As a Real Estate professional, you probably agree that lead generation is the first step of the sales process. There are many methods and systems available. Some people tend to buy leads from third-party companies or real estate websites, some use direct mail, and some use old school methods like door knocking and cold calling.
Over the past two years, I had the opportunity to work on over 200 Real Estate projects in Vancouver, Canada, one of the toughest markets in the world.
The worst thing you can do as a Realtor is to buy leads. Instead, put together a lead generation strategy, understand your audience, and build a brand, and you will be overwhelmed with the number of leads you get.
As we went through a market shift, I could see that it is becoming more and more challenging to generate real estate leads. It made us take a more in-depth look and try to get to know our target audience better. We had to create user personas, understand buyers, and sellers’ behaviors. We divided our target audience into various categories and tested different methods to find something that just worked efficiently.
After lots and lots of testing at the design and ad level, we finally found two methods that worked well.
You need to understand that these methods are no magic; you must understand the pictures and put the work into them to do every step correctly.
What is a Real Estate Lead Generation Funnel?
So, you may be wondering what a lead generation funnel is. A Sales Funnel or Lead Generation funnel is a series of steps that we will get our online visitors to go through and take some actions. A funnel is just like a salesperson holding a customers hand, answering their questions, engaging with them, and directing them from one step to another.
How do you create funnels?
There are various tools and methods that you can use to create funnels; however, choosing the right tool depends on a few factors.
- How much time do you want to spend on building your funnels?
- Do you have any design skills?
- Do you have any development skills?
- How often do you have to update your funnels?
- What is your budget?
The chances are that you want to spend the least amount of time, and you need to get the most out of your funnels. You probably have some design skills, and you are not a software developer. You may want to update your funnels maybe once a month or every two weeks, and you are on a budget.
If this sounds like you, then ClickFunnels is your best bet. Over the past two years, my team and I have tried over 12 different platforms, and after spending thousands of dollars, we finally settled on using ClickFunnels.
What is ClickFunnels?
ClickFunnels is a software that helps you build multi-step funnels, quickly and efficiently. It comes with lots of pre-made templates, and it can integrate to almost any tool you can think. If you wanted to do what it does for you with any other type of software, it would take you hours, and you would need development and design skills. To learn more, read my in-depth review of ClickFunnels here.
The Bigger Picture
Even though a high-converting funnel will bring you leads, it is essential for you to understand the bigger picture. The reason being is that, once you know the bigger picture, you will be able to create a funnel for any situation. You can create a funnel for First-Time Home Buyers; you can create a funnel for Sellers or even Investors.
There are four steps to a lead generation funnel (Note that this is different from a marketing funnel).
- The first step of a lead generation funnel is pushing targeted traffic to the funnel.
- The second step is creating engagement with our users.
- The third step involves connecting with them.
- The last step is following up to turn these cold leads into customers or sales.
Below is a snapshot of a marketing funnel.
Getting Started
Ok, now that we went over the structure of a funnel, let’s start by breaking it down and going over what you need to create a high-converting funnel.
- Start by defining your audience
- Choose your strategy
- Build the right landing page
- Create highly targeted ads
- Put together retargeting ads
- Create email automation follow-ups
Defining Your Target Audience
The first and most crucial step of creating a funnel in real estate lead generation is defining a target audience. What are you trying to promote or generate leads for?
- Are you looking to generate buyer leads?
- Do you want to get seller leads?
- Are you trying to promote a current listing?
- Will you be growing a mailing list of other real estate agents in your area?
Let’s take the first option as an example. Let’s say you are looking to generate buyer leads. So now we need to dig in deeper.
- What type of buyer are you looking for?
- First-Time Home Buyers?
- General Buyers? (People who currently own a home)
- Investors?
Let’s pick First-Time Home Buyers as an example. We need to ask a few questions to understand them better.
- Who are they?
- What are they looking for?
- What problems are they facing?
- How much do they know about buying a home?
- What are some questions they might possibly have?
- How can you as an agent help them?
- What geographical areas are they looking into? Or What geographic area would be suitable for them?
Take a moment and answer these questions. The answers you come up with here will be used to target your audience when creating targeted ads.
Choose Your Lead Generation Strategy
You need to decide on a strategy depending on your target audience and marketing goals. There are various strategies that you can put in place. There are two significant strategies we always use in our lead generation process, one is the quiz method, and the other one is the lead magnet method.
The Quiz Method
The quiz method is where you design a quiz to get information from your leads and based on the information; they give you, you will contact them or send them what they are looking for. The quiz method is built on principals of commitment and consistency.
The Lead Magnet Method
The lead magnet is a powerful method, as well. A lead magnet is a free piece of information that we offer or visitors in exchange with their contact information.
When you decide on the strategy, you will then need to design the right landing page for each strategy.
Create the Right Landing Page
Creating a landing page is one of the most important parts of the funnel as well. There are a few essential things that you need to consider when creating your landing pages. They must
- be mobile-friendly
- reflect your brand
- make it easy for people to contact you
- be focused on only one goal or topic
Creating the right landing page can be challenging; this is why we are giving out two of our pre-made landing pages to you for Free. It is straightforward to modify them.
Here are the steps you need to take to get these free funnels.
First, click here to sign up for a ClickFunnels trial.
Then, click on the download buttons below to download our funnels.
Create Targeted Ads
What you want to do next is to create targeted ads. You need to pick a platform first. We usually use Facebook & Instagram. Please note that Facebook Ad Rules have changed and if you are advertising in the real estate industry, there are some significant changes that you need to be aware of. You can learn more about this by joining our Facebook Group.
Here is a breakdown on how to create an ad on Facebook
- Pick the right campaign strategy
- Make sure you have Facebook Pixel Installed on your landing pages
- Create custom conversions
- Use the notes you took when you were defining your audience and use the Facebook audience insight tools to understand your audience better
- Pick the geographical area that you want to target
- Select a bidding strategy and conversion strategy
- Make sure to use Video Ads. You can use Facebook’s video maker.
If you need help with creating targeted sign up for our training which we take you through every step and will give you all of our templates.
Create Re-Targeting Campaigns
Once you create your main campaign, what you want to do is to create your retargeting campaign. You can do this but creating a custom audience and choosing people who have visited your landing page in the past 30 to 120 days.
If you need help with creating targeted sign up for our training which we take you through every step and will give you all of our templates.
Create Email Automation Follow-Ups
It is very important to turn your cold traffic and cold leads into warm leads who are ready to talk to you. The best way to do this is by using email automation. You can do this with something like GetResponse. GetResponse lets you create custom email workflows and even schedule emails for an extended period and take actions based on peoples actions.
Why shouldn’t you buy leads?
I have worked with many Realtors, and I can tell you that the worst thing you can do is buying leads. When you buy a lead, the chances are that you are getting, burnt, outdated email addresses, or phone numbers. Sometimes, if you are lucky enough to get a hold of the lead, they don’t have any idea of who you are and how you got their contact info.
Instead of buying leads from third-party companies, focus on building your brand. Once you identify your primary target audience and start providing value to them, your funnels will be flooded with leads.
What to do from here?
As a Real Estate Agent, marketing and advertising are your most essential tools of the trade. Therefore, start by using the available data online to create targeted user personas. Master advertising on Social Media, build multiple landing pages, and create effective ads. Test these ads over time, improve your landing pages, and try to optimize them and lower your cost per lead.
I know this is a lot of information, but real estate marketing is not something that can be just done overnight. To help you learn every step in-depth, I have put together a complete training course. In this course, you will learn everything you need to know to build high-converting, efficient, lead generation funnels. We are also giving you all the things you need to get started and save time on designing and copywriting.
To be first to hear about our complete real estate lead generation training, join our Facebook group now.
CLICK HERE TO JOIN OUR PRIVATE FACEBOOK GROUP
Some Real Estate Lead Generation Ideas
While there are many lead generation ideas, you can only come up with the perfect idea once you define your target audience. Here you can find some lead generation ideas, divided based on various types of buyers or sellers.
Lead Generation Ideas for First Time Home Buyers
Take a Quiz and find properties within your budget in [City Name]
This type of lead generation is done using developing curiosity, along with taking advantage of principles of commitment and consistency. People are always curious to see what the results of a quiz will be based on their input. Since first time home buyers are mostly younger crowd, they are more likely to be price-sensitive.
Lead Generation Ideas for General Home Buyers
Not sure if it’s the right time to buy? Download our Free Guide to find out.
General buyers are people who already own a home, and they are looking to move to another place. They could be downsizing, upsizing, or just looking for a new place. Most of the time, when people are thinking of buying a home, they want to make sure they are in a buyers market so that they have more options and more negotiating power. Who can answer this question better than a knowledgable realtor who is an expert in a specific geographical area?
Lead Generation Ideas for Investors
Answer These 3 Simple Questions to find the latest investment opportunities in [City Name[.
Investors are constantly looking for opportunities. Getting them to go through a survey or a quiz will get their time invested in contacting you. What you need to do here is to have multiple sets of properties prepared first and send them the right ones based on the questions they answer.
