3 Key Strategies to Generate More Real Estate Leads and Fill Your Pipeline for Months

To be successful in real estate, you must be forward-thinking. Too often agents are caught up in the short term (closing deals or looking for ready-to-transact leads) and forget or de-prioritize building a pipeline long term. Today's efforts will yield tomorrow's clients. By keeping your marketing engine running 24/7, you'll generate new real estate leads that you can nurture into future clients.

Ads immediately come to mind when thinking of marketing, but they're just one component of a bigger marketing ecosystem. You also need to consider how your online presence and follow-up communications shape others' perception of you and your services. The right playbook will help you gain an edge over the competition and win new business when your prospects are ready to buy or sell.

Use these three strategies in your marketing playbook to fill your pipeline for months and ensure you're getting optimal mileage out of your efforts.

1. Invest in building a robust and far-reaching online presence

Anyone interested in working with you will Google your name to find out more about you. It's simply status quo nowadays. In fact, 82% of consumers read online reviews, and when it comes to real estate specifically, the plurality of interested homebuyers and sellers Google a real estate agent even if they've received a word-of-mouth recommendation. In short, consumers trust their own research more than anything else.

So, what will they see when they search for you? Here's what they should see:

A verified Google business profile

This is your real estate on Google. The profile takes up a good portion of the right side of the search results. It's not just hard to miss—consumers actually look for it any time they research local services. Think of it as your digital business card and the first impression you'll make when someone searches for you online.

New, positive reviews on your Google business profile

Social proof is actually what persuades many people to start—or back away from—working with a new business. A Bright Local survey found that the average consumer reads 10 reviews before they are comfortable enough to trust a business.

But it isn't just the number of reviews that is important—you also need some to be very recent. A profile that only has older reviews signals that you're no longer an active real estate agent, whether that's true or not. More importantly, Google also likes to see recent activity on profiles and will reward those businesses with more-frequent placement in search results.

A professional real estate website with your branding, contact information and valuable content

New real estate leads will also look at your website. Your site's SEO should be good enough to bring it to the top of the search engine results page when someone Googles your name. It should also be linked to from your Google business profile so people can easily jump from reading your reviews to browsing your website.

When leads arrive on your real estate website, it should be clean, professional, and interactive, allowing a prospect to offer their information for a free good or service, such as a free market report. These characteristics help build trust because your website is a reflection of yourself and your services. Today's buyers and sellers, especially in a Covid-19 world, will immediately disregard an agent who has an outdated or difficult-to-navigate website. The internet is where business happens now, and demonstrating that you're a tech-savvy agent is table stakes for competing in this digital-first world.

2. Optimize your Google Ads for maximum reach

A well-maintained Google business profile will also push your Google Ads further. When those two accounts are linked, you can enable what's called a location extension on your Google Ads. At first glance, it seems like all this does is append your business address to your ads. There's a hidden benefit, too. This feature actually unlocks the ability for your ads to show up on Google Maps, pushing your paid ads further. (Check out our guide to getting more leads with Google Ads for a deep dive on the benefits and how to get started.)

Additionally, by adding more information to your Google Ad, the search giant will consider your ad more valuable to consumers and rank it higher. This improved status will help your ad gain more views and clicks and, ultimately, increase your lead volume.

3. Take a long-term approach to lead generation

Once you have contact information for your leads, you need to nurture them. Too many agents give up on leads not ready to transact immediately.

However, not all your new real estate leads will be immediately ready to work with you. There are many window shoppers out there who need more time to become serious buyers or sellers. While they are warming up to the idea, they're still "cool leads," or casual browsers. That's okay, though, because once they do warm up, you can put yourself in the position to be the first real estate agent who comes to mind.

But to do that, you need to cultivate a relationship with them.

Tactics for nurturing real estate leads

1. Add them to your real estate newsletter. If you don't have one, you can invite new leads to join you in Homesnap. This will automatically register them to receive a detailed market update email that is branded to you and sent by Homesnap on your behalf.

2. Include them in your online ad targeting. Most ad platforms allow you to build what's called a custom audience, using either email addresses or phone numbers. Your ads will be shown to the people in your custom audience who also have accounts on that platform, like on Facebook.

You may think, "They are already leads, why should I spend money on them seeing more of my ads?"

Great question! If you don't already have a personal relationship with these people, then you need to build one. By seeing your ads over and over again, they'll become more familiar with your brand and start to trust it more. Continuous exposure also reminds people that you're an active, successful real estate agent and keeps you top-of-mind. Consider it the digital equivalent of a billboard over a busy highway.

3. For leads who are more responsive, engage them on the phone or via text if you have their phone number. Check in regularly to see where they are in the process and, if possible, build a sense of urgency. As a real estate agent, your strength is selling your skills. So nudge the prospect toward a face-to-face meeting so you can connect on a more personal level.

To view the original article, visit the Homesnap blog.