Running a successful real estate business is all about the art of taking a calculated risk, staying ahead of the curve, strategically planning, and providing value to your real estate clients in hopes of a higher ROI.
The internet has undoubtedly become one of the most prominent and important platforms for businesses to thrive and reach a wider audience. When used appropriately, it can be one of the most effective channels of communication with your real estate clients and prospects. However, most real estate agents are not using the power of their online presence and platforms to their fullest potential.
In this article, we will showcase 10 reasons why you are not generating real estate clients online. The goal of this article is to show you (as an agent) what you should be doing, but you are not currently doing.
1. You are only posting real estate content on your social media
If your social posts exclusively promote real estate content or just focus on your real estate business, it becomes predictable, boring, and lifeless. The goal of social media is engagement, so you want to post content that people will care about and interact with. If your audience isn’t engaging, it’s probably because they don’t care about what you’re posting. This means they won’t share it, like it, repost it, retweet, leave comments, or follow.
So what kind of content should you be posting then? Here are a few ideas:
- Post about your area and provide your audience with insights about why it’s an excellent place to live and your expertise.
- Share interesting things that are happening in the community to show your involvement, interest, and insider knowledge about your area.
- Redistribute local news from local news outlets.
- Share events, and participate in local events that align with the lifestyle and demographics that appeal to your ideal real estate clients.
The majority of social media posts that people share, engage with, or like are either entertaining or posts that followers find useful and educational. The measure of great content is anything that people connect with, provides value, and even support for their friends, family, and followers.
2. Your links from social media are not optimized for conversion
According to Sprout Social social media statistics, 77% of consumers are more likely to buy from brands they follow on social media platforms. Did you know that the top two channels followers use to discover and evaluate brands and companies, including real estate agents, are Instagram and Facebook?
It’s absolutely crucial to optimize your social media links for conversions and ensure that your landing page has a clear CTA if you want to improve conversion rates. Optimizing your landing page doesn’t have to be an overwhelming task with the right strategy. Here are a few tips:
- Write clear and enticing headlines that hook prospective real estate clients
- Embrace minimalist, clean layouts, and avoid giant blocks of text!
- Include simple images and videos
- List the benefits and address pain points
- Make sure your call to action is extremely obvious and the offer is clear
- Include social proof with client reviews
- Limit distractions, such as removing the site’s navigation
- A/B test your landing page
- Check out your competitors landing pages to see what you can learn and how you can improve.
An effective landing page that is optimized for conversions should effectively showcase your offer, benefits, value, and purpose of your landing page in a concise and visually appealing format.
3. You are not posting client video testimonials everywhere
Video is hands down the best medium to generate trust with people who are not familiar with your brand. This type of social proof is phenomenal for potential buyers and sellers in the discovery phase of the sales funnel.
One of the best promotions for your real estate business is word of mouth. People are far more likely to trust a brand or real estate agent if they’ve been recommended to them or if they have excellent reviews online. Written testimonials posted on your site are certainly important, but high-quality video testimonials are even better. Why? In real estate, video testimonials are even more effective way to showcase you as a knowledgeable and reputable go-to agent.
Videos of past clients will provide your potential real estate clients with information about what drove their decisions when finding the property that best fit their needs and why you were the real estate agent that helped them find the perfect home.
Make sure you create a variety of shorter and longer videos, and upload them to the appropriate channels. Shorter videos are more successful on Instagram and Facebook, while longer videos will fair well on YouTube. The first 10 seconds of your video are crucial on platforms like Facebook where prospects are scrolling through their newsfeed. You’ve got about 10 seconds to capture their attention!
4. You are not following up with online leads
If you have leads that remain in your database for a long time, chances are they’re not going to wait around for you to respond. What you need is a solid follow-up strategy.
Let’s say you ran an extremely successful marketing campaign, and now you’ve been inundated with tons of leads you’re hoping to turn into sales. Creating a follow-up schedule helps streamline the process, remain consistent, and prevent leads from falling through the cracks. Your communications calendar should strike a nice balance. You want to nurture the lead without becoming a nuisance.
Track your communication and your leads with a CRM (contact/customer relation management) system. This is one of the best ways to track client outreach and the results of each communication. An excel spreadsheet is an excellent substitute for a CRM system. Make a column for your prospects’ contact information, notes regarding the dates of contact, methods used, and your follow-up plan.
5. You are not converting your online following into face to face meetings
Rather than setting up tons of one-on-one meetings, host an event and invite your online following. This is a great way to nurture potential leads without investing a lot of time into meetings, especially with followers that aren’t currently selling or buying a home but may do so in the future. If they attend your event, meet you, and learn more about you, they’ll be more likely to consider you when the time comes.
Making an event on Eventbrite is exceptionally easy, and it provides you with a guest list. Here are the steps for creating an Eventbrite event:
- Create your own event by clicking Get Started.
- Create your account, or enter your account information
- Fill in the event details, including the title and location
- Set the date and time
- Write the event description and add your logo or event photo
- Enter the organizer’s details
- Choose the type of ticket, is it paid, free, or by donation? If it’s paid consider Early Bird pricing
- Add additional settings: what is the max occupancy, is it private or public, and so forth.
- Make your event go live
6. You are not posting consistently on social media
Consistency is king. Real estate agents are often faced with the dilemma of how to maintain a steady flow of high-quality content for their social media accounts. One of the best approaches to keeping a busy social media schedule organized and consistent is a social media calendar. It offers a variety of benefits, including:
- Planning ahead will save you time
- Helps you craft higher quality posts that will boost engagement
- Calendars keep you accountable for deadlines
- Strategically planning and posting creates consistency and interesting content
The bottom line is a consistent social media presence with engaging and interesting content that is in line with your brand helps build trust with your following. So, if you’re not posting consistently on social media, consider putting together a social media calendar or utilizing another method that helps maintain consistency.
7. Your online content is not unique and does not relate to locals
The goal of online content is engagement and to provide value, so it’s essential to craft content that people will care about and interact with. If your audience isn’t engaging, it’s probably because they don’t care about what you’re posting. This means they won’t share it, like it, repost it, retweet, leave comments, or follow.
One of the top reasons you’re not seeing engagement might be that it’s either generic information or has no relevance to your local market. Consider types of content that people looking to buy or sell a property in your area would find beneficial. We listed a few ideas under number including, post about your area, events that are happening in the community, and sharing local news.
Those are a great place to start, but let’s go a step further. Consider what unique angle you can provide your following. Why are you the go-to real estate agent? And how can you showcase that while appealing to your local market? Here are a few ideas:
- Open House Videos – Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube are great platforms to promote open houses, listings, and your expertise about the local area.
- Listing photography – Brand your listing photos and share them across all social channels including Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram or create a video slideshow of all the listing photos.
- Community Updates – This can be videos, text updates, images or flyers promoting community news, deals & events.
Ultimately, sharing exclusive local content helps establish trust with local homeowners.
8. You are not personalizing prospect outreach based on their needs.
Automated replies are commonplace. We’ve all received an automated reply at some point, and we can quickly detect when someone is using outdated, generic cold calling scripts and drip emails.
Personalizing your outreach is the key to successfully converting leads. This is the first point of contact and your chance to quickly communicate your interest, who you really are, and the value you can offer them. It’s the perfect place to make an exceptional first impression. The measure of a successful include:
- Stands out a prospect’s inbox
- Builds rapport and trust
- Addresses specific pain points that you can solve
To begin with, segment your prospect list and create email templates for each segment. The first email should be a ‘thank you’ arranged and made within 12-24 hours after a lead has come in. With this initial follow-up, make sure it’s personalized in some way as this is the first point of contact. We recommend including the recipient’s name, offering to answer any questions they may have asked, or sending them information based on the pages they’ve visited.
9. You are targeting the wrong demographic and wasting your ad-spend
Targeting your audience starts with your PPC ad-spend on Google Ads and Facebook Ads. A well-defined target market is absolutely essential. Here are some ways to help define your audience:
- Review your current client base
- Check out your competition
- Analyze your offers, benefits and the unique value you provide clients
- Target specific factors including age, marital status, background, occupation, income level, education, and location
- Consider psychographics such as personality, values, hobbies, behaviour, lifestyle, and interests
Once you’ve narrowed down your audience, keep in mind that your initial ad campaigns are meant to build awareness. It’s one of the first steps of the sales funnel where prospective real estate clients can discover and learn more about you. It should be considered a communication tool to introduce yourself and build a rapport.
Keep this in mind when you write your ad copy. Cliche, direct sales approaches will quickly turn people off. Rather than advertising specific listings, offer tips for first-time buyers, information about the local area, or home improvement tips to increase their property value. You can include a link at the end of your copy and a call to action that invites users to view active listings on your website, without being pushy. To continue building the rapport, guide them through the sales funnel by providing them with an online resource in return for an email address. From here, you can retarget or guide potential leads through the sales funnel.
10. You are not using video marketing to reach your local market
Images and written content are great, but one of the most effective ways to capture the attention of your target customer in the real estate industry is to create engaging local videos.
Video marketing pays off enormous dividends in the long run as it builds loyalty and long-term relationships with potential homebuyers in your neighborhood.
In fact, 90% of your social posts should be video content. Social media algorithms, including Facebook, barely show any text content to your followers anymore. Don’t believe us? Test it out yourself. Open a new tab, go to your Facebook feed, and start scrolling. You will likely find a majority of the posts are videos. According to Facebook themselves, videos with closed captions get more engagements than the ones that do not have a closed caption video.
Types of local videos you should create:
- Live stream videos of open houses
- Neighborhood overviews with you in the frame opposed to a voiceover
- Interviews with local business owners and community influencers
- Just sold case studies
- Client testimonials
- Real estate webinars
- Videos about community news, deals & events
Make the most of your online presence — enhance your brand awareness, generate more site traffic and cultivate a lasting presence online that not only gets you great leads but fosters long-lasting and loyal real estate clients.
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