Between advertising and contacting your leads is a very important, often ignored step: The lead magnet. If you're getting traffic to your website but not seeing any conversions, your magnet is the culprit - Here are some ways to use lead magnets for real estate websites.
“Subscribe.” How many times have you been online and subjected to a pop-up with a brightly-colored button bearing that word? Very often it’s accompanied by an offer, many of which are rather lame.
For instance, would you give up your contact information to “join our email list?”
Me neither.
To generate quality leads from your website or landing page, you need to figure out which audience you want to target, what that audience wants and then provide it.
When it comes to lead magnets for real estate websites, the typical real-estate-agent-who-does-it-all thing won’t work. Niche down each campaign and narrowly target for the best results.
In a nutshell, a lead magnet is an offer from you in exchange for contact information. The offer should be for information or a service that answers a burning question or solves a current problem. The offer should be so intriguing, it incentivizes the reader to reciprocate.
In ecommerce, an enticing lead magnet (it works for me!) is “20% off if you sign up now.” That’s incentive for folks who actually came to shop and hope to find what they’re looking for because they’ll get a discount on the price.
That’s the first “why”
The second is that, hopefully, what you’re offering compels them to not only take action now but after they use or read the lead magnet.
So, another purpose of your lead magnet is to incentivize someone to take action, not only immediately, but in the future as well.
There is no incentive if the offer is common on other real estate websites. There is nothing compelling about information they can’t use, thus the importance of laser targeting your audience for each campaign.
Just as you wouldn’t load up your CRM without segmenting each entry, nor should you create a marketing campaign that you hope will appeal to anyone with a pulse who wants to buy or sell real estate.
“If your lead magnet isn’t carefully designed to attract the right people, you’re going to find yourself with high unsubscribe rates, low open rates, and big fat bill to your email provider for subscribers that don’t really want to hear from you,” according to Jessie Lewis, at jessierlewis.com.
At least narrow down the campaign to target homebuyers, home sellers, condo buyers or condo sellers, veterans or immigrants, for instance.
An even narrower focus could be quite effective as well. Consider downtown penthouse buyers or sellers, starter home buyers, luxury home sellers, etc.
“Get clear on WHO you are talking to – age, problems, wants, needs, fears,” suggests Michelle Falzon at herbusiness.com.
“Before you create your lead magnet, try creating a survey, talking to clients, reading forums – just make sure you’re clear on who your lead magnet is for and create your content as if you were speaking specifically to that one persona,” she concludes.
Roger Dooley, at forbes.com, sums it up pretty well: “Sadly, most of the marketing emails I get are for things I have never bought and likely never will. The more off-target these emails are, the more likely I’ll unsubscribe.”
As will the potential home seller who keeps receiving content geared to homebuyers.
There is no rule, by the way, that limits you to one campaign. Along with one for the downtown penthouse buyers or sellers, run another for condo buyers or sellers, for instance.
Make sure your lead magnets are using the right keywords to rank on searches – Check out our guide here for more info.
Informational lead magnets for real estate websites that we’ve seen include:
Lead magnet formats include:
The biggest mistake we see with lead magnets for real estate websites is that agents think it’s a set-it-and-forget-it lead gen technique. With this assumption comes a half-hineyed lead follow-up system.
So, yes, a lead magnet, if done right, will bring you leads. It’s not a magic bullet, however. It won’t magically convert them into clients and then revenue. THAT is up to you.
Here’s an example.
Ethan Edwards, in an older blog post at inman.com, tells us how he “… generated 100 real estate leads in 7 days for $50.”
In a nutshell, he created two hyper-focused lead magnet and landing page campaigns (one for buyers and one for sellers) and bought some Facebook ads to get them in front of the right audience.
He offered a seller’s and buyer’s E-book as the lead magnets.
Here are his results: “… I had 173 clicks through to my landing page and a total ad reach of 4,238 viewers. I spent $50.44, and my cost per click was 29 cents. I got 101 leads (a 58 percent conversion rate), and my cost per lead was 50 cents.”
Yes, it’s impressive, yet many agents, in the comment section, missed it and were asking the wrong question: What was your conversion rate? Or,
This is a common mistake with most real estate lead generation techniques. It assumes they are a magic bullet, with no further effort required by the agent. Especially that last one. Leads don’t convert themselves, agents do it.
The author didn’t answer these queries, and rightfully so. The topic of his post is about lead generation, not conversion. If I were still selling real estate and, with little effort and minimal financial outlay I am able to generate 101 leads in one week, I’ll take it.
And I’ll work my hiney off to convert these new leads into prospects and then clients.
So, for new agents, and those who may have forgotten, your GCI depends on these steps:
With the right lead magnet and landing page, the leads will come; it’s up to you to follow up consistently to convert them into business.
Another common mistake we often see is the generic lead magnet.
If what you’re offering “… doesn’t show them exactly how to fix a specific problem what’s the point of it? Mediocre advice is general; great advice is specific,” according to Ixchelle at blogbrandhustle.com.
Not making your offer irresistible is a mistake we often see on agents’ lead magnet opt-in form.
For instance, homeowners who are thinking of selling have three burning questions:
The last question leads to lots of answers, any of which might make an interesting lead magnet.
Once you’ve decided on a topic and the format to put it in, you’ll need to use the title on the opt-in form. It’s critical to make it so irresistible that they’ll cough up their contact information to get it.
For instance, “How to give your home curb appeal” may appeal to a few of your visitors.
But, “15 easy upgrades to turn on the front yard charm” is a lot more intriguing as far as lead magnets for real estate websites go.
“Home staging tips” becomes vastly more powerful when those tips are DIY. “Inexpensive staging tips that will make buyers swoon” gets that message across a lot better.
Now that you have an idea of how to use lead magnets for real estate websites, it’s time to create the opt-in form and landing page. We have you covered, so check back soon.
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