Lure leads with these real estate giveaway ideas

If you’re running short on real estate giveaway ideas, this one’s for you.

Whether you’re trying to catch fish, corral cats or capture a lead, a lure is your best tool.

The problem is that, while we have a pretty good idea what fish and cats find enticing, not all real estate prospects value the same things.

Determining your preferred audience is step one in any real estate lead gen strategy. Step two is figuring out what this audience values and, finally, package that valuable information in such a way as to make it utterly irresistible to them. With that in mind, here are some real estate giveaway ideas to get you started.

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 Premium content as a real estate giveaway

The distinguishing feature of premium content, as opposed to standard content, is that it can only be accessed for a fee.

Naturally, real estate agents don’t want to alienate potential clients by charging them for information, but the concept of premium content is still usable.

Instead of charging for the content, require contact information for access

Premium content is high quality, longer than other content and “exceptionally informative,” according to Techopedia, and most forms of premium content make great real estate giveaway ideas. Some real estate giveaway ideas include:

• Long articles (at least 3,000 words)
• Tutorials (either in text or video form)
• Checklists
• Relocation guides
• In-depth neighborhood or city guides
• Case studies that show how you’ve dealt with complicated problems
• Ebooks about any aspect of the real estate buying or selling process
• Infographic
• Checklists, such as for moving or staging a home
• In-depth information about a specific real estate topic, such as buying a home with a septic or well or ideas on what to do with pets during home showings.

 

Finally, unlike standard content that you may use to drive traffic to your site, premium content’s goal is to turn the visitors into leads. Read digital marketing specialist Larisa Aslanyan’s post at LinkedIn.com for more information about why you need premium content offerings.

Again, you’ll want to tailor the premium content offerings to each audience segment. This is no time to be a generalist.

Ok, so you have your real estate giveaway ideas – how will you let people know about them?

Strategically-targeted Facebook ads are a good place to start. The best place to finish? A branded squeeze page, created to capture the real estate leads generated from your Facebook ads. Need templates? Here ya go!

Easily send leads to engaging website content with a squeeze page – part of LeadSites. Learn more about Squeeze pages

 

Tip: Don’t ask your squeeze page visitors for their life history. In fact, asking for minimal information is a proven winning tactic.

 

Consider running a Facebook contest

If the giveaway prize is enticing enough, a Facebook contest is a brilliant way to capture real estate leads or create brand awareness.

And, that’s where you should start the planning, according to marketing guru Neil Patel. What is your goal? Do you want to generate and capture real estate leads or create more awareness for your brand?

We’re betting it’s the former, but in real estate, these contests typically accomplish both.

To both increase brand awareness and generate new leads requires massive sharing by your primary audience. For that to happen, your contest “needs to harness the social forces that keep Facebook turning,” according to Patel.

And what are those forces?

The strongest and most obvious is the sharing of photos of ourselves, our kids and/or pets. Known as “User Generated Content,” or UGC, Patel claims that it can generate nearly 7 times more engagement than your own content.

Contests to consider for this include, naturally, asking your Facebook friends to share photos of themselves. Minnesota mega-agent Kris Lindahl has used this strategy a number of times with great success.

Each Halloween, for instance, Lindahl’s team hosts The Great Pumpkin Giveaway, which, by the way, won a Guinness World Records award for the longest line of pumpkins in 2016.

It’s a huge event, with thousands of Twin Cities residents turning out for the free pumpkins, music, food and more.

But he doesn’t stop there. At its conclusion, he runs a Pumpkin Decorating Contest on Facebook, asking those who snagged a free pumpkin to show the world how spooky it turned out after being carved.

The rules are simple (these come from his Facebook page):

“1. Decorate your pumpkin

2. Take a picture of your pumpkin

3. Like the Kris Lindahl Real Estate page

4. Post a picture of your decorated pumpkin in the comment section below this post

5. Share this post and tell your friends to like your pumpkin picture

The pumpkin picture with the most likes WINS the contest!”

The prize for this particular Facebook contest was “a $100 gift card to the winner’s store of choice!”

But his brilliance doesn’t end there. Check out his Winner Reveal video. The winner received 156 likes and Lindahl gained a ton of brand exposure.

We imagine he also garnered some real estate leads as well, but let’s take a look at other ways you can use a Facebook contest with your real estate giveaway ideas to snag yours. We’ve seen several of these work for agents across the country:

• Back to school: Ask your FB followers to post a photo of their child just before heading off to the first day of school in the fall. Your team votes for the winner.
• Founder’s Day: A brilliant hyper-local contest. Ask your followers to submit a selfie they’ve taken next to their favorite local historic landmark. Or, post a quick quiz about local history. Those with the correct answers are directed to a squeeze page where they give up their contact info for a chance to win the drawing.
• The ugly sweater contest, believe it or not, is still popular around the holidays. Have people post a photo of themselves in theirs, share the photo and like your page and the one with the most shares wins the prize.

 No matter how you do it, be sure to join a Facebook group or two so you have a wide audience for your contest.

Real estate giveaway ideas: Facebook giveaways

If you’d rather not go through the hassle of a contest, consider a giveaway in exchange for contact information. Done right, with the right prize, these giveaways pay for themselves. The challenge here is coming up with real estate giveaway ideas that will incentivize people to engage with your content.

Although May is National Physical Fitness and Sports Month, Fatherly.com decided to hold a fitness-oriented sweepstakes in February of 2015. Credit for the success of this one obviously goes to the prize package: the 2015 FitBitSurge, a year’s supply of Lululemon apparel and “an everlasting supply of KIND bars.”

Entrants were taken to a squeeze page where they gave up their contact information for a chance to win. The results? More than 57,000 Facebook views, 49,000 email addresses and a nearly 86 percent conversion rate, according to James Scherer at Wishpond.

Your prize package needn’t be as extravagant, as long as it’s something your followers find valuable. For instance, target first-time buyers and offer an essentials box of items they’ll need when they move in.

“Your prize is one of the easiest and most effective ways to attract qualified leads. Choose it wisely,” warns Neil Patel.

From tickets to a local sporting event or popular upcoming concert to high-value gift cards, enticing prizes aren’t hard to come by.

For even more real estate giveaway ideas and incentive, check out Tyler’s post about an exceptionally clever holiday-themed Facebook real estate campaign.

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Looking for other ways to generate leads? We’ve got 53 methods that are perfect for any agent!

Wow your leads with these holiday-specific ads – perfect for getting traffic during the slow season: