Any good training for capturing Real Estate leads?

20 replies
I'm going to be putting together a site to help a family member capture real estate leads. Does anyone know a good WSO or course that can give me more ideas on how to capture real estate leads strictly online?

I tried to do a WF search but came up short. Plus, I value user opinion here.

Any help would be great. Thanks!
#capturing #estate #good #leads #real #training
  • Profile picture of the author Centurian
    What do you want to target?

    Are you going after buyers or sellers?

    I've got 26 years experience marketing in the real estate sector.
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  • Profile picture of the author AudioRoxor
    Awesome!! Primarily buyers... but we'd definitely like to capture both if we can.
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    • Profile picture of the author Centurian
      Where you get your leads from depends on what you want to sell. Over 90% now look online before they start looking offline.

      If you're going after "bread and butter" buyers, where are they looking for real estate online? There are multiple sources of targeting traffic.

      Craiglist
      Google, gmail ads, adsense
      facebook ads
      etc.

      You can also buy ads, banners, or territories on some lead generation networks like zillow.com and ushud.com.

      Here's a cheap way to generate quick leads overnight.

      Find a great real estate deal. Make a .jpeg of the house and compelling bullet points with your contact info. Then post this on Craigslist in your targeted market city with a link back to your landing page. Craigslist is the first place I'd target.

      On the landing page make a compelling appeal to subscribe to weekly updates on great deals for free. Then set up an autoresponder with the great services you offer, how you help them get the best deals, and links to your own MLS site. You can even use a free site like blogger for your landing page with a free autoresponder.

      Then be sure to call or email these people to develop the lead from a suspect, to a prospect, to an appointment, to a sale. You can develop all the leads you want, but if you don't close for an appointment, you are wasting your energy.

      You will discover that many of your online leads are not ready to buy yet. That's because they are in the investigation stage at this point. If you can close for an appointment to find out more about what they want, you'll get more sales on the back end.

      There are also two things you can "sell" to get leads; houses and money to buy them. I have attracted more leads selling money than selling houses.

      I filled whole rooms doing seminars on how to buy with no money down, etc. Then you position yourself as THE expert and they want you to help them.

      People still only want to know two things. How much down and how much a month. Also use a strategy where you offer to show them to get a 2 3/4% or 3% interest rate, no money down and zero closing costs (veterans), etc.

      Team up with a great loan officer who can help you if you need help with the money stuff.
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  • Profile picture of the author TopKat22
    I helped a real estate agent in orange county by telling him to make sure to stay in contact with clients by getting their permission to send them regular emails.

    There are tons of real estate agents but like many professionals, you forget that a happy client referral is worth much more than all the advertising in the world. The key is to consistently be emailing them say once every week or two with something interesting in your area, something real estate related and something fun and entertainment related in your area.

    Make sure the return address has you own name and not some agency name in it because real estate is a personal business.

    Invite them to friend you on facebook and twitter.

    The key is people refer by what is foremost on their minds. Give your clients a great experience and then make sure you stay on their minds in a very subtle way.

    I helped him, an attorney, 3 doctors, a court reporter (of all things) and a mortgage broker all increase their business quite substanitally by doing just this.

    If you have the information on past clients, then start there by calling them and saying you are starting a newsletter that will be both informative and fun.

    In the upper right of every newsletter, have a box that says something like "know anybody who's looking for a house, let me know and I'll give you a dinner out" or whatever small thank you gift it is appropriate and legal to give.

    As for getting brand new leads, still build a list using any of the methods mentioned above by the other posters but somehow make yourself stand out. Be an expert in an area like families with children, finding homes in good school districts, or high end homes, how you give special service or starter homes.

    Good luck.
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    • Profile picture of the author Centurian
      Absolutely, TopKat22.

      I started selling real estate in 1988 doing just this. I networked through all my friends and asked them if they knew anyone looking to buy or sell.

      This also engages their "reticular activator" as Jay Abraham used to say. That means their ears and eyes perk up to discussions, etc. Then they can drop your name and get you leads.

      I helped a veteran years ago. He was so excited about what I did for him, he spent the next five years recruiting buyers for me. He literally engaged people in a conversation about their life, etc. and told them they needed to get with me.

      Using social media is another great tool. Get a facebook fan page set up for the agent's real estate business. Put up a landing gate with promo video and promote this to the agents facebook friends, too.

      You will find referral business to be a solid source of leads can outpace "lead generation." Nevertheless, I have friends that do nothing but referral marketing and I can still generate more leads with direct response marketing.

      To learn more about referral marketing, you can go to my old friend Joe Stumpf's site.
      Free Real Estate Marketing Tools - Joe Stumpf

      Joe has some training videos here:

      You can watch these and get ideas how to create tools to help your client generate leads. Remember, Joe focuses on referrals. Obviously, there are other methods of marketing online.

      We worked with Jay Abraham in 1993 to develop the referral concept. I was a member of his first mastermind group with Joe and Brian Buffini. Jay has a bunch of great audio clips from business owners explaining how they applied this called "93 Referral Systems." You can google it.

      Here's a tool to develop referral marketing online.
      Amplifinity | We Power Word of Mouth

      Another take on referral only:
      REALTORS: Working By Referral Only Is Sales Suicide


      Another source to buy leads at
      Reply! Real Estate: Local Real Estate Lead Generation



      Originally Posted by TopKat22 View Post

      I helped a real estate agent in orange county by telling him to make sure to stay in contact with clients by getting their permission to send them regular emails.

      There are tons of real estate agents but like many professionals, you forget that a happy client referral is worth much more than all the advertising in the world. The key is to consistently be emailing them say once every week or two with something interesting in your area, something real estate related and something fun and entertainment related in your area.

      Make sure the return address has you own name and not some agency name in it because real estate is a personal business.

      Invite them to friend you on facebook and twitter.

      The key is people refer by what is foremost on their minds. Give your clients a great experience and then make sure you stay on their minds in a very subtle way.

      I helped him, an attorney, 3 doctors, a court reporter (of all things) and a mortgage broker all increase their business quite substanitally by doing just this.

      If you have the information on past clients, then start there by calling them and saying you are starting a newsletter that will be both informative and fun.

      In the upper right of every newsletter, have a box that says something like "know anybody who's looking for a house, let me know and I'll give you a dinner out" or whatever small thank you gift it is appropriate and legal to give.

      As for getting brand new leads, still build a list using any of the methods mentioned above by the other posters but somehow make yourself stand out. Be an expert in an area like families with children, finding homes in good school districts, or high end homes, how you give special service or starter homes.

      Good luck.
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  • Profile picture of the author TopKat22
    Yep Centurian, really all the old successful actions still work, it is just updating the methods to today's environment.

    Networking and word of mouth are still your best source of referrals. Referrals still convert much better than ads.

    And you need to stay in contact with them.

    Now, it is just easier, faster and cheaper if you know how to effectively use the new tools like email, autoresponders, social networks, etc.

    The response I got from a one time mailer that might cost me $10,000 in the past, I can get now for the monthly autoresponder fee via email and can send out mutliple emails.

    As an aside, I don't really think of these stories until I read something on this forum or somewhere and it reminds me about it. :-)
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    44 days in and we broke the $10K a month recurring bench mark.

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  • Profile picture of the author Bigfoot1
    Hey man,

    While its not exactly what you are looking for. Read "Never Eat Alone". I think its especially helpful to anyone in businesses where each client is worth a lot and reputation and networking is everything. Basically the book is all about making connections and gaining loyalty from your network and the principles can be applied online too.

    It can be applied online too. Tell your friend to check it out. It has revolutionized my own life strategies in terms of business.
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    • Profile picture of the author AudioRoxor
      Wow, thank you for taking the time to put those quality posts together. I really appreciate it! I like the selling the money angle and starting a list by asking all of your clients that you've already done business with.

      This is for my father and he works strictly off of referrals so it makes completely sense to start that list to enable more referrals.

      What are you guys opinions on IDX's and how effective they are in turning leads?

      Is SEO effective for capturing leads (meaning they land on our site and inquire about a listing they see) or are most people going to sites like zillow and realtor.com first?
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  • Profile picture of the author Jason Kanigan
    I come from North Vancouver, BC, Canada...one of the hottest real estate markets in the WORLD. Lots of my friends are realtors. And I believe in tilting the game as much as possible into your favor...so let's go find some people who very likely NEED what we offer. How about putting our Thinking Caps on...and realizing those who are SELLING must be buying, too.

    Sure, some of them will be moving out of town. But many will not. And they will have to find a new home somewhere.

    Since most people don't plan a thing, you can bet that they don't have a buying-side realtor to show them potential new digs.

    Let's generate a list of new sellers from MLS, or whatever centralized listings directory is used in your area, once a week or maybe even daily...and talk to them.

    Another example. I was talking to a client the other night and he is offering some kind of negotiation service for people buying cars. The negotiator gets on the phone with the dealership manager and negotiates the terms. Gets the pressure off the table for the customer, right?

    So he wasn't sure where to find leads. My question: why call the phone book? Low probability. Let's rig the game in our favor.

    Get a list of people who got into leases 3-1/2 years ago.

    Leases typically expire every 4 years, right? So right about now the itch is coming. They're gonna want to be talking about getting a new car. And here comes this guy offering the negotiation service. "Remember how it felt last time? Having that avalanche ton of pressure dumped on you by the F&I manager? Well how would you like to have a pro do it on your behalf?" Thinking Cap.
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  • Profile picture of the author Saito
    Centurion has posted some great truths! I have been marketing to generate local real estate seller and buyer leads for 10 years now, though mostly through direct mail, signs, print classifieds, TV ads, etc.

    Recently, though, set up this landing page and opt-in path for local Real Estate Investors: http://www.saltlakeinvestordeals.com and will be making one of the same for sellers and for buyers in the next month.

    For traffic, I have started Adwords (search and display), and will try Facebook Ads, realtor affiliates, and Craigslist Ads next (and direct mail). Posting a great real estate deal in Classified or Property Listing sites has worked well in the past, though I now need to find a regular source of deals to showcase so I can post a house for sale per week in order to build my Investor List. Same goes for building the homeowner/buyer list.

    For monetizing Seller, Buyer, and investor leads, I will be first trying to wholesale the potential Seller property deals to the investors, or matching a qualified Lease/Option buyer with a homeowner or investor who needs one, and selling the rest of the leads to agents and loan officers for $30/each or more.

    I will be happy to share my findings and I hope this conversation will continue.
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    • Profile picture of the author drppros
      We would be interested in monetizing any of your aged investor leads or working on a revshare. Our client offers real estate, trust deeds and other investment opportunities to US based customers.
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    • Profile picture of the author snirbitton
      Hi
      I have a client that wants me to generate for him
      Real estate and mortgage leads.
      If you can help in any way, I would much appreciate it
      Just getting started in this and dont want to lose the client
      any help would be appreciated
      thank you in advance
      Snir
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  • Profile picture of the author MarissaTAVision
    I am not in the Real Estate business but I am curious about Lead Generation within this market. I know a lot of Real Estate websites use the forms that collect users details, like their name and number, how often do website visitors actually fill in that information? Would that be useful tool or are you looking for something more interactive?
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  • Profile picture of the author Saito
    I intend to ask for at least their Name, Email, and Phone # in an opt-in form on the landing page.

    Maybe on the page they are redirected to after that have another optional webform with 3-5 more questions or fields to qualify them further and probably charge more for those leads, too.

    I have seen some opt-in forms have 3 questions, you click the button and think you're done, then on the next page there's more questions to answer to finish the opt-in process, and I suppose that is something to test as well.
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  • Profile picture of the author snirbitton
    I have a client that needs mortgage leads for california. And i know he also has 8 other states.
    Get back to me about this. Could be win-win
    Pm me
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  • Profile picture of the author brik2500
    Indeed Craigslist is a goldmine....but one of the most overlooked sources of traffic is signs...ugly ones...I tend to outmarket most if not all realtors in my market...

    THE UGLIER THE BETTER
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  • Profile picture of the author sadneck
    Originally Posted by AudioRoxor View Post

    I'm going to be putting together a site to help a family member capture real estate leads. Does anyone know a good WSO or course that can give me more ideas on how to capture real estate leads strictly online?

    I tried to do a WF search but came up short. Plus, I value user opinion here.

    Any help would be great. Thanks!
    Hmmm... I cant remember the name of the software, but I do remember something out there that would collect offline local leads and searched multiple directories. I think this is what you are looking for. If I find it again Ill send you a PM.

    Andrew
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    • Profile picture of the author vanbino
      hi how do you get seller leads online ?

      If you used Craigslist to get seller what section you would post on
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  • Profile picture of the author xlfutur1
    You might want to consider building not only an email list but also an SMS list at the same time. You do this by having the prospect text his/her email address to a local number. You can then store the number for sending out future SMS messages AND the email address for emailing.

    Or just build an SMS list of hot new deals or open houses for buyers in your area by having them text in a keyword or call. People are so used to texting its not a big deal anymore.

    I have 3 rental properties and ALL of my tenants text me rather than call me when there are problems. I evicted one last spring and she ranted and raved by texting me, then when I called her to discuss, she didn't answer. So SMS is the preferred mode of communication by many under the age of 35 for sure.
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