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

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Hello - I'm looking for info concerning leadgen for Real Estate. Specifically, what is working well?

How much volume are you getting?

What is the quality of the leads? Are you qualifying them before sending to the agent?

Do you happen to know the close ratios of the agents you work with?

What are some issues you have run into?

I appreciate the info!
#offline marketing #agents #estate #gen #lead #real #volume
  • 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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    • 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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    • 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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  • 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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    • 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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  • 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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  • 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...
  • 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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    • 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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  • 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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    • 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.

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  • 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?
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    • 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.
  • Has anyone had success with ranking a Real Estate video and generating tracked calls, if yes, would you mind sharing your ranking tips?
  • 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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  • 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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  • You may have said this and I missed it but what state are you licensed in? Id be interested in this service....
  • 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 !!!
  • 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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