We’ve been talking a lot lately about the importance of consistently nurturing those wonderful folks in your SOI.
It’s quite the balancing act, however, between performing that task and generating new leads.
Very often, one of them will fall through the cracks and, when agents realize this, there’s a mad dash to rectify the situation.
Don’t get caught by surprise. Build a lead generation task list as an addendum to your 2022/2023 business plan.
We just happen to have some tried-and-true ideas you may want to add to the list.
Work those open houses
It’s highly unlikely that no event in your career will expose you, at one time, to as many potential clients as the open house.
Yet so many listing agents dread them, pawn them off on other agents or talk their clients out of wanting to hold their homes open.
If you’re back to holding open houses in your market, it’s time to double-down on the effort you put into them.
Ah, we know what you’re thinking: “Open houses are a waste of time.”
RE/MAX agent and co-founder of CompleteAgent, Inc., Adam Year, used to feel like that too, “… until the big a-ha moment, I mainly did open houses to please my sellers but I pretty much wrote them off as a 2-hour time slot for me to catch up on some admin work,” he writes at completeagent.io.
He now recommends the humble open house as being “… the biggest bang for your buck when it comes to generating new leads and building your pipeline.”
Among Yera’s “3 types of open house visitors” are buyers not represented by an agent, buyers with a lousy agent (as Yera says “Who sends buyers to open houses?”) and “The Nosy Neighbor.”
He says that the first group is the one to pursue, and we agree, but not to the exclusion of the neighbors (group number three).
If you’ve been around the industry for more than a minute, you’ve noticed clusters of listings; that is, several homes on the same street going on the market within weeks or months of one another.
Some call this coincidence, and they may be right, but it doesn’t change the fact that it happens.
In fact, as a rookie agent, my broker told me that if one homeowner puts his or her home on the market, there’s an excellent chance that another or even two to three more in the neighborhood will list in the near future.
If you’re holding an open house because your client expects you to, work to get something out of it for you, as well.
One of the best ways to do this is to invite the neighbors. And, not just the next-door kind, but as many as possible.
The invitation can be proffered via a personal visit, a flier stuck in their front doors or a mailed invitation.
Check out the latter at:
Many of these companies also offer fliers if that’s your preference.
While it’s important to invite as many neighbors as possible, it’s critical that you keep track of which ones attend. Then, follow up with them. Again, this can be done by phone, email, snail mail or in person, but it’s imperative that you follow up.
Stuck for what to say? Michelle, at keyrealestateresources.com, offers up a sample.
You’re not done yet
Don’t get lazy when it comes to handouts. When done right, information packets that include your branding and contact information will live on with attendees long after they visited your open house.
Naturally, you’ll want to include information about the home you’re holding open. Use a color copy of the flier and ensure that it includes the home’s square footage, number of bedrooms, bathrooms and any special features.
Create some pages with information about the neighborhood or surrounding area. How many parks, employers, which school district? Throw in information about the area’s largest employers, a bit of history about the area and anything else that they may find interesting.
For ideas on what to include, check out any city’s relocation guide. Here are a few to get you started:
- Nevada Relocation Guide
- Chandler Relocation Guide
- Myrtle Beach Relocation Guide
- Austin Relocation Guide
- Santa Monica Guide
Sure, the neighbors and other attendees are probably well aware of the area’s attractions, but the more valuable the information you include in your packet, the more likely the recipients will be to hang on to it.
Again, ensure that each page includes your branding and contact information. Then, bind all the pages and add an attractive cover. This is one of the more important tasks when putting together this information.
Your goal should be for attendees to hang on to your branded hand-out. If it’s appealing visually and easy to flip through, they’re more likely to do just that.
Consider community involvement
There are lots of ways to get involved in your community. The best place to start, however, is with a cause, group or organization that you are passionate about.
Many agents will hold an annual event to benefit their chosen cause, while others get hands-on involved with a group. Either way, community involvement helps expose your brand, repeatedly, to members of the community.
Do you have a niche that you specialize in?
Consider finding a cause that matches. For instance, if you specialize in senior real estate “Gather volunteers to spend one day each quarter helping senior homeowners with home repairs,” (thanks to Michelle at Key Real Estate Resources for this brilliant idea).
- Get your brand out to families by sponsoring a local sports team. Hand out branded water bottles, t-shirts or provide the half-time snack as an additional bonus.
- Here’s another one from Michele: Sponsor a community beautification event, like a beach or vacant lot clean-up, “… graffiti removal, or community garden.”
- Adopt a classroom at the local elementary, junior or senior high school and coordinate with the teacher to supply the semester’s school supplies.
- Create an annual event around a holiday, such as October sock collections for the homeless (“Socktober”), a holiday toy drive for children, a holiday food drive or pet food drive.
Not only will supporting your community make you feel good, you’ll build your database as well.
How?
“First-time homebuyers Emily and Joseph Jared hired their Realtor, Sophie Mason, after seeing her posts on Facebook in support of Nashville Humane Association,” according to Bill Lewis of the Nashville Tennessean.
“That impressed the Jareds, who adopted their cat, Sarah, from Nashville Humane,” Lewis continued. “It’s good to know the person I was working with was focused on giving back and not just taking,” said Emily Jared.
Need more ideas? Check out the National Association of Realtors’ list.
More money than time?
Community involvement and a well-executed open house take a big chunk of time out of an agent’s schedule.
If you’re pressed for time yet want to keep that sales funnel full create room in your marketing budget for Google pay-per-click (PPC) advertising.
Not only can it be cost-effective but results are typically quicker than other lead gen techniques as well. Traffic generated via organic searches, for instance, trails that generated by PPC by 50%, according to the folks at Moz.com.
Check out these additional Google PPC statistics:
- On average, businesses earn $2 in revenue for every $1 spent on Google Ads (Google Economic Impact Report)
- Sixty-five percent of clicked Google Ads contain “buyer-intent keywords such as ‘buy,’ ‘shop,’ ‘purchase,’ etc.” (PowerTraffick)
- Paid ads that answer a question garner the highest number of clicks (33%). (Clutch)
There’s a lot that goes into an effective PPC campaign, which is why many agents hire someone to do it for them.
If you’re a beginner, check out some of the tutorials for agents on YouTube, like this one from Mike Sherrard and this one from Eric B. Preston.
None of these lead gen techniques are earth-shatteringly new, but all will help stuff the pipeline, making them worth reconsideration as we head into the new year.