Drumming up new business is not always easy for Estate Agents. Especially if an Agency is relatively new; in an extremely competitive market or they focus on their time within a small niche. If you are looking to increase the quantity and quality of leads that your business generates, then you need to make sure your agency is prioritising what works best. This is crucial for both generating new leads and also handling the leads that you do generate.
By James Sheldon
Seeing a flood of leads come through your marketing efforts is great, but dealing with them can be tricky. For example, if a lead is not ready to purchase a property immediately, then you should have processes in place to make sure that your agency is their first point of contact when they ultimately take the plunge.
Likewise, we have worked with agents who have automated processes that make their life a whole lot easier, and we will be discussing that in more detail later in the guide.
But, rather than just talking about services we provide, and the great results they can achieve, we will first discuss the tactics and ideas that will no doubt be harming the hard work you are putting in.
Being an Estate Agent requires a great deal of patience. We understand that time is money but a true dead lead is one where the information you receive is not sufficient enough to contact them. Do not mistake a lead that is earlier and further up the funnel for a dead lead.
Buying or selling a home is not always easy, people often sit on the fence when deciding their next move. Your agency should help them along the way without being pushy.
So how can you quickly identify where a lead is within your funnel? Just ask them, see our examples questions below…
Are you capable of buying a property?
What type of property are you looking for?
Are you currently working with any other agent?
How long have you been looking for a property?
How soon do you need or want to move/sell?
If a prospect answers these questions, you can quickly gauge if they are looking for a change now, in two months, twelve months or even longer. You can then adjust the future conversations, marketing materials and follow up questions/tasks accordingly.
To follow on from our comments regarding the need for patience within the industry. We all enjoy personal space and downtime, one thing that can very much ruin that time, is cold calls. Typically, an Estate Agent should not resort to cold calling prospects, but sometimes, when leads are slowing or due to seasonality, it is common for agents to pick up the phone and get in touch with someone who has never seen or engaged with their brand before.
This is a big red flag!
When you decide to cold call prospects within this industry, it heavily affects your business’s reputation. More time, you are actually directly driving people away from your business and it is not worth risking your reputation for the minuscule amounts of people you will find who may be mildly interested.
Another crucial step to handling your leads is the handing over of information. One of the most common responses Estate Agents receive is “I’m going to wait and think about it, I’ll get back to you”. If this happens regularly, you need to make sure you change the common communication with your prospects.
Sit back and ask yourself, “Why are prospects feeling indecisive after our conversions?” It is probably because you are overwhelming the prospect with so much information, they are not confident enough to press ahead as they feel like they need to wrap their heads around what you have given them.
Make sure to keep it simple, ask the correct questions, answer their queries and find out what they want to know instead of telling them about which service of yours they NEED to take up.
Information overload may be damaging your sales process. Be clear and make sure to listen, throughout the sales process, during the exchange of contracts and discussions with solicitors.
Firstly, we will start with the best ways Estate agents can generate leads. There is a range of channels that present great opportunities. Of course, expectations need to be managed and depending on the type of Agency you are a part of, you may see different results across those different channels.
A High Performing Website – Providing a great online experience for your customer base will increase the credibility, trust and professionalism of your agency. Generating traffic for your website is not easy, requiring high ranking organic listings within the SERPs or a paid marketing strategy that literally costs per click. So making sure the time and money you are putting into attracting users to your site is only worthwhile if you have a website that can handle it.
Everything from an easy-to-use search functionality, to a clear call to action, is required in order to turn traffic into leads. The framework your website is built upon can be seen as the building blocks for sustainability. The two main options for a typical website include WordPress, a notorious blogging platform that can be forcefully built into a real estate website using an abundance of plugins or a multi-tenant Laravel solution that has been custom built from the ground up.
You need to ensure that your website gives users the best first impression. Without a great first impression, visitors are most likely to question the legitimacy of your estate agency and exit your website. This would inevitably mean you possess fewer leads, a lack of sales and a potentially increased bounce rate.
Without a website that is set up for success, you are making it harder for your visitors to choose your agency. The first port of call must be to ensure your website is fast, responsive, easy to use with great content.
Multichannel Marketing – Referring to the use of a range of online and potentially offline marketing channels, the results of a well set up marketing campaign can be a difference-maker from start to finish. Increasing brand awareness on social media and Google, while retargeting the typical 98% of users who enter your website and leave without submitting a form. Creating a subscriber base to distribute email marketing newsletters and constantly building your brand online should start with a multichannel approach.
Property Portals – Working hand in hand with a property portal helps your agency to leverage their brand and traffic to push your properties in front of more people than ever. Uploading a range of your property to extremely well-known portals like Rightmove can only increase your chances of selling, this, of course, comes at a cost but is often a no-brainer, at least on a trial basis.
Referral Marketing – Gaining the trust of real people is not easy sometimes. But with a strong referral network, the word of mouth way of doing business has always had great success. If you can provide a service so good the person is confident enough to recommend you to their friends and family, you are very much on the right track!
Building a Database – Estate agents are constantly looking for the hottest leads that are ready to buy or sell immediately. As great as that would be, there are a large number of enquiries that are just not ready right now. The database of details you build up over time is extremely important. We would recommend a minimum database of around 800/1000 names and emails to get started. Sending out regular emails to this database will keep your brand at the forefront of a user’s mind whenever they think about anything to do with property. Keep the content short, informative and make sure to add value and you are on the right track.
Top 8 Tips to Better Handle Real Estate Leads
Respond Quickly, the quicker you respond, the more likely you are to convert a lead.
Pick up the phone, emails are great and important, but always follow up with a phone call.
Make it easy for leads to contact you, information can be displayed on your website, in your email footer etc.
Make sure all leads enter your CRM, this keeps your pipeline tidy and up to date for you and your team!
Follow a call frame, make this a part of your process, set your time frame and an agenda with an outcome in mind. Make sure to ask the key questions that can help you determine exactly how interested the lead may be.
Listen to the lead, give them time to breathe, and make sure to answer their questions in-depth, confirming they understand exactly what you are trying to accomplish. Be honest and properly understand their requirements.
Inform them of the future steps, after being on the call for a small amount of time, you will usually be able to understand if the lead is a good fit to move forward immediately or if they should be left within your system for further nurturing.
Set expectations and provide clarity for yourself, make sure you are 100% convinced that the lead is ready to move quickly, is a dead-end or requires another call or more information. Making sure there are no blurred lines between you and the lead is essential.
At Property Webmasters, we have worked with some of the largest real estate businesses in the world, as well as smaller agencies that are looking to refine and automate their processes in order to save time and money. Whether you are looking to generate leads, implement a CRM in order to store and follow up with leads or even, get a new website in order to better attract leads, Property Webmasters can help. Get in touch with one of our Growth Consultants today.
If you are interested in seeing how your branding, imagery and colour scheme could look on a new AgentPlus website solution from us here at Property Webmasters, how about you take up the opportunity to receive a free website mock-up? Give us 48 hours and we will return you a fully functioning mock-up for you to take a look at, with all of your assets. Find out more here!
By Ben Spowart
By Ben Spowart
By James Sheldon