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Fostering Your Leads For Better Conversions
Lead generation is one of the most critical aspects of real estate: Leads are the driving force that enable you to reach your full potential. In the first year of their career, most real estate agents focus on the lead generation aspect in tandem with "learning the ropes."
Early on, lead generation usually means meeting up with people and telling everyone you encounter you're a real estate agent now. Friends and family may be able to provide some early business — but they might also be months or years away from needing your services.
As your skills develop, it's crucial to have a systematic approach.
That means going beyond lead generation to lead qualification.
Lead Qualification Is the Next Step in Understanding Your Leads
Lead qualification starts with the recognition that even though all leads are potential customers, not all leads are created equal. For example, there's a difference between a lead who expects to begin looking for a new home next month compared to one who "might" do it in two or three years.
To make the most of all your relationships, it's wise to know how to tell the best leads apart from those who may need months or even years of attention before they convert. Real estate borrows the concept of "lead scoring" from sales-oriented industries where these fine distinctions are important.
With lead scoring, you take all the information you know about a given lead to make a best guess as to what actions you need to take to help them along their path to buying or selling. You can also look back at past leads to understand which activities signal a conversion is imminent.
To Develop Your Leads, Make Sure You Have a Funnel in Place
You aren't a mind reader, of course, and you don't want to work with thousands of leads before you gain valuable insight. Luckily, you don't have to. By setting up your marketing as a progressive funnel, you give leads more opportunities to signal their readiness.
One effective funnel setup for real estate looks like this:
- Listings
- Website
- Social Media
- Email List
- Open House
- Consultation
The Early Stages of Your Marketing Funnel
These days, most buyers are Millennials or Gen Z. They're going online to get information on homes, and a real estate agent comes later. As a result, they're likely to see your listings before they know who you are. Only a tiny minority will reach out to contact you, but more may visit your real estate website.
From your website, they have the opportunity to learn more about you. At this point, they're prospects, not leads. Leads arise only when prospects "raise their hand" to signal interest in what you have to say.
Depending on their social media habits, they could follow you on your platform of choice. This gives you a method of communicating with them directly. Sadly, they still won't see everything you have to say. A suitable "lead magnet" — helpful, informative content — can get them onto your email list.
From your email list, you can send valuable content in the form of a drip campaign. This usually means one email a week packed with useful information based around subscribers' interests. My Customer for Life email newsletters make it easy to do this in just a few clicks.
Middle, Late, and Closing Stages of Your Funnel
Once someone has been on your email list for a while, you should know a great deal about them. Every step in the funnel is a brand-new opportunity to ask questions. Each question helps you know if a lead is qualified. In general, a qualified lead is someone who:
- Has the budget (or financing) to take action
- Has the desire to take action (and agreement of all others affected, such as a spouse)
- Will act on a timeline that makes sense for you
- Has specific questions, concerns, or challenges that you can help with
Digital marketing unlocks the potential to know whether someone is fully qualified without scaring off your leads in the process. As you gather more information, you can decide if it's helpful to reach out in person — with social media, an email, a text, a call, or a custom invitation to an open house.
By and large, open house attendees will be your most qualified leads: despite the old stereotypes, the "tire kickers" are in the minority. Seeing someone in person also gives you the opportunity to build a rapport, which makes it easier for them to decide to meet with you.
The AI-driven DeltaNET real estate CRM works with your marketing funnel to predict lead behavior, making your lead qualification efforts more effective — it can even tell you when to follow up. Contact us today to learn more or get started.
