Real estate developers, brokers, and consultants need to find creative ways for Real estate lead generation in the ever-changing real estate market. 2022 has been a year of new highs for the sector. The housing sales jumped by 50% and the new supply jumped by 101% in the top eight cities of India.
The recent JLL report says that India’s home sales decade high of 2,15,000 units last year. This year, the number is expected to further rise with the current demand and supply levels in the market.
With such an upswing in the markets, realtors have to be proactive in looking for new ways for real estate lead generation and boost their sales efficiently. Here are the 23 most effective methods for real estate lead generation in 2023:
1. Network with related local businesses
Local alliances are a great way to generate real estate leads. If you have great relationships with other local businesses, they can speak highly of you and refer potential clients to you. Plus, they can offer informational value and advice on the current market conditions in your area. Some of
- Insurance companies for homebuyers,
- Bankers who can help property buyers with finances,
- Loan officers and commercial lenders,
- Home cleaning and improvement companies,
- Landscape architects,
- Staging experts to give that aspirational feel to homes available for sale,
- Property registration experts and advocates, etc.
These partnerships give you an edge in online lead-generation efforts too, as they can help you spread the word about your services on their online pages.
2. Send a personalized email or newsletter.
Timely emails or newsletters to past or present clients can be a great way to generate real estate leads. Add value with useful information related to the industry and let people know how you’re different from other agents in the market. Make sure that it is tailored according to their preferences and interests.
You can thank your clients for choosing them as your realtor, send important tax documents, answer the most commonly asked questions, or suggest reliable moving companies. You can even ask them for referrals and introduce reward programs.
Useful and relevant emails and newsletters ensure that your clients stay up-to-date with the industry’s latest trends and keep you at the top of their minds.
3. Advertise online.
97% of real estate investors search for homes online. In such an age, real estate agents and brokers can get more leads by running Google ads, Facebook ads, and LinkedIn ads. Paid ads can help you reach your target audience quickly and effectively while also providing detailed analysis to measure the success or failure of each campaign. They also enable you to target very specific audiences with tailored messages that are likely to generate a higher rate of lead conversion.
Informative blogs on local or national real estate websites and writing effective answers to real estate questions on Quora also help in lead generation. Organic search engine optimization can help you generate more real estate leads for free. This also includes optimizing content, titles, and tags and getting backlinks from relevant websites.
Google Local Services ads and Google My Business Listing also help in appearing prominently on local searches. These methods are cost-effective and can be used in combination to generate more real estate leads.
4. Build a powerful website.
Ads that direct potential clients to relevant landing pages have higher chances of success. Having your own website will provide you with the flexibility to design customized landing pages and optimize them with relevant keywords. You can also add content such as home-buying guides, blog posts, and featured listings to educate your leads.
A well-developed website can help you showcase what value can you bring to the table as a real estate consultant, develop a cohesive web presence, share helpful how-to videos as well as reviews from satisfied clients, and get potential property buyers to sign up for newsletters and capture email addresses.
5. Gain expertise in a real estate niche.
Different neighborhoods may have different niches – Affordable homes, luxury apartments, historic homes, office spaces, commercial estates, and more. Learning about the niche in your local areas and developing a specialty that can make you stand out from other real estate agents.
Developing expertise in a particular niche gives you an edge over the competition and allows you to offer closer assistance. You will be able to better understand the needs of your clients and quickly find a property that meets their requirements.
At AAJNeeti, we help you determine your niche and focus all marketing tactics and strategies on it to generate more relevant real estate leads.
If you have expertise in finding first-time homebuyers or empty-nesters, or if you specialize in vacation homes or luxury high-rise apartments, make sure that your website and other marketing efforts reflect this.
With strong market research, knowledge about the industry, creativity, and a customer-centric approach – you can easily generate real estate leads in 2023.
6. Use ‘Coming Soon’ and ‘Sold’ signs.
Did you know that ‘Coming Soon’ and ‘Sold’ signs are tried-and-tested strategies to generate interest in your properties? When you use ‘Coming Soon’ signs in your ads, they help with building up anticipation for a property before it hits the market.
This simple marketing tactic can help you generate leads quickly. Such signs not only raise awareness but also create a sense of urgency so potential buyers don’t miss out on this opportunity.
You can also use ‘Sold’ signs to show the buyers what they missed out on – and generate leads for similar listings you have.
Online, you can add a ‘Sign up here’ button to get people’s contact details and follow up with them as soon as the property goes live.
7. Leverage LinkedIn to generate high-quality leads.
LinkedIn is an excellent way for real estate consultants to segment and target audiences accurately, such as business owners, C-level executives, and decision-makers with buying power.
LinkedIn ads are very cost-effective and generate high-quality leads. The platform can also be used to establish relationships, nurture leads, and promote real estate content among professionals. You can also use it to join relevant groups and participate in discussions related to specific property markets you serve.
You can post your listings here, share helpful tips and trends, inform them about up-and-coming neighborhoods in your city, follow up with interested prospects, and invite them to call to ask more questions.
8. Organize online awareness events.
Host or co-host webinars and online educational events that showcase the properties you represent and answer questions from interested buyers.
This will be an excellent opportunity to create connections with potential leads, interact directly with them, and build relationships. Make sure to focus on a thorough discussion of the real estate market so your attendees can gain valuable insights.
Share helpful tips like advice on how to stage their homes, how to find the right property, and other topics related to real estate.
At AAJNeeti, we help you create effective online events that are targeted toward the right group of people who are interested in buying a home or investing in real estate.
These events can be very effective in capturing leads, building your brand, and increasing customer engagement.
9. Target ‘For Sale By Owner’ (FSBO) listings.
A recent survey shows that only 3% of ‘For Sale By Owner’ (FSBO) listings sell within the desired time while only 18% received a fair price. These sellers often have a tight budget and might not want to hire the services of a real estate agent. Educating them on how working with agents can benefit them and their pockets can be a great strategy for generating leads.
Blog posts or even a few bulleted statistics about the advantages of hiring an experienced professional can help you reach these prospects. Finally, sending out emails to FSBOs is a great way to find leads in your local market.
10. Run retargeting ads for expired listings.
Retargeting ads work very well on expired listings – if you are able to understand sellers’ frustrations, pressures, and reasons for disillusionment. If you run paid ad campaigns, you can develop creative content that shows how your services are designed to solve their problems.
Contact expired listings with targeted messages regarding their specific situations. For example, if a seller had an issue with pricing, you can write about how you are better equipped to adjust prices and make sure they receive adequate offers for their property.
At AAJNeeti, we use look-alike audience targeting to help you build successful ad campaigns that target expired listings. This method helps you find more relevant prospects and generate leads for your real estate business.
11. Reviews, testimonials, and referrals from satisfied clients work well.
Positive word of mouth is a powerful marketing tool. Ask your previous and existing clients for referrals or testimonials about their experience with you. Gather these reviews to create trust and establish credibility among potential leads.
Estimates reveal that 91% of buyers prefer to work with their agents again or recommend them to others, and 40% of first-time homebuyers used agents referred by their relatives, friends, and neighbors.
But to get the most out of referrals, you need to provide your clients with thorough attention and exemplary service while you are working with them to be able to capitalize on their referral potential.
AAJNeeti experts can guide you on how and where to position these client reviews and testimonials to make the most of them.
12. Use predictive analytic techniques to generate real estate leads
Predictive analytics focuses on collecting and analyzing data to reveal insights to help you make informed decisions and take the right actions at the right time. AI and machine learning-based tools study and analyze past and present events to predict future outcomes of a situation.
Other sectors, like finance, education, health care, and insurance, already use predictive analytics tools to their advantage. The real estate industry is catching up by using platforms that use predictive analytics for lead generation, qualification, and nurturing and creating real estate marketing strategies and micro-targeting scenarios.
Such platforms can help real estate consultants to find the most suitable properties from thousands of listings based on certain parameters, such as the budget and preferences of buyers, property type, and financing method.
We can help you target audiences whose social and financial backgrounds of customers who have bought or invested in similar properties in the past.
13. Cultivate a sound social media presence.
Social networking sites are a great source for generating leads. People post their opinions and requirements on these platforms, so creating engaging content and building relationships with your followers is an effective way to connect with them.
Maintaining profiles across multiple platforms, such as LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, offer potential buyers about who you are, what you have to offer, the human element of your professional persona, and the legitimacy of projects you are representing.
Also, use the power of video to promote your real estate business and showcase its services on social media platforms like YouTube. We can help you create high-quality content that is engaging and creative to make a lasting impression on your target audience.
14. Update your Instagram stories.
Images of interesting properties or a quick tour of a listing on an Instagram story are excellent ways to showcase your portfolio and drive engagement. Such activities help to build your presence, keep up with the trends in the industry, and also establish a connection with potential customers.
A quiz sticker or a question sticker with an image or tour of a new listing asking the audience to guess the price of a property, and tours of different neighborhoods you cover and highlighting their uniqueness make awesome Instagram stories.
You can invite audiences to ask questions and make videos to answer them in detail. You can also show behind-the-scenes of your everyday life as an agent, feature weekend events in your city, and showcase local businesses with their location, Instagram handles, and what makes them unique. You may also create general quizzes related to real estate, such as ‘Should you buy or rent a house?’, ‘Where should you invest now?’ etc.
15. Create Facebook Ads to Generate Quality Leads
The average adult spends 38 minutes daily on Facebook. To run Facebook ads, you will need a personal Facebook account, a business page on Facebook, and a business manager account. You can also contact AAJNeeti to run Facebook real estate ads for you.
To generate leads, you have to specify that purpose of your ad is ‘Lead Generation’. You then have to choose from extremely granular targeting options to define the audience, and then post the ad creative.
You can target the buyers by their location, age range, financials (income), and home ownership status (homeowner, renter, first-time homebuyer, etc.).
We regularly use the ‘lookalike audiences’ feature to target customers who have already bought similar properties in areas our real estate clients cover. Video marketing is another one of the secrets we regularly employ to feature some of the most beautiful properties. Real estate agents who want to showcase multiple properties can use carousel ads.
Direct and transparent ad copies and stunning ad creatives make our Facebook real estate ads stand out from the competition.
16. Work on Your Sphere of Influence to Grow Your Business
While you can always purchase leads from real estate lead-generation companies like AAJNeeti, you need to have a system in place to convert them into long-term clients. And this requires work and consistency.
A Sphere of Influence (SOI) for a real estate broker is all the connections he or she has – including friends, family embers, previous clients, purchased leads, and leads that come across your ads or content.
To nurture this SOI, you need to take relationship-building efforts and ensure frequent engagement.
As experts say, it takes 7-8X more time, energy, and money to get new clients than getting referrals from those within your sphere of influence.
When you keep your sphere engaged, your chances of finding new leads organically and generating steady business multiplies manifold.
Some of the things you can do to engage your connections are:
- Keep track of old leads and former clients by making a list and keeping it organized and up-to-date. See where your leads are in buying or selling decision-making process and send them messages that matter to them at specific moments.
- Send personalized messages to your connections from time to time to keep yourself on their radar, so that they reach out to you whenever they need your services.
- Ask them questions and be ready to answer any queries they might have about the real estate market you cater to (This could be anything from restaurants that still might be open at a specific time to the impact of the pandemic on real estate). Being accessible makes you more trustworthy and curry favor from the people you know.
- Focus on service, instead of sales, in general communications. Playing a part in solving problems of the local community and offering solutions help you cultivate influence in society and become a trusted source for all those who know you.
- Your website, blogs, and social media posts can help you grow and nourish your sphere of influence. Be consistent with your posts and blogs and share quality content to establish yourself as an industry expert.
17. Circle Prospecting is a Good Idea
GeoLeads offer you contact information for people in your neighborhood, market trend data, homeowners’ financial and lifestyle insights, as well as home & building specifications. AAJNeeti can help you with circle prospecting neighborhoods using GeoLeads.
Real estate professionals know that when homes get listed for sale in a neighborhood, other homeowners are likely to want to sell their houses too. So, deciding on a general area you want to prospect using GeoLeads, allows you to personalize your search and optimize lead generation from the area. We can help you with filtering out recently sold homes and connect with homeowners who are still looking for buyers.
18. Community Building can Lead to Endless Opportunities
Facebook communities and groups that bring together local homeowners, painters, plumbers, electricians, landscapers, and other home-service experts together are ultimate resources for real estate agents. You can be an active member of an already-thriving community or build your own.
When you join an existing group that offers a platform for the local community to share information, ask questions and talk about their experiences of buying/selling homes in your region or locality, you create opportunities for yourself. You can answer questions and share your experience in the industry with helpful tips on buying/selling real estate and resolving any financial issues property sellers or buyers may have.
This way, you can not only create an impression as a helpful resource but also generate leads from people looking for your services. When you start conversations around real estate in such communities, you find more and more members who are ready to work with agents like you and consider buying/selling their homes in the near future.
19. Follow Ups are Essential
The key difference between struggling and successful real estate professionals is how much importance they give to consistent follow-ups of their prospects, former clients, and sphere of influence.
You should have the right follow-up system to keep in touch with your prospects and convert them into clients.
Be it a call or a mail, following up after every message you send will help you stay on top of people’s minds. You can also use automated lead nurturing for this purpose. This type of software allows you to create automated emails that can be sent out to prospects at regular intervals.
Follow-ups help you create a sense of urgency in the minds of your prospects and remind them that they should act soon before someone else takes the opportunity. It increases the chances of converting leads into clients and helps build trust with them, too.
20. Pay Attention to “Soon-To-Be Hot” Short Sales and Pre-Foreclosures
Foreclosures in real estate refer to the legal process of a lender repossessing the property because of unpaid mortgage payments. Pre-foreclosures happen when homeowners have defaulted on their mortgage payments but the foreclosure process has not started yet.
Short sales mean that the seller is selling the property for less than the mortgage balance and the lender has to agree to the sale. These types of sales often take place before homes are foreclosed.
These opportunities are being seen as a ‘soon-to-be-hot’ lead source for real estate agents. Buyers and agents can benefit from them as they can get a house at a cheaper price, and the seller can avoid foreclosure.
Therefore, you should pay close attention to pre-foreclosures and short sales that are likely to take place in the future and reach out to the owners before it gets too late.
Some important skills you need to have to be successful in this area include sales negotiations, knowing how to talk to a pre-foreclosure lead, and what options homeowners might have in their specific situation.
21. Strengthen Your Social Media Presence to Attract New Clients
Meta (Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp) and YouTube are some of the leading platforms that people scroll through all the time these days. If you are not showing up on their feeds, you are missing out on a potential pool of leads.
Social media gives you the opportunity to get in front of your target market at scale and build relationships with them over time. It is also much more cost effective than traditional methods.
You can create targeted ads for different demographics, including age, location, occupation, interests, and buying behavior so that you are able to reach your exact target market.
Also, make sure that the content you share resonates with your audience and adds value. This will help you become an authority in your niche and also attract leads from social media channels. Additionally, try creating videos as these tend to perform better on platforms like YouTube and Facebook.
22. Stay connected through SMS or WhatsApp messages
People may ignore emails or paid ads, but they rarely ignore SMS or WhatsApp messages.
Using these platforms to stay connected with your prospects is a great way to build relationships and nurture your leads. You can use SMS/WhatsApp messaging to wish them on their birthdays, send them offers, and remind them of upcoming events.
Also, you can use these platforms to broadcast messages about new properties or special discounts to your entire contact list in a single go. This will help you reach more people with fewer efforts.
However, make sure that you are not sending too many messages as that can annoy your prospects. Instead, keep it targeted, relevant and interesting so that they engage with it.
23. Old Expired Leads May Turn Out to be a Gold Mine
New expired leads are often angry and frustrated because they feel that their property was not marketed properly. But if you go back a couple of years and talk to homeowners, builders, or developers ready to re-list their properties, you may be able to turn those expired leads into new clients.
These people are more willing to talk as they have had time to forget the disappointment of their previous experiences. So, invest some time in researching old expired leads that are ready to re-list their properties and you will be surprised by the results.
A simple script to establish a common ground and break their initial hesitation can help you build strong relationships with them. Also, make sure that you learn from your past mistakes to ensure better marketing and sales outcomes this time.
By leveraging old expired leads, you can tap into a whole new pool of leads and increase your chances of closing more deals in the future.
Conclusion
Generating real estate leads is essential for any successful real estate agent or investor. The methods mentioned above are some of the best ways to generate leads in 2023 and beyond.
AAJNeeti offers you the best real estate lead generation services at an affordable price. With our help, you can get quality leads and close more deals in quicker turnarounds. To learn more about our services and how we can help you generate real estate leads, reach out to us today!
