Real estate lead generation is constantly evolving. Many agents are looking for new and innovative real estate lead generation strategies in addition to Facebook advertising.
What brought in great leads at an affordable rate just a few months ago might not work today. To help you think outside the box, here are what I consider to be the most effective real estate lead generation strategies to keep the real estate leads flowing, and your phone ringing in 2023.
Here Are The Best Real Estate Lead Generation Strategies For 2022:
Increase Response Rates With Facebook Messenger Ads
Lots of agents are advertising on Facebook and Instagram these days, many skip over one of the best lead generation opportunities: Facebook Messenger ads. Sending facebook real estate ads to Messenger can get you open rates that are 242% higher than email, and offer much higher response rates than traditional Facebook ads.
You can use Messenger to advertise hotlists of niche listings like waterfront homes, fixer-uppers, or hot new underpriced listings. One of my coaching clients even uses Messenger ads for old expireds with great results.
Generate Exclusive Seller Leads
We offer one of the best home valuation tools available. With our AVR tool, Homeowners use the site to check the value of any property nationwide. Leads are sent to you via email, and can be dropped directly into any CRM.
Best of all, as we provide the tool, you are not limited to available zip codes or areas. You can drive traffic to the home valuation tool through Google and Facebook Ads to Generate Real Estate Seller Leads.
If you want to see how our valuation tool works you can check out a demo here: Seller Lead Generation. If you want to see how this real estate lead generation strategy could work for your real estate business to generate real estate seller leads; schedule a free consultation today!
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See How We Get You REAL Results.
SEM – Unlock massive amounts of traffic with Search Engine Marketing (SEM) using a combined SEO/PPC strategies with clear ROI. See REAL Results
SOCIAL / EMAIL – our team creates epic content that will get shared, get links, and attract traffic back to your website for lead generation.
CRM – Tie all of your marketing efforts together, track your contacts across all channels, automate follow-up, and measure REAL results.
Divorce Leads
Competition for the low-hanging fruit leads in pretty much any farm area is usually fierce.
Do you want genuinely motivated leads? How about leads that have a court order to sell their home? How about leads who really, really, really want to move?
If you’ve got reserves of patience and empathy, then working divorce leads might 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 get to show potential divorce clients that you know your stuff and mean business.
Generate Exclusive Buyer Leads
With your Real Estate IDX Website from CHEM.agency you have your own cutting-edge platform to generates exclusive buyer leads. Drive traffic to your real estate website through Google Ads and Social Media Ads, such as Real Estate Facebook Ads, teamed with our agency (done-for-you) services which offer advanced targeting, marketing, and lead nurturing tools, and expert training to help you close more of the leads you get.
We have spent the last 16 years optimizing the conversion rates of the websites we build. Agents’ utilizing our Custom Real Estate IDX websites not only own their marketing platform – eliminating monthly platform fees – but also eleminate any limitations on availability in certain ZIP codes.
When you own your website and marketing platform you can generate as many leads as you can manage, anywhere.
Let us help you take control of your real estate marketing. Schedule a free real estate consultation today by filling out this form:
Get A Free Consultation
See How We Get You REAL Results.
SEM – Unlock massive amounts of traffic with Search Engine Marketing (SEM) using a combined SEO/PPC strategies with clear ROI. See REAL Results
SOCIAL / EMAIL – our team creates epic content that will get shared, get links, and attract traffic back to your website for lead generation.
CRM – Tie all of your marketing efforts together, track your contacts across all channels, automate follow-up, and measure REAL results.
Use Slydial Broadcast to Circle Prospect Just Sold & Open Houses
Circle prospecting is one of the best ways to stake out your claim in your farm area. If you want to become the real estate agent in a neighborhood, you’re going to have to get in front of the neighbors as often as possible.
The only problem is that some neighborhoods are already blanketed with door hangers, flyers, and postcards from your competition. With a little creativity, you can beat the competition to the chase before they get their flyers printed.
Working with real estate coach Tom Ferry, Tampa Bay Realtor Christina Griffin came up with an ingenious strategy to reach homeowners in her farm area.
She bought lists of homeowners’ cell numbers, then, after cross-checking with the DNC, used a clever new app called Slydial Broadcast to leave them all voicemails advertising her next open house automatically.
The response was immediate and massive. She got 200 leads on her first day.
Automate Your Prospecting With Zurple
Most people think getting started is the hardest thing to do in real estate. But most people have never tried to scale a successful real estate business.
Apps like Zurple that use patent-pending software to analyze a lead’s behavior to figure out when they’re ready to transact, BEFORE they’re ready to transact. Even better, they generate those leads for you so you can actually focus on closing and generate leads while you sleep.
Use Predictive Analytics to Get Leads & Farm Your Local Area
Predictive analytics has been waiting in the wings of real estate marketing for a couple of years now, but it stormed the stage and grabbed the spotlight with the emergence of SmartZip. SmartZip uses artificial intelligence (AI) to parse hundreds of data points from across the internet and from your local MLS to determine which property owners in your targeted geographic area are most likely to sell this year.
That means rather than trying to market to an entire community, you can focus only on property owners who are most likely to sell and ensure you’re the first real estate agent they talk to.
Build Local Connections that Lead to the Best Referrals
Any experienced agent will tell you that referrals are the best source of new leads. The only problem is that referrals can be hard to come by, especially for newer agents.
Hyper-local community marketing gives you a way to generate referrals from local business owners and influencers. Building a hyper-local website will help you to generate the referrals that lead to deals and MORE referrals.
This can be done on your own website from CHEM.digtal saving you additional platform cost and limitations of farm availability from third-party services.
Pitch Your Listing (or Expertise) to News Outlets
Most people do not think about pitching their listings to news outlets, but it has surprisingly proven to be one of the best strategies for getting a lot of leads extremely quickly. It’s amazing to see the response you get when backed by a reputable publication. Not only can you sell a property quickly through the publicity, but you will also gain a lot of new clients for other listings as well. Media coverage brings a lot of credibility to your services and expertise.
Pro tip: Don’t have New York Times-worthy listings? You can still pitch journalists your expertise on sites like HARO or by following the #journorequest hashtag on Twitter. Local publications are always looking for stories so your regional newspapers and magazines with staff reporters/columnists are a great place to start.
Build & Advertise a Real Estate Brand Instead of Your Personal Brand
One of the most common misconceptions with online advertising is that you need to push your “personal” brand constantly. In reality, of course, most people are not looking for you. Many of them might not want an agent at all. Instead, build a brand that offers buyers and sellers in your area something they want.
That might mean IDX listings or, in East Bay San Francisco Realtor and entrepreneur Kristina McCann’s case, discovering that what buyers in her area wanted most was off-market homes.
After building and launching her site, Kristina generated $40 million in buyer leads in her first month.
[Related article: The Best Real Estate Logos of 2021 + Tips & Mistakes to Avoid]
Send Sales Letters to Absentee Owners
Good old-fashioned sales letters. There’s a difference between direct mail and drip mail. Most of the time in real estate, we call drip mail ‘direct mail.’ For instance, sending postcards twice a month to a geographic farm isn’t direct mail—despite calling it that—because it usually isn’t angling for a ‘direct response.
To the contrary, it’s more about creating top-of-mind awareness and branding. Direct mail has more to do with organizing a vetted and scrubbed list of ideal recipients and then delivering a calibrated letter—or a few letters in a row—that are designed to get the recipients to take action within a relatively short time frame.
Given that the market is adjusting pretty much everywhere, we’re having some clients who are sending out kindhearted and well-reasoned letters to absentee owners in communities and areas where appreciation has been favorable and where it looks like selling now may be the best play in the foreseeable future.
Use Deep Insight From Zillow My Agent to Convert More Leads
Did you know that even after a buyer contacts an agent, they go back to Zillow an average of 27 times and look at 77 more listing pages in 30 days? That means that even if you answered your phone right away and wowed them, there’s still a huge chance they’ll wind up working with someone else. Even worse, you’ll never even know it. They’ll just stop returning your calls.
So if you want to 3x your lead conversion, then Zillow Premier Agent’s new feature, My Agent, is for you. It puts only your contact information on every single listing your lead looks at after they contact you.
Even better, My Agent provides agents with deep insight on which properties they’re viewing, saving, and searching for on Zillow.
Hand Out Free Seasonal Treats With Your Business Card
One suggestion I offer to newer agents is to go to the mall or shopping center during the holiday shopping season and hand out business cards attached to a candy cane to everyone walking by. No need to wait in line to see Santa to get a candy cane. Spread a little Christmas cheer with the candy canes and, hopefully, pick up a new client or two for the new year. Everyone loves a candy cane at Christmas.
Another idea might be to print water bottle labels, go to the shopping areas where the crowds line up waiting for the big Black Friday sales events, and pass out water bottles with your brand—business card—on them to the crowds waiting in line.
Use the FREE HOME VALUATION / INSTANT HOME VALUATION message as a call to action on the bottle – perhaps include a QR code to scan to make access to your home valuation tool super easy.
Use Automated Text Marketing (SMS messages get a 97% open rate)
Text messages have a whopping 97% open rate compared to 20% even for the best emails? The only problem is that tapping out individual texts to your leads takes up way too much time you could be spending cold calling.
Using the advanced text messaging platform you get with iMax CRM that comes bundled with its IDX websites, you can automate your text marketing and start filling your calendar with showings tomorrow.
Use Seasonal Leave-behinds
The two best leave-behinds tried by agents are placing American flag on each lawn just prior to the Fourth of July and a pumpkin on each doorstep around Halloween. The response is incredible and the connection to the community is even better. Over the years, neighbors will come to expect it and refer to you as ‘The Pumpkin Guys’ or ‘The Flag Guys.’”
Pitch Older Expired Listings
Don’t just reach out to listings that are newly expired like everyone does, but dig deeper and pay special attention to the ones that expired a year or more ago that never relisted. You can figure that at some point these potential clients wanted to sell, so why not reach out to them to see what their plans are, how they may have changed, and how you could help them meet their objective. If their plan is to sell sometime in the future, offer to assist them with a real estate marketing strategy so they’re ready to hit the ground running when the timing is perfect.
Network at Non-Real Estate-related Events
If you’re going to events where everyone else is just like you, your odds of meeting quality leads are slim to none.
Instead of going to the same old real estate mixers or networking events, think outside the box and join some non-real estate-related local events. Your next client can be found at a community yoga workshop, a sip-and-paint night, a book reading, or even at a concert.
Just be careful of trying to ‘sell’ to people you meet.
Instead, go to an event you’ll truly enjoy, engage in the flow of conversation, and when you get the ‘what do you do?’ question, give them an answer that truly makes your real estate services shine. Even if you don’t get any new leads, you’ll spend time doing things you love. How can you go wrong?
Try Ranking Articles on Google for Luxury or Historic Listings
Too many Realtors believe that the time has passed to rank organically on Google successfully—specifically targeting ranking opinion articles for individual property addresses and then providing ‘the rest of the story’ so the potential buyers can read your opinions of the property’s strengths and weaknesses. This works extremely well with very high-end or historic properties. The buyer gets to hear your tone and gets a feel for your personality as well as some honest insight about the property they’re considering buying.
Join Your Local Chamber of Commerce
If you join your local chamber of commerce, you can get your name and business listed in newsletters and websites and get referrals and make valuable connections who are well established in your area.
You can become members of the town and county chambers that your office is in, as well as nearby areas or counties that you serve or have offices in. Similarly, you can look into becoming a member of a destination marketing organization (DMO) or convention and visitors bureau (CVB). Sometimes these are the same as the Chamber and other times they are a separate entity.
Learn to Rank Your Website on Google by Building Quality Backlinks
When doing search engine optimization (SEO), focus on building links back to your site from sites that are relevant to your business. If you’re selling houses, then getting a link to your website from a blog on Realtor.com is going to drive your site up in the Google search rankings. Whatever you do, don’t perform shady backlink building practices, such as buying 500 backlinks for $20 on Fiverr. SEO won’t produce leads for your business immediately but, over time, your organic lead flow will increase, which will improve your ROI on your business drastically.
Help Your Buyers Find an Investment, Not Just a Home
I have found through the years that agents do not have enough knowledge of how to guide their clients through real estate investing from their primary residence. I work with business managers and accountants to share business and guide our clients together to gain wealth through real estate. Most people think you buy a house and live in it, sell it, and buy another one, but what if they kept that first house and bought another one, and gained passive income from the first? I have clients for life because they trust I’m guiding them on the right path of when and what to sell based on their needs and income desires in the future.
Schedule Outreach With Your Sphere Every Day
In my opinion, the best underrated lead-generating technique is accessing and utilizing your current network. After all, unlike cold internet leads, these are people who probably already know and trust you. So, carve out time every day to reach out to your sphere and just ask for business. Lead generation doesn’t get much simpler or more effective than this.
Become a Reliable Source of Real Estate Expertise in Message Boards and Facebook Groups
You don’t need to create one, but get involved. For example, create a survey to find out ‘What’s stopping you from buying a home?’ and then engage people individually in a very casual manner. The key is coming up with creative content that makes people want to participate, remaining consistent, and measuring the results. Too many agents who let these things go if they don’t see immediate results or start getting busy.
Create an Avatar of Your Ideal Client & Then Target Them on Social Media
Create an ‘avatar’ of your ideal client—their income, interests, personality, age, family size, and hobbies. Then, post a steady stream of videos and blogs on all social media outlets—all about those things. If they are active, start running and biking, and posting updates on your activities. If they have school-age children, attend school sporting events, concerts, and plays, and post about them. Restaurants, wine enthusiasts, religious events, sporting events, hiking, swimming, and charitable causes—identify your ideal client, then post yourself being involved in the things they do.
Reward Your Referral Sources With A Handwritten Note & Gift Card
Even if they already love you, everyone loves getting presents, even small ones. That’s why Coldwell Banker agent Heidi Sutter’s system of rewarding referral sources helps keep a steady stream of referrals in her inbox:
One of the best lead generating tools is been to reward referrals with a handwritten note and gift card. Doing so will prove to be one of the best ways to connect with clients, friends, and family who are kind enough to refer your services. Here’s a formula to use:
- $5 gift card and thank you note at introduction to the referral
- $10 gift card for gas, along with a handwritten note thanking them for the referral again and providing a quick update on the progress, once buyer or seller signs a contract or lists
- Hand-delivered $50 gift card to a local restaurant once the client closes
This will help you maintain a personal connection.
Call People in Your Sphere to Mark Milestones & Birthdays
Call people in your sphere to congratulate them about their milestones—and that brings results, guaranteed. It’s a great way to stay connected and top of mind. Take birthdays, for example. Every day, Facebook will tell you whose birthday it is, so you just have to pick up the phone and call them. Almost all the people you call will appreciate it, and guess who they will recommend or work with when the time is right? Same goes for milestones like a new job or pregnancy news. How awesome to get a call from your friend who happens to be a Realtor?”
Stop Screening Your Calls!
We all know agents who have a separate Google Voice or Grasshopper number for leads that they answer right away, no matter what. That’s great, but what about your clients? Shouldn’t they get your immediate attention too
Too many agents wait until they’re ‘ready’ to return that client call. Instead, why not pick up the phone with a warm hello, tell them that you’re in the middle of a showing, and then schedule a time to call them back?
If you want to avoid spam calls at showings, just dump your clients, online leads, and website leads into one separate number as soon as they come in. This way, you don’t have to worry about screening calls anymore.
Next Steps: How to Create a Real Estate Lead Generation Plan That Works
Now that you hopefully have some inspiration after reading our list of real estate lead generation ideas, let’s take a look at what the experts say about choosing which ones work for you. After all, not all lead generation strategies are created equal. Some work great for certain types of agents, while others fail miserably.
The trick is to choose which methods to spend your hard-earned time, money, and effort on strategically. Let’s take a look at a few general strategies that will help you choose a plan that works for you.
[Related article: How to Create a Custom Real Estate Lead Generation Plan + Template]
- Understand How Pareto Distributions Work
Vilfredo Pareto was a 19th-century Italian civil engineer, economist, and sociologist who came up with a mathematical formula to explain power distributions in nature, society, and business. He discovered that in many cases, 20% of most systems produce 80% of the results. You might know this as the 80/20 rule.You might notice this already in your business. For example, many agents find that roughly 20% of their customers might produce 80% of their gross commission income (GCI). When it comes to lead generation, you will likely find that 20% of your efforts produce 80% of your results. This is why choosing the real estate lead generation strategies that work for you is so important. - Make a Plan That Gets You a Mix of Top of Funnel & Bottom of Funnel Leads
While getting customers early on in their home search is important, very few agents have the time to nurture leads forever without generating any income. Quick wins that bring in revenue are crucial for any business. So make sure you have a healthy mix of strategies that get you customers who need to move yesterday and customers who might not move for a year or more.For example, home valuation landing pages are more likely to attract sellers who are close to pulling the trigger, while cold calling landlords of distressed properties might get you leads that might sell six months from now.So when choosing a new real estate lead generation strategy, make sure to ask yourself if it will generate more top of funnel or bottom of funnel leads. If you’re busy, then top-of-funnel leads are great. If you’re struggling to pay your mortgage, then you should focus on quick wins instead. - Create a Plan That Fits Your Unique Personality
One mistake that many agents make is trying to push themselves to generate leads using techniques that don’t fit their personality. For example, if you’re an introvert, cold calling FSBOs will probably only leave you frustrated and broke.Close contributor and real estate coach, Sean Moudry, has developed a unique system that tests agents for their personality type using a variation of the Myers-Briggs test to help them find the perfect real estate lead generation strategy for them.If you want to learn more about Sean’s system or sign up as a coaching client, check out his website: 16 Strategies.
Get A Free Consultation
See How We Get You REAL Results.
SEM – Unlock massive amounts of traffic with Search Engine Marketing (SEM) using a combined SEO/PPC strategies with clear ROI. See REAL Results
SOCIAL / EMAIL – our team creates epic content that will get shared, get links, and attract traffic back to your website for lead generation.
CRM – Tie all of your marketing efforts together, track your contacts across all channels, automate follow-up, and measure REAL results.
Conclusion
What real estate lead generation techniques are you using for 2023? Still sticking with Zillow or have you discovered something new? Let us know in the comments.
