Lead Generation

How do you get people from your Facebook business page to reach out to you to buy or sell real estate with you?

The other day, someone asked this question:

How do you generate enough good content on your Facebook business page to get people to reach out to you to buy or sell real estate with you?

I answered the first part of the question just a few days ago, How do you generate enough good real estate content on your Facebook business page

Today I want to focus on the second part of this question:

How do you get people to reach out to you to buy or sell real estate with you?

If you haven’t already, go over and read my post on The Facebook Funnel – The Real Estate Lead Generation Process Using Facebook

You’ll need to understand the entire real estate lead generation process as it pertains to Facebook in order to understand this small segment I’m addressing today.

Ok. Back to the question at hand:

How do you get people to reach out to you to buy or sell real estate with you?

First, let me paint you a picture (with words).

Imagine you have no idea how to alpine (downhill) ski. I’m going to take you up to the mountain with me today. We get there. You get your clothes, boots, skis on and we head over to the lift. We jump on and head up to a gorgeous, deep snow, black diamond run (if you don’t know the lingo, black diamond simply means advanced). We push off the top and head down. It’s exhilarating. We hit the bottom and head up for another run.

Oh.

Wait.

Maybe you don’t know how to ski. Or maybe, you’ve only been to a single lesson. Or maybe, you’ve been a couple times but you’ve never done a black diamond run in deep snow.

So I suppose that just because I got you up to the mountain and even got you to put the equipment on, doesn’t mean you are ready to make the leap to a black diamond run, right?

Well, lets apply that to Facebook.

Just because I’ve gotten a prospect to “like” my Facebook page (put on the equipment) doesn’t mean that prospect is ready to call me and buy a house today (hit the lifts and big slopes).

So, by jumping from “getting them to my Facebook page” right into “call me to use my services”, you are skipping a whole heck of a lot of lessons and practice. Many times, months and months of practice.

In the business world, you have got to nurture and nurture and nurture the leads.

But, in order to nurture a lead, you’ve got to get that lead to give you a WAY to nurture them.

To convert Facebook likes into clients you must get their email address — Image courtesy of [Master isolated images] / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

An email address.

You need the prospect to give you their email address.

How?

Give them something they can’t refuse. Give them something they want.

Give it to them using their email address as an exchange.

Get their email address into your contact management system.

People hate the word “email drip campaign”, but that is exactly what you are doing. You are setting up a way to contact them on a continuing, recurring basis, until the time that their need for your services hits a point that they then feel the need to reach out to you to use your services.

It’s all in the timing.

That time frame is a long time. Long. Consumers are starting their search months and months, years and years, before they are ready to make the move to buy or sell real estate.

The more information that is available at their fingertips, the farther in advance they start the process.

Capture them into your email database at any time in that process, whether it be the very beginning or the point where they are ready to choose a home (or sell). Your “fastest” sales will be people who’ve already been in the process for months and months. However, if you know how sales work, the most amount of sales will come from the 90% who are not ready “right now”.

If you nurture them over the long run, they’ll be yours.

But, in order to get them to “be yours”, you have got to give them value. You’ve got to give them something that they want enough that they will give you their email address to get it.

And, don’t make the mistake and think that what you have to give is “listings”. While that is one thing, that’s definitely not the only thing, nor is it the most valuable thing, not by a long shot.

sending valuable emails on a consistent basis nurtures your real estate lead — Image courtesy of [Stuart Miles] / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Do your research.

Step out into other real estate markets and do some serious web searches. Check out what other awesome real estate agents are giving their prospects in exchange for an email address. You don’t have to read it or even look at it. Just look at WHAT they are offering – is it ebooks? Is it video training? Podcasts? What?

Now, step outside of the real estate industry. What are other businesses giving their online leads? How can you take that idea and mold it to work with your real estate business?

What appeals to you? What appeals to your clients you’ve already served? What is something totally the opposite of what everyone else is giving out?

Take that and create something valuable to give to your consumers. Something that fits you and your personality.

Now back to the original concept, you must get an email address in order to move your lead along the steps to becoming a client. They don’t just leap. They walk. Be there with them every step of the way.

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Questions are being asked by real estate agents over on our Facebook for Real Estate Agents group. Are you part of this fantastic group? If you are not, you are definitely missing out.

Christina Ethridge is the founder of LeadsAndLeverage.com, helping real estate agents capture, convert and close Facebook leads.

by Christina Ethridge 13 Comments

Strike while the iron is hot – why Craigslist is NOW the place to be for real estate agents

Do you realize that the best time to be doing something is when everyone else is doing the opposite?

Right now, today, is the perfect moment to capture high quality real estate leads from Craigslist.

Why?

Because everyone is freaking out.

Because every other real estate agent has stopped posting.

Because the ones who are still posting, don’t have a clue how to make it easy for Craigslist prospects to get to you.

Why?

Because the “experts” are saying “go somewhere else”.

The “experts” are saying “they saw it coming”.

Well, honestly, just about everyone saw it coming.

With the “experts” teaching real estate agents to blatantly violate Craigslist’s terms of use by . . .

creating multiple fake accounts
buying pre-paid phones so you can phone verify multiple fake accounts
posting an obscene amount of posts every day
manipulating multiple accounts via multiple IP & MAC addresses

In other words, let’s agree to use Craigslist by their terms (you agree when you sign up for an account) and then let’s lie to them, cheat the system, and create havoc for everyone (which is exactly what is happening now).

Guess what this lying and cheating resulted in?

Thousands of ads each day of spam. Spam from real estate agents throwing up anything and everything on Craigslist. Craigslist users not being able to use any of the Craigslist search functions. Functions like price sort, photo sort, mapping, keyword search, etc.

It’s resulted in Craigslist shutting down the ability to put in any links in the for sale ads. Making it impossible for legit posts that want to have an active link that points to video tours, neighborhood tours, etc.

So. Should you give up on Craigslist?

The “experts” say you should.

I say – ignore the “experts”. I always have.

Here’s the deal . . .

First of all, you should already BE somewhere else.

Your online lead generation strategy should always be at least a three legged stool. If you put all of your eggs in the Craigslist basket, you are definitely paying for it now.

With that said, here’s why I have always ignored the “experts” when it’s come to Craigslist . . .

It never sat right with me to have multiple accounts. It just didn’t. It is explicitly against Craigslist’s terms of use, and I didn’t want my personal account shut down.

And, the short time frame that I did utilize multiple accounts, and did what the “experts” teach, I noticed something. Something significant.

My ad to lead ratio (the number of ads I needed to run to capture one lead) actually went down. I captured fewer leads per ad doing it the “experts” way.

So, while everyone else was running multiple accounts and an insane amount of ads, while still others insisted they were getting junk leads from Craigslist . . .

I was running all of our ads through our single Craigslist account.
I ran no more than ten ads per day, sometimes I’d go as high as twenty, but that was a true rarity (my lead ratios always increased when I did this, but I was also exposing my account to ghosting and flagging, which I didn’t want).
I was bringing in anywhere from 34-55 leads each month into our database from our Craigslist prospecting.

Yes, I could have brought in more, if I had wanted to ignore the recipe that was working for us, bringing in higher quality leads.

I got our ad to lead capture rate down to 3.6 to 1. For every 3.6 ads I ran, I captured one lead.

Our first year conversion rate (closing) for our Craigslist ads was 34:1. For every 34 leads we brought in, we closed one.

Our Craigslist buyer leads who closed on a property with us ended up being a couple of things:

33% of them were all cash
78% of them bought at 53% or more over our area average price
23% of them made a second purchase within a twelve month time frame

In other words, we had some excellent leads from our Craigslist ads, and we ignored what the “experts” were doing and teaching others to do.

We didn’t run “fancy” ads.
We didn’t do the “video” trick on our ads.
We didn’t run multiple clickable links.
We didn’t run multiple photos.
We didn’t use fancy symbols in our headlines.
We never advertised foreclosure lists.

So. Should you give up on Craigslist because things have changed? Because the “experts” say you should?

That’s your choice.

As far as my choice, I’m staying on Craigslist. The pickings are RIPE right now. Excellent.

I’m especially looking forward to paying to run my ads. I’m betting that my lead capture ratios will go through the roof at that point.

Want to know exactly how we do it?

I’ll teach you. Free. No obligation.

When you sign up to receive Get RE-Freshed! Our weekly online real estate marketing to do list and confirm your subscription, I will email you a free pdf copy of my 18 page ebook: How To Sneak In And Dominate Craigslist While Every Other Real Estate Agent Is Freaking Out About The Changes

Christina Ethridge is the founder of LeadsAndLeverage.com, helping real estate agents capture, convert and close Facebook leads.

by Christina Ethridge 29 Comments

The Facebook Funnel – The Real Estate Lead Generation Process Using Facebook

Sometimes I think that real estate agents think that if they build a Facebook business page, the clients will just pop out of the wood work. And, when they don’t, they insist Facebook doesn’t work for real estate lead generation.

Well, I’m here to tell you that no, clients probably won’t pop out of the woodwork and that yes, Facebook is a breeding ground for generating massive real estate leads.

Featured Download: The Facebook Page Setup Checklist. The step-by-step guide you need to get your Facebook page up and running and bringing in real estate leads. (Download Now)

However. In order to generate massive amounts of real estate leads using your Facebook business page, you’ve first got to understand the Facebook funnel. The real estate lead generation process using Facebook.

First, let’s look at the real estate lead generation process . . .

There are 4 main steps to the real estate lead generation funnel.

Step 1 – Capture
Step 2 – Convert
Step 3 – Close
Step 4 – Cultivate

Let’s break down each one and put in all the right ingredients…

Step 1 – Capture (Facebook)

This is where Facebook comes into the funnel. The Facebook portion is where we’re going to leverage the absolute best source of highly targeted traffic and drive it into your database, aka capture it.

There are several steps in this process including:

Step 2 – Convert (Database)

This is where your email marketing comes into the funnel. You need to treat your email marketing with just as much, if not more, importance than you would your phone calls. You’ve got to leverage your email marketing to build know, like and trust relationships.

There are several steps in this process including:

Step 3 – Close (In Person)

This tends to be where most agents (and brokerage trainings) give their highest energy and focus to… getting people who you have face to face or phone contact with into a position to close them.

The thing with this is that if you do Steps 1 and 2 the right way, Step 3 is insanely easy. In fact, you’ll close even more in Step 3 than if you just focus on Step 3 in all of your trainings.

There are essentially two steps in this process:

You’ve got to compel your prospect to sign a contract with you. Conversion.
You’ve got to guide your client to closing. Close.

Step 4 – Cultivate

Something like 75% of real estate agents completely toss this step into the trash. They don’t do it. When 70% of sellers say they would definitely use the same real estate agent again, and yet only 25% of them actually do use the agent they previously worked with… this isn’t the fault of the seller, it’s the fault of the agent. They haven’t been doing the fourth step in the real estate lead generation funnel.

You must focus on the long haul. If you want a solid, consistent real estate business, you absolutely must have a way to continue to deepen your relationships with your closed clients. 64% of sellers used an agent referred to them by friends and family. If you aren’t cultivating your closed clients, you are going to fail in the real estate business.

There are basically two steps in this process:

You’ve got to encourage your client to refer others to you. Action
You’ve got to compel your client to use you again. Conversion.

Take a look at that process again.

The real estate agent mantra can be summarized into: Capture * Convert * Close * Cultivate. That’s easy enough to remember. It’s just not seemingly easy to implement.

At every point in the capture, convert, close, cultivate process, real estate agents freeze up. Some aren’t sure how to capture, others aren’t sure how to convert, others aren’t sure how to close and then, most don’t know how to give enough value after the closing to cultivate more business. That’s ok. Each step in the process can be learned and implemented in your business.

The most important thing is to understand the process.

Understanding the process is the first step in knowing how to capture, convert, & close real estate leads with your Facebook business page.

I want to help you do this! What’s why I created the Facebook Page Setup Checklist. It’s the step-by-step guide you need to get your Facebook page up and running and bringing in real estate leads. You can download the checklist here.