Real estate agents working in today’s industry know that being a marketing director is not only wise but necessary.
While there are many moving parts in real estate marketing, an important aspect is lead generation for both potential buyers and potential sellers.
This part of marketing may feel difficult, initially, for many agents to navigate. How are leads generated? What are the best ways to generate leads for real estate? Listen, while hiring out is an option, you don’t need a lead generation company. Here are nine ideas to boost your lead generation strategy:
1. Social media
Over the last several years, social media channels have provided real estate agents with a platform to sell properties, connect with other real estate professionals, and develop relationships with prospects. If cold calling and direct mail fail, turn to social media for valuable lead generation.
This is where your value-based content will come in handy for attracting prospective clients. Below are three lead generation ideas to incorporate into your social media strategy.
2. Share links to “gated content”
Gated content is content that is made accessible through a user completing a lead generation form. If interested readers perceive the promoted content as valuable, they will be willing to input their contact information to gain access, such as their email address or phone number.
A lead form is only worth it if online users see it and engage with it. Share the link to your landing page, which will house the gated content and the lead generation form, on your social media channels. Those who see the value in the content will fill out your contact form to download the offer. Gated content can include white papers, webinars, case studies, videos, infographics, and more. When looking for online leads, gated content marketing has one of the highest conversion rates.
3. Promote your listings with digital flyers
Social media channels, especially Facebook, are great for sharing content with a targeted audience. That content needs to attract users, though. Try dressing up the post with a digital listing flyer instead of posting a listing description and tour link on your Facebook page.
Hot Tip: The post can include the description and tour link in addition to your spiffy new listing flyer.
The best lead generation is whatever you find works for your real estate business. This can be email marketing, website forms, social media sponsored posts, or gated content.
Want to learn more about real estate marketing?
Sign up for our newsletter, The Good Stuff!
Begin publishing valuable content that speaks to the needs of your audience. When potential customers feel that your content provides them with industry insights, they are more likely to continue engaging with you. Great content can provide you with a great source of leads.
As you publish more value-based content, your audience will consider you an industry thought leader. Thought leaders are highly regarded in their space and pull in many leads through their content alone.
When it comes to content, the more valuable your content offers, the better chance you have of earning impactful leads. Remember always to incorporate the keywords you want to rank for. Keywords can be one word or long-tail phrases you know your prospects are searching for.
Optimize your website for search engines
You have great value-based content and a portfolio with professional listing images, so where’s the traffic? This is where optimizing your website pages come into play.
Before you publish your content, take a look at your title and meta description.
Your title should relate to your post and include your farm area. Google loves localized links. Your title should also be under 60 characters. MOZ suggests that you expect 90% of your title to show on Google if it stays below that 60 character count.
Likewise, your link’s meta description needs to relate to your post. This is the perfect space to describe what your value-based content is all about.
Although Google announced that meta tags and meta descriptions do not affect their ranking algorithms, they remain essential. The purpose of the descriptions is to draw in leads. When you improve your page’s CTR by writing a captivating, non-spammy description, you will see positive ranking impacts from Google.
Add a testimonial page to your site
Just as testimonials help build social proof for your Facebook and Twitter accounts, they can also positively influence your website visitors. After you email your clients with the NPS survey mentioned above, shoot a follow-up email to the promoters requesting a testimonial.
The best lead generation is whatever you find works for your real estate business. This can be email marketing, website forms, social media sponsored posts, or gated content.
Want to learn more about real estate marketing?
Sign up for our newsletter, The Good Stuff!
All of the visual marketing solutions mentioned above are perfect for enhancing your real estate brand in order to generate leads. These solutions are especially important when promoting your listing virtually whether through online marketing or through hosting virtual open houses.
7. Shine with a stellar Google My Business page
Google is the market leader for online searches, with 63.5% of all searches moving through its engine. While the internet arena can be competitive for local real estate agents, Google My Business can play a huge role in elevating your brand awareness.
Google My Business is a free platform provided by Google. It allows business owners to build out a customized page to promote their brand with images, a location on Google Maps, and customer reviews. You will want to keep this platform updated and optimized, ready for any new algorithms Google unveils.
One of the best parts about having a Google My Business page is the preferential ranking Google awards business pages with positive reviews. There is speculation that online reviews make up 10% of how search engines decide to rank search results. We suggest that agents build out their business page and create an email campaign directing previous clients (who are considered promoters) to write a Google review.
And this brings us back to the idea of social proof for lead generation. Social proof doesn’t have to be specific to social media channels. Reviews, especially ones on Google, are highly credible forms of social proof.
8. Optimize and maintain your website
A website with no lead generation optimization does no one any good. If your web page looks great but lacks an enticing CTA (call-to-action), you could be missing out on some valuable prospects.
Unfortunately, most prospects are not ready to become a customer during first contact or even second contact. It takes some nurturing to attract valuable leads. There are several ways, however, to optimize your website for lead capturing. To start, you can add lead capture forms to the pages you know drive the most traffic. If you find that you are bringing in a large amount of local traffic, your web visitors find relevant in your content. This is a great place to add a “subscribe to updates” opt-in.
You can also create listing-specific landing pages. According to a survey conducted by HubSpot, company websites hosting 30 or more landing pages generate seven times more leads than websites with 1 to 5 landing pages. Additionally, you can optimize your website for Google, Yahoo, and Bing by implementing search engine optimization as one of your digital marketing strategies.
9. Content creation
Content is at the root of all marketing strategies for every single company. Without content, there’s nothing to post and nothing to help generate traffic to a website. Consider content an integral part of generating valuable leads.
Begin publishing valuable content that speaks to the needs of your audience. When potential customers feel that your content provides them with industry insights, they are more likely to continue engaging with you. Great content can provide you with a great source of leads.
As you publish more value-based content, your audience will consider you an industry thought leader. Thought leaders are highly regarded in their space and pull in many leads through their content alone.
When it comes to content, the more valuable your content offers, the better chance you have of earning impactful leads. Remember always to incorporate the keywords you want to rank for. Keywords can be one word or long-tail phrases you know your prospects are searching for.
Optimize your website for search engines
You have great value-based content and a portfolio with professional listing images, so where’s the traffic? This is where optimizing your website pages come into play.
Before you publish your content, take a look at your title and meta description.
Your title should relate to your post and include your farm area. Google loves localized links. Your title should also be under 60 characters. MOZ suggests that you expect 90% of your title to show on Google if it stays below that 60 character count.
Likewise, your link’s meta description needs to relate to your post. This is the perfect space to describe what your value-based content is all about.
Although Google announced that meta tags and meta descriptions do not affect their ranking algorithms, they remain essential. The purpose of the descriptions is to draw in leads. When you improve your page’s CTR by writing a captivating, non-spammy description, you will see positive ranking impacts from Google.
Add a testimonial page to your site
Just as testimonials help build social proof for your Facebook and Twitter accounts, they can also positively influence your website visitors. After you email your clients with the NPS survey mentioned above, shoot a follow-up email to the promoters requesting a testimonial.
For SEO purposes, gently guide your promoters’ testimonial narratives. Instead of asking for their referral through an unstructured email exchange, send them a form they can fill out.
Include questions that prompt branded and non-branded keywords. Think about the services you offer as an agent and phrase them into an open-ended question. Your keyword phrasing should have three distinct markers, according to Placester. These markers include general, local, and hyperlocal.
Your prospects search for “3 bedroom house for sale in Denver” and you have the exact matching phrase on your testimonial page: “John Snow was an incredible realtor. When we were searching for a 3 bedroom house for sale in Denver, he set us up for a number of showings in the area. We highly recommend.”
You can generate valuable real estate leads through social media, content creation, website optimization, referral marketing, and more. As a real estate agent, a lot of your time is spent searching for potential clients. Why not make it a little easier by using some of our ideas?
The best lead generation is whatever you find works for your real estate business. This can be email marketing, website forms, social media sponsored posts, or gated content.
Want to learn more about real estate marketing?
Sign up for our newsletter, The Good Stuff!
6. Stand out with visual marketing solutions
If you are a listing agent, the portfolio you build throughout your career is your bread and butter for gaining valuable leads. Your portfolio should include your marketing statistics, neighborhood metrics, and real estate images from your previous listings. You will also want to have information and examples of the visual marketing solutions you use.
HDReal® images
In real estate, your brand image is reflected through your published listing photos. Not only do you want these images to be beautiful and professional, but you also want them to be consistent.
As you start your career in the real estate business or are in the process of revamping your brand image, find a real estate photographer or real estate photography vendor that you can depend on!
Once you find your preferred real estate photography provider, we recommend that you use them for every listing – that way, you know exactly what your real estate images will look like and alleviate any added stress.
Zillow 3D Home® Tours
Zillow 3D Home® tours are a great lead generation tool. Did you know that 86% of home buyers start their search online? Most of those buyers prefer professional photography and a virtual tour before viewing a property in person.
Matterport 3D Tours
A Matterport 3D Tour allows viewers to virtually tour the listing through a series of still images. The real estate images are stitched together to give a seamless and complete visual of the property.
Matterport 3D tours are valuable lead generation tools for real estate agents.
Matterport technology provides an immersive experience with three different viewing options: dollhouse, inside, and floorplan. With Matterport, no buyer is too far away.
360-Degree HDReal® Panoramas
Using 360-degree panorama images is another option to create a virtual tour. Buyers can easily view panoramas with their smartphones, which deploy gyro sensors for an experience similar to actually being in the home. Here is an example of a 360-degree pano.
Single Listing Website
Plan to market your listings on a Single Listing Website. With a Single Listing Website, you can highlight your listing in the best light with a high-quality virtual tour slideshow, a well-written listing description, an interactive map and more. To learn more about single listings websites, click here.
Every package ordered from Virtuance includes a single property website.
All of the visual marketing solutions mentioned above are perfect for enhancing your real estate brand in order to generate leads. These solutions are especially important when promoting your listing virtually whether through online marketing or through hosting virtual open houses.
7. Shine with a stellar Google My Business page
Google is the market leader for online searches, with 63.5% of all searches moving through its engine. While the internet arena can be competitive for local real estate agents, Google My Business can play a huge role in elevating your brand awareness.
Google My Business is a free platform provided by Google. It allows business owners to build out a customized page to promote their brand with images, a location on Google Maps, and customer reviews. You will want to keep this platform updated and optimized, ready for any new algorithms Google unveils.
One of the best parts about having a Google My Business page is the preferential ranking Google awards business pages with positive reviews. There is speculation that online reviews make up 10% of how search engines decide to rank search results. We suggest that agents build out their business page and create an email campaign directing previous clients (who are considered promoters) to write a Google review.
And this brings us back to the idea of social proof for lead generation. Social proof doesn’t have to be specific to social media channels. Reviews, especially ones on Google, are highly credible forms of social proof.
8. Optimize and maintain your website
A website with no lead generation optimization does no one any good. If your web page looks great but lacks an enticing CTA (call-to-action), you could be missing out on some valuable prospects.
Unfortunately, most prospects are not ready to become a customer during first contact or even second contact. It takes some nurturing to attract valuable leads. There are several ways, however, to optimize your website for lead capturing. To start, you can add lead capture forms to the pages you know drive the most traffic. If you find that you are bringing in a large amount of local traffic, your web visitors find relevant in your content. This is a great place to add a “subscribe to updates” opt-in.
You can also create listing-specific landing pages. According to a survey conducted by HubSpot, company websites hosting 30 or more landing pages generate seven times more leads than websites with 1 to 5 landing pages. Additionally, you can optimize your website for Google, Yahoo, and Bing by implementing search engine optimization as one of your digital marketing strategies.
9. Content creation
Content is at the root of all marketing strategies for every single company. Without content, there’s nothing to post and nothing to help generate traffic to a website. Consider content an integral part of generating valuable leads.
Begin publishing valuable content that speaks to the needs of your audience. When potential customers feel that your content provides them with industry insights, they are more likely to continue engaging with you. Great content can provide you with a great source of leads.
As you publish more value-based content, your audience will consider you an industry thought leader. Thought leaders are highly regarded in their space and pull in many leads through their content alone.
When it comes to content, the more valuable your content offers, the better chance you have of earning impactful leads. Remember always to incorporate the keywords you want to rank for. Keywords can be one word or long-tail phrases you know your prospects are searching for.
Optimize your website for search engines
You have great value-based content and a portfolio with professional listing images, so where’s the traffic? This is where optimizing your website pages come into play.
Before you publish your content, take a look at your title and meta description.
Your title should relate to your post and include your farm area. Google loves localized links. Your title should also be under 60 characters. MOZ suggests that you expect 90% of your title to show on Google if it stays below that 60 character count.
Likewise, your link’s meta description needs to relate to your post. This is the perfect space to describe what your value-based content is all about.
Although Google announced that meta tags and meta descriptions do not affect their ranking algorithms, they remain essential. The purpose of the descriptions is to draw in leads. When you improve your page’s CTR by writing a captivating, non-spammy description, you will see positive ranking impacts from Google.
Add a testimonial page to your site
Just as testimonials help build social proof for your Facebook and Twitter accounts, they can also positively influence your website visitors. After you email your clients with the NPS survey mentioned above, shoot a follow-up email to the promoters requesting a testimonial.
For SEO purposes, gently guide your promoters’ testimonial narratives. Instead of asking for their referral through an unstructured email exchange, send them a form they can fill out.
Include questions that prompt branded and non-branded keywords. Think about the services you offer as an agent and phrase them into an open-ended question. Your keyword phrasing should have three distinct markers, according to Placester. These markers include general, local, and hyperlocal.
Your prospects search for “3 bedroom house for sale in Denver” and you have the exact matching phrase on your testimonial page: “John Snow was an incredible realtor. When we were searching for a 3 bedroom house for sale in Denver, he set us up for a number of showings in the area. We highly recommend.”
You can generate valuable real estate leads through social media, content creation, website optimization, referral marketing, and more. As a real estate agent, a lot of your time is spent searching for potential clients. Why not make it a little easier by using some of our ideas?
The best lead generation is whatever you find works for your real estate business. This can be email marketing, website forms, social media sponsored posts, or gated content.
Want to learn more about real estate marketing?
Sign up for our newsletter, The Good Stuff!
Virtuance uses digital flyers for our own marketing purposes.
Digital listing flyers are cohesive, shareable, and eye-catching. This is especially true if you use a professional real estate photographer to market your listings.
Not only will this social media marketing strategy help spread the word about a specific listing, but it will also attract prospects to your page. This could be future sellers and/or prospective buyers in your area that like the way you market your listings.
4. Social proof your social media channels
Using social proof can dramatically increase leads as well as conversations. This psychological phenomenon, where people conform to the actions of others based on the assumption that their behavior is correct, has shown promising results for marketers in the real estate industry.LinkedIn is also a great channel to build social proof.
Studies show that nearly 70 percent of consumers look at product reviews before purchasing. Consider your services and brand a product. You want to showcase why you are valuable through the lens of your clients and colleagues.
After you sell a listing or close on a home, send your clients an NPS (net promoter score) survey. On a scale of 0-10, you will see how likely your clients are to recommend you to others.
A score of 0-6 means they are a detractor. These clients are unhappy and will not recommend you. A score of 7-8 means they are passives. Passives are happy but not enthusiastic. They remain vulnerable to competitive offerings. Those with a score of 9-10 are your promoters. These clients are loyal and passionate. They will keep using you and are more than happy to share their success stories.
So, what is the best way to show off your promoters? With testimonials and case studies. Ask your supporters to provide a testimonial. These little nuggets of social proof can be shared generously on social media platforms and within email campaigns. Pair these testimonials with your real estate photography images for extra visual oomph!
5. Branding
To find success in real estate, developing a strong brand is imperative. A professional brand image helps you stand out from your peers and other agencies during listing presentations and beyond.
6. Stand out with visual marketing solutions
If you are a listing agent, the portfolio you build throughout your career is your bread and butter for gaining valuable leads. Your portfolio should include your marketing statistics, neighborhood metrics, and real estate images from your previous listings. You will also want to have information and examples of the visual marketing solutions you use.
HDReal® images
In real estate, your brand image is reflected through your published listing photos. Not only do you want these images to be beautiful and professional, but you also want them to be consistent.
As you start your career in the real estate business or are in the process of revamping your brand image, find a real estate photographer or real estate photography vendor that you can depend on!
Once you find your preferred real estate photography provider, we recommend that you use them for every listing – that way, you know exactly what your real estate images will look like and alleviate any added stress.
Zillow 3D Home® Tours
Zillow 3D Home® tours are a great lead generation tool. Did you know that 86% of home buyers start their search online? Most of those buyers prefer professional photography and a virtual tour before viewing a property in person.
Matterport 3D Tours
A Matterport 3D Tour allows viewers to virtually tour the listing through a series of still images. The real estate images are stitched together to give a seamless and complete visual of the property.
Matterport 3D tours are valuable lead generation tools for real estate agents.
Matterport technology provides an immersive experience with three different viewing options: dollhouse, inside, and floorplan. With Matterport, no buyer is too far away.
360-Degree HDReal® Panoramas
Using 360-degree panorama images is another option to create a virtual tour. Buyers can easily view panoramas with their smartphones, which deploy gyro sensors for an experience similar to actually being in the home. Here is an example of a 360-degree pano.
Single Listing Website
Plan to market your listings on a Single Listing Website. With a Single Listing Website, you can highlight your listing in the best light with a high-quality virtual tour slideshow, a well-written listing description, an interactive map and more. To learn more about single listings websites, click here.
Every package ordered from Virtuance includes a single property website.
All of the visual marketing solutions mentioned above are perfect for enhancing your real estate brand in order to generate leads. These solutions are especially important when promoting your listing virtually whether through online marketing or through hosting virtual open houses.
7. Shine with a stellar Google My Business page
Google is the market leader for online searches, with 63.5% of all searches moving through its engine. While the internet arena can be competitive for local real estate agents, Google My Business can play a huge role in elevating your brand awareness.
Google My Business is a free platform provided by Google. It allows business owners to build out a customized page to promote their brand with images, a location on Google Maps, and customer reviews. You will want to keep this platform updated and optimized, ready for any new algorithms Google unveils.
One of the best parts about having a Google My Business page is the preferential ranking Google awards business pages with positive reviews. There is speculation that online reviews make up 10% of how search engines decide to rank search results. We suggest that agents build out their business page and create an email campaign directing previous clients (who are considered promoters) to write a Google review.
And this brings us back to the idea of social proof for lead generation. Social proof doesn’t have to be specific to social media channels. Reviews, especially ones on Google, are highly credible forms of social proof.
8. Optimize and maintain your website
A website with no lead generation optimization does no one any good. If your web page looks great but lacks an enticing CTA (call-to-action), you could be missing out on some valuable prospects.
Unfortunately, most prospects are not ready to become a customer during first contact or even second contact. It takes some nurturing to attract valuable leads. There are several ways, however, to optimize your website for lead capturing. To start, you can add lead capture forms to the pages you know drive the most traffic. If you find that you are bringing in a large amount of local traffic, your web visitors find relevant in your content. This is a great place to add a “subscribe to updates” opt-in.
You can also create listing-specific landing pages. According to a survey conducted by HubSpot, company websites hosting 30 or more landing pages generate seven times more leads than websites with 1 to 5 landing pages. Additionally, you can optimize your website for Google, Yahoo, and Bing by implementing search engine optimization as one of your digital marketing strategies.
9. Content creation
Content is at the root of all marketing strategies for every single company. Without content, there’s nothing to post and nothing to help generate traffic to a website. Consider content an integral part of generating valuable leads.
Begin publishing valuable content that speaks to the needs of your audience. When potential customers feel that your content provides them with industry insights, they are more likely to continue engaging with you. Great content can provide you with a great source of leads.
As you publish more value-based content, your audience will consider you an industry thought leader. Thought leaders are highly regarded in their space and pull in many leads through their content alone.
When it comes to content, the more valuable your content offers, the better chance you have of earning impactful leads. Remember always to incorporate the keywords you want to rank for. Keywords can be one word or long-tail phrases you know your prospects are searching for.
Optimize your website for search engines
You have great value-based content and a portfolio with professional listing images, so where’s the traffic? This is where optimizing your website pages come into play.
Before you publish your content, take a look at your title and meta description.
Your title should relate to your post and include your farm area. Google loves localized links. Your title should also be under 60 characters. MOZ suggests that you expect 90% of your title to show on Google if it stays below that 60 character count.
Likewise, your link’s meta description needs to relate to your post. This is the perfect space to describe what your value-based content is all about.
Although Google announced that meta tags and meta descriptions do not affect their ranking algorithms, they remain essential. The purpose of the descriptions is to draw in leads. When you improve your page’s CTR by writing a captivating, non-spammy description, you will see positive ranking impacts from Google.
Add a testimonial page to your site
Just as testimonials help build social proof for your Facebook and Twitter accounts, they can also positively influence your website visitors. After you email your clients with the NPS survey mentioned above, shoot a follow-up email to the promoters requesting a testimonial.
For SEO purposes, gently guide your promoters’ testimonial narratives. Instead of asking for their referral through an unstructured email exchange, send them a form they can fill out.
Include questions that prompt branded and non-branded keywords. Think about the services you offer as an agent and phrase them into an open-ended question. Your keyword phrasing should have three distinct markers, according to Placester. These markers include general, local, and hyperlocal.
Your prospects search for “3 bedroom house for sale in Denver” and you have the exact matching phrase on your testimonial page: “John Snow was an incredible realtor. When we were searching for a 3 bedroom house for sale in Denver, he set us up for a number of showings in the area. We highly recommend.”
You can generate valuable real estate leads through social media, content creation, website optimization, referral marketing, and more. As a real estate agent, a lot of your time is spent searching for potential clients. Why not make it a little easier by using some of our ideas?
The best lead generation is whatever you find works for your real estate business. This can be email marketing, website forms, social media sponsored posts, or gated content.
