Generating new clients in the real estate industry can be very competitive. Whether it be real estate investment leads, real estate loans, it doesn’t matter. Generating leads won’t be that easy. However, why do people continue to choose it despite the challenges? Because it can be easier to get those qualified leads than most people believe. It usually takes time to go over proper marketing plans and make sure to use the right tools and lead generation strategies to boost the company’s growth or your personal one.
Usually, the secret lies in keeping this in mind but moving on with what lead generation strategies will be more suitable for your business. In this case, we would recommend you focus most of your efforts on digital options.
Although traditional marketing and lead gen continue to be worth it, you will notice that most people focus on the online options to find companies and experts they want to work with. Thus, it is necessary to include them, but don’t waste your time that much when the Internet seems like everything today.
This summarizes online lead generation being more relevant and with some touches on traditional methods. Here, we will be including a list you can add to your strategy to ensure you are marketing leads for your real estate investment services or company.
Segment Your Leads If Possible
Even though most of the people who receive your newsletters and promotional emails are already leads, this will provide insight into your system and allow you to generate high-quality leads and not just some “possible” ones when it comes to converting them into clients.
When you do this, it is called lead segmentation. To segment your leads, there are several criteria you can use:
- How “hot” or “cold” they can be (how frequently they interact with your content, website, and social media, etc.).
- Demographics, or better yet, buyer personas.
This information will enable you to target your audience with emails and educational materials. It will also allow you to customize your contact with clients. You will gain a greater understanding of how to implement your strategies.
While hot leads may need a personal push to move them, an email drip is better for cold leads. Segmenting can help you get the best results and save time.
Social Media to Increase Awareness and Traffic
Modern marketing has made social media image an integral part.
LinkedIn is the best option as it is more focused on professional networking. But Instagram and Twitter can generate a lot more traffic and awareness.
Beautiful visuals and simple posts can help you keep your Instagram strategy current and bring great results for your service.
Another effective way to generate leads is through Facebook ads. With the Custom Audiences feature, you can target existing leads.
A Facebook group can be set up around your company to allow customers to share their experiences with other homebuyers and give potential leads a glimpse of what may be in store for them.
Don’t Be Afraid to Ask People You’ve Influenced
This doesn’t necessarily have to be about new people you meet. This influence can be extended to every single person you’ve been in touch with, even if it wasn’t for too long. You can make enough contacts with anyone you know and use them (not in a bad way) to bring more sales-qualified leads your way.
Asking your friends and family to recommend you to others about your services as an agent in real estate or your business can result in a significant increase in your efforts and guarantee some influx of clients.
To gain leads, you should keep in touch with them. You can reach them by sending a message, personal email, or just any channel they pick or you have decided to have available.
Just remember that when asking for leads, don’t be too assertive. You shouldn’t be timid. You should let people know that you’re always available to answer any questions.
It is possible to make them feel comfortable by showing them that you are available for any questions. Connect with people by getting to know them.
You may not see immediate results, but don’t lose heart. This can be a great strategy when you are just patient about developing things.
Your Neighborhood Is a Gold Mine
This lead generation strategy allows you to focus your efforts on a particular area or neighborhood in order to increase your name recognition. This can be achieved through community involvement and mailings.
If someone is looking for a realtor that can help with investment, you can increase your chances of them calling you.
It may be difficult for new agents to access rural neighborhoods. You shouldn’t let this stop you. Some people would rather work with less experienced agents who are hungry than those who have more experience.
To introduce yourself and give market data, send postcards. You may be allowed to send a few cards by your brokerage.
Magnetic mailers are available to provide leads with a reason for you to display your contact details. Just make sure you aren’t too salesy or come too strong by trying to offer your services without any type of proper approach in your messages and contact.
Embrace Networking to Bring Leads
It’s fun to build relationships and get leads for real estate investment, and this doesn’t involve your neighbors only if you are thinking about the previous strategy.
Networking is about building relationships with anyone you feel is a good match.
It is crucial to network with both people who are in the real estate industry and those who don’t.
Attending as many events as possible is a great way to network. Set a goal to be out at least once a week.
Before attending an event, it is important to review market data and trends whatsoever, so don’t think this is more fun and socializing than finding clients.
It is not guaranteed that you will generate a lead in real estate by attending a networking event. Networking takes time, as with all things.
Follow-up on events and building relationships are key to building leads. To let people know you enjoyed their company and provide contact information, send them an email.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Is Always Needed
Many people are searching engines at any moment for answers to questions about real estate in their area. This includes the service you’re offering in this specific industry.
Search engine optimization allows you to rank your website in search results. It also answers common questions that show your knowledge and trustworthiness when you know how to rank yourself in those engines. If you work it properly, this will help you capture new leads. High-quality leads.
SEO may not be the best way to generate leads for real estate, but it can be a long-term strategy that will bring in qualified leads over time and help you have traffic, continuously build awareness, and build your reputation.
You can ensure success with your lead generation strategy by paying attention to all the aspects that are necessary for good SEO:
- Keyword Research.
SEO is not able to help you grow your real estate business without a solid understanding of keywords, which you will learn are kind of the base for over 60% of what SEO actually is.
When having a hard time with this and making it simple, just think of keywords as specific words or phrases you want to use for people to find you on the search engines.
To find the right ones, you can use Google’s Keyword Planner, a free tool to search keywords and get information about the search volume and their competition.
Keywords with low competition and high search volume are desirable. For real estate SEO, local and hyperlocal keywords work best. Even though the search volume might be lower, it will still bring people looking for agents in your area.
- Conduct an SEO website audit.
A great way to optimize an existing website is with an SEO audit.
You can use a paid tool such as Ahrefs for auditing your website. Do you want to perform a DIY SEO website audit? Make sure you have a good understanding of technical SEO so you can interpret the results and make adjustments.
If you don’t have the technical skills or don’t want hours of code reading, you can hire a Fiverr and Upwork expert in SEO.
- Create your Google My Business Page.
Google My Business (GMB), a Google tool that allows you to appear in search engine results, can be completely free.
Upload your photos and contact information to encourage clients to leave positive reviews.
GMB converts at a higher rate than real-estate landing pages. Businesses that are listed on it have a better chance of conversion than other real-estate investment companies and experts with their websites.
- Use Google Analytics to monitor your progress.
You must understand your visitors’ behavior to get the best SEO results.
Google Analytics allows you to see which websites get the most organic traffic and which ones convert well. This can include your pages.
- Optimize images.
The ability to use images has been shown by research to increase user engagement by a lot, which is why images are crucial for creating great content.
Uploading incorrect images to your website could slow down your website’s speed and make it more difficult for visitors.
A web block and an image compressor can be used to optimize every image before uploading. A website builder is the best and easiest way to optimize each image as well.
- Check how your website looks on mobile devices.
While you’re creating your website, you will most likely view it on your desktop. However, keep in mind that the majority of your website visitors will be using a smartphone.
Therefore, take the time to optimize it properly and ensure every part is designed correctly.
- Create a website structure.
The website structure describes the way that all pages link together. Plan your website structure before you start building it. You should plan your primary pages, including your homepage, contact page, and blog sections.
Instead of linking back and forth between pages, direct your audience to the pages most likely to encourage them to take action.
To nurture your real estate investment leads, you could have them subscribe to your email mailing list.
- Create a blog content calendar + the right keywords.
Search engines are more likely to find websites that contain regular, unique, and fresh content. This is why you will find blogging to be crucial for your lead generation process.
However, we know it can be hard to develop ideas for your lead generation blogs, so instead of staring at the cursor and wondering what to write, create a content strategy using keywords research.
After you’ve completed your keyword research, you’ll need a list that includes general, local, short-tail, and hyperlocal keywords.
The search volume for short-tail keywords such as “realty agents” will be greater than the long-tail keywords such as “realty homes in Miami.” Long-tail keywords have lower competition and higher search volume than short-tail keywords. This allows you to create content that will outperform all your competitors.
The strategy will generally consist of a blog posting that focuses on a short-tail keyword. Next, add more content to the topic by using long-tail keywords. This will improve your search engine rankings.
- Add internal links.
Links are signals of authority that search engines use. Search engines will rank them higher in search engines if they can locate specific blog posts.
Incorporate internal links in your blog post strategy. Make sure you link to related posts when publishing a blog post. Link to landing sites in your blog posts if you want to direct website visitors.
- Maximize meta titles and descriptions.
Search engines can read meta descriptions and meta titles on every page of your site. While readers won’t see meta titles on your website, they may be displayed in Google search results.
Although meta titles and descriptions are not used to rank pages on websites, they are crucial for SEO. You have a very limited amount of space on search results pages, so you need to take advantage of it to help Google rank your site and attract searchers.
Your content should be clear and concise. Therefore, take the time to think carefully about your titles and how direct yet simple you are with your descriptions as well.
- Add schema markup.
Search engines can use schema markup to determine if your site matches a user’s search query.
This provides more context for your website’s content and makes it easier to be recognized by search engines. This allows search engines to provide a complete summary of your page. This improves search results and can increase your chances of being ranked higher. All this in one place.
Schema markups can, for instance, provide important information such as your location and contact information. They also help you to identify the niche clients that you serve.
It can be used within your pages to help search engines find upcoming events, such as open houses or listings that are for sale.
A plugin can be downloaded and installed to add schema markup to WordPress websites. Or, you can manually create tags with HTML code.
Advertising Using Pay-Per-Click (The Paid Option)
Pay-per-click advertising (PPC), when done correctly, can be very efficient.
Although PPC ads can be expensive and not free, they are very cost-effective when you also choose the right ones. These ads have fewer risks and are easier to manage, even though they can be complex.
PPC ads can make your business successful and bring you a steady stream. You only pay once someone clicks on the ad, and you can even set a budget so you don’t spend more than what you can actually afford.
Keep in mind that despite the option with social media ads, PPC is often referred to as Google Ads and the ones you see during every search.
Google Ads allows you to target any market or keyword on Google. If someone searches for the keyword, you specifically chose and is in your target market, your ad might appear at the top of search results.
Search Engine Journal has shown that more than 27.5% of users will click on the first organic (no ads) results in search results.
Ads can make things even more interesting. Google Ads will show two to three ads per search but will capture approximately 44%.
If you can find 10,000 searches per month for a keyword, you could be able to capture tons of qualified leads.
The problem is how to pay these leads. The more competitive a keyword is, the more expensive it will be.
For some keywords, clicks can cost up to $30. This is quite a bit considering your marketing budget. Even though the position is not cheap, you can assume that other companies are competing for it. However, if they do, they are doing so because they believe this keyword will be profitable.
If it’s set up properly, a Google Ad campaign can bring you endless leads for real estate investment, and don’t worry; you can find several keywords for less than $1 and will rank properly as well.
Email Marketing Works
Email marketing is a great way to reach your audience. Now you can send them content and nurture them, as they have provided their email addresses. This is the first step to becoming a lead.
Emails can contain more than information. They can also call for action like requesting or booking an appointment.
You could, for example, send an email newsletter each month with the latest offers as well and some options for real estate investment they could be interested in.
In your email, include the words of a call to action to make sure they know they can request the offeror just contact you without hesitation.
Email marketing can help you generate leads, but don’t overuse it either, which is basically keeping your emails not so frequent.
You must first build your email list before you can do any type of email marketing. A Lead Magnet is the best way to do this.
Form Partnerships as They Are Valuable
It is important to expand the network of your local real estate company. This network can often lead to partnerships and more qualified leads.
A partnership is a collaboration between active service providers in the industry. The common goal of all parties revolves around lead generation.
Collaborations offer many benefits, such as the sharing of risk and resources, the ability to gather leads, and the ability for each side to be more efficient.
You must first reach out and get to know other professionals in the industry.
It is crucial to make sure that your partner holds the same qualifications. This will ensure that your partner can generate leads while you also win the same.
Focus on Your Reputation & Reviews
Your website should be able to attract clients and leads through content and other strategies we have discussed so far. When done, clients and customers will leave reviews about your services, or that’s at least the natural course of things.
This alone will be ten times more effective than any other marketing strategy if it happens.
Before making a decision on whom to choose, people search online for the right realtors.
They will search Google for your website before they visit it and look for every piece of information, before, during, and after the first contact.
It is important that you have a good reputation on review sites, so people are willing to share their experiences with you. How can you do this?
Your service is the most valuable. If you offer the best and apply for better terms and deals than your competitors, then you are worth a lot, but you should also focus on the attention given even more than your prices and deals. This applies to every aspect of your business.
Everything you do affects marketing, from how you handle estimates to how your invoices are sent. It is important to respond to people promptly as well.
So it is a mix of providing the right attention and a great deal to get those positive reviews and improve your reputation.
The Local Lead Generation Process for Your Real Estate Investment Business
All right! So, everything is about building properties and generating leads. But how does the process actually take place? Are there other steps I need to know?
The steps I mention below are what students from our local lead generation program follow to generate leads for businesses like yourself. So I’ll help you see what we do. And how if you join our program, you can simply generate leads for your own business (unless you want to start a side hustle and build a laptop lifestyle business).
Essentially, our lead generation can be divided into four steps:
The first is prospecting. You need to take the time to do market research on a niche (industry) and determine how many phone-driven businesses are there.
Keep in mind that this is local research as you need to know how many companies need leads. For example, you may search for “plumbing services Youngstown OH.”
You will find dozens or even hundreds of businesses trying to get themselves in front of the customers by ranking on Map Listings, organic results, and even Ad.
The second step, building. When you find a niche (plumbing, tree services, a software company, real estate…), you will need to start building your digital properties. You don’t need to be an expert in HTML or coding. It can be easy with the right tools.
The third step is now taking time to rank your lead gen website. With the site done, you need to work on SEO strategies and start dominating those Google search results. If you’re new to SEO, it stands for Search Engine Optimization.
To keep it simple, it consists of the entire process of growing a company’s visibility on search engines like Google and generating organic traffic. And remember this, local lead generation is part of the strategies.
Moving on to step four, once you rank the site, you will start getting your ROI and profits. You only need to rent it out to a local business interested in the leads the site generates. You can offer a couple of free leads to their move on with the actual pay per lead.
To review steps 1-4 above, I described it to a normal student who is building a lead gen business to help local service providers generate more calls. But replace the student with you as the business owner. And replace sending the leads to a business to simply siphoning the leads to your personal business.
By the way, fun fact, about 20% of our students in our local lead gen program are actually business owners who went through the program. And they use the skillsets we teach to generate leads for their own business.
An Example of Lead Generation: Home Advisor
You must be thinking, “if lead generation sounds so good so far, how come I haven’t seen any company?” That’s the thing; there are many out there. You just don’t know they are dedicated to it.
HomeAdvisor is one of the best examples you can find on the Internet as it is a top lead generation company that has spent millions building its brand but also earned even more zeros for this same reason.
They started small as everyone else but invested in building their brand awareness to make people who are looking for home services go to their website and find what they need. They are over 75% of people’s first choice when they need those services.
If you don’t get HomeAdvisor that much or need a refresh, users need to submit their information to request a service and get a professional or expert who can provide it.
HomeAdvisor’s job is to share your information, which makes you a lead, with local companies so they can contact you and offer the service you’re requesting. For sharing this lead information, HomeAdvisor gets paid by the companies. This happens for every single lead they send to multiple businesses.
Business owners who don’t have marketing skills or don’t even know how to have any online presence will always rely on those pages to list their services. They will save time and effort, but companies like HomeAdvisor can make them spend lots of money as leads aren’t exclusive (one lead is sent to multiple companies after all).
Using Facebook Ads aka Paid Ad Platforms: Do They Generate Leads?
They DO generate leads. If not, no one would use them.
However, you need to remember two facts:
- Paid ads or platforms can be expensive.
- They don’t generate “natural” leads.
Whenever someone sees or clicks in one of those ads, over 80% of them did it by accident or are trying to close/report it.
Why? Because they aren’t looking for those services. At least not at the moment.
What those ads do instead is interrupt their time on the platforms. Users aren’t there to find companies or businesses unless they are searching for a specific company’s user, and for that, there’s a search bar. This is why it is hard to convert them to actual customers who will show interest in the companies’ services. Also, you’re limited by a budget.
When using lead generation, everything is organic. You aren’t forcing others to pay attention to your business but rather being there when they need you. This is why Google’s organic traffic will always beat paid ads, and the reason companies continue investing in it, which is a lot cheaper as well.
What Is Local SEO?
Don’t worry… I didn’t get it at first either. Following the short explanation, local SEO focuses on scaling businesses’ visibility on search engines. However, this is only for those who serve their communities face-to-face.
What does this mean?
Experts and professionals like painters, plumbers, and dentists (but not only them) offer their services to their local customers. Why? Because they can’t deliver them unless they are located in the same area of their customers.
To make sure those businesses get more leads, you need to rank them locally by claiming the business listing on Google to place them on Map Listings. Local SEO also involves online reviews, citation management, and how you manage your entire online presence in the local area.
If you are going to bet on lead gen, you need to adapt yourself to today’s world: The Internet.
Keep in mind that although traditional channels and methods like billboards, warm calls, and pamphlets still work, they aren’t part of your tools. Whenever someone needs a service, they go to Google and search for it.
“Dentist in Miami” or “plumbing services in Orlando,” etc. And you can keep coming up with services or professionals people need and look for. Thus, you need to make sure you’re using Google to get the companies in front of their clients.
Users will always click on the first search results (those near the top), and many of them will be either Ad links (people paid to place their websites there), Map Listing, and then you get websites. Almost all of them are your goal and where you should always aim to place yourself.
Can My Real Estate Investment Business Utilize a Local Lead Generation Strategy?
If you want customers, you better know you need it. Following the previous explanation, lead gen is all about placing businesses in front of their customers, choosing them over their competitors.
Put it simply – it’s all about closing deals and having clients for those companies to make money. The main difference with the usual methods companies use for this is how lead generation approaches different channels to get them in the right place of the market to get customers.
Those channels are all focused on the Internet as most people are searching for products but also services across the net. The issue is that the Internet is way too broad, and businesses don’t know how to place themselves. They usually try, but they get one common result: losing money and time.
How Powerful Are Organic Real Estate Investment Leads from Google?
For companies looking for customers, it’s everything. For you? Pretty much the same. When you build a business with digital properties, you get to make thousands of dollars a month.
This isn’t a “get started today and get rich tomorrow” thing, but it is HIGHLY scalable, and ROI + positive results are guaranteed. Learning a fairly decent and very needed set of skills to create your digital properties and start ranking them on Google is required.
I have invested in several online businesses over the years, and if there’s something uncertain, whether you will get your ROI or not, even more than the actual profit.
However, this business moved my earnings from five figures a year to a month in ONLY passive income while sitting comfortably at home.
On my laptop. Anywhere. Anytime.
You can look at one of the first sites I built back in 2016, and it continues making me over $1.000+ every month. The best part is that I don’t need to touch it or the rest I’ve built over the years, just like this digital property.
What Makes Lead Generation SO Alluring?
Here it goes: you can work from home.
The main issue with regular business opportunities is how much you need to invest in staff, equipment, or rent to have a place to sell your products or offer your services.
We all know the hassles of traditional businesses that involve regular expenses, which are extremely high. Can you afford it? I don’t think so, and even if you can, is it worth it? Now, it isn’t only about the money. You also need to put in a lot of work, and it isn’t only during the first couple of months or years. Usually, it is as long as you continue running it.
You can save yourself those headaches and bone-breaking tasks and expenses with lead gen since it is more about generating leads with digital channels—mainly websites.
Websites can be VERY cheap to build, and with many tools online, you get to do it in a couple of hours instead of days. Any virtual or digital business is scalable and won’t need constant maintenance.
So, let’s summarize this:
- You save money in regular expenses with traditional and most online businesses as what you need is yourself and digital properties (websites).
- You can bet on passive income.
- There’s no need to hire more people to get started.
- You can generate leads in multiple industries, which allows you to work on any niche you want.
How Can I Get Started in the Local Lead Generation Program?
Anyone can start and learn. That’s the beauty of this business model. I knew nothing about SEO, Map Listing, and everything I’ve mentioned so far. It is all about learning the skills, gaining experience, and deciding to take the step.
Remember that this business model will never get old as business owners are always looking for leads. They need to do business and scale their companies. Why not do the same while helping others and still making money?
You can start with this local lead generation course highly recommended for anyone wanting to grow in the business. It is a close training that will take you through each step and make sure you are able to get your ROI, profits and take control of your life.
You will be added to an incredible lead generation family ready to help you 24/7 when asking questions on the group. Anyone is welcome who’s willing to put in the work. Click here to watch the lead gen webinar.