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Canadian Realtors: How to Generate Leads

Published June 25, 2024 by Real Estate Leads

Canadian Realtors: How to Generate LeadsIt is a different operating environment for people in the real estate business in Canada, and one of the first things a new real estate agent will realize is that the type of sales activity you see all over the country in the USA is only going to be occurring in the few major metro cities we have here in Canada. There are other different dynamics to working as a real estate agent in Canada too, and one of them is that the nature of how to get real estate leads effectively is slightly different here too.

You might think that’s as simple as saying that you won’t get as much out of door knocking because there are fewer doors to knock on. But it’s not such a simplistic matter, and the fact that there are always fewer homes for sale in Canada is tempered by the fact that a much smaller population means there are fewer real estate agents working here too. Don’t think for a second that means there’s an equal share of the pie to go around though, so to speak.

Effective real estate marketing is supremely important, because there isn’t enough business to go around and that’s why realtors need to hustle to the extent they do when it comes to generating leads for real estate. New clientele is the lifeblood for you when you work as a realtor, as without having clients buy or sell homes through you there isn’t going to be any viability in choosing this line of work. That said, no one needs to be told that it’s a line of work that can have you earning a nice living for yourself when done right.

So this leads us to online lead generation for real estate in Canada, and what we’ll look at with this blog entry is the best approaches to getting those leads from the perspective that things are different for realtors in Canada as they are for realtors in the USA or elsewhere in the world. There’s no getting around the fact that how well you do with real estate lead generation is going to be a huge factor in your success – or lack of it.

Top Advantage

We will assume you are a Canadian real estate agent looking to boost your business and increase your client base. You’re obviously one of many, and because there are so many agents in Canada it means that generating leads is crucial for success in the competitive real estate market. In this article, we will focus on the different types of leads and real estate lead generation techniques. As well as detailing why they are important for realtors in Canada, and the best strategies for generating homebuyer and home seller leads.

This will stretch from social media and creating a strong online presence to targeting local communities and utilizing online advertising, and we’ll go over everything you need to know for real estate lead generation techniques. Plus discussing common mistakes to avoid when generating leads to ensure that you are on the right track to success.

Let’s start by defining leads for realtors. What qualifies as a lead in the real estate industry is a potential clients or individuals who have expressed interest in the services offered by real estate professionals, whether that is for buying or selling properties, seeking consultations, or making real estate transactions with the purchase or sale of a home.

Leads play a crucial role in the growth and success of a real estate business. They are the lifeblood of the industry, acting as the starting point for potential transactions and relationships. Potential clients may be generated from various sources, with possibilities being referrals, online inquiries, networking events, and those who attend open houses that agents can use for attracting home buyers. You’ll see agents prioritizing lead generation to ensure a continuous influx of potential clients.

That’s because effective lead management and conversion are key to maximizing the impact of leads on business growth, and their contribution to sales and revenue is immediate and direct. Maintaining a healthy pipeline of leads is essential for sustaining long-term success in the competitive real estate market.

Different Types of Leads

The different types of leads in real estate will be crossing over various categories based on the lead’s level of engagement and readiness to conduct real estate transactions. This is the basis for dividing them into what you will hear referred to as cold leads, warm leads, hot leads, and put-out leads. Each one will then require a different approach as you aim to convert each lead into a client.

Cold leads are individuals who have shown minimal interest in real estate transactions and are likely not buying or selling a property anytime soon. There is potential to gradually warm up these leads with strategic nurturing through targeted marketing efforts. Warm leads are ones who have exhibited some interest or engagement and may buy or sell in the nearer future. There is a higher probability of conversion with proper follow-up and personalized interactions.

Hot leads are the ones where the owner or would-be homebuyer has strong interest and is likely to make a move in the local real estate market soon. This is where immediate attention and strong real estate lead nurturing is going to be required. Qualified hot leads are ones assessed as having both the intent and financial capacity to proceed with a real estate transaction, and they are a top priority for conversion.

Importance of Online Lead Generation for Real Estate in Canada

Simply put, realtors are going to need leads and their Real estate digital marketing strategies need to be geared to producing them at all times. They serve as the lifeblood of an agent’s business and will drive the growth of client base, foster referrals, and enhance market visibility. With the overall aim of contributing to sustained sales and revenue generation in what we know is a very competitive business at all times. If you don’t know how to get real estate leads you are at an immediate and profound disadvantage.

This is because nurturing and converting leads is crucial for business growth and establishing a strong presence in the real estate market. High-quality ones drive expansion and also generate referrals, which is similarly conducive for having a network of satisfied clients who will readily recommend you to others as a good real estate agent.

This organic growth strategy allows you to gain a competitive advantage by tapping into new markets, identifying potential buyers or sellers, and establishing a strong market presence. Effective real estate lead generation requires a multifaceted approach, with leveraging social media channels, establishing a robust online presence, nurturing networking connections and referrals, and hosting impactful open houses.

You should also be forging partnerships with other businesses, and implementing strategic email marketing campaigns to engage potential clients and build up your prospective client base.

Emphasis on Website and Social Media

Website

You can establish a robust online presence through an optimized website, engaging content, and having your realtor website optimized for SEO and search engine visibility is crucial for agents who want their site working at its best to attract and capture leads. When done right the site enhances brand visibility, drives organic traffic, and facilitates lead conversion through effective digital marketing strategies.

Optimizing your website also ensuring that it is user-friendly, loads quickly, and is mobile-friendly website for real estate agents so that it is easier for potential leads to find you when searching for realtors online via a mobile device. Publishing good real estate content on your site is also important if you’re determined with how to get real estate leads. Creating high-quality, relevant content that addresses the needs and pain points of your target audience will cement you as a thought leader in the real estate industry.

It will also increases your website’s authority and relevance, which are a very powerful determinants with search engine rankings. You want would-be clients to see your website high in search engine results pages when they search ‘city name’ realtor, for example. Integrating relevant keywords and entities into your website’s content and backend coding makes search engines aware of the nature of your site and ensures that it appears in relevant searches.

Focus on local SEO practices, like creating location-specific landing pages or including local keywords, and you will be further enhancing the visibility you have with potential leads in your area. These strategies work in tandem to establish your digital presence and position you as a more likely candidate for individuals looking to choose a local real estate agent.

Social Media

Social media platforms are ideal for having realtors reach a wide audience, share property listings, and engage with potential buyers and sellers. This is equally true for real estate agents in Canada in the same way it is for ones in the USA. But being optimally visible in real estate starts and ends with having a good real estate agent website. It is central to effective real estate marketing as a strong online presence through an optimized website and engaging content helps build credibility and attracting leads.

Utilizing social media platforms is a proven-effective strategy for realtors aiming to get more out of their real estate digital marketing strategies. Especially with the way it enables targeted outreach, content distribution, and engagement with potential clients across popular networks like Facebook, LinkedIn, and more. What agents usually come to learn quickly is that social media lead generation for real estate requires a nuanced approach. Platforms like Instagram offer visual appeal, making it ideal for showcasing properties and lifestyle content. X, on the other hand, is good because it facilitates real-time updates and communication with prospects.

But you will need to make every effort to stand out from the crowd, because you can sure other realtors will be active on social media too and promoting themselves in the same way you are. If you want results from social media marketing for real estate you will need to create compelling visual content, share informative blog posts, and utilize interactive features like live videos and polls as effective engagement tactics to attract and retain potential real estate clientele.

Industry Connections Too

Building and nurturing networking connections within the industry and seeking referrals from satisfied clients can lead to valuable leads, and hosting impactful open houses that provide an opportunity to showcase properties and create personal connections with potential buyers will also have you doing well here. The value in partnering with other businesses such as home stagers, interior designers, or mortgage brokers to further expand your reach and attract potential clients is well established.

Networking with industry peers, fostering referral partnerships, and leveraging customer relationship management (CRM) systems are instrumental in the same way for online lead generation real estate in Canada, making it more likely that you establish meaningful connections, exchanges of referrals, and have a better understanding of how to manage leads effectively.

A strong network with fellow professionals in the real estate industry is helpful too, as you can be opening doors to potential clients and lucrative partnerships if you have good working relationships with other realtors, and ones in other towns especially. Realtors do well when they actively participate in industry events, join professional associations, or engage in online forums. Do so regularly and you’ll be building enduring connections that often result in valuable referrals.

Have a structured referral program within one’s network too. It incentivizes cooperation and reciprocal referrals among industry peers. Realtors should also use some type of customer relationship management (CRM) software that they use with their lead database. These powerful tools streamline the lead management process and make it so that real estate professionals can organize, track, and nurture leads effectively. This ensure no potential opportunity slips through the cracks.

Agents do well when they harness the advanced functionalities of CRM platforms with automated lead assignment, targeted communication, and performance analytics. This is in line with getting more out of real estate lead generation efforts and then maximizing lead-to-client conversion rates.

Value of Open Houses

Hosting open houses presents realtors with an avenue to directly engage with potential leads, showcase properties, and build rapport as means of establish connections with folks who may buy or sell a home in the near future. The hosting agent can also gather valuable insights, and then convert some attendees into qualified leads through impactful event-based marketing.

Open houses can create a warm and inviting atmosphere for prospective buyers to experience a property firsthand. This can lead to building trust and a deeper connection and by hosting an open house, real estate professionals are putting their expertise on display, making it clear they understand the buyers’ needs, and showing their willingness to provide personalized assistance.

Good open houses also enable agents to gather contact information and preferences from attendees. When you have this you are better equipped for ongoing communication and nurturing relationships plus attracting home buyers. You can increase attendance and reach by employing digital and traditional marketing tactics. This can include leveraging social media, email campaigns, and neighborhood announcements.

Business Partnerships

Realtors can also benefit with better lead generation for real estate when they form strategic partnerships with complementary businesses. Examples can be mortgage lenders, interior designers, or home service providers can yield mutual lead generation opportunities for realtors. It expands their referral network, taps into shared customer bases, and amplifies marketing reach through collaborative strategies.

Mortgage lenders are a big one, as with this partnership realtors can offer seamless access to financing options for potential buyers, and this ups the likelihood of closing deals. This partnership also allows for a more efficient and streamlined process for clients. Partnering with interior designers is really good too, as property staging creates a more compelling showcase for listings. Homes that sell faster and higher prices for properties can be the outcomes of this type of good real estate partnership.

Another good idea is to get involved with joint marketing initiatives like co-hosted events, cross-promotions, or even creating content collaboratively with other real estate SMEs (subject matter experts). When you do this you can leverage the strengths of each business and reach a wider audience. This can drive more leads collectively and benefit all parties involved.

Email Marketing

Implementing targeted email marketing campaigns are excellent for generating leads for real estate when the focus is on reaching and engaging with potential leads directly. What you need to do here is have personalized content, property listings, and promotional offers to nurture leads, drive conversions, and maintain consistent communication for sustained lead generation and client engagement.

Effective email marketing for real estate will involve a combination of engaging, informative, and personalized content that resonates with potential leads. Segmentation is good too because it makes it so that the content is relevant based on the recipient’s interest and prerogatives. The chance of converting a lead into a client becomes that much higher.

Lead nurturing tactics like automated drip campaigns and personalized follow-ups are also solid approaches for cultivating long-term relationships with lead that then become more likely to eventually become clients. Integrating digital advertising strategies in email marketing can amplify the reach and impact of the campaigns for better lead generation for realtors and more thorough client engagement.

Most Effective Strategies for Lead Generation in Canadian Real Estate Market

The challenges are much the same for realtors in Canada as they are in the United States, as the competition stays proportionate to the population differences and the according different sizes in the real estate market. And the number of homes on the market at any time. Here it is even more important to take advantages of the capabilities of local SEO, offering valuable content and resources, utilizing online advertising, and hosting educational seminars and workshops.

These are the most effective lead generation techniques to engage the local audience, enhance market visibility, and get the most out of your real estate lead generation techniques. Local-focused approaches play a crucial role in establishing a strong connection with potential clients, particularly when the agent understands the unique needs and preferences of the local community.

It is here where real estate professionals can tailor their marketing efforts to resonate with the target audience. These interests can then be connected to specific keywords for better SEO for the real estate agent website. You definitely want to have those local-related search terms in there.

SEO tactics are imperative for improving online visibility and better online lead generation for real estate. Optimizing website content, leveraging local keywords, and ensuring consistent business listings across online directories can improve organic visits and lead generation significantly. Getting these keywords into your site and social media content will be helpful too.

Leveraging localized keywords in digital marketing campaigns can significantly improve visibility and relevance and attract relevant leads within the community. You want to be incorporating specific neighborhood names and local landmarks,

We’ve talked about how content marketing is a powerful tool to provide valuable insights and resources to people who may be buying or selling a home. By creating informative blog posts, neighborhood guides, and market reports, real estate professionals set themselves as knowledgeable and trustworthy industry and this works for attracting home sellers in a big way.

Realtors should also focus on targeting local communities, and with hyper-local marketing initiatives, community engagement, and localized content creation for establishing a strong presence, fostering connections, and resonating with the unique needs and preferences of the local market. This drives meaningful lead generation and client engagement.

Implementing localized content strategies is another part of effective real estate marketing, especially when you can emphasize neighborhood highlights, local market trends, and community insights. You’ll be creating valuable resources that resonate with the target audience. Also make sure you integrate local keywords strategically in website content, meta descriptions, and title tags to improve organic search visibility. This needs to be a part of your real estate digital marketing strategies if you want to gain more local clients.

Valuable Content and Resources

When realtors are able to provide valuable and informative content with market reports, neighborhood guides, and home buying/selling resources, they do become the trusted authorities and real estate lead generation occurs more naturally and organically because clients start to see them as the agents they want to work with. This fosters engagement, and ultimately drives lead conversion through content-driven strategies.

Offering valuable resources and insights not only educates prospective clients but also establishes a sense of credibility and expertise. Agents simply can’t go wrong with good blog posts, video tours, virtual open houses, and guides that would-be clients can download. High-quality content that is tailored to the needs and interests of the target audience lets real estate agents in Canada deepen relationships, nurture leads, and lay the foundation for client generation and retention.

Online ads can be a big part of what they do too, and well they should be if they are aiming to get best results from online lead generation for real estate in Canada. The best focus is on targeted online advertising campaigns across platforms like Google Ads, Facebook, and other digital channels. You will be doing better with reaching potential leads, driving website traffic, and increasing qualified inquiries.

Platform selection will be dependent on your location and the demographic nature of the potential client base you’re targeting. For example, Google Ads can be effective for capturing intent-based leads, while Facebook provides a robust targeting capability based on user interests and behaviors. Keep in mind that the majority of people who are at the life stage where they will be buying or selling houses will have Facebook as their primary social media platform.

This is why you choose the platforms that align with your audience. Ad targeting plays an integral role in maximizing the effectiveness of online advertising. Leveraging advanced targeting options such as location-based targeting, demographics, interests, and retargeting can help real estate professionals more reliably reach the audiences they are targeting.

Pair this with compelling landing pages, opt-in forms, and consistently valuable and engaging content, and it becomes more likely that visitors who will qualify as warm or hot leads will provide their contact information.

Hosting Seminars & Workshops

You can do really well by hosting educational seminars and workshops related to real estate topics, market trends, or property investment insights too. This is every bit a platform to engage potential leads too where you can demonstrate expertise and build the trust that prospective customers will have in you when you can offer or be a participant in informative event-based strategies.

Delivering valuable content during these workshops is effective for educating potential clients as well as having you as a good representative for helpful realtors in the area. This enhances credibility and reputation within the industry. The key is to have lead capturing mechanisms in place at these events – sign-up forms and contact information collection means, along with a readily-available stack of your business cards of course.

Mistakes to Avoid

Continuing with online lead generation real estate in Canada, there are errors realtors often make when they are aiming to generate new leads for real estate. This can start with lacking a clear target audience, underutilizing data and analytics for lead insights, or being lax about following up with leads. They may also be overlooking the impact of testimonials and reviews from existing clients.

It may also be that they haven’t identified their niche market clearly, because it can be true that targeting a broad audience can water down your marketing efforts a lot of the time. Utilizing data and analytics can offer valuable insights into lead behavior, preferences, and conversion paths. Not having a clear target audience probably tops the list here, as failing to define and understand the specific target audience hinders effective lead generation for agents no matter where they are working.

Audience segmentation allows for the categorization of potential clients into distinct groups based on demographics, behavior, and interests, enabling more personalized and relevant marketing strategies. When you can then integrate relevant keywords and entities related to the target audience definition plays a crucial role in optimizing online visibility and generating qualified real estate leads.

The next common shortcoming is failing to use data and analytics. When this happens the realtor is deprived of valuable insights into lead behavior, market trends, and campaign performance. As a result their strategic decision-making is weakened, and lead optimization plus identification of growth opportunities within the real estate market declines as a result of this.

Data and analytics play a pivotal role in lead generation for real estate professionals. By effectively leveraging CRM systems and analytics tools, agents can gain a deep understanding of their leads’ preferences, behavior, and needs. This give the power tos them to tailor their marketing strategies, personalize communications, and enhance customer engagement. This promotes improved lead conversion rates and customer satisfaction.

In the competitive real estate market, the agents who get ahead are the ones who can glean accurate data and use robust analytics provide a competitive edge and stay ahead of market trends. Being knowledgeable here and putting that knowledge into practice also helps realtors identify emerging opportunities, and anticipate shifts in customer preferences. All part of a proactive approach to position them as industry leaders where prospective clients see the promise of fully desirable outcomes with buying or selling a home.

Insufficient Follow-Ups with Leads

Realtors also disadvantage themselves when they fail to promptly and consistently follow up with leads. It is fairly straightforward to understand that this diminishes the lead-to-client conversion rate as it limits engagement, prevents timely responsiveness, and leads to missed opportunities for nurturing leads into qualified clients through effective communication and relationship building.

The best way to counter this is to use a CRM for real estate agents, as we discussed earlier in this blog entry. Maintaining a well-organized database and utilizing automation tools can streamline follow-up processes. You may know how to get real estate leads, but do you know how to nurture them effectively so those leads become clients? Investing in a good CRM software for realtors can make all the difference here.

Good lead nurturing goes a long way in converting leads into loyal clients to. This involves personalized, informative communication and timely responses to their inquiries and needs. We can’t stress enough how fully responsive communication is fundamental to showcasing professionalism and care. This can greatly increase the chances of turning leads into an eventual sale or purchase of a home and the realtor earning their commission.

We’ll conclude this look at online lead generation real estate in Canada by pointing out that final fail point that can occur for realtors when a seemingly warm or even hot lead ends up going nowhere. Not putting enough importance on receiving testimonials and reviews can take away from the credibility and trust-building potential for real estate agents. It denies the opportunity to showcase client satisfaction, expertise, and successful transactions, client experiences that instrumental in influencing potential leads and fostering trust in you as a local real estate professional has a good reputation for service and results.

Then when prospects see positive client feedback, it instills confidence and reduces skepticism. Testimonials can be a part of real estate lead generation techniques when they promote credibility enhancement as the real-life experiences of satisfied clients are showcased. This does wonders for establishing rapport with potential leads, who tend to rely on the experiences of others when making major decisions such as purchasing a property.

FAQs

  1. How can I generate leads for my real estate business?

The best ways to generate real estate leads is with being active promoting yourself on social media, email marketing, networking events, and having a fully SEO-optimized real estate agent website. You can also benefit from gathering favourable reviews and testimonials from existing and former clients.

  1. What are the most effective real estate lead generation strategies?

The most effective strategies for generating leads for agents is to put equal amounts of effort and resources into social media marketing, email campaigns, publishing real estate related content on your website, establishing referral partnerships with local businesses and service providers, and participating in digital and in-person events related to the local real estate market.

  1. Can social media be used for real estate lead generation?

Absolutely, and realtors who are active with paid social media ads for real estate and posting accurate and informative information in any thread related to local real estate is an excellent way to get real estate leads when social media platform users start to see you as an expert and a dedicated professional.

  1. What tools are essential for successful real estate lead generation?

The two most essential tools for success with this are going to be an SEO-optimized realtor’s website and a customer relationship management CRM software program. One that the agents uses to nurture real estate leads better with more timely and better means of communications with homeowners and would-be homebuyers who may be selling a home or looking to buy one at some point in the future.

Real Estate Edition: 33 Online Lead Generation Ideas for 2024

Published June 18, 2024 by Real Estate Leads

Real Estate Edition: 33 Online Lead Generation Ideas for 2024People often talk of the need to get ahead in their career, or to make a name for themselves. For others it’s more simply about going through the day-to-day and earning the living they need for themselves and their family. When a person is a licensed self-employed professional in a very competitive business, however, it’s entirely different and no one of these conceptual approaches apply. That’s the case for working as a real estate agent, as it is not so much any of them as it is simply securing clientele and then helping them buy or sell a home. Lead generation for real estate agents is central to this.

It is the next one part of that at the crux of the challenge of being successful in real estate. Being successful is going to be measured differently based on the individual, but for most realtors this career is about earning a higher income than you would in other professions that don’t require extensive education and / or opportunities that come more naturally to some people than others. The tradeoff is that as a realtor you need to hustle your backside off finding real estate clients, serving them, and all the while improving your ability to do both.

However, in a sense it’s fair to say that agents are making a name for themselves when they do well in repeatedly securing clients and selling homes for them. Or leading homebuyers to the property that is perfect for them. It’s not easily done, and again the biggest reason it isn’t simple to have a profitable career in real estate is because there are hundreds of others or more aiming to do the same thing. And thousands or more if you are a realtor in Vancouver or Toronto, or any other popular major metro region in Canada.

Gain the Advantage

It’s for this reason that realtors will look into the possibility to buy real estate leads, and it is what has so many of them coming in as new signups here at Real Estate Leads. We’re always happy to make our expertise with online lead generation in real estate available to realtors who want to gain an advantage, and buying leads real estate is especially recommended for new real estate agents in Canada who need these listings so urgently.

We’ve prefaced this subject enough for this entry, and it is likely that agents like the ones we’ve talked about don’t need much more convincing about the value of choosing to buy qualified real estate leads in Canada. But each of them should be taking a multi-tiered approach to generation new leads for real estate agent, and not just relying on paid leads.

So where we will go with this entry is share 33 online lead generation ideas for realty agents that fit perfectly with how prospective clients are going to be finding a realtor in 2024. Here they are:

Power of Facebook Ads

Facebook has a huge base of active users, and the older demographic of average users is the same one that will be in the age range where they have the means and wish to buy or sell homes. Facebook can be a lucrative platform for running real estate ads. You can find the perfect customer fit for any kind of property you wish to sell on Facebook.

Consider these tips for creating effective Facebook ads as part of lead generation for real estate agents:

  1. Create ads looking at and taking behavior, location, and demographic factors or on the basis of the relationship status of the audience into consideration
  2. Bring properties to life with video ads or carousel ads for showing multiple properties in a single ad
  3. Create custom ads for lookalike audiences using an email address or phone number. With Facebook Pixels on your website you can target website visitors.
  4. Audiences that are not potential buyers can be excluded. Examples – National Association of Realtors, National Association of Real Estate Brokers, etc.

Paid Google Ads for Real Estate Services

Google continues to dominate the search engine space, having upwards of 75% of the market share. Prospective buyers are more likely to Google a property before actually visiting it. Google Ads are beneficial for displaying the listing to potential buyers of a specific area, and some realtors will go with PPC campaigns to give buyers a fair idea of their listings, prices, and contact details.

Here are tips for effective real estate Google Ads:

  1. Use negative keywords when creating campaigns. Your ad will not be displayed if someone searches using a negative keyword and this increased the chances the clicks you pay for are going to be legitimate potential buyers
  2. Enable leads to connect with you quickly by adding call extensions in the ad copy
  3. Add a price extension in your ad copy to make it so that interested leads are more likely to be the ones contacting you

Real estate professionals often realized that direct mail gave them a poor response rate. Most recipients called to complain or lead the conversation in other non-productive directions, but when they turned to Google PPC and replaced their direct mailing budget with a PPC budget they see lead generation and conversion rates multiply.

Use Real Estate Listing Websites

The estimates that 90% of home buyers use the internet for house hunting are likely accurate. Multiple real estate listing sites send qualified buyer and seller leads to the agents. Another advantage is that you can stay with your brokerage and get more referrals from these sites.

Zillow has been active for Canada for a while now, after being a standard in the States for a long time now. It has a Home Valuation Tool called Zestimate. This tool allows Zillow to create a heavy database of buyer and seller leads.You can create a free account on Zillow or become a Premier Agent and receive instant visibility through the brands like Zillow, Trulia, and StreetEasy.

Realtor.ca is the official partner of the National Association of Realtors and is also an excellent resource for realtors in Canada. Their listing is directly connected with MLS, and when agents list their property for sale through the directory the reach is unbeatable. It carries approximately 97% of all MLS-listed properties in Canada.

Realtor.ca shares recently sold properties in the area of interest that allows buyers to understand the median (average) prices in that area, and users also have a filter function to search for particular features like swimming pools, golf courses, or other amenities.

Use a Click-to-Call Button or Widget

It’s common for websites and landing pages in the real estate industry to have a bounce rate of 45-70%. So you must accept that most of the people who visit your website won’t become leads. But that doesn’t mean you can’t improve you website lead conversion rate and look to buy real estate leads at the same time.

A click-to-call button can be helpful with this. It allows your website visitors to connect with you instantly, and having that available to them the moment they land on your website is very beneficial if that person happens to be a very motivated buyer or seller. This ensures that whenever someone wants to talk to you, you’re there to assist them.

Consider CallPage, which is another great tool for capturing leads from your website. It boosts real estate website engagement by smartly triggering pop-ups that offer instant callback or meeting scheduling. In the event a visitor shows interest by spending time on a listing, CallPage will have you contact info pop up at the right moment to promote them contacting you. This timely interaction can turn casual browsing into real leads.

Use Chatbots with Your Website

Would-be clients looking to sell, buy, rent, or inquire about a home will usually end up filling out a bunch of lead capture forms on several real estate web pages. But not all lead-capturing forms are the same, and there are ones that are much better than others.

Everyone knows how to fill out a form, but there are few people if any who actually like doing it. In a competitive industry like real estate, response time is key, and personalization makes all the difference. You can use Real estate chatbots as an effective way to fix the form problem.

They take the process of sharing lead information and turn it into more of a conversation, and the online lead generation real estate experience becomes more engaging. Some realtors have enjoyed a 2-3x increase in conversion rates when they have a landing page with a chatbot.

Auto Dialer for Generating Real Estate Leads

Cold calling is one of the oldest lead-generation strategies and one that was able to exist before the advent of the internet, and yet it’s still doing well. It’s time consuming and doesn’t have the best conversion rates attached to it, so what can be done to improve them if a realtor is to still do cold calling? (and they should)

Try cold calling with smart automation, like an auto dialer. This tool automates the process of dialing, creating a more efficient process for lead generation companies. Additionally, features like auto-saving call details, recordings, and notes, minimize manual tasks for agents.

When manual tasks are automated, you then have a lot of time for more productive tasks. With a real estate smart dialer you may make as many as 100 cold calls a day and generate more real estate leads. You may then also buy qualified real estate leads in Canada to have the best of maximum results from both ends of the equation.

Use Bulk SMS Campaigns

We’ll be straight to point here; Bulk SMS messages are generally not an effective means of real estate lead generation. But SMS messages tend to have a high opening rate (often around 98%) and so for this reason they still qualify as a low-cost, high-ROI tool for lead generation.

You can send out mass opt-in texts to prospects and send offers/discounts to trigger actions. Bulk SMS is also great for creating referral campaigns to generate further leads. Popular approaches are to offer vouchers, coupon codes, etc., to your existing leads for successful referrals.

Ongoing Round-Clock Support with SMS Bots

SMS bots can be surprisingly effective as automated real estate lead generators. SMS bots have made it possible to send automated text responses, enabling a round-the-clock presence, and with them you don’t have to be personally ready 24/7 to answer customer inquiries, as the active SMS bot will handle them for you.

Prospective clients can just send their query as text to the business phone number. Then then SMS Bot will then send accurate replies by fetching information from the database or CRM, plus sending details of all the available properties without any human intervention. Wit them the chance of missing any leads because you are unavailable at the time is minimized and this is something that is so easy to implement for a realtor through their contact means.

Social Media for Real Estate Lead Generation

Social media for real estate agents is an absolute must these days and it is just as advisable as buying Leads for real estate. A few of the different major social media platforms can be used for rea estate to connect agents with prospective buyers and sellers and build the reach that the agent will have. Being active on social media can really help with building a real estate pipeline.

One recommended way is to use the Facebook Messenger option on your website so visitors can have a direct conversation with you. You can connect with potential leads and one you’ve determine they are a warm real estate lead you can request their contact info and / or set up a meeting to discuss their interests in buying or selling a home.

Try to post on social media regularly. Some people post every day, but at least once a week is recommended to stay relevant. Try to make posts in discussions about real estate where you put your knowledge of the local market on display and make it clear to people that you are local real estate agent who knows their stuff.

An excellent lead generation tactic is using video in social media ads. On average, US viewers spend about eight hours and 33 minutes per week watching various types of online videos. Video is personal, attention-grabbing, and easy to consume. Video ads build trust, garner much higher engagement rates on social media, and relay a lot of information in a short amount of time.

Go Live on Social Media with Video from a Property

Social media is increasingly the business front face for real estate, as it is for many other industries too. Live video coverage of properties on YouTube, Instagram, and Facebook helps generate traction and potential buyers love this stuff and are equally impressed with a realtor who’s made their effort to make these property viewings available on social media.

Consider live-streaming sessions to showcase entire properties. Make sure that you have good lighting and equipment for the broadcast, and you can also save the live videos and later send them to the interested leads who missed the live broadcast.

Free, Helpful Tools

Another good approach with lead generation for real estate agents is to offer a free, helpful tool. This represents a great opportunity for you to create something that potential customers will value with a tool that directly relates to their business. One example could be a checklist that helps ensure thoroughness in completing forms before closing on a house.

When marketing to homebuyers instead of real estate agents it could be a mortgage calculator or other tool related to first-time homeownership. Make sure it’s something they can use in their day-to-day work as an agent, because otherwise they won’t find it valuable enough to download.

Become an SEO authority

Search engine optimization (SEO) is quite possibly the best ROI strategy for online lead generation in real estate. It will take more of your time, but has much more potential than paid lead generation strategies. Many real estate leaders leverage content marketing and search engines as their go-to inbound marketing strategy.

Speak with successful agents anywhere about SEO for real estate websites and all will tell you that at the local level, there won’t be as much competition, and you can cater your effort to landmarks or locations of interest for nearby home buyers.

One example would be to write an article about homes on a nearby lake or condos downtown. Getting in front of buyers searching helps because they’ll see you as an authority and also have a highly targeted search. Another good lead generation strategy for realtors is a quiz meant to help users find their ideal neighborhood. Once you have their email, then you can begin sending geo-targeted options of homes for sale in their perfect neighborhood.

Start a YouTube Channel

Establishing a YouTube channel is an innovative and surprisingly effective way of getting leads for real estate. Here’s what a YT channel for real estate can do for you as an agent:

Showcase Properties: A YouTube channel lets you give virtual tours of your listings, and with one you have a dynamic and engaging way to showcase properties to potential buyers

  1. Establish Authority: With regular informative content, market analyses, and buying/selling tips you are in more of a position to be seen as an an industry authority.
  2. Wider Audience Reach: Create a good channel and put together good videos that are uploaded regularly and you listings and content can reach potential buyers locally and globally.
  3. SEO Benefits: Optimized video content that is linked to your real estate agent website can improve your visibility in search engine results.
  4. Prospective Client Engagement: The interactive nature of YouTube with comments and live streams allows you to engage directly with clients who may then choose to list a home with you as you answer their questions and building relationships.

Be Active on Community Pages

You’ll still buy real estate leads, but one of the better ways of generating leads organically is by creating community pages on your website and optimizing them for Google. Community pages provide buyers and sellers with updated information and reviews about localities, population info, physical and social infrastructure, major attractions, cost of living, and more.

Go even further to address common FAQs here and you will be building on your authority and improving Google rankings for your website for real estate agents. One of the significant keys to being successful will be making your community page exceptional and then working to make it increasingly visible through search engine optimization.

Host Webinar and Online Workshops

Hosting webinars and online workshops is also a highly advisable way for real estate agents to share their expertise and connect with potential clients. With them there is the opportunity to demonstrate your knowledge in the field and establishing yourself at the go-to person for real estate advice. With gained knowledge on their part comes trust in you as the expert, and this trust may then lead them to choose you as their agent

These online events also give you a platform to reach a wider audience without breaking the bank. By saving the recordings, you can continue to attract new leads long after the live event has ended. It’s an effective and engaging way to grow your business and establish a strong presence in the real estate market. Always have answers ready to that you are always seen as prepared and experienced. It’s also a good idea to bring along small gifts and business cards to hand out to the people who attend the workshop.

Network at Non Real Estate-Related Events

Events where other realtors are also participating will diminish the potential for getting new leads for real estate, and for obvious reasons. Instead, try joining local events that are not real-estate related. Examples could be community service groups, concerts, bachelor parties at peeler bars, book reading events, yoga workshops, and other events that see lots of participation and can prove to be excellent networking grounds.

With these events you can subtly establish your presence and reliability in the community. Interactions here may lead to referrals and direct leads, as people often prefer to do business with someone they’ve met and liked in a non-business context. This is something to consider along with the possibility to buy qualified real estate leads in Canada.

Find & Target Expired Listings

Home listings that have expired without the house selling represent a unique opportunity for real estate agents looking to meet and secure new clients. Homeowners with expired listings are often more motivated and open to new representation, especially if their previous attempts to sell the home failed for whatever reason. Whether it’s fair or not they may see their realtor as the problem, but if that’s the case they’ll probably be very open to the idea of relisting the hoe with a new real estate agent.

Approach them this way to generate listing leads effectively:

  1. Present them with thorough research after using MLS and real estate websites to identify expired listings. Look for properties that have been off the market for a while but still show potential for sale.
  2. Understand the seller’s perspective as many homeowners are disappointed or frustrated after their listing expires without a sale. Be sympathetic and understanding in your approach to them and state how you can relate to their current position.
  3. Offer fresh marketing strategies with new and tailored marketing plans that address the shortcomings of the previous listing approach. Highlight how your strategy differs and can potentially lead to a successful sale.
  4. Build relationships by establishing trust with demonstrated market knowledge and a genuine commitment to selling their property. Be patient and supportive, and make it clear you will work for their best interest.

Target Millennials and Gen Z

They’re not going to be qualified home buyers as regularly, but many real estate agents are taking aim at any prospective Gen Z or Millennial homebuyers too. Realtors can target millennials and Gen Z prospects by creating and curating digital content that suits their real estate needs. Since most buyers are turning to online platforms before ever talking to a realtor, it’s imperatively important for realtors to establish their online presence.

Realtors need to create consistent quality content that focuses on a targeted niche of keywords to rank on Google. Blogs are a great way to do this, but you can also see great results from videos, which can be repurposed into blogs and podcasts.

Chase Divorce Leads

More men are philanderers these days than ever before. While that is understandable it is still obviously a big part of why couples are becoming divorced more often than ever before. If the couple owns a home together it is common for the home to be sold and the amount received for it is split between the man and woman when they divorce. Realtors can target divorce leads as part of lead generation for real estate agents, as these people will genuinely be motivated to sell a property?

If you play your cards right, you can get several referrals in the future. It could be a consistent and profitable niche with low competition. Realtors who can display patience and empathy may find divorce leads to be the perfect lead generation strategy to close a few more deals this year. There’s even a designation, RCS-D (Real Estate Collaboration Specialist — Divorce), that you can obtain to show potential divorce clients that you know your stuff and are a better choice for would-be clients now in this scenario.

Geofencing for Targeted Advertising

Geofencing is a marketing strategy where you create a virtual boundary around a specific geographic area, allowing you to target potential real estate leads right based on life, work, and play boundaries. When you set up geofences around key locations such as popular neighborhoods, rival listings, or local hotspots, you can send targeted advertisements to the smartphones of people as they move into those zones.

Geofencing ads are usually sent through mobile apps and websites that users access on their smartphones. This method capitalizes on the location services of mobile devices to ensure that the ads are served to the right audience at the right time, enhancing the chances of engagement and conversion.

360° Photos and Drone Footage to Update Old Listings

Updating property listings with 360° photos and drone footage can dramatically improve their appeal. These technologies offer a better view of the property, providing potential buyers with a better sense of the space and surroundings without any need to visit in person. 360° photos allow viewers to explore each room and get a feel for the layout and features of the home, enhancing their understanding and interest in the property.

Drone video for real estate listings is as popular as choosing to buy real estate leads these days, and with property drone video you can give an aerial perspective, showcasing the property’s exterior, landscaping, and neighborhood so that potential buyers have a unique vantage point and a better appreciation of the property’s value.

These visual enhancements can make your listings stand out in a crowded market, attract more attention, and lead to quicker sales. Some agents and real estate teams have gone so far as to create a database of 360° aerial neighborhood tours with a pin linking to a home search. The unique service improves search rankings, attracting several out-of-state buyers. This establishes credibility and professionalism that can lead to high-quality leads.

Utilize Predictive Technology

You can find several predictive analytic tools that will help you reach potential clients. They analyze data from multiple listing services and other websites to suggest which owners are more likely to sell homes on a shorter timeline. These valuable insights will narrow your target, saving you time and effort.

Both the Zillow Zestimate tool and Realtor.ca’s Market Hotness Index are good choices here, helping you provide estimates of how much a home is worth using data from the web and what people have said about the home, along with information about which housing markets are getting a lot of attention based on the numbers of people looking at listings in the area and how many homes are currently for sale there.

Virtual Reality (VR) Tours

Virtual Reality (VR) tours provide a fully immersive experience and can contribute to online real estate lead generation too when realtors make them available on the Internet. They allow potential buyers to explore properties from anywhere in the world, and are especially good for attracting international buyers or those relocating from other parts of the country.

VR tours for real estate let clients walk through a property virtually through their web-browsing device, exploring every room and corner in detail. This saves time for both buyers and agents and also filters out uninterested parties at the same time. This is good, as it ensures that only serious buyers schedule in-person visits.

All customers need is a smartphone and headset and offering VR tours can enhance your listings’ appeal and aid with generating real estate leads even more effectively.

Augmented Reality (AR) Staging

Homes that are staged will often sell for about 15% more than those that are not staged, and staged homes will sell more than 80% faster compared to ones that haven’t been staged. Home staging for realtors has always been a great way to generate more interest in your offerings and nurture your leads, and with AR home staging you eliminate the need for physical furniture, allowing real estate agents to digitally furnish a home with a variety of styles and layouts at the touch of a button.

AR staging is like using a special app on your phone or tablet. You open the app, point your camera at an empty room, and then you can see virtual furniture appear on the screen, making the room look furnished. You’re able to decorate rooms virtually even if they are currently empty in reality. You will need to buy and install and AR app for your recording device (usually your smartphone) but it’s well worth it.

Promote Yourself as a Realtor on LinkedIn

There was a study that found LinkedIn to be nearly three times more efficient in driving real estate client leads compared to Facebook and Twitter. So, always remember to include LinkedIn in your social media real estate lead generation ideas. LinkedIn is great for real estate folks to connect, share their skills, and find new clients. Here’s how to use it for maximum effectiveness:

  1. Make your profile shine. Update it with a nice photo, a summary of what you do in real estate, and your work and school history.
  2. Post often sharing thoughts, market news, and success stories to show you’re a pro in real estate. Regular updates put you more emphatically on people’s radar.
  3. Interact with others by engaging with posts from your contacts to grow relationships and possibly get new leads or business chances.
  4. Get into LinkedIn groups related to real estate to network, talk about the market, and share advice. This boosts your presence and trust.
  5. Use LinkedIn Ads to reach specific people who might need your services, based on things like where they live or their career.
  6. Make and keep connections. Reach out to potential clients and others in the field. Send personalized messages to make yourself stand out and keep in touch to build a bond.
  7. Publish articles to reflect your understanding of the local real estate market and the profession overall, attracting potential clients and establishing yourself as an authority.

Partnerships for Passive Lead Generation

Realtors always do well when they network with local businesses to form mutually beneficial partnerships. Your local investors, accountants, financial planners, etc., can also be a great source for lead generation. Another option is to hire experienced listing agents to boost your real estate lead generation strategy. Co-host local events and tap into local alliances to generate leads.

Greater numbers of agents are also partnering up with a real estate conversion specialist, and when you do so you can optimize your website with tools like chatbots so that it becomes more of an automated lead machine. Aim to build strong relationships with local contractors who have home maintenance-related specialty services.

When they hear someone wants to sell their home, they may give those people your card and let you know of their information too. This is an excellent means of getting passive real estate leads to go along with any chance you have to buy qualified real estate leads in Canada

Re-establish Connections with Old Leads

Maintaining communication with old leads is also highly recommended, or ones that went from cold lead to no longer a lead. Just because someone wasn’t ready to buy or sell at the first interaction doesn’t mean they won’t buy or sell a home in the future. Here’s how to maintain these connections with people who may be clients in the future:

  1. Send regular updates to keep old leads informed with newsletters, market updates, or personalized messages. This will show you’re still active and interested in helping them.
  2. Use automation tools like email or SMS campaigns to automate follow-ups so that you regularly touch base without overwhelming your schedule
  3. Offer tangible value to them if they’re going to list again, or resume the search for a home. Provide useful information, tips, or resources related to real estate that can help them. This demonstrates your expertise and makes it more likely they think of you when they’re ready to make a move.
  4. Celebrate milestones. Acknowledge special occasions like birthdays or anniversaries with a message or card, adding a personal touch to your relationship
  5. Check-in personally with a personal phone call or message, as this can make a big difference. It shows genuine interest and can rekindle their consideration of real estate decisions.
  6. Use social media and connect on platforms like Facebook or Instagram to engage with their content and remind them of your presence in a friendly, non-invasive way.

Staying in touch with old leads and nurturing these relationships can be a secondary means of creating a network of potential clients who are more likely to think of you when they’re ready to enter the real estate market. This strategy turns cold leads into warm prospects and eventually into successful deals.

One unique idea is to leverage your Sphere of Influence (SOI) with an offer that for every referral you send me I will enter your name into a raffle for a prize – anything from local events, cash, vacation giveaways, to plane tickets or something else entirely.

Reward Referrals

Past clients may have been very pleased with the service you provided to them, but still not think of referring you as a realtor to others they know who are thinking of buying or selling a home. Motivate them with a system of rewarding referrals. It will help you maintain a steady stream of referrals in your real estate business.

It’s understood that 1 of every 2 former clients are likely to refer you to their family and friends if offered a direct referral incentive. Many agents find that rewarding referrals has been one of the best lead generation strategies for them. Doing so has been key for their business and proven to be one of the best ways to connect with clients, friends, and family who are kind enough to refer their services.

Obtain an Intergenerational Family Mailing List

Online lead generation in real estate is going to be your primary focus nowadays, but as we keep stressing here you will do best if you also look into other approaches that aren’t connected to use of the Internet. Leverage intergenerational mailing lists to connect with adults managing their elderly parents’ living situations.

It’s increasingly the case these days that adult children are in the position where they have to make living arrangements for elderly parents who are no longer be able to live independently. This can be a source of leads for real estate agents too if these people need to sell their parents home in the near future.

There are services like Listability that serve as a specialized mailing list broker with access to a vast database of homeowners represented by individuals whose elderly parents have transitioned to senior living, assisted living, or nursing homes.

This targeted approach enables many real estate professionals to reach out to potential clients in these specific circumstances, offering tailored real estate solutions to meet the needs of the situations they are in with parents who need to downsize a home and be in a different living arrangement from now on.

Seller Leads from Courthouses

Competition for leads in real estate is going to fierce in most regions of the country. Seller leads from the courthouse are often going to be ones where the owners are highly motivated to have their homes be sold and for a good recouping of the value.You can use these leads to sell more in fairly less time. Here are the different types of leads you can get from the courthouse:

  1. Foreclosures: You can find newly filed foreclosures at the courthouse on a bulletin board for newly filed foreclosures.
  2. Delinquent Property Taxes: Contact the tax office for a list of properties with delinquent taxes owed. Some of them will be published in newspapers.
  3. Out-of-Town Owners: Most property owners residing outside the town might be interested in selling their property. You can get a list of these from the Tax Department or from businesses dealing with this information.

Reach out to FSBOs

Contacting FSBO (For Sale by Owner) homeowners is also an ever-present part of lead generation for real estate agents. There is always a lot of potential in FSBOs prospects. There are estimates that homeowners lose 32.5% of value if they sell a property on their own, and of course that’s because they don’t have experience selling homes. You can contact them and make it clear that with your expertise behind them listing the home they can expect to sell if faster, and for more money too.

Buy Exclusive Leads

If you have enough of a budget and would like an approach that is as proven-effective as any then you can simply buy real estate leads. It’s one of the easiest realtor lead generation ideas. Here at Real Estate Leads you have the benefit of receiving exclusive real estate leads, and what this does is eliminate competition and increase your chance of converting the right number of leads in clients.

This is best utilized when done in conjunction with using one of the largest and best home valuation sites online. Realtors can use the sites to check the value of properties their leads currently own, and use this information to make more informed communications with the buyer as they approach them and make the effort to convince the homeowner to list with them.

Offer Free Home Market Evaluations

Providing free home market evaluations is also a smart and proven way to gain real estate client leads. Homeowners often wonder what their property is worth, especially in a fluctuating market. By offering a no-cost, no-obligation valuation, you not only grab their attention but also establish your expertise and credibility.

Here’s how to best offer complimentary market evaluations for clients:

  1. Create a landing page on your website dedicated to free home valuations and ensure it’s easy to find and simple to use
  2. Use automated valuation tools to generate reports quickly. These tools use local market data, recent sales, and property characteristics to estimate value.
  3. Promote your complimentary market evaluations on social media, email newsletters, and local advertising to reach a broader audience
  4. Follow up with those who request one, offering to discuss the report in detail and provide insights into the local real estate market plus answering any other questions they have in advance of possibility listing the home

By offering something of value right away, you position yourself as a helpful and knowledgeable real estate professional, encouraging potential clients to reach out to you when they’re ready to buy or sell.

Lead prospecting in real estate is all about finding those quality leads that are ready to make a move. For agents the focus has to go beyond just amassing a bunch of contacts, and it should be more about connecting and nurturing relationships with the right ones and building trust.

To stay ahead, real estate pros need to use smart strategies. This means tapping into digital marketing, making the most of listing websites, and ensuring their realtor website is geared to turning visitors into leads. Certain tools can make a huge difference by offering instant communication, and as always you can get quality leads faster when you use a paid real estate lead service like ours here.

5 Approaches for New Real Estate Leads This Week

Published June 11, 2024 by Real Estate Leads

5 Approaches for New Real Estate Leads This WeekEach new week represents a fresh opportunity for a real estate agent to be prospecting for new clients more effectively, and it is something all of them should be aiming to do if growing your PREC is a priority. Working as a realtor is a very different means of earning a living for yourself, and you are very much on your own and entirely in control of your own destiny with whether or not you’re going to be a success in this or not.

It’s a competitive business at all times, and your ability to generate real estate leads effectively is always going to be a decisive factor in that success. Real estate lead generation is something that comes more naturally to some in comparison to others, but if you’re one of the others then you may well want to consider paid real estate leads from one of the best real estate lead generation services in Canada. We are one of them, and realtors who continue to use our service are benefitting from receiving genuine leads each month.

But be aware that your focus with new real estate leads shouldn’t be exclusively in the digital space. Real estate agents need to be hustling at all times, and your leads need to be coming from traditional means like advertising and effective networking for realtors too. But when it comes to quick real estate leads you will probably find that online leads are the ones that are converted into clients most reliably and quickly.

That’s provided you know what you’re doing and can convince these people that you are their best choice as a realtor. That is a skill in and of itself, and if you can have a solid local reputation as an agent that is going to go a long way too. Real estate marketing tips are always the topic of focus here, and what we’re going to do this week’s blog entry is share 5 approaches you can use for real estate leads this week. So let’s get right to them.

Greater and Faster Conversions

Longer focus approaches for real estate lead strategies are always going to best, and that should continue to be where you put most of your focus. But for agents who are looking to make up for lull periods in business there may be more of a wish to drum up clients who are ready to sell a home or buy one right now, or on a similarly shorter timeframe.

We will continue to encourage you to optimize your website and blog on real estate markets for organic online traffic, but if your focus is more on the right-now then you need strategies that will land you legitimate real estate leads ASAP. What will follow here are 5 proven ways to generate real estate leads this week, and you can put them into practice coming Monday or any other time.

  1. Put Together a Killer Offer and Market It Aggressively

The challenge here is to come up with something in your market that buyers or sellers will usually pay out-of-pocket for it, like a minor and not too pricey upgrade to a property or perhaps adding access to an amenity. As the realtor you then offer to pay those expenses out of your commission, and what this then does with real estate lead generation is convince these buyers or sellers to choose you as their realtor and rather than another agent who may also have already been in contact with them.

This will be an additional expense for you, but if it establishes an immediate listing or qualified buyer then it will be worth it. You can think of it as paying a 25% referral fee to secure a new client, and that is something that most realtors will be happy to do. Some realtors take this approach as their full-time competitive advantage as a means of creating immediate real estate leads, because these types of incentives will be very appealing to prospective clients because they are really ‘getting something’ out of it.

Great Offers for Sellers

It can be common for sellers to pay for their own listing photos. If that stands to be the case for any of them that are ready to list with a real estate agent then your offer to pay for professional listing photos for their listing can be a great idea to generate real estate leads and convince them to list with you. Not only will your listings sell faster and for more money, but you’ll also gain a serious competitive advantage in the listing presentation.

You may also want to consider drone photos for real estate here. Other ideas can be virtual tours, home staging, or realtors covering moving costs for clients.

Great Offers for Buyers

The same can for homebuyer clients for realtors. Listing photos and tours won’t apply here, but what you can do is consider any of these options as incentive to buy a home through you:

  1. Housewarming parties
  2. Covering home inspections
  3. New home photo shoots
  4. Grocery bundles
  5. Complimentary annual property tax reviewers

You should market your killer offer as best as you can if you want to maximize new real estate leads from it. Get the word out with full effectiveness through social media posts, paid social media ads, banners on your real estate agent website, door hangers or fliers on cars, and you may even want to consider TV or radio spots if you have a larger real estate promotion budget.

Make sure your promotions include a referral reminder too, along with a definitive CTA (call to action) that encourages interested individuals to contact you as soon as possible by a direct means (provide phone, email, and other means of contacting your for immediate receiving and replying).

  1. Get Immediate Real Estate Leads from Zillow

Zillow has been operating in Canada too for a few years now, and it possible to get real estate leads through Zillow. Any discussion of real estate marketing tips is going to involve talk about platform like this one and Realtor.com, but for many agents these more expensive leads aren’t a realistic avenue for them. But here are three ways to generate real estate leads from them without necessarily buying them.

Find FSBOs

If you are a real estate agent in Canada you will already be familiar with this acronym, but if not it stands for For-Sale-By-Owner and with online real estate platforms you can filter listings to only show FSBOs. These individuals are obviously going to be keen to sell, and they may be realizing that selling a house on your own isn’t working out so well for them. Contact each of these owners and make them aware of your expertise in local real estate and what you can do to make it much more likely they sell their home and get what they’re asking for it.

Find Investors

These platforms also allow rental property investors to market their units for rent. This can be a way to find quick real estate leads too. Sorting by rentals will put property owners who might be looking to offload an underperforming rental or expand their portfolio right in front of you, and ideally with a means of contacting them and inquiring if they’d be interested in listing the property for sale.

It helps if you can do a bit of research on the rentals you find on Zillow and contact the owner with helpful info.

Upgrade Estimates

It’s a known fact that home value estimates on these online platforms can be wildly inaccurate. Use this to show your value to local homeowners. Run a quick CMA for off-market homes in your niche before contacting the homeowners to let them know that your calculations show that the estimate they received isn’t in line with what you see it to be. You then proceed to ask if they’d like to discuss the real value of their home.

  1. Mine Social Media Platforms

Social media is increasingly where people are active in their search for both homes and realtors who can assist with the sale or purchase of them. Realtors who meet people where they are on social media are going to do well with real estate lead generation because they will be building brand recognition, establishing authority, and growing their audience.

And for faster lead generation for relators social media is also great because it allows you to instantly communicate with large groups of people in a way that is more immediately engaging and promotes them responding to your interest faster because it’s so easy.

Here is what you should be doing for social media real estate leads this week.

Target unique audiences by creating social media posts and ads by making them engaging and valuable, and with the focus on value you can go back to #1 here and put your offer very clearly in the post or the ad. You may also want to cater to #2 and run and ad that states you believe that the home value estimates from online real estate platforms are chronically inaccurate, and any homeowner can contact you for a free market evaluation for their home.

You may also want to try targeting renters as a means of real estate lead generation through social media. An approach might be to inform them that they don’t need a full 20% down and that there are programs available designed to provide first-time homebuyer assistance. Another idea will be to offer a free real estate seminar or webinar (like The First Time Buyers Seminar: Everything You Need to Know About Buying Your First Home) or to publish a poll where respondents have the option to indicate if they’re planning to buy a new home this year.

A social media calendar for real estate is something you can look into too, and if putting one together is beyond the scope of your abilities then you may want to hire a social media expert to help you with that.

  1. Ask a Directs Question of Buyer Prospects

Not making the most of their real estate buyer leads is way too common with agents it seems. You may have buyers who are saying they’re planning to start looking in 3-6 months, but as real estate agent who needs quick real estate leads that doesn’t mean you should be waiting through that period of time to open communications with them. There are very likely buyer leads sitting in your CRM where you should be taking action now rather than waiting until the time you currently think is appropriate.

What you should do instead is be more direct (while courteous at the same time of course) asking these real estate buyer leads whether or not they need to sell their home before they buy a new one.

It’s a good question to ask because for a lot of would-be buyers this is often the primary stumbling block. New real estate leads can hang on this, because plenty of them will need to sell their homes before buying the next one. So the need becomes making sure they understand the timing of their listing. What you can do is advise them that they may need to list sooner than they thought based on current market forecasts, and especially if they’re hoping to adhere to a time frame for buying the new place.

Share your market knowledge with these clients and help them understand the selling process even if they aren’t quite ready to list. If they’re ready now, great and this is an instance of success with quick real estate leads. But if they need more time, that’s fine you’ve still done well and it’s more likely you’ll be at the front of their mind when they decide it’s time to choose a real estate agent to work with.

  1. Contact Everyone in Your Sphere

We’re well into sharing what we know about drumming up new real estate leads this week, and the final recommended approach we’re going to share with you here is contacting everyone in your sphere to make them aware that you are available and ready to work with new real estate clients who are ready to buy or sell a home locally. Not everyone in your sphere will be looking to buy or sell in immediate future, but more than a few of them will know someone who is and if you’re held in high regard by them then they will be inclined to recommend you as a realtor.

So when you reach out you can ask if they are looking to make a move, along with asking if they know of anyone else who might be too. Reach out for immediate real estate leads by the means that you think are going to be most effective for contacting these people and having your communication be favorably received. That could be by phone call, text, email, or a direct message through one of the many apps people use these days.

Your message to your sphere can be about your special offer(s) as we discussed earlier, or it may be more simply that you aim to check in with people to see how they’re doing. When they ask about you, tell them about the strength of the market and how you’re taking new clients if they know someone looking to make a move. All of these approaches are super effective to generate real estate leads, and can be used to augment what you are getting out of paid real estate leads with the best real estate lead company in Canada right here.

FAQs

  1. What are some effective ways to generate real estate leads quickly?

You can generate quick real estate leads by using social media posts to make prospective clients aware of special offers that you are making available to them that they won’t receive if they list or buy through another agent. Another effective way is to use online real estate platforms to be tipped off to for-sale-by-owner or expired listings where contact information for the homeowner is shown.

  1. How can social media help in generating real estate leads?

Today the majority of homebuyers in the younger demographic cohort will be very active on social media when it comes to looking at homes for sale, gauging the median market values for homes in areas, as well as being receptive to working with a realtor who they are introduced to through a social media platform. Realtors can do well with lead generation if they create smart and creative paid social media ads and also being very active in any local real estate Facebook groups.

  1. Can generating leads quickly compromise the quality of leads?

This may be true in certain instances, as it is always possible that prospective clients who present as warm or hot leads will turn out to be cooler leads simply because of the speed with which the communications between realtor and would-be client have occurred. The best advice here is to develop a real estate script that poses questions where responses can be more accurately discerned to indicate how legitimately the client is going to sell or buy a home in the near future.

  1. What is the benefit of hosting virtual open houses with an eye to generating immediate real estate leads?

A virtual open house puts the property for sale in the view of interested parties that go beyond local residents or interested buyers who are in person in the area as they look to buy a home there. These days it is much more common for prospective buyers to be elsewhere in the country, or even outside of the country.

A virtual open house will increase the reach of your efforts and it is likely that from time to time you may come up with new clients because someone has viewed your virtual open house and likes what they see – either with the property itself or with you have on display for your expertise as a real estate agent. They may well be thinking you are the type of industry professional they want to work with as they consider purchasing a home in your area.

The 100 Best Ways to Grow Your Real Estate Business

Published June 4, 2024 by Real Estate Leads

The 100 Best Ways to Grow Your Real Estate BusinessNo man or woman is going to enter the real estate profession with the mindset that it would be nice to do well in their new career. To be a success in this business means to be selling a lot homes, and leading plenty of homebuyers to buying homes as well. Done to the right extent and that can mean a very lucrative career and earning a very comfortable living for themselves and their family. That is going to be the aim for all of them, and it will still be the aim many years later if they continue to work as a real estate agent in Canada.

All of that is MUCH easier envisioned than done, however, and that’s primarily because real estate is as competitive a business as any. Anyone who is newly licensed as a realtor will quickly come to see that there are too many realtors in the business and that’s been the case for darn near 30 years now here in Canada. There is never going to be enough business to go around and have all the agents be satisfied with what they’re able to secure for themselves. You want to grow real estate business, but all of your competitors do too.

So how is it that some realtors always seem to do better than others? Is it mostly a reflection of their level of hustle and determination, or is there something more to it? In truth a lot of it has to do with real estate marketing strategies, and the successful realtors are ones who are identifying and utilizing the best ones most effectively. There are more immediate ways to increase real estate sales, and among them is using paid real estate leads like the service we make available here.

Some may want to argue we are not the best real estate lead company in Canada, but what we can tell you is that our service is the equal of any when it comes to giving agents leads on new real estate clients. The proof is certainly in the pudding there, and you can have a look at our testimonials if you’d like to see that for yourselves. But that’s not where our focus is going to be this week, and instead we are going to look at the 100 best approaches to real estate business development.

It’s a big number, so let’s get right into it.

Proactive Realtor = Successful Realtor

The one overarching theme in all of this is the understanding that as a realtor you need be super proactive in promoting yourself, and when you can do that with as many pokers in the fire you’ll be best positioned to have the success as a real estate agent that you envision for yourself. What will follow here are real estate business tips in a long list but each of them has made the list because they’ve brought new business for realtors in the past and can do the same for you.

  1. Have Your Own Website

A realtor having their own website is crucial for their success in real estate success nowadays. Fortunately it’s not difficult to make one yourself using a website builder for realtors, or it shouldn’t be too expensive to have a web designer put a basic one together for you. A website really is essential if you want to grow a real estate business.

  1. Start Blogging

There is research indicating that content marketing via your own blog costs 62% less than traditional marketing, while generating 3 times as many leads at the same time. It is true that agents are always missing out on leads because they don’t yet see how blogging generates real estate leads. With every blog post you publish, Google has more content to index and connect to your website for higher search engine page rankings (depending on other factors too). You will also be establishing yourself as the expert, building trust, and staying top of mind with prospective clients.

  1. Build your Mailing List

Real estate is all putting yourself and keeping yourself in front of prospective clients. Building your mailing list is a great way to do this. With real estate lead magnets you can give prospects an incentive to subscribe to your mailing list so you can stay in constant contact.

  1. Leverage your Listings

The reason established agents focus on listings is because listings generate more leads. Realtors who do well with strategic planning have the ability to turn every listing into multiple new leads. You can do this too, and especially if you make your listings especially visible to others who are considering listing their home.

  1. Generate Passive Leads

Prospecting is great, but the drawback is that it is time consuming. With passive marketing you can make the leads come to you instead of always chasing them down yourself.

  1. Establish Your Marketing Plan

It is absolutely essential for every new agent to have a marketing plan. You may have a general idea of how you’re going to reach clients, but you will still need a documented plan so that you can hold yourself accountable. Starting with this can be as simple as having a downloadable marketing plan workbook.

  1. Be Active with Social Media

Social media is increasingly one of the best ways to market yourself as a realtor. You will need to be selective about which platforms you are most active on, but there is so much potential in advertising yourself as a realtor on FaceBook and other social media platforms.

  1. Recession-Proof Your Income

The real estate market is always cyclical, and so realtors always need to have a plan for the next inevitable market downturn. It does require planning to survive and thrive in real estate when the housing market dips, but if you do your research and prepare well in advance it’s possible. The best approach is to start creating your recession-proof income streams before the market gets rough.

  1. Offer Property Tax Appeals

Property tax appeals may well be the single best way to recession-proof your real estate business. In down markets you can save your clients serious money on their property taxes while earning a solid commission for your efforts. What property tax appeals involve is presenting a CMA to your local taxing authorities suggesting the property is not as valuable as the authorities have assessed it to be.

  1. Buy-and-Hold

It is possible to grow your real estate business through more than just transactions. How about growing your real estate investment portfolio? Buy-and-holds present really good opportunities as real estate investments. Money is made through appreciation, rental cash flow, having tenants pay down mortgage debt, and generous tax breaks. In the event your only property is your residence, maybe this is the year you buy your first long-term investment property.

  1. Skip X for Social Media

X, formerly known as Twitter, isn’t a good choice for your social media marketing in real estate focuses because it requires more time and effort than most other platforms and has the shortest shelf-life per post. You may still want to have a profile to boost credibility with a certain client demographic, but by and large real estate agent are not generating real business on the platform.

  1. Create a Renter-to-Homeowner Program

A Renter-to-Homeowner Program is among smart real estate marketing strategies. It’s also comparatively cost-effective and an efficient use of prospecting time. What you will be doing is partnering with local apartment communities, offering to cover the lease-break fee for anyone who buys a home with you as their agent, and then going over those communities to make it likely that residents there see you as their agent of-choice.

  1. Tackle REOs

Foreclosures are always going to occur when the market declines. And those foreclosures are liabilities for the banks they revert to. Asset managers will aim to move these Real Estate Owned (REO) line items as quickly as possible. What you can do is establish connections with asset managers so that you’re the agent that is foremost on their minds when they begin to receive foreclosed properties.

  1. Host a Client Appreciation Event

Client appreciation events come with a significant cost when used as a means of real estate business development, but they are an effective way to earn referrals and repeat business. The most important thing about your event is to make it memorable. Aim to give your clients memorable experiences and they will be more likely to recommend you to others they know who are also looking to work with a real estate agent.

  1. Send a Thank-You to Client Offices

When you get a referral, don’t send a gift card to your client as a thank you. Do something like send them a bouquet at work to instantly generate buzz and very possibly earn another referral. Do this and when your client’s coworkers ask about the occasion, they will speak highly of their awesome real estate agent. Doing the same for your clients on closing day is also a possibility.

  1. Give Closing Gifts to Generate Referrals

Closing gifts are also a way to generates referrals, and the best ones are personalized so that clients’ friends and families will be asking ‘where did you get that?’ When they do, you will be brought up and this can be a way for you to generate real estate leads.

  1. Help Buyers with Credit Repair

Lenders become more hesitant to lend money when markets slump, and when this happens they increase their credit requirements. This can make it difficult for buyers with credit issues to qualify. What you can do as part of real estate business tips is offer credit repair services as part of your real estate business. You’ll be helping these buyers, earning a service fee, as well as building a relationship with new buyer clients.

  1. Monetize Your Real Estate Website

With placed advertisements and other means you can monetize your website and have it be much more than just a real estate lead generator. There are many ideas you can look into for turning your website into its own income stream.

  1. Create an eBook

There is a proven way to establish yourself as a real estate expert, build trust with your audience, and create a passive income stream. It is by publishing an eBook, and if you are able to focus on a real estate niche then your book can have maximum effect. Perhaps something specific about real estate investing (tax liens, wholesaling, flipping, etc) or something local (like a guide for those moving to the city).

  1. Offer Online Courses

This one is similar to the eBook suggestion, and with online courses you can establish yourself as the authority, build trust, and possibly create a passive income stream. You can expect them to take more time and effort to launch, but the tradeoff is that you can also charge more than you would for an eBook.

  1. Design Digital Products

Digital products like templates, workbooks, and designs are another option for creating passive income for years into the future. Consider expanding your real estate business by selling digital products of your own.

  1. Recession-Proof Expenses

We’ve talked about the need to have the foresight to prepare for the next recession, and it should also involve making your expenses recession-proof too. Your budget won’t look the same during a recession as it does during a strong market, so start making adjustments now so that the next recessions isn’t as negatively impactful for you.

  1. Build a Local Business Directory

The best real estate agents will come to be known as ‘knowledge brokers’. Building a local business directory on your website confirms your status as a local expert and knowledge broker. Start with the businesses your clients need most often (plumbers, electricians, locksmiths, etc), and notify each business as you add them to create a mutually-beneficial relationship and get your name out there.

  1. Be a Guest Expert

There are so many ways to establish yourself as a real estate expert and increase real estate sales. Another idea is to be a guest speaker at local colleges and/or give real estate market reports on local TV news or via local radio shows. You may also look into being the guest expert on local podcasts and blogs.

  1. Focus on Sellers

It has always been the consensus among realtors that buyer leads are easier to get and convert to clients. Seller leads are more of a challenge. But to grow a real estate business, you still want to focus more on sellers than buyers. Sellers always tend to complete faster, and for many reason they are also less of a gamble than buyers. If you’re solely working with buyers, consider a shift.

  1. Add Property Management to Services

Property management services are a great expansion opportunity for your real estate business. You can cross-promote, gaining new management clients from buyer and seller clients and vice versa. And if you invest the time in finding reliable tenants for your clients’ properties then property management can be a passive management task. In the event of a recession, you can make better-than-normal money from property management services to help offset declining real estate sales income.

  1. Invest in Commercial Real Estate

Real estate growth hacks can be found all over, and with that understood let’s look at those who have invested in a few residential properties throughout their career. What about making those same investments in commercial real estate? With long leases and purely professional relationships, commercial real estate can often be easier for realtors than residential. The only caution should be if there’s any heading into a market decline; it can be difficult to find new tenants for commercial space in a slow economy.

  1. Take Advantage of SEO

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is so important for a realtor’s website and all of their digital marketing promotion efforts. SEO is the key to being found online. Good SEO isn’t something that you can assemble easily, but there are also lots of simple ways you can boost your SEO to gain exposure for your website.

  1. Be Mobile-Friendly

These days it is of paramount importance that your real estate agent website be mobile friendly. This means that it will display properly if the person who is visiting it is doing so through a smartphone. Most people now use their phones and tablets to search for properties and information about the real estate sales process. If your site isn’t formatted to be viewed on these devices it is not going to be conducive to real estate business development.

  1. Be Prospecting Every Day

You know you should be prospecting every day, but for a lot of realtors in Canada this is hard to do. But what you can do is try using a daily prospecting checklist and if you need a little extra accountability then it may be a good idea to join forces with a colleague. You can send each other your completed checklists every day to show you’re doing the work and making efforts to build up new clients for a real estate business.

  1. Invest in Real Estate without Owning Individual Properties

We’ve already talked about growing your real estate business through real estate investments. However, there are going to be those who don’t want the responsibility of actually owning and managing a portfolio of properties. For these individuals it may be better to invest in real estate without property ownership! REITs, ETFs are good examples.

  1. Set SMART goals

The acronym for SMART stands for specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-sensitive. Need some SMART goals for real estate? There are all sorts of resources out there for you to set smart and realistic goals and then use adhering to them as a means of using your time to the best of your availability when it comes to promoting yourself as a real estate agent.

  1. Master Real Estate Prospecting Scripts

It’s okay if you’re not entirely sold on the need for real estate scripts. But all it can take is one blown real estate lead to know how dangerous it can be to work without them. If you’ve been around a while, you’ve probably come up with some successful scripts of your own and they’ve likely been revised through trial and error. And if you’re new to the business, give yourself a solid base by getting some clever scripts and adjusting them to best suit your unique personality.

  1. Be Clear on your Clients

Realtors always do better when they understand their client niche. The more narrow your audience, the more leads you’ll likely to be converting into clients. I know it sounds counterintuitive because you want to cast a wide net, but remember that you’re competing with literally every agent in your market. When you get clear on your clients, you can become the top agent in your niche quickly and easily. Center your marketing plan around your niche.

  1. Ditch IDX

The property search function on your website will never be as the one for Zillow or Realtor.ca. It’s not beneficial to have clients directed to use your site for property searches. IDX integrations are expensive and largely unnecessary in today’s marketplace. Continue to use your website to establish your brand and show off your market knowledge, but advise your clients to conduct their property searches by other more effective and more streamlined means.

  1. Recession-Proof Operations

Realtors should be asking how their business operations may change when recessions arrive and stick around. Those who weren’t in the industry during the last recession likely have no idea, so do a little research on recession-proofing real estate operations and get prepared.

  1. Update your Bio

You will also need to have a real estate agent bio that engages your prospective clients, and if writing is not your strong suit then it makes a lot of sense to hire someone to write a real estate agent bio for you. This is also part of your real estate marketing strategies.

  1. Establish your Brand

It is all too common for realtors to be relying on their broker’s branding. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but what about when you want to change brokers? You may also eventually want to start your own brokerage. For these reasons you need your own unique brand.

  1. Have a Financial Plan

Like marketing plans, financial plans are often much too loose for realtors and suggesting improvements to them is a part of real estate business tips too. Take the time to document your finances so you know where your last dollar went and where your next dollar will be coming from.

  1. Improve Your Open Houses

Open houses are usually a good way to sell listings, but they can also be a way to get more real estate leads when you know how to host them more effectively and get people more involved and volunteering their plans with purchases / sales in the real estate market.

  1. Promote your Testimonials

After every transaction it is best to send the clients a link to leave you an online review. Whether you direct them to Google, your website, or any of the property search sites is up to you. Do whatever is necessary to prompt them to give you a review. It is even better if they agree to being used in your marketing materials, with examples being on your real estate agent website or in social media posts.

  1. Do New Home Photoshoots

Here’s one approach you can take that almost no one else will – new home photoshoots. Get high quality photos of buyers settling into and enjoying their new home. Not only could this be an additional income stream to grow your real estate business, but you can also ask your clients to tag you when they share the photos online for some free marketing.

  1. Stay Local

Realtors who really invest time and money into online marketing may start seeing traffic from buyers and sellers all over the world, especially if you are realtor working in a destination city. But that’s often not what you want, as you you mostly want to attract people who might buy or sell in your area. So what you should do is keep the nature of your posts very local and mention your market constantly while also making it clearer that you want to work with local clients.

  1. Host Free Seminars or Workshops

We can’t stress strongly enough how important it is to establish your expertise, build trust, and engage new prospects. One way of doing this is to host a free seminar or workshop. Topics for first-time buyers, real estate investing, and staging to sell are all solid choices, and this is another good way to increase real estate sales.

  1. Always Have Professional Listing Photos

In the age of online property searches, your listing photos are going to be a huge part of the first impression made on any would-be clients. They will also be representative of your business. For this reason you should always invest in professional listing photos. If other agents in your market aren’t offering this added service, this also presents a good opportunity for you to differentiate yourself.

  1. Volunteer

If you have the time and energy to do it then volunteering is another good way to grow real estate business. Volunteering is a great way to establish yourself in the community, meet locals, and get to know your neighbors.

  1. Work From Public Spaces

Working from public spaces can actually be a way to get new real estate leads. What you can do is have a small sign next to your notebook that says ‘Real Estate Agent at Work – Open for Questions’.

  1. Have Digital Catalogs

Digital catalogs are exactly what they sound like – catalogs in digital format. You can suggest your client base subscribe to a digital catalog that is branded to your company, promotes your listings, and even includes interesting articles for locals.

  1. Utilize Recession-Proof Marketing

We already discussed recession-proofing income, expenses, and operations. You should also be working to make your marketing recession-proof too.

  1. Be Forthcoming with Buyer Questions

There’s a magic question in real estate that is often overlooked by agents. Ask this one question of all your buyers and it will do a lot for growing a real estate business – is selling your current home something you need to do before you can buy?

  1. Try Social Media Ads

Social media ads are a relatively inexpensive way to reach a fairly large audience, so you should learn how to make them and aim to be unique and creative with yours as you promote yourself as a local real estate agent.

  1. Get Real Estate Leads from Zillow

Zillow displays For Sale By Owner properties, giving you access to FSBOs you can convert to listings. Homeowners have the option to select ‘Make Me Move’ if they might be willing to sell under the right conditions. This will never be the best real estate lead company in Canada though.

  1. Be On Top of Expired Listings

Expired Listings are another great seller source. Make sure you have a game plan before reaching out to them, and another good approach tip is to contact them early in the morning the day after their listing expires. You don’t want to chance other agents being in contact with them first.

  1. Track Your Progress

You want your progress to be measurable when you’re working so hard to grow your real estate business. What you need to be doing is regularly reviewing and documenting your income, expenses, and habits to keep yourself on track.

  1. Consider Drone Photos

Using drones for real estate photography is really popular these days, and for obvious reasons with the way it lets realtors get an on-high vantage point of the properties they have for sale. For high-end listings, drone photos can make all the difference in the world.

  1. Have a Lead Follow-Up Plan

It’s fairly common for real estate agents to not have the best track record of following up with leads. Make sure you have a concrete plan for following up on all the real estate leads you generate, and especially if you’re paying for the best real estate lead generation services in Canada. This needs to be true of cool, warm, and hot leads equally, and of course you’ll also need to know how to make those determinations.

  1. Sponsor a Local Team, Event, or Project

As a real estate professional it will always benefit you to be involved in the community. Sponsoring a local sports team, event, or community project gives you a chance to make a difference in the community while promoting your business.

  1. Educate Clients

Buyers and sellers are better informed today than ever before, but each of them is going to have gaps in their understanding of the real estate market and how their property factors into it. Give your clients the educational resources they need to make informed decisions, and they will thank you with repeat business and referrals. A blog on your website is an ideal resource for this.

  1. Help Homeowners Avoid Foreclosure

Economic fluctuations can put homeowners underwater on their mortgages, behind on their payments, and unable to catch up. Some may need to consider foreclosure, but as a real estate agent you can help them. Inform them of refinancing options that might help or explain the concept of a short sale to them. If they can’t save their home, at least they can have you helping them avoid having a foreclosure on their record. This goodwill gesture can lead to new real estate leads in the future.

  1. Give Out Monthly Market Updates

Monthly market updates keep you top-of-mind with your clients, allow you to provide valuable information, and with them it is possible to generate referrals and repeat business. The key is to make the market updates interesting and relevant to individual buyers and sellers. Writing quality market reports and getting them into the hands of the right individuals can be a decisive part of effective real estate business development.

  1. Utilize Automation

To grow your real estate business, you need to free up some of your time and/or money. Automation is perfect for this. You can automate your social media marketing through tools like Hootsuite and automate your newsletters and email drip campaigns through services like MailerLite.

  1. Request Better Fee Splits

A good way to grow a real estate business is to ask a broker for a higher fee split as a means of quickly increasing your profit margins.

  1. Build a Passive Income Stream

Passive income can be very helpful for commission-based real estate professionals. When you are making money residually it can allow you to do more with your free time and weather market downturns like we discussed earlier. And it’s not difficult to do! It just takes an investment of time and/or money on the front end to reap the rewards on the back end.

  1. Help Investors Find Superior Deals

The great thing about working with investors is that they often tend to be repeat clients, regularly buying and selling properties. To stay top-of-mind with investor clients, send out a once-a-month newsletter full of the best investment deals currently on the market.

  1. Be Responsive

Prompt responses to client inquiries are a must in the real estate business. For any agent who struggles with this because they are just so busy it may be a good idea to invest in a 24/7 messaging service that can reply to your clients immediately so they never feel neglected.

  1. Listen to Podcasts During Drive Time

Real estate agents tend to be in the car a lot. Make that time more productive by brushing up on some quick real estate lessons. There are many good podcasts for real estate agents that you can listen to during the times you’re driving between appointments.

  1. Plan Your Team’s Growth

Real estate agents often find their hands are increasingly too full as they become more successful in the business. If that’s you then it may be time for an admin, a buyer’s agent, or a social media manager. Take some time to think about your personnel needs for the coming year.

  1. Maintain your CRM

Your CRM (Client Relationship Manager) is the lifeblood of your business. It tells you who you need to follow up with and when. The good news is that you don’t need a fancy software subscription for your CRM. You can buy a simple CRM on Etsy for under $10 or even make your own.

  1. Find Success as a Part-Time Agent

For some working in real estate part-time makes sense because they have other means of income or have transitioned later in their working life and have build a base for themselves already. If this is you then you should tailor your marketing efforts accordingly and advertise yourself as a realtor who is more available to be working with their clients because of your working arrangement in the profession.

  1. Boost Social Posts

Realtors should be working with their social media strategies for real estate and trying different approaches to see what works best for generating real estate leads. One thing you can try is to ‘boost’ a few posts for as little as $5. This is slightly different from running social media ads, but can be just as effective.

  1. Publish Sponsored Posts

Sponsored posts are what bloggers use to make money from posts. All you need to do is find someone willing to pay for a mention and backlink from your site to their site. Backlinks then boost your credibility on Google. If you can establish a successful real estate blog you can make anywhere between $25 and several hundred dollars per post plus getting maximum visibility as a means of generating new real estate leads.

  1. Guide Local Experiences

If you are very familiar with your area why not offer guided tours and locals-only experiences to outsiders? This works especially well if you live in a tourist destination and in doing so you may even find an out-of-town buyer who wants to buy property there and will choose to work with you as their real estate agent.

  1. Rent Out Tools and Equipment

If you have the equipment then renting out tools and equipment can be a way of making good connections as a real estate agents. This works particularly well in a slow economy when people are more inclined to do the work themselves than to hire professionals for home improvement jobs.

  1. Provide Video Tours of Listings

Video is an excellent medium for real estate sales and as an agent you can re-purpose your videos in several different ways. Examples can be posting them your YouTube channel, embedding them in your website, and sharing snippets on social media.

  1. Offer Staging Services

Staging properties can help them sell faster and for more money. If you can offer staging services as part of what you offer as a realtor that can be a convincing point for anyone who’s in the process of deciding which realtor they’re going to work with as they prepare to sell their home and know having it look its best is important.

  1. Try Webinars

If seminars are working for you, but you want to reach a wider audience then you cantry webinars. It’s the same information, but using a virtual platform instead of presenting face-to-face.

  1. Read new Books

A successful real estate agent is continuing to learn all the time. So make the effort to read a few new industry books over the coming year, and try to determine which types of these books are best for helping you grow real estate business and learn new real estate marketing strategies.

  1. Increase Your Marketing Budget

If you want to grow your real estate business then you’ll want to increase your marketing budget to get your business more exposure. Anytime sales are slow this is when you’ll want to up your marketing budget expenditure. You can gain a greater market share by pushing forward with your marketing budget.

  1. Try Inexpensive Mailers

This is another one of our real estate growth hacks. Try to create a mailer that is attractive, unique, and engaging but won’t cost too much to print in volume and have sent out to prospective clients that you have become aware of as part of real estate leads.

  1. Go With a Website Facelift

If your real estate agent site has become outdated then you should consider giving it an upgrade. Website design mistakes are incredibly common and could be costing you business. An attractive and engaging site that is up to the latest standards is really important.

  1. Upgrade Imaging

The same can apply for the imaging you’re using on your website and your social media. With so many royalty-free stock photo sites available, you have plenty of free, professional photos you could be using instead.

  1. Make it Easy for Content to be Shared

We recommend an easy-to-use plugin called Social Warfare for making it easy for site and blog visitors to share content you’ve made available. And the more social shares you get, the more exposure you gain for your business.

  1. Improve Social Media Engagement

When it comes to social media in real estate just posting your listings and leaving it at that isn’t going to be enough to get the new-client traction you want. You won’t be doing real estate social media right if this is your approach. It’s all about engagement. Ask questions, post polls, and tell people to tag a friend who would be the perfect owner for your new listing. You want to increase shares, likes, and comments.

  1. Always Ask for Referrals

Real estate agents should be confident enough to always be asking for referrals. They might ask their contacts if they plan on moving in the next year or so, but what they forget to ask is ‘Who do you know who might be moving this year?’

  1. Be Available

The reason real estate teams are so successful is that there are more people who can be available for moments-notice showings. If you’re getting so much business that you can’t be available for your clients, that’s a good indicator that it’s time to add another person to your business. If you want to increase real estate sales you need to make every effort to be as available for your prospective clients as possible.

  1. Invite Neighbors to Open Houses

If you want to get the word out about your open house and uncovering new lead at the same time then it is a good idea to invite people in person. Of course while you’re inviting them, ask if they (or anyone they know) might be planning to move in the next year or so.

  1. Outsource Tasks as Needed

A realtor’s scope of duties often quickly becomes too big for just one person, especially if their PREC has become successful. Understand the time when you need to hire an executive real estate assistant! Virtual Assistants (VAs) are a cost-effective option for getting professional administrative help.

  1. Give Video Tours of Neighborhoods

Realtors can mount their smartphone to the dash of their car and drive around neighborhoods narrating the sites as they go. This gives prospective buyers a unique insider peek into each neighborhood, introduces you as the local expert, and creates some great content that can be indexed for better real estate website SEO.

  1. Under-Promise & Over-Deliver

No matter how well you perform, if you set your clients up to expect better, they will be disappointed. Try under-promising and over-delivering as an equation that is more likely to create happier clients and ones that will recommend you as a means of getting real estate leads.

  1. Celebrate Housiversaries

Here’s a quick, easy, inexpensive way to surprise past buyers and make them see you in an even more favorable light as a good realtor: send a Happy Housiversary Card every year to celebrate the anniversary of their home purchase.

  1. Create Compelling Listing Descriptions

Like listing photos, listing descriptions go a long way to swaying buyers favorably on a property before they even see it. When a listing description is written well it sells the lifestyle more than it does the property. Describe all the things the buyer could do in the home when they’re living their best life.

  1. Try 3D Home Tours

3D home tours are a good way for online house hunters to get a feel for the layout and size of a home before they can go through it in person. Offering 3D home tours is also a great way to differentiate yourself from other agents in your market.

  1. Share Social Posts to Groups

You can gain so much more exposure with your social media posts when you share them on group pages. Neighborhood groups are the ideal locations because neighbors are going to have more natural interest in local real estate market news, new listings, and new neighbors.

  1. Create Property Landing Pages

Tools like LeadPages have made it easier than ever to create quick, custom landing pages for individual properties. Try this great tool for your listing presentations.

  1. Focus on Marketing Activities with the Best ROI

It is not advisable to devote time to marketing activities that don’t produce good returns on your investment. Track your ROI by listing your marketing activities, determining the annual expense of each, and documenting how much annual income comes from each method. Then divide the income by the expense to calculate the ROI of each activity.

  1. Add 360-degree Photo to Google Street View

With the Google Street View app, you can create your own 360-degree photos of the ground floor of your listings and upload them instantly. This gives Google more indexable content for the property address, and this 360 view will be viewable on Google Images and Google Maps when someone enters a Google search for that address because they’d like to see it.

  1. Wear a Name Tag

Identify yourself when you’re out and about. This could be a name tag with your profession when you’re working and a branded polo, hoodie, or tee shirt when you’re not. This invites people to ask about the market because they will know you’re a working real estate industry professional.

  1. Have Daily Plans

Good time management is essential for realtors and improving yours is always going to be central with real estate business tips. You are solely responsible for your schedule. Having a daily plan helps immensely. Try reading The Miracle Morning for Real Estate Agents to learn more about the power of planning your day.

  1. Focus on Specific Price Ranges

It is natural to be more in pursuit of higher-value properties because they provide higher income with fewer transactions. This is why so many agents want to be in the luxury real estate niche. But when markets slip, luxury listings suffer. In down housing markets you may actually be better off with lower-range listings.

  1. Offset Marketing Costs

Growing profit margins are key to growing your real estate business. You can reduce your marketing budget while growing your reach by offsetting your marketing costs. This is best done by partnering with other industry companies. For your events and seminars, suggest partnering with lenders, title reps, escrow officers, inspectors, and appraisers and split event costs. For your digital and print marketing, you can include links to your partner providers in exchange for a portion of the marketing cost.

FAQs

What are some effective ways to generate leads for my real estate business?

Using a paid real estate lead service is often the most effective way to get real estate leads, but you can also try networking with homeowner’s associations and using traditional advertising means like billboards and mailers sent out to clients at their addresses.

How can I improve my online presence as a real estate agent?

The best way to improve your presence is to have a well-designed realtor website that features regularly updated content and is SEO optimized so that the site comes up high in search engine results when people search for agents in your specific area. The second approach you will want to use is to be active with social media platforms and sharing content and posts there that make you more well known as a local realtor who is eager to work with new clients.

How important is it to have a niche in the real estate market?

It is only more important to have a niche in the real estate market if you are working as a realtor in an area of the country where there are many different types of listings on the market at all times and the large population base there means that there are many other local realtors working there too. It is less important if you are realtor working in a smaller market, but it may still be something you want to consider.

How can I use content marketing to grow my real estate business?

The key in content marketing for real estate is first of all to have good and original content coming from you. If you are not able to write it yourself then you should invest in having someone create real estate industry-related and local-market specific content for you and then have it published on your website with a blog or featured articles. You should then be having the content be inbound linked to through other areas on the web, and especially from social media platforms. A CMS for a real estate website blog is an excellent choice here.

How can I build and maintain a strong client relationship?

The most effective way for realtors to build and maintain strong client relationships is to be in regular communication, but to do so in a genuine manner that makes it clear that your interest is less in securing business for yourself and more in honestly helping people have more success with the sale or purchase of real estate. Communications should be timely, but not done with too much frequency. And you will also want to consider making an effort to keep notes about clients and specifics about them, and use this information when it makes sense to do that. This really helps to keep the communications genuine.

You will also want to include anything that you’ve done recently to further cement you skillset and knowledge about real estate, as this signifies your dedication to your profession and reminds them of why they should choose to work with you again. Your aim is to grow real estate business, and having this type of approach to client communications is very much in line with doing that.