If you want your real estate business to thrive, you need to develop a steady flow of quality leads. But generating leads isn’t easy. Expired listings and FSBOs can be notoriously difficult to convert. That’s why seasoned agents have tried true strategies for getting seller leads. Here’s how they do it.
Create a Buyer Profile
Creating an ideal customer profile and buyer persona are valuable tools that help you qualify leads. While they are similar in that they both include a set of guidelines your teams can use to determine if a lead is a good fit, there are differences. A buyer persona is a semi-fictional representation of your buyers based on market research. They include demographics, buying history, goals, challenges, and roles in the sales process. They are designed to help you understand your buyer’s experience and guide your sales strategy. Buyer profiles are a great way to ensure your team spends time with prospects who can close. They will save you time and money by ensuring your sales reps focus on the right people. Creating a buyer profile is easy enough to do with some basic market research. You can also use social media to get a feel for what people want when buying real estate.
Market Your Listings
Selling a house is one of the largest financial decisions most people make in their lifetimes. When someone decides to sell their home, they often turn to real estate agents for help. As an agent, you can generate seller leads for real estate and convert them into sales by marketing your listings. High-quality listing photos are essential to attracting potential buyers and noticing your properties online. If you have the budget, hire a professional photographer to take listing photos that are clear, well-lit, and focus on important elements of each property. In addition to photos, create virtual tours and Instagram Reels of each property to post on social media. These videos can be reposted and shared to reach a wider audience.
Your sphere of influence (SOI) can be an excellent source for seller leads. Networking with local businesses, such as doctors, lawyers, and financial advisers, can lead to referrals from clients interested in buying or selling a home. Use tools like CRM software to nurture these relationships with consistent messages about the housing market and home-buying tips.
Nurture Your Leads
Nurturing real estate leads is a vital component of growing your agency. Companies that excel at lead nurturing generate 50% more sales-ready leads at 33% lower cost. But in the hectic real estate work environment, many agents don’t do more than a cursory job of their lead nurture. Some of the best ways to nurture a potential client include providing valuable information via emails, such as market updates, home-buying tips, and neighborhood guides. This keeps you in front of the client and builds trust over time. Another effective way to nurture a prospective client is by offering referrals to trusted local service providers. This is especially important for people new to an area. The last key to successfully turning a real estate seller lead into a sale is by taking the time to follow up. 80% of sales require five follow-up calls, so follow up with your clients. But remember to do it in a way that doesn’t overwhelm your leads. An affordable customer relationship management (CRM) system can help you automate follow-ups with market analysis drips, birthday and holiday greetings, meeting invites, and more.
The most successful real estate agents are good at recognizing when a lead is ready to buy, and they work with those clients to convert them quickly. If you’re having trouble converting seller leads, consider transitioning to a different niche or changing your approach.
Reach Out to Past Clients
While a home buyer will often be referred by someone they know, sellers can also make great referral sources. Many real estate agents need to take advantage of this valuable source of leads, which is why an effective follow-up strategy is so important. Keep your past clients informed by using your marketing tools, such as an email newsletter or recurring touchpoints, to share market updates and tips with them.
The more you nurture your seller leads, the more likely they will contact you when ready to sell their property. It’s a good idea to offer them a discount on your commission rate when they refer a friend or family member and encourage them to give you their business cards so that you can reach out to them again.
It’s also a good idea to focus on reaching out to sellers who have already listed their properties but haven’t yet sold them. These people may be more receptive to your offers and are a better source of revenue than new buyers since they’ve already gone through the process of finding a suitable real estate agent and making a deal.