Who is doing lead gen for real estate agents? How much volume are you getting?

10 years ago

I'm a Realtor and Direct-Response Marketer, so I do my own lead generation.

I send out 3D Mail to expired listings in a 3-step campaign. I'm at 5.6% response rate.

When I send out Just List / Just Sold postcards I always include a way for prospects to get a free home seller's guide. This works very well for response, but it takes longer to get the listings since most people who respond are just starting the process of selling. This is where FOLLOWING up is crucial.

Are you just starting to work with real estate agents on their lead generation??

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Jason Kanigan

10 years ago

Originally Posted by AmericanMuscleTA

I'm a Realtor and Direct-Response Marketer, so I do my own lead generation.

I send out 3D Mail to expired listings in a 3-step campaign. I'm at 5.6% response rate.

When I send out Just List / Just Sold postcards I always include a way for prospects to get a free home seller's guide. This works very well for response, but it takes longer to get the listings since most people who respond are just starting the process of selling. This is where FOLLOWING up is crucial.

Are you just starting to work with real estate agents on their lead generation??

Dan is the real deal, so don't worry if he's serious or not.

This may be a new niche for him, but not a new service.

Probably looking for some "jump start" tweaks.

I've worked with realtors on the closing side, but not leadgen.

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DaniMc

10 years ago

Originally Posted by AmericanMuscleTA

I'm a Realtor and Direct-Response Marketer, so I do my own lead generation.

I send out 3D Mail to expired listings in a 3-step campaign. I'm at 5.6% response rate.

When I send out Just List / Just Sold postcards I always include a way for prospects to get a free home seller's guide. This works very well for response, but it takes longer to get the listings since most people who respond are just starting the process of selling. This is where FOLLOWING up is crucial.

Are you just starting to work with real estate agents on their lead generation??

That is great info, thank you very much for sharing!

Leads for Real Estate is something I have been rolling around in my head for awhile.

I've done some research and talked to several realtors and I hear the same types of problems over and over.

To summarize, these are the problems they have shared with me:
1 - Typically when they purchase leads, they are paying a flat price and have no guarantees of the lead quality. This means they pay for lots of leads that go nowhere, and the client acquisition cost goes way up.

2 - Since state law prohibits sharing commissions with anyone other than a realtor, they can think of no way to only pay for leads when they sell.

3 - Since the leads are usually unqualified, they spend a lot of time in the qualification stage. Let's face it, everyone is busy and most people don't like calling a bunch of numbers getting rejected and feeling like they are wasting time. Real Estate is a time intensive industry and when they are talking to people who are not ready to sell, they end up with a lot of "tire kickers" who waste their time with useless comps.

4 - Many of the lead providers they use are also selling the leads to three or four other agents. This causes competition and even more rejection and frustration from the lead. Even if they do secure the lead, the client is frustrated at the process of getting called several times.

At the same time, I can see there is a definite market opportunity.

1 - Right now, the market is red-hot and homes are selling in days. Many agents do not know where to find great leads so they can strike while the iron is hot and make a lot of money this year. They want to find people who a) are not being fought over by dozens of hungry agents and b) are a bit greedy and ready to sell at a huge profit. These valuations don't last forever.

2 - Some people are talking about the current situation as a bubble. Even if they are wrong, all markets are cyclical. At some point, the people who don't sell now, and the people who are buying at high prices, will see their values drop. This means the market will tighten and they will REALLY need seller leads that are high quality.

So, no matter what happens in the economy, leads for real estate are a solid, long-term opportunity. If someone can solve the 4 (maybe more) problems with typical leads, there is money to be made.

I am looking to come up with methods that solve the 4 problems and provide an outstanding value.

I want to sell 100% pre-qualified, iron-clad leads that are guaranteed to list with the agent, or the lead will be replaced with another.

Each lead is given to ONE agent.

My people are spending the time to qualify the leads, so if I notice a certain agent isn't good at getting the listing and I keep replacing the leads, I will stop selling to them.

I have asked several realtors if they would buy this type of lead and they simply cannot believe anyone would ever provide that level of service. Right now, most of them split commissions with other realtors for 25% on a solid lead. So, I think I can charge a premium for this high-level of service.

Most of them are NOT marketers and my goal is to deliver value.

I just have to figure out how to solve the problems for them.

If anything I am saying sounds crazy, please let me know!

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DaniMc

10 years ago

Just to refresh the problems I am looking to solve.

Originally Posted by Dan McCoy

To summarize, these are the problems they have shared with me:
1 - Typically when they purchase leads, they are paying a flat price and have no guarantees of the lead quality. This means they pay for lots of leads that go nowhere, and the client acquisition cost goes way up.

2 - Since state law prohibits sharing commissions with anyone other than a realtor, they can think of no way to only pay for leads when they sell.

3 - Since the leads are usually unqualified, they spend a lot of time in the qualification stage. Let's face it, everyone is busy and most people don't like calling a bunch of numbers getting rejected and feeling like they are wasting time. Real Estate is a time intensive industry and when they are talking to people who are not ready to sell, they end up with a lot of "tire kickers" who waste their time with useless comps.

4 - Many of the lead providers they use are also selling the leads to three or four other agents. This causes competition and even more rejection and frustration from the lead. Even if they do secure the lead, the client is frustrated at the process of getting called several times.

I just had a moment of clarity and came up with a solution to all four problems. I haven't seen this before in Real Estate.

1. Do not sell leads. Sell appointments.
2. Set up a lead generation and nurturing system and qualify the leads. Get on the phone and talk to them. If they are ready to buy or sell, set an appointment at a specific time and location with the realtor. The realtor pays for the qualified, ready to go appointment.

They don't really want leads! They really want to be as close to a simple sale as possible. With a lead they have to call them, get the appointment, then sell them. With a qualified appointment, all they have to do is close the deal.

This removes the two most painful and time consuming aspects of using a lead.

I'm going to ask some realtors about this and get feedback. What do you guys think? What do your realtor clients think?

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Digital Traffic

10 years ago

If you're going to go through all that trouble to qualify the lead for a Realtor, why not just get licensed yourself and do a 50/50 split for the listing or sale of a property.

Back in the day I was a Realtor, my office manager asked me how many homes I would like to list or sell in my first year and I replied "none." He was confused until I explained to him that my goal was to split every deal I ran into with another Realtor who would be more than happy to do all of the work for 50% or 60% of the commission.

There was always a endless supply of Realtors in the office who were more than happy to do a split with me.

Originally Posted by Dan McCoy

Just to refresh the problems I am looking to solve.

I just had a moment of clarity and came up with a solution to all four problems. I haven't seen this before in Real Estate.

1. Do not sell leads. Sell appointments.
2. Set up a lead generation and nurturing system and qualify the leads. Get on the phone and talk to them. If they are ready to buy or sell, set an appointment at a specific time and location with the realtor. The realtor pays for the qualified, ready to go appointment.

They don't really want leads! They really want to be as close to a simple sale as possible. With a lead they have to call them, get the appointment, then sell them. With a qualified appointment, all they have to do is close the deal.

This removes the two most painful and time consuming aspects of using a lead.

I'm going to ask some realtors about this and get feedback. What do you guys think? What do your realtor clients think?

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DABK

10 years ago

Dan, Digital Traffic's right. And that's a good way to go.

Originally Posted by Digital Traffic

If you're going to go through all that trouble to qualify the lead for a Realtor, why not just get licensed yourself and do a 50/50 split for the listing or sale of a property.

Back in the day I was a Realtor, my office manager asked me how many homes I would like to list or sell in my first year and I replied "none." He was confused until I explained to him that my goal was to split every deal I ran into with another Realtor who would be more than happy to do all of the work for 50% or 60% of the commission.

There was always a endless supply of Realtors in the office who were more than happy to do a split with me.

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DaniMc

10 years ago

Originally Posted by Digital Traffic

If you're going to go through all that trouble to qualify the lead for a Realtor, why not just get licensed yourself and do a 50/50 split for the listing or sale of a property.

Originally Posted by DABK

Dan, Digital Traffic's right. And that's a good way to go.

This is a great suggestion and may just be the direction I take. But before I do the studying and take the test, I'm going to make certain I can generate enough of these leads.

If I am setting lots of appointments and realtors are paying me enough to cover the costs, I will know for certain that I can expand this into a major system in the next few years. It will be worth it to get the license.

This has been a very helpful discussion! Too many people don't ask themselves "what problems am I trying to solve" before they jump into something. If we can find problems and find ways to solve them, there will never be a lack of business.

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robinmontrose

9 years ago

Originally Posted by DaniMc

Just to refresh the problems I am looking to solve.

I just had a moment of clarity and came up with a solution to all four problems. I haven't seen this before in Real Estate.

1. Do not sell leads. Sell appointments.
2. Set up a lead generation and nurturing system and qualify the leads. Get on the phone and talk to them. If they are ready to buy or sell, set an appointment at a specific time and location with the realtor. The realtor pays for the qualified, ready to go appointment.

They don't really want leads! They really want to be as close to a simple sale as possible. With a lead they have to call them, get the appointment, then sell them. With a qualified appointment, all they have to do is close the deal.

This removes the two most painful and time consuming aspects of using a lead.

I'm going to ask some realtors about this and get feedback. What do you guys think? What do your realtor clients think?

I completely agree. In other businesses I always had an appointment setter or set the appointments myself. And they only had to pay me if the appointment turned into a sale.

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DaniMc

9 years ago

Originally Posted by gfonline

Dan- did you ever roll out this service? Curious how it's going if so.

Originally Posted by robinmontrose

Hi Dan, I found this thread and was wondering if creating leads for Realtors ever worked out.

Hello guys - I thought I would come back and give an update. It's been a little more than a year since I started this thread.

Yes - I did start this up and yes, it is going very, very well. I did get a real estate license and closed a few transactions just so I could know exactly what agents are dealing with, and to give me some start-up capital for this new venture.

Anyway - In the last year I have become licensed, and have reached a "proof of concept" stage in the last 3 months. I have two agents now who are working the clients I create. I will be adding 8 more agents over the coming year.

I ended up solving all 4 of the problems I listed above in exactly the way that was discussed. The only difference is my percentages are different.

My first agent is getting 40% of each transaction. I decided that is too much, so my second agent is getting 30%. We are ramping up to 5-6 transactions per month each.

All the remaining agents will be at 30%.

I am not in charge of the transactions at all. Each agent manages their own transactions through to closing. I am providing appointments with clients who are fully ready to go. I generate the lead, I have a phone salesperson calling them and connecting them with a lender to get pre qualified for a loan. Once they are qualified for the loan, then we set a hard appointment for the agent.

This person is ready to shop when the appointment is set. All the agent does is find the home and close the deal. My hired staff is a full-time admin for the agent to use for admin tasks and a transaction coordinator who reviews the contracts and files everything in the auditing system.

The agent literally does zero admin type work. They make $12-$15,000 every month, which is more than most agents have ever earned. They don't have to generate their own business and they have almost zero business/marketing overhead. They love it more than Christmas!

I am really holding back on my marketing efforts. So far I am sitting at 14.1X ROI. I have reached a critical point that all businesses should strive for - generating business is not my biggest problem. Rather, finding the right people for my team is the greatest hurdle.

Once you reach the place where finding the right team members is the biggest challenge, you know you have a viable business.

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DABK

9 years ago

So, where's my beer? You clearly owe me one!

Good job.

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DaniMc

9 years ago

Originally Posted by DABK

So, where's my beer? You clearly owe me one!

Good job.

Hmm...reading back through, I can't seem to figure out who first brought up the issue to get a license. So - I'll hold my beer coupon for now.

It's neat to look back at my posts, and see how my thinking followed the exact same line for the last year. I can't even begin to tell you the amount of wheeling, dealing, and partnering I have been doing to make this happen. I stuck to my idea that "things are always 10x harder than you think they will be so you need to work 10x harder than your plan" and it is paying off.

To anyone here is who hitting it in marketing and you understand business - I say take walk to the other side and being marketing for yourself. It is much, MUCH more gratifying than doing it for others. AND, I am the boss of how much I reinvest in marketing. I'm not limited by the small thinking of the clients I used to help.

I'm not saying to drop your marketing service income, I'm saying to add another business to it and use your skills to smash it out of the park. It's a paradox of marketing that what you are doing to get business clients isn't necessarily the same as the things you are doing FOR them.

The things you are doing FOR them are where the pay-dirt lies. You can just take the brakes off and hit the gas.

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Terrylof

9 years ago

Hi DaniMc
I am a Real Estate based in Australia and would love to know how you are generating leads. I realise you have put the hard yards in to set this up and I am not looking for a freebie.

I have only just joined up at this forum so not sure how I can make contact with you?
Cheers
Terry

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bizgrower

9 years ago

Originally Posted by Terrylof

Hi DaniMc
I am a Real Estate based in Australia and would love to know how you are generating leads. I realise you have put the hard yards in to set this up and I am not looking for a freebie.

I have only just joined up at this forum so not sure how I can make contact with you?
Cheers
Terry

I think, even though you're new, you can click on Dan's profile name and then click send private message.

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RemingtonSteele

10 years ago

Originally Posted by Dan McCoy

I've done some research and talked to several realtors and I hear the same types of problems over and over.

Thanks for sharing so much in this thread. I was wondering if you knew these Realtors personally ahead of time, or did you just start contacting people of interest? If the latter, how did you contact them (phone, email, etc.), and what did you say to them to get them to tell you their problems?

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DaniMc

10 years ago

Originally Posted by RemingtonSteele

Thanks for sharing so much in this thread. I was wondering if you knew these Realtors personally ahead of time, or did you just start contacting people of interest? If the latter, how did you contact them (phone, email, etc.), and what did you say to them to get them to tell you their problems?

A little of both. I know an agent or two personally already but really, that is not how I usually do research. I have found that a personal relationship with people can make them reluctant to share info. Or, the info they give will be filtered through their prism of what they think I want to know.

I look at business as being all about communication. If I want to make more money, I simply need to be talking to more people. The wider my audience is, the more people I can tap for knowledge or sales.

If you go to any networking function on Meetup or hosted by your local Chamber of Commerce or other business group, you WILL meet Realtors, and just about every other type of business owner. These are people. Good people. I know if I treat them as such they will have no problem helping me get what I want.

I guess I do a few things now at these types of events that I didn't know starting out. So, here is my quick no rejection market research and sales generating system

1 - I dump the cheesy sales people immediately. I don't want anyone to associate me with them.

2 - I dump the needy/greedy sales people immediately for the same reason as above.

3 - Everyone else dumps these people too and never talks to them again - so I never act like one of them.

4 - Don't waste time with dumb conversation. Sure, make small talk and be friendly, but be very interested in what people do and why they are there. When I get the card and have a good conversation, I introduce them to some other person I just spoke with and then move along to someone else. This makes them see me as a connector. Within five minutes I gave them something of value - an introduction!

5 - I only have about two hours in one of these, and I can't waste time. I want to meet everyone. After all, I didn't put on this button up and nice jeans to come shoot the shit about golf and football. I could just stay home in my flops and shorts for that. This is a HUGE and common mistake people make. I used to go to rooms full of people and then complain that I didn't meet anyone. The problem is if I stand around and chat with the chatters, I only meet other people who are not meeting many people. Now my goal is to meet everyone I possibly can.

6 - I go home and before bed their info is typed in and if I actually want to talk to them again, I schedule a follow-up call.

7 - They remember me. I make a funny comment about our previous conversation, and an appointment is all but made. They want to tell me about what they do. Meeting with me is what they want. No fear. No rejection.

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robinmontrose 9 years ago

Hi Dan, I found this thread and was wondering if creating leads for Realtors ever worked out. I computer and sales train Realtors.
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ADukes81

10 years ago

Hey Dan!

Check out a service called Home Value Leads (seller leads). They provide a squeeze page ($50/mo) that is similar to the "guru" type squeeze page -- (image background with opt in box). This is a home value report.

I am hearing/seeing very good results with FB ads and the Home Value Report squeeze page). I understand these leads are not all ready to sell as some are just curious of the value on their home. A good follow up sequence (something like day 1, 3, 5, 7, 14, 28, 45, 60, 90 days) will only increase the listings.

There is also a service out there called Happy Grasshopper that is an email follow up service, but with a bit of a twist (check out their site for more details). I think hitting the leads from days 1-28 with rel estate info and then from days 31 -90+ with Happy Grasshopper to stay "top of mind" could work well.

I am working with a Realtor out of Canada and we are seeing great results with a consistent blogging schedule (2-3 times/week) and he is BUSY. He has a buyers and sellers funnel in place all tied in with his CRM. I have learned that follow up is KEY.

Would love to kick around more ideas as this is an industry I am focused on.

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DaniMc

10 years ago

Originally Posted by ADukes81

Hey Dan!

Check out a service called Home Value Leads (seller leads). They provide a squeeze page ($50/mo) that is similar to the "guru" type squeeze page -- (image background with opt in box). This is a home value report.

I am hearing/seeing very good results with FB ads and the Home Value Report squeeze page). I understand these leads are not all ready to sell as some are just curious of the value on their home. A good follow up sequence (something like day 1, 3, 5, 7, 14, 28, 45, 60, 90 days) will only increase the listings.

There is also a service out there called Happy Grasshopper that is an email follow up service, but with a bit of a twist (check out their site for more details). I think hitting the leads from days 1-28 with rel estate info and then from days 31 -90+ with Happy Grasshopper to stay "top of mind" could work well.

I am working with a Realtor out of Canada and we are seeing great results with a consistent blogging schedule (2-3 times/week) and he is BUSY. He has a buyers and sellers funnel in place all tied in with his CRM. I have learned that follow up is KEY.

Would love to kick around more ideas as this is an industry I am focused on.

That is awesome info Adam. I am checking out your recommendations right now.

So, did you build the funnel for this Realtor? Do you manage it? Or is that all up to his people? Who wrote all the email and blog posts?

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ADukes81

10 years ago

Originally Posted by Dan McCoy

That is awesome info Adam. I am checking out your recommendations right now.

So, did you build the funnel for this Realtor? Do you manage it? Or is that all up to his people? Who wrote all the email and blog posts?

He actually came from an online poker affiliate background so he understands funnels, SEO, online marketing, etc. He already had his funnels in place and to be honest, his funnel looked better than most marketers. He has re-targeting set up.

He hired me to manage/tweak it. He wrote all his emails and I think it's like 1, 3, 7, 14, 28, 45, 60, 90 day sequence like I mentioned above. I did go in and make some tweaks to some of the early emails.

We now link out to the blog posts in the first few emails (sellers = 7 Ways to Increase Your Curb Appeal; buyers = 3 Questions You Must Ask Before Buying a Home -- stuff like that). Trying to come from a place of help, not a hard sell. It is working very well as no one in his city is doing this.

I supply the blog posts, basic tips/ideas to get more out of the sale of a home and things like that. 2-3 is probably overkill to be honest as I think one/week would be just fine.

We have ramped up his Facebook posting (about 3 times/day) and have a content calendar mapped out for him. We share local news stories, DIY tips, motivational ish, his blog posts (new & old), ask questions, listings, etc. We try and stick to 20-25% promotional and the rest being helpful content. We have only been doing this for about 2-3 weeks, but his current clients (fans) have commented on the activity. This ramped up posting is more for referrals/branding.

We have not done paid ads for the postings, but plan to test soon.

I have done a TON of research with this market in the last 2-3 months. An active Facebook community and paying for ads (listings, landing pages and also non-promotional content) seems to work very well.

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Jiggz

10 years ago

The Real Estate agents I have spoken to are good marketers/sales people.

They understand 90% of their business is marketing...so they are pretty aggressive at finding ways to generate leads.

I think any real agent/broker will try out leads that you can provide them at least once.

But, the real difficulty is generating that lead which will have a good conversion for them.

If you can do that then your surely sitting on a gold mine.

I think someone who is in the market to buy a home or sell will be asking friends/family for references...and of course doing a lot of research.

In their process of researching is when you need to capture their attention.

I think a good lead, must be nurtured quite a bit in this niche and thats were agents/brokers/marketers get lazy.

Any one can throw up a squeeze page and drive traffic and sell that as leads, but conversions will not be any good.

You'd need a superb value system built around that initial lead which will further qualify and nurture them to certain conditions, then hand it off to agent/broker.

Essentially, your building a direct relationship with the prospect using the agents brand before they have even met.

So a certain trust factor has been established before the agent even speaks to them.

Just my 2 cents and my way of bumping the thread for some more insight

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DaniMc

10 years ago

This is a great discussion.

Originally Posted by AmericanMuscleTA

#4: I've seen some lead providers sent out emails about accepting a lead in the next 10 minutes or the lead is transferred to another real estate agent (a lot of these types of providers are referrals, so we have to pay a referral fee, which these site owners are brokers). Also, sites like Trulia sell zip codes. So, if you want the zip code 90210 you can buy 100%, 75%, 50%, or 25%.

This is something I want to avoid. It puts the realtor in a bad position and is not the best possible situation for them. I can see anxiety developing from that process. I definitely don't want my customers to be anxious about my product.

Are you planning on making a site like Zillow or Trulia? Or, are you strictly trying to do referrals rather than sell ad space?

Strictly referrals. My idea is to pre-qualify and practically sell the prospect before sending the lead to the realtor. I'm thinking of a way to have hot, hot leads.

Imagine generating the leads that you yourself want to go sell, nurturing them, and then when you give them to someone, you know there is a high chance it will work out.

I got this idea from RedShifted here at WF. He does the same thing with kitchen remodels. He advertises, generates the leads, schedules an appointment time, and the remodelling company goes and gives the estimate. They ONLY pay him if they sell the contract. I think he said he gets 10% and only gives the leads to reputable companies that are good at closing sales.

I'm thinking the same with realtors. If one agent is not selling many of the leads, I don't give them any more. With a high quality product, I am in the position to determine who I do business with.

There's a site we worked with before, Movoto.com (this may give you ideas), that was a referral business (didn't sell ads like Zillow or Trulia... it's strictly referrals, so this company has a broker's license to be able to collect the referral commission). We had pretty good success with Movoto at first, then the leads started to take a nose dive. Ugh!

Yes this is similar to what I want to do! I do not have a brokers license, though I am not against getting one if it brings me a better ROI per lead.

Also, do you only want to get real estate leads online? Would you be willing to send out sales letters or postcards to generate the leads??

The medium isn't important to me. What I want to do is create the process that reels the lead in and gets them ready for an agent.

One thing we've had great success with for lead generation to get listings is... sending out "Our Buyer Is Looking For A House" type postcard (Dan Kennedy featured this postcard I created in his December 2013 issue of the No B.S. Gold Letter).

Now, I've seen other agents do this before, but... they send out a generic postcard that says I have a buyer looking in YOUR area. Call me today... blah blah blah.

What we do is... "Our Buyer Is Looking For A House In Mercer!" (specific neighborhood in a certain city). We then list the criteria of the type of house our buyer is looking for (Price, Size, number of bedrooms and baths, Updated kitchen, yadda yadda yadda). If we have an out-of-towner, we list the days they'll be in town (this creates a deadline).

We've had great success with this type of lead generation. If any homeowner is thinking about selling, they have no reason not to call us.

This is great! Are you just sending out the cheap little yellow cards or are they full-color?

Is the CTA just a phone call? Do you have any sort of automated email system like Adam is talking about?

Originally Posted by ADukes81

He has re-targeting set up.

A great idea. I don't think many realtors are that far into things yet.

He hired me to manage/tweak it. He wrote all his emails and I think it's like 1, 3, 7, 14, 28, 45, 60, 90 day sequence like I mentioned above. I did go in and make some tweaks to some of the early emails.

We now link out to the blog posts in the first few emails (sellers = 7 Ways to Increase Your Curb Appeal; buyers = 3 Questions You Must Ask Before Buying a Home -- stuff like that). Trying to come from a place of help, not a hard sell. It is working very well as no one in his city is doing this.

This is very, very cool. I wonder if your client would be interested in a licensing deal? You have access to his entire funnel, you package it up into a system, and then implement the system for realtors all over the country. There is an upfront fee plus the ongoing services.

Your realtor client gets a royalty every time you make a sale. You can use the results he is getting for the sales material.

I supply the blog posts, basic tips/ideas to get more out of the sale of a home and things like that. 2-3 is probably overkill to be honest as I think one/week would be just fine.

Are you using real estate PLR or having everything written from scratch? Buried on a hard drive somewhere I have thousands of real estate PLR articles. I did some work for a realtor several years ago and I just had the PLR quickly rewritten. It worked well.

We have ramped up his Facebook posting (about 3 times/day) and have a content calendar mapped out for him. We share local news stories, DIY tips, motivational ish, his blog posts (new & old), ask questions, listings, etc. We try and stick to 20-25% promotional and the rest being helpful content. We have only been doing this for about 2-3 weeks, but his current clients (fans) have commented on the activity. This ramped up posting is more for referrals/branding.

We have not done paid ads for the postings, but plan to test soon.

You should try this out. Promoting your posts, even with a budget of $10 per day, can get you several thousand fans in just a few months.

I have done a TON of research with this market in the last 2-3 months. An active Facebook community and paying for ads (listings, landing pages and also non-promotional content) seems to work very well.

I wonder if you could take the same approach you are using with him, but with a generic brand. Instead of "Joe the Realtor" it's "XYZ Realty."

Then, you use all of the approaches you have mentioned to create high quality leads. This is pretty much what I am looking to do. Do you think it would work?

Originally Posted by Jiggz

The Real Estate agents I have spoken to are good marketers/sales people.

They understand 90% of their business is marketing...so they are pretty aggressive at finding ways to generate leads.

I've met one like this. Most of the people I see are relying on their personal contacts and brand to generate leads. Real Estate IS a very personality based business usually. Most of the people following this type of marketing could use a few more leads per month.

But, the real difficulty is generating that lead which will have a good conversion for them.

Absolutely true. If my company can nurture these people all the way to the point of buying or selling, then bring the realtor in, I think that would be a very desirable lead.

I think someone who is in the market to buy a home or sell will be asking friends/family for references...and of course doing a lot of research.

In their process of researching is when you need to capture their attention.

That is an obstacle. I have to find a way to grab people while they are in the research phase.

You'd need a superb value system built around that initial lead which will further qualify and nurture them to certain conditions, then hand it off to agent/broker.

Essentially, your building a direct relationship with the prospect using the agents brand before they have even met.

Not necessarily using the agents brand. It would be nice to work with several realtors and give the lead to whomever is available right then. Or, give the leads only to people who are selling well.

Imagine if a particular agent had someone sitting in their office making sales calls, sending emails, managing the email campaigns, and running the ads. The realtor only gets involved when the client is ready to go.

Thus, the realtor can maximize the amount of time they spend making deals, and minimize the amount of time they spend marketing.

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AmericanMuscleTA

10 years ago

Thanks, Jason! I've seen some of your cold calling videos. Great stuff!

Dan, You're welcome!

You're definitely not sounding crazy. I'm glad to see someone is trying to solve the lead problems for real estate agents.

Here's my experience:

#1: This soooooo true. We've advertised with Zillow before... what a joke. A couple thousand dollars later and all we got were the crappiest of crap leads. We do great when people call or email us about our own listings, but not advertising on Zillow.

#2: True. But, if I do recall, Zillow and the other sites aren't owned by broker's. They're more like real estate showcases. So, if you sell advertising you should be good to go, selling as a referral is another story.

#3: Don't really have this problem, just crappy leads from Zillow (I'm not a fan of Zillow as you can tell).

#4: I've seen some lead providers sent out emails about accepting a lead in the next 10 minutes or the lead is transferred to another real estate agent (a lot of these types of providers are referrals, so we have to pay a referral fee, which these site owners are brokers). Also, sites like Trulia sell zip codes. So, if you want the zip code 90210 you can buy 100%, 75%, 50%, or 25%.

I agree, if you can get qualified leads, you'll have a booming business!

But, that's the big questions... how can you solve this.

Are you planning on making a site like Zillow or Trulia? Or, are you strictly trying to do referrals rather than sell ad space?

There's a site we worked with before, Movoto.com (this may give you ideas), that was a referral business (didn't sell ads like Zillow or Trulia... it's strictly referrals, so this company has a broker's license to be able to collect the referral commission). We had pretty good success with Movoto at first, then the leads started to take a nose dive. Ugh!

Also, do you only want to get real estate leads online? Would you be willing to send out sales letters or postcards to generate the leads??

One thing we've had great success with for lead generation to get listings is... sending out "Our Buyer Is Looking For A House" type postcard (Dan Kennedy featured this postcard I created in his December 2013 issue of the No B.S. Gold Letter).

Now, I've seen other agents do this before, but... they send out a generic postcard that says I have a buyer looking in YOUR area. Call me today... blah blah blah.

What we do is... "Our Buyer Is Looking For A House In Mercer!" (specific neighborhood in a certain city). We then list the criteria of the type of house our buyer is looking for (Price, Size, number of bedrooms and baths, Updated kitchen, yadda yadda yadda). If we have an out-of-towner, we list the days they'll be in town (this creates a deadline).

We've had great success with this type of lead generation. If any homeowner is thinking about selling, they have no reason not to call us.

I hope this gives you some ideas.

Rock on!

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erakor

10 years ago

We have just been offering a real estate package...don't have all the numbers yet but so far people have been pretty responsive...currently testing a webinar approach...when we have solid numbers I will report...

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randomsoftwaregroup

10 years ago

Realtors seem to get destroyed with marketing stuff, more than most, because most the time there is no gate keeper, and there are lists a bounty to contact them.

My best success has been selling calls. Guaranteed real person, and if you set the call time to a decent amount (Not 30 seconds like ATT Pay per call), tired kickers are weeded out and the agent is not charged.

Option 2, still geared towards calls, is to rank a local informational home selling/buying video. Once it gets traffic, do the "rent out" gig, and change the description to the agents information, but still use your call tracking number. This way you know how many calls they are getting, and you can make sure the price per month is fair for everyone.

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DABK 10 years ago

Dan,

Nobody's covered this part. When you hand pick your agents, look closely into the mortgage loan officer(s) they refer to their clients.

Some loan officers take a long time to get to the closing... They take on clients they know they're not going to close with the resources they have. The thinking is, I'll find somebody. Often, usually?, they do... But it takes time. Mortgage contingency or even closing date continuances have to be granted. Some sellers end up cancelling the contract.

Some loan officers pre-approve people for a loan without looking closely, or at all, at the prospect's income, assets, credit, employment. That, too, though it can get you to a contract, can get you to a failed closing.

On another line of thinking:
If you don't have a license, they can pay you a marketing fee. If you do, they can pay you commission. It's easier to pay commission for them.

On another line of thought yet, a good lead for an agent is someone who is willing to buy, can buy, and is easy to work with... By the time they reach the agent, your leads should be vetted on all of those and well trained as to what buying a house means, from telling an agent what type of house they're looking for to the number of seemingly identical disclosures they have to sign to get the loan, to what to bring to the closing.

By the way, most people around here, have a weird understanding of what an agent is/does. "They put a listing on MLS and fill out some paperwork. Even my 8 year old can do that."

They completely miss that the agent can sort out bad houses from good houses, negotiate a lower price, etc.
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AmericanMuscleTA

10 years ago

Dan, looks like you'll be getting your real estate and broker's license!!

I think how Movoto generates leads is by having the properties for sale on their website. They have to have some kind of agreement with the broker's/MLS associations (I believe).

You could also use EDDM to generate the leads. Like we offer a free home sellers' guide. You could do the same, then qualify the lead and refer it.

No, the postcards aren't the cheap little yellow cards.... Though, they are cheap to make (about 20 cents a piece for full color since we print our own and use cheap OfficeMax cardstock). We send 8.5" x 11" postcards through EDDM.

The CTA is phone call or email. We don't have it setup online yet. Though, I'm thinking about creating a squeeze page with a video. Some prospects want a PDF copy and others want a paper copy so we offer it both ways (though, we do prefer paper copy so they give us their address right up front).

DABK, not sure if the marketing fee would work, unless the agent is just paying for someone to do all of their marketing and what ever business they get it's theirs to keep. So, if Dan had a flat fee to do the marketing and it brought in 3 new clients, he wouldn't be able to get paid for those three, he'd just get paid the flat marketing fee.

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DABK

10 years ago

Correct. That's why it's best to have a license and get a bit more involved in making sure a sale happens. I've called agents from lead gen sites looking to buy, some called me 2 or 3 days later. Some sounded inconvenienced, some... Some one like Dan teaching them about converting a sale would have done them a lot of good.

Where I am (Illinois), a broker can only pay commission to brokers and agents, by law.

Originally Posted by AmericanMuscleTA

Dan, looks like you'll be getting your real estate and broker's license!!

DABK, not sure if the marketing fee would work, unless the agent is just paying for someone to do all of their marketing and what ever business they get it's theirs to keep. So, if Dan had a flat fee to do the marketing and it brought in 3 new clients, he wouldn't be able to get paid for those three, he'd just get paid the flat marketing fee.

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krzysiek

10 years ago

Hoping to land a couple real estate agents in the coming week or two on lead generation.

Currently my plan was to drive traffic via FB to a landing page where they opt in for something like a suburb scorecard / market analysis / home buyers guide / or similar, and get them onto my list.

Then over time through contact get leads coming in from the list.

Immediately upon opt in for the lead magnet there would be an offer for property appraisal (or similar) to get leads who are ready to sell to request the agent to get in touch.

This was the basic outline. This is what I am using now to generate my own leads so I am fairly confident it would work for real estate agents too.

Any thoughts?

Thanks
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9999 10 years ago

I like the follow-up series in the auto-responder sequence, really make the end user feel like they gave their email for something important.
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zoro

10 years ago

Has anyone had success with ranking a Real Estate video and generating tracked calls, if yes, would you mind sharing your ranking tips?

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gfonline

9 years ago

Dan- did you ever roll out this service? Curious how it's going if so.

I currently provide a full service lead gen service for Realtors which includes a lot of what Adam and others in this thread have mentioned and more. It does not take it to the level Dan wanted to with presell imp to lead but it does provide the Realtor with a turnkey lead funnel that generates over 100 leads a month for my clients.

I want to scale this service up and am looking for someone to partner with to help me do this. If anyone is interested please PM me so we can discuss.

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Freebiequeen1999

9 years ago

Nice info on Networking Dani

one thing I try to avoid at any networking meeting or event are the mlm people they are time suckers IMHO

I like your idea of being a "connector"

Prompt follow up is also important, something I try to work on (not the best at I admit)

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NeedLeads

9 years ago

You may have said this and I missed it but what state are you licensed in? Id be interested in this service....

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sdentrepreneur

9 years ago

I have run Real State Leads for an office with 60 agents in the recent past. Then I trained their in-house marketing department on Lead Gen and Sales Funnels.

Google Adwords, Yahoo and Bing ads have always worked the best for us. It's not for the weak at heart. You better have an offer, great landing page, sales funnel and follow up system.

Facebook Ads work great as well....same rules...great image, call to action, offer, landing page, funnel and follow up system.

You prequalify the leads using the sales funnel and follow up emails. Send a questionairre.

Good luck !!!

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outsource2freelancers

9 years ago

I am not a real estate broker.. But i am real estate advertising expert.. I am handling 5 successful campaigns right now.. Clients are getting more then 20 calls everyday by only posting ads on Craigslist & Postlets.. You can try that too.. Best of luck..

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Who is doing lead gen for real estate agents? How much volume are you getting?

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