What Approach For Generating Real Estate Leads (Home Sellers)? - Just Landed A Client

Hi guys,

I hope everyone is doing great!

Just landed a client for real estate lead generation and I am going to be generating leads who are interested in selling their home.

I have not yet decided the exact process I want to go with to convert people into leads. I will be using Facebook to drive targeted traffic, but beyond that, the sales funnel and process, lead magnet, emails, etc have not yet been decided on.

I guess I am looking for others who are currently generating leads for real estate agents, who are able to share some ideas and concepts with me. I am confident I will be able to generate quality leads, but if I can cut the learning curve by going with a tried and tested process / idea, why not?!

Looking forward to hearing what you guys have to say.

You said you already have a client before you even have a way to generate them....not good. Did you already quote them a price per lead? RE buyer and seller leads are not easy - there is no turn key method.

Do you already have ad creatives and landing pages designed? You are going to need to split test different pages and traffic sources.

Where are you located? Big market? Small market?

Are you 100% set on Facebook? Is there a reason why?

Hi netmoney,

I did get a client before having a working lead generation funnel for them. I learned from previous mistakes that it is doesn't pay to waste time working on stuff before I have a client.

The way I am getting my own clients (and in this case my first client) is by generating my own leads. I intend to use a similar approach for them, obviously modified for them.

Yes price per lead is built into the contract and is stipulated as $100 per lead.

No ads or landing pages designed as of yet. Can't do any of that without planning it all first. Split testing ads, landers and emails is of course part of the routine. Don't want to be wasting money on stuff that isn't generating leads

Located in Australia, compared to USA etc it is a smaller market. But I am generating qualified leads, not tire kickers with minimal interest. Only need 15 quality leads a month to make a great ROI.

Set on Facebook at the moment because that is how I am generating my own leads and I feel it will work well for RE leads. Of course I am open to other traffic sources, but I have experience with Facebook for the most part. A bit of experience with Adwords, but not enough to feel comfortable with it.

Have you done any RE lead gen?

this isnt so much a real estate question so much as it is a marketing question. Do some research on the people you want to target, learn as much as possible then you will have enough information to decide where is best to try and target them.

I dont know the real estate market at all but your probably looking for older people, established with enough money to buy a house, maybe newspaper,radio local ads would be beneficial. Market research before executing your plan makes everything easier

krzysiekz said:

I am confident I will be able to generate quality leads, but if I can cut the learning curve by going with a tried and tested process / idea, why not?!

Looking forward to hearing what you guys have to say.

Click to expand...

It seems you are saying 'I know how to generate real estate leads, but can someone please tell me how to generate real estate leads'

Clearly you have the ability to pick up clients and that's a good thing. But you should make sure you are able to deliver first, otherwise you will lose those clients and in the process will get a bad reputation.

With regards to leads, start thinking about the types of people who are more likely to be buying property, or the circumstances which lead to wanting / needing to buy property.

Once you know who and where your target market is, you will be more able to find them.

Some ideas off the top of my head:

People approaching retirement
People whose last child has just moved out of the family home
People who have just got married
People who just got promoted
People who just got a much better job
People who are about to relocate
Someone whose spouse has just died

Trepanated said:

It seems you are saying 'I know how to generate real estate leads, but can someone please tell me how to generate real estate leads'

Clearly you have the ability to pick up clients and that's a good thing. But you should make sure you are able to deliver first, otherwise you will lose those clients and in the process will get a bad reputation.

With regards to leads, start thinking about the types of people who are more likely to be buying property, or the circumstances which lead to wanting / needing to buy property.

Once you know who and where your target market is, you will be more able to find them.

Some ideas off the top of my head:

People approaching retirement
People whose last child has just moved out of the family home
People who have just got married
People who just got promoted
People who just got a much better job
People who are about to relocate
Someone whose spouse has just died

Click to expand...

I guess you are right. I can generate leads for myself in my own business, but I don't have a process in place for RE leads. I have a pretty good idea of how I am going to get it done, was posting to connect with others who are doing the same thing. This way, I could cut the time and learning curve and get onto a winning campaign quicker.

I should have made my OP clearer, as it seems you are not the only one who is confused by my post.

Essentially, I was looking more for what types of lead magnets, offers, email series etc people are running to generate RE leads. I already do very in depth targeting excercises before each new campaign, but it's the type and topic of lead magnet, frequency and content of emails, etc that I am more interested in.

There is a chance to mess it up, given that I have not done RE lead gen before. But that isn't going to stop me. Don't have time to waste! I have a refund guarantee on the performance of my work anyway, so if it hits the fan, client will be refunded (and I end up having worked for free).

Anyway, I like the ideas about what types of people to target. Even though I am generate seller leads, those things you mentioned still apply.

Anyone else want to chime in?

Thanks

Why are you not building a website for this purpose and targeting longtails, like affluent neighborhoods?

I am going to be using landing pages, but in terms of SEO - I will not be relying on that at all. I am after quick and predictable results. So the focus is on paid traffic only in this case. I can of course target those neighbourhoods with the paid traffic, so that won't be a problem.

Do you do some lead gen via websites/SEO at the moment? I once did a bit of that but it didn't end well, and hence I no longer rely on SEO.

krzysiekz said:

I am going to be using landing pages, but in terms of SEO - I will not be relying on that at all. I am after quick and predictable results. So the focus is on paid traffic only in this case. I can of course target those neighbourhoods with the paid traffic, so that won't be a problem.

Do you do some lead gen via websites/SEO at the moment? I once did a bit of that but it didn't end well, and hence I no longer rely on SEO.

Click to expand...

Any reason why they don't want buyer leads? Strictly seller leads are tough...and this is why: they all hear the same shit by every realtor these days: "I will sell your house the fastest for the best price" - no seller wants to just submit their info thinking some jackass that just got their RE license is going to call them.

Everyone is a realtor these days - so create unbranded landing pages that offer free "insider tips" or "must knows"....

Example: "7 Things You MUST Know Before Hiring Your Next Real Estate Agent to List Your Property" - this will get you a much higher conversion rate - they want that info - then in your TOS make note that in exchange for providing this free resource the consumers info is sold to one local real estate professional. - Something like that just to cover your ass.

...but if you have landers that say "speak to a real estate professional about selling your home" and headlines along that line it will be tough. Use free reports, insider tips....

netmoney1 said:

Any reason why they don't want buyer leads? Strictly seller leads are tough...and this is why: they all hear the same shit by every realtor these days: "I will sell your house the fastest for the best price" - no seller wants to just submit their info thinking some jackass that just got their RE license is going to call them.

Everyone is a realtor these days - so create unbranded landing pages that offer free "insider tips" or "must knows"....

Example: "7 Things You MUST Know Before Hiring Your Next Real Estate Agent to List Your Property" - this will get you a much higher conversion rate - they want that info - then in your TOS make note that in exchange for providing this free resource the consumers info is sold to one local real estate professional. - Something like that just to cover your ass.

...but if you have landers that say "speak to a real estate professional about selling your home" and headlines along that line it will be tough. Use free reports, insider tips....

Click to expand...

Glad to hear from you!

What you've described is exactly what I am intending on doing. You are right on the money!

The idea was to get them to make an initial investment (for a free report) by providing their name / email. Then I have their email to keep in touch. But also upon opt in, can direct them to a page where they can request personal assistance. Wouldn't need a high conversion rate on this second step to make this work. This is a similar approach to what I use now to generate my own leads and it works pretty well.

They don't want buyer leads because they say that finding a buyer isn't the hard part. Getting listings is harder and more competitive. Also, I guess most people who are selling are probably going to be buying - so it does give him some buyers from the people who end up selling.

Regarding the TOS, the whole time it will be branded in the agent or agency name, so it will not appear that I am just "generating a lead". It will appear that the agent themselves is the one putting out the information, so if the agent contacts them, they already know his/her name and agency name. I don't think I would need that statement in the TOS for this reason. What do you think?

If they opt in for a free report, I wouldn't be getting the agent to call them just yet anyway. It would waste too much time as there would be a boatload of opt ins for a report like that. I would need the opt in to take a second step and ask for personal assistance (in some form) before the agent got on to them. The ones who do not request assistance right at the start are emailed over time until they are ready to go.

Right now I am just trying to work out the best way to approach this. Offer a free report like the one you suggested, or another approach?

I noticed a lot of websites/providers/etc are claiming they generate a lot of seller leads through offering a "free properly valuation" where its just a landing page, user submits their address, name, email, phone and agent follows up. I just don't think this would produce the type of quality I would want to deliver. I would want the user to specifically request a call, that way the agent feels easy going into the sale and the quality is better.

Interested to hear your thoughts! Thanks for chiming in man!

Once I get my first Re campaign down pat and working, I am going to scale this big time!

I've also run this idea through my head a number of times -- creating a sales/follow-up funnel that brands your client as a helpful expert in their field until the potential customer feels comfortable taking the next step. It's really just about leading over and over with helpful and free in the follow-up sequence. Once you've dumped tons of helpful, free stuff on the potential customer, reciprocity kicks in and they no longer feel that they're being sold to, but that they are now in a two-way relationship with your client and that they want to now do something for your client. You can continuously follow up with anything helpful regarding RE with the potential customer: news, short RE-related white papers, little cartoons and funny jokes about real estate, anything, just to keep the lines of communication open and to continue branding your client as a friendly, helpful expert, and as a real person. But end off each follow-up email with a restatement of the problem and a call to action. So if it's some news article about RE -- "I found this interesting article today about how tough it can be to blah blah blah in this economy blah blah blah. Thought you guys might find it interesting. And remember, if you ever run into a snag like in the article blah blah blah while trying to blah blah blah, just remember, I'm here to help. Just click here to get in touch and I'll see what I can do for you guys." Eventually the potential customer feels like your client is a trusted adviser and they'll reach out to him.

The thing I've always gotten cold feet on is how small a target audience in FB can be for local stuff like this. I've always felt that you'd hit every potential customer with multiple impressions within days and that's it, tapped out and the leads start drying up, and you can no longer justify your fee. How do you feel about that, OP? Aren't you finding the target markets to be pretty small?

Hi SpinBlade,

Agree with a lot of what you've said. Was planning to keep in touch with them via email and provide valuable content, with a link to get in touch at the bottom of emails.

However, the client will want to see more immediate results. Those in the email follow up sequence will likely convert over time. It will be a very valuable source of leads over time, but I need to provide leads in the short term too.

In regards to the audience size, yes once you have hit them with several impressions (high frequency) your ad will probably start to decline. But in real estate they are usually happy to service a decent area, and the target audiences are about 50,000+. Seems large enough to get some leads coming in.

Otherwise could also later include Google ads into the mix for 2 traffic sources. Benefit here is, you optimise lander and conversion flow with cheaper ads (FB) and then plug in Google. Obviously have to consider the buyers state of mind, as it may differ between FB and Google searches.

At the end of the day, don't let your concern stop you. If it comes out to be a reality, worry about it then (once you have a client paying you, you've generated results and your leads are drying up).

Don't worry about that stuff before any of it even happens!