Starting in real estate with the concept of lead generation will put you miles ahead of your competition. Most real estate professionals start with the idea that if you just have a few key relationships in place you will experience tremendous success. While relationships certainly are important a solid lead generation plan is essential when you want to close business each and every month.
Getting high quality real estate leads isn’t something that will happen with only 10 minutes of work, but when you put just a little bit of planning in you can have a consistent flow of people contacting you each and every day. Here are some tips to focus on for generating leads every day.
- Focus on Lead Generation – When you focus on lead generation you won’t send any marketing out that is just “branding”. Branding ads waste money and won’t generate leads. Keeping your focus on leads will ensure that any marketing you do (online, print, etc) will have the focus on generating calls and leads. This focus may seem odd to those around you in the real estate community and that’s OK. Many times in real estate it is suggested that you have to “introduce yourself to the community” or “get the word out” but that just wastes money. Keep the focus on what will generate leads each and every day.
- Investing – Leads will rarely come free. Investing some capital into your real estate business will help you to get leads at a much faster rate. A good rule of thumb to stick to is spending no more than 7% of a standard commission on your advertising. Every 7% you spend should generate 1 transaction. Sticking to the 7% rule will keep more money in your pocket and make your marketing work harder for you. Anything that isn’t generating leads for just 7% of a commission will have to be cut.
- Marketing Strategy – I am a big fan of an online real estate marketing strategy, but it’s not for every agent. Having a plan in place for your real estate lead generation activities will make it easier. It doesn’t have to be complicated, just know what steps you are going to take to generate leads. This may mean having more than 1 system to generate leads for you. Top real estate coaches around the country recommend having 4 marketing systems to generate leads for you. Each system must adhere to the 7% rule and must generate at least 2 transactions a month. The systems involved with your marketing strategy can be varied (i.e. websites, blog, postcards, magazine ads, etc.) but just ensure that each of them are generating enough leads for you to close 2 transactions per month, per system.
With just the above three steps you will be able to start getting real estate leads [http://www.onlinerealestatesuccess.com/products_lead_system.shtml]. Remember, your plan doesn’t have to be complicated; it just has to have enough steps so you can see where you need to take action. Keeping your focus on generating real estate leads (and making sure it’s cheap) will have you closing transactions each and every month.
Jamey Bridges is one of the coaches and founders of the Online Real Estate Success program. The Online Real Estate Success systems allow real estate professionals to discover the techniques they need to succeed with their online marketing efforts.
All aspects of real estate marketing online and conversion are covered from Search Engine Optimization and Pay Per Click to Social Networking. Training programs are designed to help agents understand what is needed, apply the methods, and see results each and every month. He and his twin brother even developed a free ebook so real estate professionals can get started in the world of online marketing quickly. the landmark