While advertising can be effective in getting more traffic and leads, it can also be expensive.
You don’t have to spend a lot of money to get your business known in your community. If you’re willing to change your schedule a bit, you could get more leads naturally, while also improving your image as the local expert.
1. Set Up Office Hours At Your Local Coffee Shop
As a real estate agent, you spend countless hours doing menial paperwork tasks in your office or home.
In order to stay awake and focused during all that tedium, you probably also drink countless cups of coffee, tea, or other caffeinated beverages. I’m willing to bet that as you are reading this, you are drinking your morning coffee or wishing you were at your favorite coffee shop.
Now, let me ask you something. About how many people visit your favorite coffee house each hour? 30? 50? 100?
If you’re going to spend a lot of time on your laptop doing work, why not spend a couple of hours each week doing it from your favorite coffee shop? If you take advantage of opportunities to work with local businesses, you can not only finish your work, but also bring attention to your real estate business and get more leads.
Here’s some ideas to get you thinking about how this could work:
- Pick a day and time – Take a look at your schedule, and pick a day and time on which you can spend a couple of hours at a coffee house of your choice. Pick a time that not only fits your busy schedule but that is also convenient for your demographic and/or area that you’re serving. And if it’s a time in which the coffee house has a good amount of traffic, even better.
- Let everyone know – Once you’ve decided what your “coffee shop office hours” will be, let everyone in your sphere of influence know. Advertise on your social media and community pages that you’ll be offering free real estate advice in your favorite coffee shop at that time. Finally, update your social media status to indicate that you’re now in your coffee house office, ready to offer free real estate advice to anyone that comes to you.
- Boost your post – Facebook gives you the ability to boost any one of your posts so that it reaches hundreds (or even thousands) of people in any targeted area and demographics that you pick for just a few bucks.
- Make yourself stand out – When you arrive at your coffee house, sit in a place where you’d be easy to spot. Place a small stack of your business cards on the table, and if you have clothing branded with your real estate logo, make sure you wear it as well. You can also go to your local print shop and have them print you a laptop sleeve/sticker that advertises your real estate services. It could say something like “ask me anything about real estate.” That way you’ll invite anyone around you in the coffee shop to approach you for real estate advice.
At first, you may not have many people coming to you for real estate advice. It may take a few weeks to start seeing results, but generating real estate leads is inexpensive and won’t take up much of your time.
If you happen to meet someone, it’s likely that they’re ready to be turned into a client.
2. Interview Local Businesses You Frequent
The technological advances in the real estate industry have not negated the old adage that real estate is local. This makes it essential to become a trusted local expert if you want to be successful in this field.
Building strong relationships with local businesses is a great way to achieve success.
Make a list of local businesses you visit frequently or would like to support in the future, and reach out to their owners to see how you can help. Say that you’re interested in writing an article or making a video about the business, as well as publishing it on your blog and social media pages.
You can write an article about the business, or make it an interview. If you are interested in interviewing the owner or owners of the business, you can ask them questions about their experience in the community, what it is like to serve the community, and why they decided to open the business.
3. Identify Homes That Are Likely to Go On the Market
Facebook has become a powerful tool for this, with parents of college students selling their homes to downsize, or to leave the area altogether. A lead generation strategy that can be valuable is to identify homes that are likely to go on the market. Some homeowners are more likely to sell than others. For example, people who have paid off their mortgage may want to cash in on the equity they’ve built in their home.
Use the advanced filters on Homesnap Pro+ to find properties that are most likely to be put up for sale, so you can contact those homeowners and offer your real estate services.
4. Establish an Organic Social Media Presence
Some people use social media solely for enjoyment, while others elect not to use it at all. If you are an agent looking to generate leads, you cannot be one of those people. It is important to have an active and trustworthy social media presence when Marketing organically.
Develop a social media footprint that adheres to the ‘EAT’ framework.
- The first portion of EAT is engagement. Agents should focus on regularly posting on social media channels and engaging with consumers by responding to their comments on posts. Agents should also ask questions to spur audience engagement. You could ask people questions like “carpet or hardwood?” to find out their preferences, or “what homes are catching your eye this fall?” to learn why they’re entering the market and what kind of homes they’re most interested in seeing.
- The second component of EAT is authenticity. Agents can create social media content that is genuine and honest. This will help potential clients learn more about the process of buying and selling homes, as well as the current state of the real estate market.
- Agents shouldn’t only post videos and photos of homes that are fully staged and have tours. Before and after photos, or a video of your open house preparations would be good to post. This Realtor is saying that by being transparent and showing all the steps involved in buying or selling a house, they are demonstrating their dedication to their work. This makes consumers more likely to trust them and use their services.
- The last section of the EAT model is to lead by example. Agents who are active on social media can share their expertise and knowledge about the real estate market, which is especially valuable during complicated or challenging times.
When you use the EAT social media framework, your content will appear more credible and engaging to potential clients.
5. Run Paid Ads on Social Media
Paid social media can be used to supplement your lead generation efforts by drawing larger numbers of leads into your sales funnel.
Based on the data, our scientists found that agents who consistently invest in paid advertisements see better results. Agents who use Facebook ads through Homesnap earn 2.5 more leads from Facebook than agents who just use social media.
When choosing what types of paid advertisements to purchase, agents should take into account their own needs and capacity. Listing agents can use Homesnap Pro Ads to purchase Facebook and Instagram ads that feature specific listings.
As listings come and go, it can be difficult for agents to keep track of advertising campaigns for multiple properties.
Instead, commit to consistent, ongoing paid social media efforts. Homesnap Pro Ads offers a ‘Subscribe and Save’ service which helps agents automate retargeting, sharing client reports and other time-consuming parts of digital advertising. The Subscribe and Save feature on the social media site allows users to save time by automationg tasks such as ad set up.
Consistent paid social media ads will generate leads. If you have strong paid and organic social media, you will be able to introduce leads to an agent brand, not just a specific property or listing.
6. Advertise on Waze
Paid social media and Google platforms are often the primary focus when it comes to generating leads. There are other options available to real estate agents like you.
You might want to think about marketing your product on Waze, the GPS app. Waze is a great way to advertise open houses. The ads in this app are designed to be seen by nearby drivers in a safe, non-distracting way. These ads encourage real-time behavior, like checking out an open house that’s just off your usual route.
There are three different ad units offered on Waze:
- Pin ads: Your open house pops up as a distinctive pin on the navigation map.
- Search ads: Your listing appears at the top of results when a nearby destination is searched.
- Zero-speed ads: This banner appears on the Waze screen when drivers stop for at least three seconds.
Each of these ad units offers Waze users the ability to be redirected to your open house by tapping it once. Not only does Waze increase foot traffic, but it also helps create awareness for your listing. People frequently drive by the property, but not always on the same street. If you use Waze, your ad will be seen by everyone nearby, like a digital yard sign. This will let them know about your listing without having to drive right in front of it.
Homesnap Pro Ads can be used to create and manage Waze advertisements, as well as ads for other social media platforms.
7. Harness the Power of Video Advertising
This could be a great way to generate leads for your real estate business. People often say that you should use videos in your advertising, like ones that introduce you as an agent, show off your listings, or feature happy past clients. But how often are you actually doing that? Although statistics show that video outperforms text-only ads and static images by 1,200%, very few real estate agents use it regularly.
An easy way to share videos for free is to create a Homesnap Story for any of your listings. Homesnap will now have a media section on listings that will work similarly to Instagram Stories.
Viewers of the property page can watch the attached Story and click through photos and any other media of the home that was added to the MLS listing. You can boost your Homesnap Story to Facebook and Instagram by tapping a few buttons.
8. Give Compelling Listing Presentations
A listing presentation is an opportunity to demonstrate to a potential new client why you are the best person to help them list and sell their home. This means that creating an impactful listing presentation can be its own real estate lead generation strategy.
How should you give the most compelling listing presentations? Here’s what to do:
- Be customized and visual: Give a presentation that avoids a cookie-cutter template and language. Include attractive visuals and cater your presentation to the seller’s submarket and you won qualifications. Use the best charts, graphics, and listing presentation possible.
- Leverage a unique value proposition: What separates you from your competition? Highlight your best, most valuable qualities – whether that’s years of experience, personality, marketing specialities, or even hobbies outside of real estate. If you’re an experienced agent, lean on the fact that you’ve done this before. If you’re a relative novice, highlight your willingness to give everything and devote a huge chunk of time to your clients.
- Have a marketing plan: Craft a thorough marketing plan that demonstrates you know how to gain the attention of home buyers. As we mentioned earlier, visuals are crucial here. Show off your past ads and include performance stats for any marketing you have concrete data about.
- Include testimonials: People want examples of other consumers who have had success working with you as an agent. Include testimonials – written or on video – in which past clients speak to your abilities.
If you give an effective listing presentation, you will be more likely to get leads and end up representing them.
9. Appear at the Top of the Homes.com Agent Directory
It’s important that you try to reach as many platforms as possible when you are generating leads. Homesnap Pro+ agents are now appearing more often on the Homes.com agent directory, which gets a lot of traffic.
Your Homes.com profile will be enriched with Google reviews, review ratings, and agent stories if you get boosted. This will allow prospective clients to see that you are a top agent with a great reputation.
Overall, Pro+ agents who get boosted on Homes.com will:
- Reach a high volume of high-intent consumers
- Showcase their reputation with an enriched agent profile
- Earn more leads
This is your chance to get ahead of your competition by upgrading to Pro+. We’re investing tens of millions of dollars to surge traffic on Homes.com.
10. Maintain a Custom Real Estate Website
Clearly, many lead generation ideas come from digital platforms. One of the most valuable digital platforms you can have is a customized website for your real estate business.
Prospective leads are clients who are searching for a business. They want to make sure you are qualified for the position. Do you think that having a professional, detailed, and individually-catered website will help potential clients to see that you are a legitimate service provider?
Be sure to read our blog, Can You Run Your Real Estate Business Without a Website?
With these tips, you can get more leads naturally, while also improving your image as the local expert.
