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60 Tips to Generate Real Estate Leads

Real estate has thrived significantly in the past decade and its prospect of development looks promising when you look at the bigger picture, globally. Therefore, real estate is not only one of the largest employment sectors today but also is one of the most sought-after investment options in the world. Change is the spice of life. The way data is sought today has evolved to a great extent. Thus, with rapid development in the realty sector, the way real estate is sought and sold has evolved as well. Different mediums cater and strike a chord with different people. As a realtor, how will you be able to cater to a range of buyers and investors? Look no further as we enlist 60 surefire tips that will aid you to cater to a variety of investors and buyers. Some of the tips worked like wonders for us. As we enlist the tips, we would say that these tips work at different levels and its results may vary accordingly. Core Specific Know Your Consumer As mentioned earlier, different people have different preferences and in the real estate business, it is of utmost importance to know your consumers/audience first. Market research is the vital part of real estate business. Keep up with the current market trends, enlist popular amenities among home buyers, space requirements for commercial investors, various upgrades for rentals, and study the reason for specific shift in demand for certain aspects. Be Niche Specific There are many realtors in the market. So, people have a plethora of realtor options to choose from when investing in a property. In order to stand out in the market from the rest, select your specific niche, either residential or commercial. Both, residential, and commercial real estate consists is divided into two subcategories new spaces and resale or rentals. When you select your niche, you can decide whether you want to deal for new spaces, or rentals, or both. Marketing Strategies When you finalise your niche and sub-categories, next important aspect to get noticed and earn business is through market. Decide the mode of marketing. Real estate marketing comprises of both offline and online marketing strategies. Both the strategies are interdependent. Mention Concise Information Provide factually accurate and concise information when implementing marketing strategies to avoid any dispute in the future, from your end. Make sure that people understand the services you/your company has to offer. This factor is indirectly dependent on understanding your consumers. Build Trust When you understand the needs of your target audience, and provide them with suitable, reliable information, this will help your clients to connect with you/your company. This factor is important to build trust among clients. Trust plays a key deciding factor whether or not the investors/buyers will opt for your realtor services. Offline Marketing Word of Mouth Image Source: https://www.invespcro.com/blog/word-of-mouth-marketing/ Believe it or not, word of mouth marketing works wonders to boost business of a company, especially in the real estate sector. According to a study by Invesp, nearly 88 percent of people would opt to buy from a realtor or a brand recommended by a friend or a family member. Connect With Other Local Realtors Networking is another essential aspect to broaden and promote your realtor business. Find out about local realtors and connect with them when targeting a specific area or locality of a city. Another benefit of connecting with local realtors is that it will help you fetch more information about consumer demands and will increase your research database. Thus, more contact details of past and potential clients. Radio Advertisements Radio commercials are a great way to generate leads for real estate since millions of users on a day-to-day basis to listen to radio stations, especially while travelling from home to workplace and vice versa. Another benefit of this marketing technique is that you can highlight all the primary aspects of a project within seconds. Television Commercials Although television commercials can be an expensive option, it is an impactful medium to generate leads offline. T.V commercials let you reach a large number of audience, at once. These creative advertisements are easy to recollect and engages the audience to a great extent. Distribute Flyers/Leaflets Usually, flyers/leaflets are designed in a way that provides definite and precise information of the project. Right from choice of colors to font family, font size and other details speak for itself. It is designed in a way that highlights the important aspects of a project, like carpet area of a housing unit, key features of a project, the location of the project, location advantages, etc. (Given image is a leaflet designed by us for one of the latest luxurious residential projects) Newspaper Ads Newspaper advertisement is another way of boosting engagement of potential buyers. Millions of people read newspapers daily. Newspapers are one of the trusted sources of information and so, this can be considered as one of the best forms of advertising. Today, newspapers can also be read online. Thus, your advertisements can be viewed online on e-paper as well.  Organise Events You can either participate or organise a pre-launch event of an upcoming project of a renowned builder/developer. Participate in such events with prior consent from the respective builder/developer. Ensure that you offer accurate support to visitors by mentioning exact date of possession, included amenities, carpet area and other necessary factors (in the case of residential real estate). Also, you can organise events on small scale like drawing competitions, sports events, essay competition, etc. in schools to collect contact information of their parents.  Offer Post Property Expo Support Many developers themselves have said that channel partners play a key role in analysing market trends and suggesting suitable properties to clients according to their budget and other requirements. Get the collected contact details from organisers of ‘Property Exhibition’ and then you can contact each contact personally to get leads. Partner With Working Sectors Reach out to various small and large scale working sectors like MNCs, IT companies, production houses, etc. with projects of different budgets and educate them about real estate or construction in any way. Imbibe them with progress in real estate since the few years, scope of real estate development, related laws, case studies, etc. You can explain to them the benefits of investing in real estate.  Run Commercials in Cinema House People from all walks of life enjoy watching movies in cinema halls. Although it can be a bit expensive option to produce and run commercials in cinema halls, it is an effective medium to reach a wide range of audience within seconds.  Partner With Hotels and Restaurants Select two to three specific hotels and restaurants (according to the area/locality) and visit them regularly. You can hang a project dangler or design and print a small (nearly A5 size) and hand it to each visitor of the restaurant along with the bill. This increases the possibility of creating new leads significantly. Partner With Other Vendors Reach out to vendors you know and make new contacts with trustworthy vendors. You can hang a leaflet at the billing counter or in a place in the store from where your advertisement can be easily noticed.  Follow through Old Leads One of the simple ways to generate new leads is to follow through old leads. Contact your old leads. Never underestimate the potential of following-up with old leads. They can be your gateway to new leads.  Run Text Message Campaign Compose a text with all the key details of a project and send it to a number of people in your database. For example, “Luxurious Lifestyle Awaits You at Majestique Signature Towers, Balewadi. 2 and 3 BHK Spacious Apartments. Starting @ Rs 76 Lakhs onwards. Call +91 98836 86868 NOW.” The message must highlight the unit configuration for residential spaces while it should highlight carpet area for commercial spaces. Importantly, remember to mention the starting price of each unit. Participate in Charity Events/Donation Drives Participating in charity events and donation drives gives you an upper hand in your area of expertise. Since you donate a significant amount of your profit, (let us consider this amount as 10 percent of the total earnings), people would automatically be allured to opt for your services over others owing to your deed of kindness. These events also provide you with contact details of several people who participate in the drive/event. Thus, you can collect this data and run a text message campaign or simply call on each number to generate more leads.  Connect With Different Communities Whether big or small, attend various business conventions and other events and never leave a single chance to introduce your realtor services. Such networking events help you to understand your audience in a much better way.  Keep Business Cards Handy You never know when and where your next lead may come from, whether at a charity event, social gathering or a business meet, always keep your business cards handy. Often, business card is the basic element that establishes the brand identity of your company.  Immediately Revert to Your Leads Whether you get leads through leaflet distribution, hoarding advertisements, online campaigns, or SMS campaigns, it is important to revert to your leads immediately. Potential clients may fill-up online forms or enquire about the same or different projects from different channel partners. And so, you must immediately tap into your leads. Online Marketing Design a Website As a realtor, to establish your brand image in the industry, the foremost thing you should do is design a website of your own. The website should be easy to understand i.e. user-friendly. Also, the content of your website should contain words that your target audience will look for. These words are commonly referred to as keywords. For Websites Technical Optimization (For Your Website) In today’s competitive world, it has become mandatory to be able to cater to a range of users at once. Make sure that your website is optimized to adapt to different screen sizes especially for mobile-users. Mobile-friendliness has become the key driving factors to generate leads not only in real estate but other businesses as well. Write FAQs Enlist a set of questions addressing the challenges that investors face or are concerned about and answer the same in simplest words possible. Writing FAQs on the website can help you uplift your brand image and aid you to build trust with your potential clients. When you write FAQs, indirectly, the reader evaluates your company and the services it offers which becomes one of the deciding factors of whether or not a user will opt for your realtor services. If implemented mindfully, this can prove to be a good way to generate leads for your business.  Include Testimonials on Your Website In this rapidly evolving digital world, it is essential to find a key to connect to people emotionally as well. It is important to include elements that will build trust and make them realise that your realtor services will assist them to make good investments. And so, testimonials are a must. Testimonials may or may not strike a chord with the viewers, but surely work as far as trust is concerned. Testimonials must briefly explain about your company and its services. Testimonials indirectly work as referrals.  Include Virtual Tours Lately, embedding virtual tours on your website along with other information proves beneficial to build trust towards your brand and the services it offers. A virtual tour can be defined as a combination of multiple videos, and images into a single panorama or 3600 view video. Inclusion of virtual tours gives audience a realistic view of the status of the project. This can be more useful to speed-up the lead generation process and convert them to earn business especially when a project is nearing possession.   Write Blogs For Your Website Writing blogs and articles is one of the best ways to encourage user engagement and boost users’ time-on-site. Write about the latest happenings in the realty sector. You can write about -  Vastu Tips (provided you are guided by an expert or an experienced person), announce latest project in the city you are based in, review projects, study real estate trends and predict trends based on research by industry experts and so on. Marketing Strategies Guest Blogging Guest Blogging is one of the most effective ways to thrive traffic to your website that can potentially convert to sales. Guest Blogging lets us reach our target audience and create new prospective for our business. It enlarges your network. You can connect to different people from the field and learn about real estate updates from their perspective. Guest Blogging is a way to improve your digital presence. Good digital presence is the key to improve search engine rankings. Since people tend to click on results on the first two or three pages of the search engines, thus, uplifted search engine rankings prove beneficial to get more leads. You can concentrate on writing and researching on a specific topic or you can write about generalised topics about real estate like types of real estate investment, what is real estate, benefits of real estate investment, and so on.  Don’t Just Blog, Engage Your Audience The primary purpose of blogging is to increase audience engagement. But writing a number of blogs isn’t enough. User-engagement is necessary to create new leads and convert them to business. You can write about DIY home decor tips, setting up vertical gardens in your space, environment-friendly home decor ideas, and so on. Additionally, you can ask users their preferred ways.  Request For Comments on Blogs Request your friends and acquaintances to comment on your blog posts either appreciating or asking relatable questions. Make sure that you answer the same as well. This will encourage other readers to comment and engage with your blog. This uplifts credibility factor of your blog.  Connect With Other Bloggers As a real estate blogger, another way to generate leads is by connecting with other bloggers. Together you and the other bloggers can grow as brands and individuals belonging to the same fraternity.  Advice on Forums When it comes to real estate investment, different people have different queries. Provide upfront and reliable information to audience queries. This is another effective way to build trust and get leads for your business. Creating a positive brand image on the forum is necessary to increase traffic on your website, generate more leads, and build conversions. Search Engine Optimization Search Engine Optimization (SEO) refers to ranking factors in the search engines based on the use of words, commonly known as ‘keywords’. The content on your website must have words that your audience will look for in search engines. The search engine result pages (SERPs) displays a list of results according to its ranking based on the keyword entered. This is one of the best ways to get organic traffic to your website, generate leads and gradually, build conversions. Amend Technical SEO Along with apt use of keywords and maintaining keyword density, technical SEO plays a major role to upscale your rankings in SERPs. Editing or optimizing source code is another effective way to generate leads as compared to keyword placement in content. Title tag and Meta tags (meta title and meta description) assists the crawler to identify, analyse and categorise the content of your web page and it accordingly. So, make sure that you use the right use of words for title and meta tags. Pay-Per-Click Advertising As the name suggests, ‘pay-per-click’ (PPC) or ‘cost-per-click’ (CPC) is an advertising model where advertisers pays the platform (search engine or a web page) when a user clicks on their online ad. This will aid you to reach your target audience. To get leads through PPC ads, bid on related keywords, make sure that the title of your ad clearly specifies the subject, and mention precise information related to the project (as given in the image). Native Marketing Similar to CPC, the structure of native marketing is designed in a way that it blends perfectly with the given content on a web page. For example, if your blog is about ‘Top 5 Localities For Real Estate Investment in Pune’, mention details of the area and name some of the prestigious projects in the locality. Provide hyperlink to one of the recently launched projects. Given hyperlink must redirect users to relevant project page. This marketing strategy has the potential to yield leads and build conversions.  Facebook Facebook is one of the most popularly used social networking sites globally. Facebook supports paid and unpaid advertisements. Through this medium, you can reach a wide range of audience within seconds. Charges for marketing on Facebook depends upon a variety of factors like demographics, age group, etc. You can include images, videos, or audio to advertise on Facebook. When using images for advertising, remember that Facebook works on 20 percent text rule. Facebook has provided with ‘Text Overlay Tool’ to check whether the designed image abides by the 20 percent text rule. Additional benefit of using Facebook is that you can even include virtual tours with 3600 panoramic views. YouTube YouTube is the second largest social media site, and is also one of the largest search engines in the world. Video format helps you connect to people with ease as compared to banner ads. Along with creating compelling video content, ‘video keyword research’ is another factor that can impact the reach of your advertisement. As a realtor, you can create videos promoting your services, and also share project details in video format. You can embed these videos on the relevant project page as well. This is another impactful way to generate leads for real estate. WhatsApp WhatsApp is a messaging app which is used by millions today. Once you carry out various promotional activities, and collect database of contact numbers, you can directly send project details to them (in video, text, and audio format). This way you can reach number of people quickly and effectively. Some people may be reluctant to contact through other social media channels, so, it is important to contact people through their preferred medium. And, WhatsApp can be that gateway. WhatsApp Business and WhatsApp Business API have been developed for small and large businesses, respectively. Instagram Ever since its inception, Instagram has gained millions of users and has become one of the most popularly used social media platforms today. You need a ‘business profile’ to professionally advertise on this social media platform. Regular posts, and apt use of hashtags is the key to get leads using Instagram. You can promote project details and your services through videos, photos, and stories by paying minimal fees to Instagram. Also, you can share your posts on Instagram to Facebook and Twitter. Snapchat Yes, you read it right. Most of the millennials use this video, and photo sharing app, Snapchat. Millennials are considered to define the future of any nation, and so, advertising on Snapchat will not only get you leads but has the potential to build conversions as well. ‘Geolocation’, ‘geofilters’, let you reach your target audience i.e. reach people in a particular area. This is beneficial when you want to promote a project in defined boundaries. Twitter Twitter has text limit of 280 character limit. With such limitation, it becomes absolutely mandatory to mention only the key details of project like starting price, amenities provided, carpet area, unit configuration, and location (in case of residential real estate). LinkedIn Over the years, LinkedIn has evolved as a network for various types of professionals to connect with different people across the globe. Since LinkedIn is a platform for professionals, it can be considered as an excellent medium to establish your brand, brand identity, and industry expertise in your niche. Not all, but some professionals will definitely prefer real estate investment, since, LinkedIn is considered as one of the trusted sources of information (social networking site), so, advertising on this platform can get you genuine leads. Precise information, key highlights, price range, and right use of keywords sum up the key to successful marketing on LinkedIn.  AMP Stories Pioneered by Google, AMP Stories is a format which is similar to Instagram and Snapchat stories. AMP (Accelerated Mobile Pages) is designed to improve your browsing experience on the web on mobile phones. Use of AMP allows your web page to load faster on your mobile phone just like other mobile apps. Since the AMP Story format is introduced by Google, publishing content in this state-of-the-art format has the potential to make your brand and your realtor services the apple of Google’s eyes. But, unlike other mediums, these Stories do not disappear within 24 hours and can be accessed at any given time. With AMP Stories, you can give your users a short yet precise overview of a project in a jiffy. Include CTA (call-to-action) buttons wherever possible to convert your page visitor into a lead. Use Hashtags Hashtags are to social media what keywords are to search engines. Using relevant hashtags with every social media post is known to reach a large group of people as compared to not using hashtags. Research about trending hashtags in real estate and then use them. So, when users click a specific hashtag, they’ll be able to see a number of posts of that niche. As a realtor, you can follow these hashtags and keep a track of other influencers in the industry. Some of the trending hashtags in real estate are: #realestate #realty #realtor #realestateagent #newhome #property #properties #housing #investment #home #realestatetips #realestatebroker #realestatestyle #thatgreencorner #mygreentreasure #homesforsale #creditscore Influencer Marketing Influencer marketing is a marketing strategy wherein influencers in the field pitch for your brand and its services. Here, you either ask/request, or hire/pay influencers to promote your brand. This technique includes social media marketing (SMM), and content marketing techniques, i.e. linked and unlinked brand mentions on the influencer’s content page. Additional Tips  Become a Local Real Estate Guide Becoming a local real estate guide is one of the surefire ways to venture into real estate as a realtor. One benefit of this tip is that local investors will come to you for guidance over other realtors in the market. But, for them to do so, it’s necessary for you to have a sound knowledge of real estate, its changing trends, and latest related happenings in and around the city.  Get Local Referrals From Other Realtors Once you become a local real estate guide, you can connect with other realtors and ask them to refer you and vice versa to deal for projects in a particular area.  Referral Marketing Referral marketing is word-of-mouth publicity through your social circle of family and friends. You can simply ask your friends and family to refer your realtor services to their acquaintances. Referral marketing has proven to be an effective way to generate leads for real estate. Update Your Website and Other Social Media Pages Consistency is the key. Therefore, regularly update your website and social media pages with latest project details, pre-launch and other offers, and other updates in the project. Also, make sure that you provide concrete project details and contact information on your website and social media pages.  Banner Ads Also known as display ads, the core aim of banner ads is to promote the brand. You can look for advertising slots on websites of renowned brands and place your banner ad there.  Banner ads lead visitor of a website to your project page. Thus, you can convert a website’s visitor into your lead.  Affiliate Marketing Affiliate marketing is a type of marketing technique that incorporates to promote other people’s products or services on your web page by charging them minimum commission fees. Simply put, affiliate marketing can be referred to as the realtor of real estate. This is an impactful way to generate leads.  Press Release Write and submit an in-depth yet crisp editorial to a newspaper. This has the potential to boost brand image, and gradually generate more leads. Owing to digitisation, press release can now also be accessed online. Thus, it can be accessed by millions of users globally as and whenever they wish to. Email Marketing You can create automated email response for people who enquire through forms on the website. Then, add their mail address to the mailing list and you can update them about the latest articles on your website, newly launched projects, etc. Ensure that you add CTA buttons for potential buyers. Here, captivating subject line is the key to generate leads.  Host Webinars Partner with other realtors in and around your area and host a free webinar imbibing viewers about prospect of real estate investment. You can host webinars independently as well. Mention about your area of expertise to allure leads to your business. Podcasts Along with being inexpensive, people can listen to podcasts, anywhere and anytime, unlike videos. There are various benefits of using podcasts. Podcasts can comprise of interviews of various developers/builders, architects, interior designers, etc. You can also update about new project launch in a specific area, luxury projects and affordable projects through podcasts. This directly or indirectly helps you gain authority in the realtor business. Thus, generating more leads for your real estate business. Google Your Business Google is the most commonly used search engines globally. Therefore, make sure that your company is verified by Google and other popular search engines like Bing and Yahoo. Not only that, ensure that when you search your business on Google, accurate address and contact details are displayed on the screen. Search Engine Reviews You can ask your clients to review their experience with you on search engines. Reviews on search engines are also considered dependable source of information. These reviews play a pivotal role in creating a brand image in the eyes of potential customers. Positive reviews on search engines are a must to boost the amount of leads for your realtor business. By implementing these tips, we’re sure that your realtor business will soon meet new heights of success. It may sound practically impossible to implement all of the tips at once, but, a step at a time can work wonders. Patience and consistency are the keys here. *Note: The given particulars are based upon market analysis and may or may not work for every realtor.