Generating Real Estate Leads: Oldschool Methods vs. New

So the thought of buying real estate leads has crossed your mind one time or another. If you search “real estate leads” on any search engine, you’re bound to find countless companies that promise to deliver legitimate real estate leads directly to your inbox for some type of fee.

By tweaking your search and looking a bit deeper, you will stumble across the opinions of other real estate agents in terms of buying real estate leads. The majority seem to be against it, but every once in awhile you may encounter a positive note left that makes you question if it was left by an actual agent or just a facade some real estate lead service representative is portraying to pump up their brand.

You could easily spend hours sifting through testimonials trying to get a good feel on whether or not it’s a good idea. At the end of the day, though, it will be your decision whether you want to buy real estate leads or apply your own marketing skills to attract clients.

Want to Kick It Old School?

If you want to play it old school, then go ahead and purchase some real estate leads from the company of your choice. Just keep in mind that the phone numbers and email addresses of the leads you purchase know absolutely nothing about you (and therefore start out with no trust), never asked for you to contact them, and may already have an agent by the time you get to them.

When buying real estate leads you’re basically reverting to the stone age method of cold calling. Maybe that works for you, but with the negative stigma that goes with it combined with the fact that you’re burning hours calling people with little result, you may need to try something else.

Enter the New Age of Real Estate Lead Generation

So how would you go about generating authentic real estate leads on your own?

People can’t do business with you if they don’t know you exist, so you better be doing everything in your power to get your name and brand in front of potential clients:

• Do you have a website? Good, then be sure to look into search engine optimization and make sure your website is easily found on popular search engines like Google, Yahoo, and Bing.
• Expand your network and reach by jumping on the social media bandwagon. You should have active accounts on sites like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, ActiveRain, etc.
• Consider starting a blog so you can attract more visitors and build trust by displaying your knowledge on the real estate market.
• Never forget the “word of mouth” campaign and always be sure to provide clients with the best of service. They’ll be sure to let all of their friends, family, and associates know if they ever need a real estate agent.

Go With Whatever What Works For You

As you can see, the methods used to generate real estate leads have definitely changed. With a growing number of buyers and sellers turning to the internet for knowledge, real estate agents are finding it profitable to build their presence online.

Whatever route you go, be sure that you have an effective follow-up strategy in place to make sure the real estate leads you collect don’t go to waste. Automated e-mail campaigns are popular and you may want to set aside the time it takes to make a phone call to attach a voice to the name. Remember: successfully generating real estate leads is pointless if you don’t do anything with the leads you gain.

Photo Credit: hermannyin

Tagged as: generate real estate leads, marketing, real estate leads, real estate marketing