Is there any better feeling than closing real estate deals? Whether it’s getting your buyers’ offer approved for the home of their dreams or helping sellers offload their properties for the right price, real estate agents all over know that warm, fuzzy feeling that comes with finalizing contracts and bringing in that hard-earned commission.
If you’re like most agents, you know nothing would make business better than increasing your real estate close rate. The first step to doing so is learning how to move leads through your funnel.
The first place to start is at the top of the sales funnel, where you get leads through the door and on your radar.
Top of the Funnel
Research commonalities among past clients.
One key area to examine when determining how to actually get leads, though, is to look at what real estate lead generation efforts actually caused past clients to find out about your business. Look back on deals as recent as last week or as far back as last year to see what you may have done to get buyers or sellers to notice, and eventually work with, you. Some specific facets of your sales and marketing to look at to figure this out include:
- Touch points. How you first contacted clients, how they found you, what their communications preferences were, what mediums you used to answer their questions
- Marketing consumption. What kinds of real estate advertising they enjoyed, if they checked out your social media presence, if you sent them email blasts or newsletters, if they found you via organic or paid search, if they read your blog posts on your website or elsewhere online
- Timing. How often you brought them to open houses and to check out listings, what kind of automated marketing you set up through social media and email
Enchantment is the purest form of sales
— GUY KAWASAKI
Middle of the Funnel
Revisit your methodology for qualifying leads.
What factors do you take into consideration when separating the bad leads from the good ones? How do you define a “good” lead? As a successful real estate agent, part of the job is to pinpoint certain qualities in prospective buyers and sellers to get a sense if they’re really your target customer — meaning if they’re serious about finding a home or putting their own on the market.
For buyers, some questions to ask yourself to determine if they’re the right lead to pursue include:
- Why are they looking to buy (new primary/secondary home)?
- What do their finances look like?
- Do they have a reasonable price point and home preferences (e.g. square footage, location, home type)?
- How long have they been looking for an agent to help them?
- Where are they looking to buy? And are you familiar with the area?
- How soon are they looking to get into a new home?
- Do they have a flexible enough schedule for open houses?
Similarly, when it comes to determining the quality of seller leads, ask yourself questions like:
- Are they willing to list their home at what you deem to be the right price?
- Do they have reasonable expectations regarding how long it will take to sell their home?
- Are they willing to negotiate with/offer concessions to prospective buyers if necessary?
- Have they already worked with an agent before? If so, how recently?
- How long have they been searching for an agent?
Once you have answers to these questions, go to your CRM and label your leads as ones to ditch, ones to keep on the back burner, and ones to pursue.
Show how you’ve helped buyers and sellers.
Social proof is a relatively new concept … but it’s a powerful one. Buyers and sellers tend to listen to others who have bought and sold properties to get an idea of what to expect during the process — the good and the bad. Show them the good side of things: the positive experiences your past clientele had in working with you. For instance, get a client who was ecstatic with your services to detail specific aspects of your business they liked by giving them a short survey. Was it your attention to detail? Your willingness to bend over backwards to help them? Your open availability? Answers to these questions could be included on your site, in plain view for leads to see.
Sure, not every deal of yours falls into this category, but all you need are a few great examples of clients who were thrilled with your work during the buying and selling process. A quote from them can be featured next to CTAs on your website, which could be the deciding factor for many site visitors. Just be sure not to include quotes that are too promotional or sound like they were fed to the reviewer in question. A natural response from them about the pros of working with you is the best kind of review.
“Nobody likes to be sold but everybody likes to buy.”
— EARL TAYLOR
Bottom of the Funnel
Know what resources your leads need and want.
The only way you’ll close deals is by knowing what content, resources or tools to provide to your leads when they’ve made it clear they’re very interested in your services. This means providing information about your past client deals with potential ones.
For example, show sellers what kinds of deals you’ve closed, how frequently you finalize deals, what kind of homes you typically sell and any other sales information you feel your clients would appreciate knowing, based on their preferences. For buyers, offer information, like free listings/local market reports detailing properties your prospective buyers would be interested in and their specs (financial, location, home size, etc.), to show buyers you’re well prepared. This may take a couple hours to put together, but when working with very well-qualified leads, the effort is worth it. Plus, nurturing your leads with this information shows you’ll go the extra mile for them, which could separate you from the competing agents.
Read An Introduction to Inbound Marketing for Real Estate to learn how inbound marketing can transform your marketing and sales.
