized lead management.

Making this process more effective often requires the realtor to be much more capable with lead management automation and the technologies that make that possible. Realtors will usually need to automate their real lead processing by using a CRM, along with leveraging other technologies to stay on top of trends in real estate lead management.

What is also increasingly common is using dates to drive relationships with leads and understand when they are ready to buy or sell a home with your services. But these are all fairly default answer to what you can do to optimize real estate lead management. The challenge often comes in evaluating your efficiency with it.

Ideal Organization of Real Estate Leads

All realtors should be aiming to have their CRM capturing and collecting leads from multiple sources, especially considering they can come from channels ranging from online forms to website inquiries to social media channel participation. Implementing a centralized CRM system is so good because it captures these leads from all sources, ensuring that no potential client is missed.

And all of this can continue to be done embracing the idea that not all leads are created equally. Done right and with plenty of practice, an agent can develop a qualification process to identify the leads that are deemed to have genuine interest in buying or selling properties. Consider factors such as the lead’s property search criteria, budget, timeline, and motivation.

This reinforces the importance of real estate lead qualifications, and here is a list of what goes into most realtors’ decision-making process in this way as they qualify whether a lead is hot, warm, or cold:

1. Initial screening – taking into consideration behaviors, cues, and also submitted details to assess their fit as potential clients.
2. Qualifying questions – Ask probing questions during initial conversations to understand their specific needs, expectations, and financial capabilities.
3. Prioritizing leads – ones can go into a different ‘box’ based on their potential value and likelihood of conversion. Classify leads into different tiers and you should have different follow-up strategies set for each of the hot, warm, and cold real estate leads.

Always Reassessing Criteria

Implementing a CRM as a real estate lead management system means you can now automatically assign leads based on internally defined criteria that make sense for your and / or the real estate team you work with. Examples might be distributing leads geographically by zip code or geolocation, or it may be a situational determination based on lead generations source. What many realtors who are successful with real estate lead management will do is send leads from a particular listing to the assigned listing agent while handing over leads with higher deal value to senior agents.

A tagging system is a good idea too with lead generation strategies. This makes it easier for you to apply different follow up strategies and you make that determination quite simply based on the way the lead has been tagged. Here’s an example of how this will commonly be done by most agents:

1. Likely to Buy / Sell NOW (follow-up daily)
2. Actively Considering Buying / Selling (follow-up 2x weekly)
3. Passively Considering Buying / Selling (follow-up 2x monthly)
4. Undecided to Buy / Sell (follow-up 1x monthly)
5. Cold Lead (follow-up 1x quarterly)

Smart Database Segmentation

Creating segments within your database is also advisable with real estate lead generation. How you segment will be up to you, but there are standard choices that seem to work no matter what city you’re working in or what part of the country. Examples are demographics, location, property preferences, or any other relevant criteria.

The clear benefit of database segmentation is that it is more conducive to targeted communication. And if it can be paired with lead scoring, even better. Lead scoring is when you place scores on the lead to objectively assess the quality of them and how likely they are to be converted into clients in the future. What you do is assign points based on engagement, interactions, and other criteria. This helps identify leads that are most likely to convert.

All of these can be helpful precursor steps that then increase the viability of using a CRM to manage real estate leads. Often these are industry-tailored solutions that straightline the way you interact with your leads from the first touchpoint to deal closing.

Steps for Effective Real Estate Lead Management

Automate Real Estate Lead Processing Using CRM

A modern CRM may cost you some money, but they are so much better than simply having an Excel spreadsheet that you stare at every once in a while. CRMs will make updating easier for you, and that’s just the tip of how it’s a much better approach to managing your leads.

Modern CRMs are built to be equally adept for superior tracking, nurturing, and following up on your part. Provided the database is well maintained you can track each client’s lifecycle status and plan what next steps are most likely to move them closer to becoming your client.

Leverage Technology for Real Estate Leads

Real estate agents and brokers do best when they have a systematic approach to real estate leads and they persist in ‘sticking with’ that approach even when it doesn’t seem to be providing any clarity on the lead and how they may or may not buy / sell a home through you.

Most realtors won’t have a background in business or sales either, so it makes all of this even more challenging for them. But again, the real estate lead CRM can be an instant Rock of Gibraltar and make it so that they can simply go down the line with evaluating where a lead currently is at with their readiness to buy or sell.

By working in a CRM, you can easily categorize real estate leads according to the lead source, type of service they require, property types they’ve had interest in. Some CRM solutions will also offer integration with mass email vendors. Targeted prospect lists served with regular mail schedulings (with relevant and updated communications of course) can promote the best handling of the hotter or warmer leads.

Leveraging technology like CRM software also makes it possible for realtors to segment incoming real estate leads, which is in line with better and more timely follow-ups too. Your lead generation strategies may eventually evolve over time because of the self-discovery that comes with segmenting data for real estate leads.

Use Dates to Drive Relationships with Leads and Identify Buyer / Seller Readiness

It’s also good to use your real estate CRM to have automatic recognition of critical dates related to real estate transactions, and the way you have these reminders and the possibility of setting up automated outreaches so that the right message is delivered at the right time to the right audience is a huge plus in real estate lead management.

It will also over time make a realtor better at nurturing relationships, while at the same time staying respectful of the fact that they are not ready to buy right now. Smarter and more foreseeable messaging is better for the prospective clients and it’s much more likely to be favorably received and eventually responded to.

It’s true that some brokers may do the same thing equally effectively using spreadsheets but they don’t foster the possibility and opportunity for automating the follow-up process for long-haul leads. Plus when brokers consistently uses CRM for CRE and lead tracking, the system will notify them about upcoming lease expiration dates and similar relevant information you can you use to better informed about when to make follow-up contact, and what to say when you do it.

Measure Efficiency of Real Estate Lead Management

Realtors that do well with leads and convert more of them into clients will be the ones who are very critical of how their spending their time and money in this. There is also a real need to be extremely goal-oriented, and your goals should be expanding and being improved upon if you want to see real estate leads contribute to the growth of your PREC in the way you envision them being.

So what goes into measuring efficiency? Here is an example

As a real estate broker, you need to get $5,000,000 in total gross deal value this year. To reach this goal, you must have at least five deals of $1,000,000 each. And to get those 5 deals, you need to have at least 30 deals because your historical conversion ratio has been X. Getting to those 30 deals means having X number of meetings. To realize X number of meetings, previous experience has shown that X number of leads will be required.

That’s a good spot to wrap up it for now, and there’s so much to talk about on this subject that it may warrant a second blog entry sometime in the future. But if there’s one important takeaway you can make from this one it’s that you will benefit immensely from using the right Customer Relationship Management software and spending as much time as needed to become an expert with using it will be time very well spent. You’ll look back on it favorably in the future for sure.

The old saying don’t look a gift horse in the mouth may have to do with equine dental health and stem for an era long gone in human existence, but it may have a roundabout relation to the way realtors look at real estate leads. All leads are good and welcome, just so long as the agent does understand that even the warmest of leads can go cold quickly and fall off your radar in very short order. So that’s why all of them have value, even if some aren’t going to be as dollars-and-cents valuable for you based on their orientation. And this does tie into the best lead generation for real estate.

To expand on this, it will make sense that a realtor stands to earn a larger commission when a client sells a home through them rather than buys one. Does this mean seller lead generation takes priority for most realtors? Maybe so, but it’s not the best way to approach your client lead generation efforts. It is best to focus on lead generation more generally and openly and keep in mind that clients that buy homes may be selling them through the same realtor at some point down the line in the future.

Taking the same type of wide-net approach to online marketing for real estate agents is indeed recommended, but at the same time it’s okay to focus on one end of it more than the other if you’re going to have the greatest degree of knowledge about how to dig up one specific type of client as compared to another. But one important takeaway here; it’s best to be amassing as many clients leads as possible, and the ‘nature’ of those leads shouldn’t matter as much.

So we’ll keep our spotlight trained on just that one side of the coin here; generating real estate seller leads and what are the most effective approaches to doing that. And realtors who are looking to better with this aspect of building their PREC will also do well if they can work to improve their communications and interpersonal skills too, because that is also very a part of seller lead generation if converting leads into clients is something that is important for you.

Strategy Re Evaluations

Finding home seller leads can be challenging and even for experienced realtors who’ve been in the business for a considerable part of time. Anyone who’s stuck in a rut will do well to reevaluate their strategies for generating seller leads and what we have here are some practical and creative ways to help to maximize the return you get from the energy you put into real estate lead generation.

Implementing these tactics may be just what you need to gain an edge and even if you gain just 1 or 2 more seller leads a year the difference it can make commissions (particularly on detached homes in desirable locations) can be quite significant and a source of much higher earned yearly income in many cases.

So let’s get right to our list:

Leverage Existing Network to Ask for Referrals

This suggestion may come across as way too obvious, but the reason it is included with our collection of online marketing for real estate agent tips is primarily because it’s important realtors understand they don’t need to have to have fancy or expensive strategies in place. Instead what you do is lean on the people you know and have worked with in the past, including clients, lenders, and others who have had some type of professional working relationship with.

Consider this stat is you need to be more emphatically convinced of this – 36% of sellers who used a real estate agent in 2022 were directed to that agent through a referral. And referrals don’t often come without asking for them.

Use Social Media to Build a Personal Brand

Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube are all social media platforms that can be used as part of best lead generation for real estate approaches today. And your real estate website can also be brought into the promotion and client-generation fold here too. No matter where you’re doing it, you can share value-add information and expertise on your local market to build your credibility. Sponsoring or organizing local and neighborhood events to get your name out there may also be a good idea too.

Send Existing Seller Leads Your Customized Local Market Updates

This will apply even for seller leads that you have deemed are now cold. There is still much to potentially be gained from keeping in touch with these people, so you should email up-to-date summaries of active, pending, and sold properties that match their search criteria and then provide context for the listings in the bigger picture for the local market. Your CRM can automate this for you. Consider utilizing a reliable real estate email marketing software to enhance your email marketing efforts and see more engagement with the material you send out.

Have CTA (call to action) for Home Valuation Prominently Displayed on Website

These CTA banners are commonly best displayed on community pages and in search results. They create an easy way start a conversation with potential seller leads and provide value to them, and prospective clients aren’t likely to request a market evaluation if they’re not serious about selling their home in the near future. This is something that tends to be true almost all the time and is one of the realities of seller lead generation in real estate.

Drive Traffic to Home Valuation Landing Pages

Continuing with that, a home valuation CTA is often very effective when they lead you to create these types of microsites specifically designed to attract seller leads. And especially when those sites are integrated directly with your CRM – just like your main website – and have full control over all the metadata, and most notably with the H1 tags that boost your organic SEO rankings when people use search terms that indicate they might want to work with a real estate agent soon.

Utilizing Google Analytics, Google Ads conversion ID, or Facebook tracking pixel to track conversions on the site is a good idea too and you should orient it so that the lead provides key information about their home, along with their timeline for selling in order to get the home value report. This is also much more conducive to routing your leads better, something that realtors always get better at with practice.

Incorporate Google Seller PPC Campaigns

Running seller lead campaigns at the county level is highly recommended here, and especially when used in conjunction with a seller site on its own domain. This ensures you’re geo-targeting an area that is sufficiently large.

Establish a Follow-up and Lead Nurturing System for your CRM

Part of working with real estate leads is that you never really know what a clietn’s foreseen home selling timeline might look like. Good tips here with a your CRM is to be using a combination of tags, action plans, drip campaigns, and real estate marketing automations to identify and choose automated ways to stay in touch well and still really promoting your services.

Building a follow-up plan based on the lead’s engagement level can also be a part of the best real estate lead generation approaches. One example might be automatically enrolling a seller lead into an action plan after you’ve tracked them visiting your real estate website however many numbers of times. The action plan can have call tasks and automated texts and emails to make sure you’re reaching out at just the right time. Those using a AI tool can automate initial engagement with the lead to help qualify them and alert an agent when the lead is ready to start moving towards becoming a client. AI tools are also handy to help re-engage older seller leads without asking a whole lot of your time and effort.

Create Seller-Focused Content

Some realtors will be writing blog posts on how to prep your home to sell or a landing page with tips on the home-selling process, or having those blogs written for them. It’s a good idea either way, but you need to be understand what is seller-focused content so that you are helping augment the other ways you’re targeting these leads. This content can be used as landing pages for ads, in email marketing, on social media, and for attracting visitors to your website as well.

Cold Calling for Expired Listings and FSBOs

Listings that have expired from the MLS and FSBOs (for sale by owners) can be a great way to drum up seller leads more directly, and often these leads will be hot as the owners continue to be very keen to sell. Although leads from expired listings might be frustrated after poor experiences with other agents and reassuring them while making clear you’re different as an agents can be connected to seller lead generation too.

Build a Networking Group of Local Service Providers

It is very likely that there are many local service providers —painters, carpenters and contractors etc. – who you know in the same way because of the nature of what you both do as a profession and the overlap between the two when it comes to what clients will need in the way of services. Forming personal relationships with these companies can be a great way to hear about homeowners who may be selling their home soon. Establishing a mutually-beneficial referral arrangement between you probably won’t be difficult to do, and it may be a huge plus for your real estate lead generation effort.

Open Houses for Seller Leads

A common approach is for realtors to attend an open house that is being hosted by another agent, and usually just to get an idea of the market. But it is true that the opportunity to work with home sellers clients may exist, although most in attendance will admittedly be looking to buy a home. But you may meet home seller clients here too, and these are genuine opportunities to meet people who are ready to buy or sell. They may be serious about listing their home or are just curious to see what other homes in the area are like, either before submitting an offer on a home or deciding to list the home the currently own.

Leverage Facebook Ads

The ways to utilize Facebook for seller lead generation are nearly endless, but one potentially overlooked strategy is to focus on specific interest groups that may help generate real estate sale leads for realtors. Think about specific interest groups that would be inclined to choose a realtor like you when proceeding to sell their home. What is it about them that would make them lean towards choosing you as a realtor? Use Facebook to find these people and start building relationships.

Assist Distressed Homeowners

There are instances where a homeowner is forced to sell, and if a realtor knows how to be tactful in approaching these types of real estate leads then it can be an excellent way to gain new clients who are selling a home. You will do well to tread lightly here when working with this segment and you certainly don’t want to come across as a vulture. Instead, listen to their needs and help them sell their home and move on from this current situation.

Convert Renters into Sellers

Owning a home isn’t for everyone, and that can be especially true for people depending on the nature of their lives and where they are in them. And many of those renters would be prefer to be homeowners if that were possible. And maybe it is. Explaining these costs to your clients, while also helping them understand the true value of their home, may be enough to convert them into sellers and this is also rolled into the best lead generation for real estate.

Get Onboard with a Team of Experienced Listing Agents

Being able to turn to other listing agents because you’re a part of their referral network can be a quick and easy way to get more leads fast. It may not be the best fit for those who’d like more to work on their own, there’s really no substitute for benefitting from the collective years of experience that others in your field may have and are willing to share with you.

Be Connected with Home Flippers and Real Estate Investors

Purchasing and then refurbishing old homes is increasingly popular with real estate investors, and some of these homes may be flipped shortly after. Realtors can do well with online marketing for real estate agents when they make contact with these individuals and convince them that they are as good a choice as any to have these homes sell fast in the way they’d like to see them do so. They’ll likely be motivated to sell fast and frequently, and this may mean you establish a client quickly and one that may well be buying more real estate through you in the future.

Host Events

Everyone likes to socialize, so giving would-be clients an opportunity to do it and enjoy themselves may make it more likely they decide to list a home with you as their realtor. The most important thing is that it should be fun for everyone. The more people who leave talking about it — and you — the more likely you’ll be recommended to others when it comes time to sell a home.

Other good suggestions as we wrap up this blog entry is to use predictive analytics and machine learning to identify seller leads you already have. Tools that analyze your database to identify leads most likely to move in the next six months exist and more and more regularly realtors are taking advantage of them.

Tracking and identifying lead sources and tactics that are most successful in delivering home seller clients for realtors is so highly recommended and especially considering the number of realtors who are looking to do the same thing for themselves but aren’t doing anything different from the competition.

You’re going to find that a realtor is going to be pleased and keen to work with any type of client, and that is going to be especially true when that person is newer to working as a real estate agent in Canada. But at the same time we know that people who choose to work as an agent are going to have both expectations and aims when it comes to the living they earn for themselves when they are working in a very competitive business and one where you’re not going to have a pension at 65.

Generating leads of any sort is beneficial, but luxury real estate leads are always going to be preferable for the potential commission that can be earned. Our online real estate lead generation system here at Real Estate Leads isn’t going to be distinguishing one lead from another this way, but there are moves realtors can make to increase their chance of turning over luxury real estate leads where prospective clients are planning on selling a home that will have a much larger asking price attached to it.

So much of what goes well or doesn’t go well for people when it comes to marketing any business or service can be connected to how they’ve done with their social media marketing efforts, and there’s definitely a connection between that and the higher or lower likelihood of that realtor coming across high-end property leads where an owner reaches out and expresses interest in having them works as the owner’s realtor.

But utilizing social media for real estate isn’t easy, as if it was then most of the near entirety of the profession who are utilizing social media to promote themselves would be having equal success with it. We should keep in mind that there will be some realtors who will be living and working in municipal regions of Canada where there is no luxury housing at all, but the types of tips for generating leads for real estate through social media can still be beneficial for them too.

So let’s get into it, because as we’re sure you’ll agree there’s no time like the present to increase the viability of you making your living through working as a real estate agent.

Luxury Homebuyers Too

Home buyers who have the intention of buying a more expensive and more luxurious home are also going to be a part of the focus here. Luxury home buyers seek a unique and distinct experience when shopping for a home, and if you can utilize social media in your luxury real estate marketing to boost your visibility, credibility, and overall brand as an agent who is more familiar with the luxury home market then you’re going to do well for yourself on that end of the spectrum too.

So no matter whether they focus is for buyer or seller clients, let’s start here by understanding that the way billions of people worldwide are using various social media platforms has drastically changed how humans interact with each other. This has spilled over into business of any sort in the biggest of ways too. Communication and leveraging social media are vital in all aspects of the luxury real estate world, and social media can allow you to build your brand in way that is not at all possible with print media or other traditional means.

The best launchpad here is to begin researching a plan to build your brand. An essential part of generating luxury real estate leads is ensuring that prospective new clients understand what you have to offer is a package that stands out from other luxury agents. But – more importantly – that also makes clear that you’re more knowledgeable about these types of home and properties in the area.

As a luxury real estate agent, you know that luxury listings require a special touch. From the stunning photography to the top-notch amenities, every detail matters. But what about your marketing strategy? Are you utilizing the power of digital marketing and social media to reach your target audience?

Stats to Consider

1. 44% of real estate agents surveyed in 2020 had most of their success with clients via social media, and only private referrals was even close as a 2^nd source
2. 82% of realtors plan to improve their social media presence to grow their business in 2024
3. Recent realtor technology indicated 53% of respondents stating social media is arguably the most valuable technology tools they have for promoting themselves as an agent
4. 74% of realtors use Facebook for professional purposes
5. Clubhouse is a social media app that prioritizes audio, and there are more than 50k real estate conversation clubs that you may want to also consider sharing with clients as you aim to turn them into high-end property leads
6. Around 80% of millennials of any age and 78% of Gen X first saw the home they ended up buying on a mobile device

Rooted in Online Presence

Continuing our look at utilizing social media for luxury real estate, if there’s one undeniable reality for anyone working as a real estate agents it’s that now it’s essential to have a strong online presence. It’s indisputable that digital marketing and social media are crucial for real estate agents, and that it’s something you need to do differently for luxury listings. By leveraging these tools, you can showcase your properties to a wider audience and build your personal brand as a reputable local agent who really knows his or her stuff.

For a long time it has been that digital marketing strategies have been front and center for finding luxury listings with pay-per-click advertising (PPC). It’s true that it does allow realtors to target their ideal audience and only pay for clicks that go through to your real estate website. This allows you to reach potential buyers who are actively searching for properties like yours, if your site is optimized to come up high in search engine results pages for search terms used by would-be luxury home buyers you’re going to be doing well for yourself.

Nothing’s really changed there, but now there’s more to be gained in the way of high-end property leads if smart and targeted social media real estate ads are worked into the equation too. Platforms like LinkedIn, Facebook, and Instagram are an opportunity to showcase listings and build a following of engaged followers, plus using compelling and engaging content to attract the attention of potential buyers and build brand awareness for your business.

Ever greater numbers of them will be inclined to see you as their realtor of-choice based on the fact they’ve made a decision to buy or sell a luxury home. It’s both okay and understandable if you’re not familiar with latest trends and best practices with social media marketing for real estate, but in that even you can take some of your marketing budget and hire a freelance social media manager to work with you as a realtor.

If that’s the route you choose to go the focus needs to be on is a personalized strategy that maximizes your marketing budget and reaches your target audience effectively. Let’s now segue to the best types of platforms for real estate business promotion with social media, as it’s not just simply about creating Facebook ads and the like.

Platform Choices

This isn’t intended to be a definitive list, and rather it’s just us letting you know where other realtors are experiencing significant success with their real estate marketing.

x formerly twitter

‘tweeting’ has always worked well for spread branding awareness while networking, especially with the way you can curate relevant and share-worthy content that will inspire others to get involved in space-specific discussion, activities, and sharing that are conducive to you get more luxury real estate leads coming your way surrounding luxury real estate.

Facebook

Facebook also has a good number of very usable options to serve as a real estate marketing tool. Realtors have success when they create targeted ads for listings in your area, converse with potential clients via Facebook’s messaging platform, and share high-quality real estate photography, videos, or even live-stream tours of luxury listings.

Instagram

Agents who specialize in luxury real estate will do well to become comfortable with Instagram. It’s great for providing the type of high-quality, eye candy luxury home and property images, and it’s the reason that most realtors will be making sure their smartphone comes with a very high-quality camera.

Another big plus with Instagram for real estate is that it makes it easy for them to reach out via direct message or comment. And if you know how to use hashtags it will increase property visibility and encourage growth.

YouTube

YouTube is a social media superstar for real estate agents who regularly upload virtual tours of luxury homes that they have on the market. Prospective buyers that like what they see will be inclined to reach out to your through the app itself or the contact information your provide on the page.

Expert Identity

The next thing we’ll say here in relation to utilizing social media for luxury real estate is that realtors do best when they orient their perspective to better understand that luxury home buyers are the same in that their buying or selling a home may be an even more of a financial decision of great magnitude based on what is going to be paid to purchase the home. It’s going to be different from the one for a first-time homebuyer or one who is elsewhere and lower on the property ladder.

Clients are going to want more than just someone with a real estate license. There are thousands upon thousands of them now, but they will want an agent who will protect their interests and help them navigate the complexities of property ownership. The agent they choose must be someone they’ll feel confident having by their side throughout the process.

Social media in the discovery of luxury real estate leads can be part of the picture here too, as when they are applied correctly there’s a more sincere, genuine, and sturdier avenue for dialogue, sharing advice, and building stronger relationships between all the different interest groups.

Let’s now conclude this blog entry by talking more about specific approaches and methodologies for building up a luxury real estate client base.

Promote the Locale as much as The Home

Homebuyers will be keen to learn of what you know for the good, bad, and ugly of each specific locale where they may be considering buying a luxury home. But real estate blogs simply give buyers basic demographic statistics and then a very perfunctory overview of the area.

The better choice here is to use social media channels to provide potential clients a far richer understanding of the markets you serve, letting them know the pros and cons of each neighborhood and what they can expect from the larger region as a whole.

Be Yourself

Realtors do have the option of hiring a writer to create their marketing copy, but if you’ve got even the slightest bit of ability to do it yourself you should. The copy and content will be more genuine, and there are consumer reports that indicate homebuyers and home sellers want to make a personal connection with the realtor they work with, and so writing your own authentic social media content that resembles who you are as a real estate agency is always going to be best.

In addition, try to make it so that your personality shines through across each social network you’re on. It’s a great way to open a dialogue with a client before they ever pick up the phone.

Make Buyers Explicitly Aware

Real estate agents always need to learn how to best share with potential clients. Talking about common real estate pitfalls makes buyers smarter, giving them a smoother browsing experience and qualifying them to work with you and social media is an ideal resource for this aim. Blogs are ideal for writing articles about home-buying tips, and the using social media to promote them.

Chat with Followers

Potential homebuyers today will expect their realtor to be ongoingly engaged with them, and that is an overarching goal for anyone utilizing social media for luxury real estate. These individuals are likely to be going online, using Facebook’s Recommendations feature, and tweeting at real estate offices on Twitter. Be ready for these communications, and work on improving your ability to answer them.

Respond to All Comments

When visitors post comments on your social media sites you need to respond to all of them in a reasonably timely manner. Remember a lot of people who reach out to you are simply looking for more information about a listing and depending on the nature of their inquiry they may qualify among luxury real estate leads. Also keep an eye out for any opportunity to pivot their interest to other properties if you think one might be a better fit and maybe they’re not aware of that yet.