Wouldn’t it be nice if you could make a wish about where the best place is to spend your lead generation budget, and the answer would magically appear?

Wouldn’t it be nice to be guaranteed a strong return on investment and never waste your money?

Well, there is an answer and I’m going to share it with you…but…

First of all, in order to have a guaranteed return, you must understand this…

There are two different ways to spend money… one is on lead generation (lead capture & conversion) and the other is on “branding” also known as “exposure” or “name recognition.”

Any money you spend online needs to be focused on capturing leads.  Online lead generation is not about branding.  It’s not about “getting your name out there”. It’s not about “exposure.” It’s about lead capture and conversion. That’s it. Lead capture and conversion.

Any money spent on sponsorships, scholarships, charity involvement, should be focused on giving back to your community… knowing that there is a benefit in people seeing you involved in your community. You will reap some “exposure” but this form of spending is absolutely not about lead capture and conversion.

Once you understand this simple concept – the difference between spending for lead capture and spending to give back, your results will change. Drastically.

Here’s where to spend your lead generation money in 2018…

1. Facebook Budget 

   A Facebook budget is imperative in 2018. In other words, if you want to generate high quality, action taking, real estate leads in 2018, you must implement a Facebook strategy. I’m not talking about running basic “home value” ads. I’m talking about an entire Facebook strategy.

   This goes far beyond Facebook ads. If you want something that works all the time, without fail… that consistently brings in high quality leads, you must implement a Facebook

2. Training

   Training is important and insanely valuable. You definitely want to always be learning. Even if you are delegating most of the tasks to assistants, you want to have a strategic understanding of what you are about to implement into your business. Don’t outsource strategy and understanding. Outsource tasks.

   Take some time to figure out where your knowledge “holes” are… and seek out training that fills in those holes. Don’t keep taking the same types of trainings over and over again. Be proactive and focus on your deficiencies. Budget money to get the training you need and then be action focused and implement the training you should spent time and money on.

3.  Landing page software

   Yes, you need landing page specific software. If you want to step out of the proverbial “industry box” of terrible conversion rates, you must have landing page software that truly converts the traffic that you drive to it.

   Dropping traffic on a page on your website that has a “sign up form” on it is not a landing page. Well, it may seem like it is a landing page, but it’s not a conversion focused landing page. In fact, in the majority of cases, it’s a useless waste of space.

   Your goal is to grab traffic by their throats and compel them to opt-in… they’ll know, without a doubt that you have the solution to all of their problems and they’ll basically throw their contact information at y

4.  Website

   Wait! Don’t skip over this one. You’re probably thinking “I’ve already got a web presence so I’m good to go…” I’m here to say… you are probably not good to go.

   You need a website that is a couple of things…

   * Mobile responsive

   * Lead capture optimized

   * Content marketing focused

   Every single one of these is high priority. If you want to leverage your website to capture real estate leads AND to leverage it to build know / like / trust relationships, you must have all three of these in your website.

   If your “web presence” is dependent upon your brokerage or franchise, you do not have a website. You have a “place card.” Grow your business up. Get your own website.

5. Email marketing software 

   Your email marketing software is the foundational piece to your entire lead capture and conversion process.

   No, I’m not talking about a real estate CRM. I’m talking about software (not outlook or gmail) whose sole job, is to focus on your email marketing… and no I don’t mean a vendor who writes and sends your emails for you. I’m talking about a software like mailerlite or Ontraport that sets you up for email marketing success.

   As an industry, we are so focused on “delegating and outsourcing” that we think we can outsource relationship building. We focus on only the “ripe apples” hanging from the tree forgetting that all of the rest of the apples will ripen as well.

   We think that building relationships only comes after we’ve either talked with or met in person with someone. That is a lie.

   Know, like & trust relationships begin the moment a lead takes action – whether that action is visible by you or not. If a lead takes enough steps towards you and gives you their email address… you need to keep building that relationship… and that comes not through “touching the lead” but through you revealing you, over time, via email.

   If you want a strong, consistent and stable real estate business you must be both capturing short term and nurturing long term leads.