The Ultimate Guide to Real Estate Lead Magnets

The Ultimate Guide to Real Estate Lead Magnets

Real Estate Lead Magnets are an incredibly useful tool. When you’re building out a marketing strategy for real estate, in the Join section of the Wheel House Marketing Framework. As in, how do you get people to join your database, you need some lead magnets.

All a real estate lead magnet is, is something of value you can give to a consumer in exchange for their contact details. It just has to overcome the pain barrier between “I want this information” and “this information seems to be valuable enough that I’m willing to have a sales person reach out to me.” 

For some that barrier is higher than others. Your lead magnet should be as much value as you can pack into something short. Most people getting a lead magnet don’t know you yet so they’re less likely to engage in something long.

That’s not a hard and fast rule, if you can pack great value into content that could be 40-50 pages or even 45-60 minutes as a video, people will consume. This only works if you sell the value of it really well and then jam pack it with value.

The great part about a lead magnet for your business is always having something to invite people to. Wherever you are meeting people, whether it’s a paid ad, an open house, or at the grocery store, you have assets you can offer anyone at any time so you can easily follow up with them.

The most common you see in real estate are the list of homes and home evaluations. Those aren’t the only ones. There’s a lot of ways you can create lead magnets of value. Here’s some of most popular options with examples:

Types of Real Estate Lead Magnets for REALTORS

Checklists

A simple printable checklist that will help them accomplish a goal. Does not need to be more than 1-3 pages. Here are some examples of checklists you could create:

  1. Moving Checklist: A detailed checklist for people who are planning to move.
  2. Home Inspection Checklist: A list of things to check in a home before buying.
  3. Home Staging Checklist: A checklist for sellers to help stage their homes for showings

Ebook

Ebooks are what most people think of when they think of lead magnets for REALTORS. A simple PDF with great information. You could go in a million directions with this one but here’s some simple ideas for you:

  1. Home Buying 101: An ebook guiding first-time homebuyers through the process.
  2. The Art of Selling Your Home: An ebook with tips and tricks on how to sell homes faster.
  3. Investing in Real Estate: An ebook about the basics of real estate investment.

Webinar

Webinars aren’t always easy to pull off well but they’re a great tool on the conversion side. Some do live webinars and others do pre-recorded that play continuously. We recommend doing them live at least until you have the process nailed and conversions from it. Then once you have it dialed in, you can start promoting recorded webinars.

Here are some webinar topics you could try:

  1. First Time Home Buyer Mistakes: A webinar discussing common mistakes and how to avoid them.
  2. How to Price Your Home: A webinar for sellers on how to price their homes competitively.
  3. Real Estate Investment Strategies: A webinar exploring different real estate investment strategies.

Mini-Course

A mini-course is often very similar to a webinar but usually multiple videos broken up into segments. 

  1. Home Buying for Beginners: A mini-course guiding potential buyers through the home buying process.
  2. Selling Your Home: A mini-course providing practical tips for home sellers.
  3. Real Estate Investment: A mini-course on the basics of investing in real estate.

Template

Give people templates to help them with either understanding something better OR to help them accomplish a specific goal.

  1. Home Evaluation Template: A template to help sellers evaluate their homes before listing.
  2. Home Offer Template: A template to help buyers understand how offers are put together.
  3. Home Inspection Template: A template to help buyers conduct a home inspection.

Toolkit

These toolkits are made up of multiple pieces of content, much of which can be templates that we just spoke about above. Real estate lead magnets are easier when you’re leveraging pieces you already have to create more.

  1. Home Seller’s Toolkit: A collection of resources for sellers including staging tips, pricing guides, and marketing materials.
  2. Home Buyer’s Toolkit: A toolkit for buyers including a list of common terms, negotiation strategies, and mortgage planning resources.
  3. Property Investor’s Toolkit: A collection of resources for property investors including market trend analyses, property evaluation tools, and investment strategy guides.

Quiz

Quizzes can take longer to build out but they’re a great way to get people to engage. You have them answering questions, they’re more engaged, and looking for a specific outcome that can help them. 

  1. Home Buying Readiness Quiz: A quiz to assess a potential buyer’s readiness and knowledge about the home buying process.
  2. Home Selling Savvy Quiz: A quiz for sellers to test their knowledge about the home selling process.
  3. Real Estate Investment IQ Quiz: A quiz to test knowledge and readiness for real estate investment.

Cheat Sheet

Think of cheat sheets on something they could print out on their wall or leave on their desktop to reference. Something that helps them as a useful reminder from time to time.

  1. Home Buying Cheat Sheet: A quick reference guide on the key steps in the home buying process.
  2. Home Selling Cheat Sheet: A compact guide on essential tips for selling a home.
  3. Real Estate Investment Cheat Sheet: A handy reference on important considerations and strategies for real estate investment.

Case Study

Case studies are great for people looking for a specific outcome but aren’t confident in how to achieve it. They can look at how someone else in the same position was able to go from where they are now to where they want to be. Every Realtor should have a few of these made for the common client types they work with.

  1. Successful Home Buying Case Study: A detailed analysis of a successful home buying process, highlighting key decisions made along the way.
  2. Home Selling Success Story: A case study of a successful home selling process, with insights into effective marketing and negotiation strategies.
  3. Property Investment Case Study: A detailed review of a successful real estate investment, exploring strategy, execution, and returns.

Exclusive Video Content

Simple videos they can’t get anywhere else that are packed with value. No marketing fluff. Just straight value for as much of the video as possible.

  1. Home Buying Guide Video: A series of exclusive video content guiding first-time homebuyers through the process.
  2. Home Selling Tips Video: Exclusive videos with tips and tricks on how to sell homes faster.
  3. Real Estate Investment Strategies Video: A series of exclusive videos exploring different real estate investment strategies.

Resource List

Super simple to create, a list of things that can help them. Resource lists are valuable to people in specific situations. There’s a lot of ways to approach it so we listed a few examples below.

  1. Essential Real Estate Websites: A list of useful websites for both buyers and sellers for market trends, property listings, and home improvement tips.
  2. Real Estate Book Recommendations: A list of must-read books for understanding the real estate market, investment strategies, and property laws.
  3. Local Home Services Providers: A list of trustworthy service providers in the area, such as home inspectors, movers, and renovation contractors.

Calculator or Tool

The Zestimate was one of the best real estate lead magnet examples you can see. It drove a ton of success for Zillow early on. 

  1. Mortgage Calculator: A tool for potential buyers to calculate their mortgage payments, considering the principal, interest rate, and loan term.
  2. Home Affordability Calculator: A tool for buyers to determine how much they can afford to spend on a property.
  3. Return on Investment (ROI) Calculator: A tool for property investors to calculate the ROI on their real estate investments.

Swipe File

Put a small collection of pieces that are valuable for the consumer for a specific situation. This isn’t advice. This is something specific they can take and use today.

  1. Negotiation Emails: A collection of emails that have successfully led to a decrease in the property asking price.
  2. Want to Buy Your House: A collection of effective real estate emails and letters for inspiration on reaching out to homeowners not on the market to consider selling..

Behind-the-scenes look

In depth behind the scenes look at specific processes and situations. How you do something. You’re basically promising a backstage pass to your “secret sauce.” 

  1. Home Staging Process: A behind-the-scenes look at how professional home stagers transform a property for viewings.
  2. Real Estate Investment Analysis: A behind-the-scenes look at how an investor analyses a property for investment.

Event Tickets

Got tickets for something? Home shows are really popular. Local events. You offer tickets in exchange for their contact information to speak with them further.

  1. Local Real Estate Networking Event Tickets: Offering tickets to a local real estate networking event where potential buyers or sellers can meet professionals and learn more about the market.
  2. Home Staging Workshop Tickets: Offering tickets to a home staging workshop where sellers can learn how to present their home in the best way possible.
  3. Real Estate Investment Seminar Tickets: Offering tickets to a seminar where potential investors can learn about different investment strategies.

Expert Interview

Reach out to an expert that your core audience would want to hear from and have them register to attend. These can be in-person or online. 

  1. Interview with a Successful Home Seller: An interview with a seller who successfully sold their home sharing their experiences and tips.
  2. Interview with a Real Estate Investment Expert: An interview with an expert in real estate investment, discussing strategies and common mistakes to avoid.
  3. Interview with a Home Staging Professional: An interview with a professional home stager, sharing their tips and tricks.

Real estate lead magnets come in many different shapes and sizes. As you can see above you can take a ton of different approaches. You can leverage tools like ChatGPT to help you create them faster but don’t rely on AI for the final content. You want your lead magnet to be unique to you. Something they can get anywhere else.

The Simple 30-Day Real Estate Agent Social Media Success Blueprint

The Simple 30-Day Real Estate Agent Social Media Success Blueprint

Coming up with the idea for what to post on a real estate agent social media campaign is often the hardest part. I recently saw a post by Richard Van Der Blom about posting on Linkedin to establish authority in your field. I adapted his 20 Content Ideas came up with a sample 30 day plan for real estate.

Below you’ll find a simple 30 Day strategy. Some require a bit of research, planning, and preparation and others you could do off the cuff.

Don’t forget, if you’re not also engaging with others and their content, the odds of these pieces of content being successful are a lot smaller. The biggest mistake people make when it comes to social is spending time creating content, posting it, but then not engaging with others.

At the end, I’ll share a short plan for engagement so your next 30 days are successful. If you commit to doing this for 30 days, I’d love to hear the results after.

30-Day Sample Real Estate Agent Social Media Plan

Day 1: Share a recent accomplishment, such as selling a home in a tough market.

Day 2: Discuss a mistake made during a negotiation and the lesson learned. 

Day 3: Challenge a real estate myth and share your perspective.

Day 4: Share a unique marketing strategy you use for listings.

Day 5: Express gratitude to a mentor. Tag them if they’re on social.

Day 6: Share a testimonial from a satisfied client.

Day 7: List the top three tools you use for CMAs or another aspect of your business.

Day 8: Offer advice to new agents starting out in real estate.

Day 9: Interview a local market analyst and share insights.

Day 10: Reflect on a real estate book that influenced your approach.

Day 11: Highlight a recent real estate conference, training, workshop, etc… you attended.

Day 12: Take followers behind the scenes of a home staging. Don’t have a house to use? Use a room in your own home.

Day 13: Discuss a recent study on market trends.

Day 14: Create a tutorial on home buying tips.

Day 15: Share an inspiring story about helping a first-time homebuyer. If you have a difference niche, you can do it for specific demographic.

Day 16: Post an infographic on current real estate trends. Canva is great for making these.

Day 17: Do a live video “Q&A” on home valuation methods. Come with questions to answer in case you don’t get questions submitted.

Day 18: Share how you overcame a common industry challenge.

Day 19: Team up with a mortgage broker for a joint webinar.

Day 20: Debunk a common myth about buying vs. renting.

Day 21: Post before-and-after photos of staging or a renovation. Explain why they were done how they were.

Day 22: Share insights on how local events impact property values.

Day 23: Offer tips on how to prepare a home for sale.

Day 24: Share a client success story focusing on the community aspect.

Day 25: Discuss the importance of home inspections and what to look for.

Day 26: Highlight a local neighbourhood feature, like parks or schools.

Day 27: Offer a mini-guide on understanding mortgage options.

Day 28: Share a day in the life of a Realtor to show your work ethic and dedication.

Day 29: Create a post about the benefits of working with a Realtor versus selling/buying independently.

Day 30: End the month with a personal reflection on what real estate means to you and your vision for the future.

30 Day Engagement Plan 

At the beginning of the month, if you don’t know them already, look up the local business accounts that got a lot of engagement.  That means every post they put up gets likes and comments. 

You can also look at non-business accounts that post regularly but the key is for them to be local accounts that your ideal clients would likely be following.

Then each day do the following as part of the 30 Day Real Estate Agent Social Media Plan:

  • Comment on posts from these businesses. Not to promote your business, leave a genuine comment supporting them or asking a question. Focus on positivity with these comments and questions.
  • Look at comments from others and see if any you can reply to insightfully or with a value add of some kind. (Remember, simply making someone smile counts as value add)
  • Comment on posts from those you follow in your feed with a focus on local people. Commenting on other Realtors content only helps your business if your business is focused on Realtor to Realtor referrals. 
  • Reply to at least 5 stories a day of people you follow. These replies should follow the SPEAR model. Short, personal, and expecting a reply. The easiest way to do this is ask a question as a reply. For example, if they post they went out to a local restaurant, just reply asking what they thought of the place.

Engagement right now shouldn’t be focused on getting them to talk about real estate. It’s about establishing a relationship. This will also encourage them to engage and read your real estate content when it comes up in your feed.

People prefer to comment and engage with people they feel a connection to. You can do the legwork up front to build that connection.

Pro Tip: If anyone local follows you, send them a DM and say “Thanks for the follow! You live here in [AREA], too?” and then have a conversation getting to know them.

Remember, as complicated as the algorithm can be, the last 50 people who engaged with you are likely to be the next 50 people who see your content. Focus on engaging with the right people.

If you follow everything in this for 30 days, you will see success on social. Leveraging social media to grow your business is a lot of work, but its worth it if you commit. Set your real estate marketing strategy and start taking action!

Building and Executing a Marketing Strategy for Real Estate Agents | Miniclass

Building and Executing a Marketing Strategy for Real Estate Agents | Miniclass

If your strategy for marketing is just throwing ideas at the wall and hoping something sticks, you don’t have a strategy. You have hope and a prayer. 

Some people can skate by for years doing this and actually have a decent business from a revenue standpoint. The problem is that it’s not replicable or predictable. Some can keep it going indefinitely, others get stuck and eventually start declining. 

We hosted a live mini class on how to Build & Execute a Marketing Strategy for Real Estate Agents entirely based on our Wheelhouse Marketing Framework. Here’s what we covered:

  • How to get people to discover you exist
  • Creating conversations 
  • Getting people to join your database
  • Converting them into clients
  • Earning their trust
  • Building long term loyalty

The result? You now have a strategy that you can execute consistently, confidently, and see predictable growth. The more predictable your growth is, the more you can plan and ultimately achieve any goal you set for your business.  Whether that’s more freedom, more money in your pocket, expanding to a bigger team, launching new ventures, it can be achieved using our Wheelhouse Marketing Framework. 

Watch our mini class on how to Build &  Execute a Marketing Strategy for Real Estate Agents here! 

Next up, we’ll be planning a webinar on how to leveraging ChatGPT in your businesses. Make sure you’ve signed up to our newsletter and follow us on Instagram to stay tuned.

Upcoming Webinar: Building & Implementing Your 2023 Marketing Strategy

Upcoming Webinar: Building & Implementing Your 2023 Marketing Strategy

Are you marketing in the dark? 

If your strategy for marketing is just throwing ideas at the wall that you heard about and hoping something sticks, you don’t have a strategy. You have hope and a prayer. 

Some people can skate by for years doing this and actually have a decent business from a revenue standpoint. The problem is that it’s not replicable or predictable. Some can keep it going indefinitely, others get stuck and eventually start declining. 

Having a strategy that you can execute on consistently can give you the confidence and predictability to grow.

That’s why on February 2nd at 1:00pm EST we’re hosting a webinar on Building and Executing a Marketing Strategy for Real Estate Agents. It’s based on our Wheelhouse Marketing Framework. 

Here’s what we’re going to cover to help you get predictable results:

  • How to get people to discover you exist
  • Creating conversations 
  • Getting people to join your database
  • Converting them into clients
  • Earning their trust
  • Building long term loyalty

If you have specific tactics in place for each one that you perform consistently you can create a predictable growth engine for your business. The more predictable your business, the more you can plan ultimately set your life and business up in a way that helps you get you to your goals.

Whether that’s more freedom, more money in your pocket, expanding to a bigger team, launching new ventures. It doesn’t matter. Once you can consistently get clients with a repeatable process, it’s up to you what you do next!

You can claim your spot in the webinar by clicking here. We’ll send out the recording if you can’t make it live!

How real estate agents can use ChatGPT

How real estate agents can use ChatGPT

ChatGPT is one of the most talked about things online recently in the business world. I’ve been testing it out and I can confidently say it’s one of the first new tools that actually earns the name game-changing.

First, to answer what ChatGPT is, I had it write the explanation itself.

I typed in “”Give me a 50 word explanation that a 5 year would understand” and it said:

ChatGPT is a computer program that can carry on a conversation with a person. It can answer questions, tell stories, and even make jokes! It uses a special set of rules and a lot of information it has learned to understand what you’re saying and come up with a response. ChatGPT is not a real person, but it can do a good job of pretending to be one when you talk to it.

Then I answered that response with “now explain it for an adult so they get a better understanding”:

ChatGPT is a natural language processing (NLP) model that has been trained to generate human-like text based on a given input. It uses a combination of machine learning techniques and a large dataset of human conversation to learn the patterns and structures of natural language. When given a prompt, ChatGPT can generate a response that is coherent and follows the rules of grammar and syntax. It can also be fine-tuned for specific tasks or domains, such as answering questions about a particular topic or generating descriptions of products. While ChatGPT is not capable of understanding or comprehending the meaning of the text it generates, it can produce text that appears to be written by a human and engage in conversation in a way that is similar to how a human would.

It’s an incredibly useful tool *if* you know how to use it. 

Let’s be clear though, it’s not perfect. It can’t replace your expertise. It can enhance your productivity. For example, something that used to take me 2-4 hours to write can be done now in 1. What it spits out is generic in many cases but its faster and easier to edit the generic into something valuable than starting from scratch.

Our recommendation is to have it help you write, not write for you. You’re mostly limited by your imagination. So let’s give you some examples of how you can use it.

Emails

Not sure what to say to someone? Have it draft a response. You can even write a rough draft and say “rewrite this professionally.”

Need an auto-responder written but not sure what to say? Ask it to write one for you. This may not be as good as having an actual copywriter write it but it’ll get the job done and for many, done is better than perfect. You can get this written quickly and live and then come back and refine later.

You can bet in the next 6-24 months we’ll see email programs that will pre-write replies to every email you get and you just have to approve the response.

Drip Campaigns

It’s one thing to write a single email, this can help you write the outline for a full drip campaign. Then start writing the emails themselves. This is a classic case once again of done being better than perfect. The more descriptive your requests the better they are.

For example, writing “write me a drip campaign for new leads” will not get you a great response but you’d get better results with “write a drip campaign for someone who has requested a free home value report that is 6 emails long. Each email should include one question to get them to reply to the email while providing valuable information about selling their home.”

Especially in specific situations like this it takes refining. That’s where ChatGPT works really well. You can respond to each thing it writes and then ask it to improve it in a specific way. It’s a back and forth with iterative improvements. This is where you can cut time by 60-80% when you’re writing content. 

Ads

Writing ads is a great use case for them. The ads aren’t perfect and from the tests we’ve run here at JSH, the ads we’ve written have outperformed BUT when we have it write variations, take a few pieces and put them in with how we write them, the results are similar. This can cut ad-writing time down significantly. 

The key we’ve found is asking for specific copy styles. Instead of “Write an an for a free home valuation report” we’d type in “Write a direct response ad for a report on a home valuation report in the AIDA copywriting framework”

AIDA is Attention, Interest, Desire, Action. One of the more classic ones out there.

We’ve also found PAS and Before-After-Bridge have worked well for writing ads when we didn’t like the AIDA version. Then sometimes we’ll reply asking to make it shorter or longer. Turn it into a story, or write it more colloquially. 

There’s a lot of variations and it can really speed up the ad creation process. If you aren’t familiar with proper copywriting techniques it will create better ads than an inexperienced person.

Content Outlines

Need some content outlines? YOu can ask it to write it out for you. I wouldn’t rely on it to create the content itself or it’ll be very generic and not valuable to your readers. It can create  a good outline for the type of content and spark ideas for you. 

For example, I typed in “write an outline for a home value report” and here’s what it came up with:

I. Introduction

  • Purpose of the home value report
  • How the report was created

II. Property information

  • Address and location of the property
  • Description of the property (e.g. type of home, number of bedrooms, bathrooms, square footage)
  • Features and amenities (e.g. garage, pool, finished basement)

III. Market analysis

  • Overview of the local housing market
  • Comparison to similar homes in the area
  • Analysis of recent sales data

IV. Home value estimate

  • Estimated value of the property based on market data and property information
  • Range of possible values

V. Factors affecting home value

  • Condition of the property
  • Location and neighborhood
  • Recent renovations or updates

VI. Conclusion

  • Recap of key points
  • Suggestions for next steps (e.g. seeking a professional appraisal, updating the property to increase value)
  • Contact information for any questions or further assistance

Not a bad place to start from!

Listing Descriptions

I went on Realtor.ca and grabbed a random listing description.

Here’s what I copied:

Stunning* 4Bed/5Bath New Home, On Rare, Nearly 1/2 Acre Lot Minutes To All Amenities. Luxurious Finishes & Design, $$$$ In Upgrades Including Hardwood Throughout, Quartz Countertop/Bksplsh In Kitchen, Frendel Custom Kitchen Cabinets, Waffle Ceiling In Family Room W/Gas F/P, Lg Primary Bed W/5 Pc Bath And Immense W/I Closet. Finished Bsmt. W/Lg Rec Room, Electric F/P, & 3Pc Bath. *See Attached List Of Upgrades/Features!* $214.95/Mo Fee Incl. Rd Maint./Garbage**** EXTRAS **** Bosch S/S Fridge, B/I Oven, B/I Microwave, B/I Gas Cook, S/S D/W, W/D. Gdo W/2 Remotes, Central Vac And Attchmts., All Window Coverings, Elf’s *Excluding Fam.Rm Light Fix. & 2nd Bd. Light Fix.*

I now told ChatGPT to rewrite it and it produced this: 

A luxurious 4 bedroom, 5 bathroom home with numerous upgrades, including hardwood flooring, quartz countertops and backsplash, custom Frendel kitchen cabinets, and a waffle ceiling in the family room with a gas fireplace. The large primary bedroom includes a 5 piece bathroom and a spacious walk-in closet. The finished basement boasts a large recreational room, electric fireplace, and a 3 piece bathroom. This new home is situated on a rare, nearly half acre lot that is minutes away from various amenities. The $214.95/mo fee includes road maintenance and garbage. Additional features include a Bosch stainless steel fridge, built-in oven, microwave, gas cooktop, dishwasher, washer/dryer, garage door opener with 2 remotes, central vac and attachments, all window coverings, and electric lights (excluding the family room and second bedroom fixtures). See the attached list of upgrades and features for more information.

Now I can expand with something like “write an email to my email list promoting this property with a call to action to book a private showing”:

Dear [Name],

I am excited to announce a new property that has just come on the market and would be the perfect fit for your family! This stunning 4 bedroom, 5 bathroom home boasts luxurious finishes and design, with numerous upgrades including hardwood flooring throughout, a quartz countertop and backsplash in the kitchen, custom Frendel kitchen cabinets, and a waffle ceiling in the family room with a gas fireplace. The large primary bedroom includes a 5 piece bathroom and a spacious walk-in closet. The finished basement features a large recreational room, electric fireplace, and a 3 piece bathroom.

This new home is situated on a rare, nearly half acre lot that is minutes away from various amenities. The $214.95/mo fee includes road maintenance and garbage. Additional features include a Bosch stainless steel fridge, built-in oven, microwave, gas cooktop, dishwasher, washer/dryer, garage door opener with 2 remotes, central vac and attachments, all window coverings, and electric lights (excluding the family room and second bedroom fixtures).

If you’re interested in seeing this property in person, please don’t hesitate to contact me to schedule a private showing. I would love to assist you in finding your dream home.

Best regards,

[Your Name]

Now I follow that up with “Write an instagram caption for the property” and I get:

Looking for your dream home? Look no further! This stunning 4 bed, 5 bath home has luxurious finishes and design, $$$$ in upgrades, and is situated on a rare, nearly 1/2 acre lot. Features include hardwood floors, quartz countertops, custom kitchen cabinets, a gas fireplace, and a finished basement with a large rec room and electric fireplace. Contact me to book a private showing and make this your forever home! #dreamhome #luxury #realestate #newconstruction

This last one is a great example. It’s a decent post but I’d personally not use those hashtags. They’re too generic. They won’t actually help discoverability in your area. Is it better than what a lot of people in the industry put out? Absolutely. It also did it in just a few seconds.

Brainstorming

Whether you’re brainstorming blog topics, email subject lines, or headlines, it can help. For example, I’ll write a blog, paste it into a ChatGPT and say “Give me 10 titles for this blog post” and it will give 10 options. Then it’s just simple rewriting and minor editing and you’re good to go.

Don’t like what it wrote? Ask for new variations. Can ask for more or less clickbait style, more punchy, more professional, etc… 

ChatGPT can allow a great reduction in time spent writing content. It can get rid of writer’s block and give you ideas. It can’t replace your expertise, your talents, and what makes people want to work with you. Your unique style is still your own.

Leverage ChatGPT to make you more productive and get more done. Don’t let it write entire pieces and post them without editing. It won’t be good enough to help you, especially for blog posts. Google knows how to identify AI written content and you won’t rank as well if you have all AI written content.

 

How to Respond to Online Real Estate Leads

How to Respond to Online Real Estate Leads

Online real estate leads are hard. They have one of the highest degrees of difficulty for most real estate agents to convert to clients. Constant discussions, seminars, blogs, etc… in the industry about how to convert online leads.

What if I add in more calls? Double dial? Call the leads faster and faster? Tactic after tactic. Tactics are useless if they aren’t part of a winning strategy.

The truth is there’s no silver bullet for online real estate leads. Most are looking at the problem from the wrong angle. Many focus on getting as many leads as possible then hammering the phones to find a couple who are ready to go now. This can work but it’s pretty close to building a business cold calling. It works to build a business but it’s a grind that wears most down and has high turnover.

This approach leads to thousands and thousands of agents saying “online leads are %*$#.”

Ask any vendor in the industry that helps agents generate or convert leads and we hear it all the time. Said the exact same way. If you’re used to referrals or sign calls, traditional online real estate leads are %*$$.

The exception to the rule is if you’re doing inbound marketing and driving people to reach out to you. Like farming a neighbourhood, inbound marketing takes time. Once it’s up and running, the leads coming in are high quality.

Here’s the thing…most are looking at online real estate leads from the wrong perspective. Most are skipping one of the most crucial steps of the lead conversion process. Nurturing.

Online “leads” aren’t prospects yet, they’re leads on potential prospects. They are further upstream than most. Prospects are people planning a move soon that may hire you. Leads are people who may be more likely to be a prospect than the average person you run into on the street.

Online leads can be anywhere from 12-18 months away from moving. Dean Jackson did a study with one of his clients of every lead he helped an agent generate and after 5 years. 50% of all the leads generated over that time had moved. They didn’t all use his client, but within 5 years, half of everyone who had reached out in any way moved.

Does that change the perspective a bit about “%*$# leads”?

You should be thinking about it from this perspective: I want to find out which of my leads are looking to move soon. Everyone else is simply moving later.

When you simplify the lead conversion process, you’re breaking it down to two distinct phases. Those who are moving soon, and those who are moving later.

Phase 1 of Online Real Estate Leads: Soon

 

This phase is where 95% of lead conversion energy focuses on yet, at most, it’s 10-15% of the leads coming in. Your job isn’t to try and turn every lead into someone moving now. It’s to identify which of the leads are ready to go soon and then push the rest into your long term follow up.

The key here is to get to know them as much as possible. We all know the easiest way to generate leads online is to leverage listings. It’s what people want and has the lowest cost per lead by far.

When you generate the leads, don’t push right away to get them into a contract. Your first push is to get them engaged in a conversation and discover everything you can about them. Learn their unique situation.

When a lead first comes in, according to Phil M Jones recommends this simple framework:

Opening – A polite intro sharing your name and agency

Fact – A mutually agreeable fact

Question – An easy to answer question

In practice, that might look something like this:

“Hi, it’s Andrew from JSH Realty. Recently you were browsing online and showed some interest in one of our homes for sale in XYZ neighbourhood. Are you still looking or have you now found somewhere?”

All you’re looking for here is for them to respond. Once they respond the goal is NOT to push to get more answers about that specific property. It’s also not about any specific property at this point.

Your goal now is to find out why they’re moving, what the motivation is. Learn about their situation and where they are in the process. Once you know that you can truly be helpful to them. Instead of potentially offering other listings that may not actually be a good fit for them.

Lead with curiosity and get to know them as people first.

Some questions you could ask instead of asking about the specific property:

  • How long have you been looking?
  • What is prompting the move?
  • Have you seen many homes in person?
  • What needs to happen with your existing home when you move?
  • When are you looking to move by?

Once you know about their specific situation, you can jump into a soft close.

“So it seems like the best next step would be to….” or “Based on what you are saying – it sounds like we should….” then go for what is the best next step for them.

Our team here at Just Sell Homes brought in Phil Jones to help train our clients on Lead Conversion.  He did a couple of hands-on workshops. From that we created a PDF outlining an 8-Step Framework. This focuses on the 8 steps to creating conversations with online real estate leads. It’s definitely worth your time to download and read through!

What about all the leads that aren’t ready to move soon?

Phase 2 of Online Real Estate Leads: Later

 

This is where most Realtors don’t have a good system in place. Systems here, if any, are usually the odd follow up email or text. Could be a canned email once a month or a calendar reminder to call them in 8 months. A lot of the time, Realtors do nothing.

Our recommendation is to educate and entertain them every week. A well-done weekly newsletter can have a massive impact on your business.

Not the canned content about how to winterize your home or other generic advice. That doesn’t keep people coming back. You want them excited to open your email every week.

The easiest content is real estate focused. People are always interested in what’s going on in the real estate market. So tell them. Don’t share the stats your local board sends out, interpret it for them. Answer the “What does that mean for me?” question. Put in sold prices for properties that are notable Help people keep a tab on the market.

Another real estate angle that works is a “Deal of the Week”. Nobody wants to miss out on a great deal. Each week you send a “Here’s the best deal we found on the market this week.”

When I sold real estate, I remember asking someone if they wanted daily emails of properties. The standard automated ones that come from the board. They said yes then showed me their phone. They were already getting them from 4 other agents.

A lightbulb went off that we need to stand out above that. I started writing them emails with my honest thoughts on properties that were a fit. They started working with me instead of the other 4 who had been emailing them for months.

The other way is to curate content that’s local about their community. For example, we send our weekly newsletter to real estate agents like you. We curate information useful to agents because that’s our community. What’s going on in market, whats new in social media, good marketing from other agents. If we think it can make someone a better agent, we share it. Our pitch is simple; make you the smartest agent in the room in 10 minutes once a week.

Take the same approach but focused on being the most informed resident of their town in ten minutes once a week.

It’s not about YOU. It’s about making them better and providing as much value as possible on a consistent basis. These newsletters include easy calls to action throughout. The specific mechanics of a great newsletter will be in a future blog post. We’ll hyperlink it from here when we have it finished, too!

The reason we like to send it weekly is that it keeps you top of mind. If someone signs up today and your monthly newsletter went out this morning, they’ll forget you by next month. Weekly keeps you top of mind.

You want to be top of mind so that when someones plans change on when they’re moving, you’re first person they think of. They could get pregnant and need a bigger home. Someone could have had a fall and need to move into a nursing home unexpectedly. Divorces, love, growing families, work, or a million other reasons can cause a change in timeline. You want to be there when that happens.

That’s why you need a regular long term follow up strategy that’s more than checking in from time to time.

Phase 1 is identifying the soon people, phase 2 is keeping in touch with the later people. This simple framework allows you to focus on the rest of your business. Don’t overcomplicate it.

Online real estate leads don’t have a silver bullet that makes it easy. It takes work. Focus on identifying the people moving soon and then staying in touch with everyone else.