Maybe you’ve read about how tech-savvy agents are stealing your real estate leads.

Well, I have good news and bad news. The bad news is that it’s true, tech-savvy agents are generating leads online and growing their market share. The good news is you don’t need to be tech-savvy to capture good real estate leads, advance your business and beat out the competition.

My career has revolved around helping real estate pros take their business to the next level with lead generation and marketing.

I’ve watched agents dramatically grow their businesses in just 6-12 months. They’ve gone from one person shops to hiring their first full-time assistant, to then bringing on seller and buyer agents.

All with good online lead generation.

I say “I’ve watched” because it’s the agent that is doing it. I may know how to generate good leads online and how to convert those leads, but it is the agent that is doing the work of following up with their leads and taking their business to the next level.

The truth about online leads is that they take work to convert. This is true of any lead. But the reward makes it more than worth it. Sometimes the source of the lead becomes the focus of our attention and we miss the simple truth that a lead is a real person with real needs – no matter where they originated from.

If a person finds you while reading a newspaper, dusting off an old phone book or scrolling through Facebook … the only thing that has changed is the source.

This is why, in my experience, it’s the agents who are familiar with the old real estate lead generation techniques that tend to be the ones who have the most success with the new ones. They aren’t expecting technology to close the lead or to give them a deal on a platter.

Yes, Technology makes it easier to get the lead, but you still must have phone and face-to-face skills to close them. – Chris Johnson

Has your lead generation evolved with technology?

Maybe you’ve tried social media and other techniques. But most of the agents I’ve spoken with have limited success. Other agents have tried purchasing leads from platforms like Trulia, Zillow and other “lead vendors”. But again, they’ve had limited success. Today people are spending money to make their websites mobile-friendly, building blog posts and trying to generate leads that way. But unless your website is ranking incredibly well, is highly optimized and designed to convert it is very challenging to generate leads online.

Fortunately, there is a much easier and better way of generating leads online. It provides predictable lead flow month-after-month and it offers an excellent return on your investment (ROI).

We’ve found Facebook to be the best source of lead generation. The average home buyer and seller spends 40mins per day on Facebook. The key is to use the right strategy on Facebook. One of our clients was generating clicks on Facebook for 60c. However, they weren’t able to capture a single lead. Within 1 day of working with us, they had already converted clicks to real leads. Needless to say, this client is ecstatic.

Newspapers are delivered to every home but end up being read by very few. Home magazines rely on random people picking up the flyers while eating lunch. Advertising in these publications is a game of chance. I still believe they can be worthwhile and are important in the overall marketing strategy.

Facebook, however, allows you to target your exact demographic. You can focus your efforts on a specific age, gender, interest and more. You will be able to position yourself directly in front of your audience in your local market.

What is the demographic online?

So who is on Facebook?

• Facebook has over 2 Billion active users.
• People in Canada and the U.S. happen to use it the most.
• Strongest user growth is from people aged 55 and up (+80% of all user growth).
• Second strongest growth range is users aged 35-54.
• On average users spend 40 minutes per day on Facebook.

Summary

Think about the kind of impact predictable lead generation can have on your business. Perhaps it’s time to reconsider where you are investing your marketing dollars. Facebook may be a better option for you, at least think about it.

Stephen is putting together a video series on growing your business by referrals and lead generation. Definitely worth checking out if you are interested in learning how to generate leads online.

Also, here’s another post that explains everything you need to know to generate leads online.

Finally, if you are interested in learning more about how we’re helping real estate pros like yourself grow their business, please book a demo here. We would be happy to give you a quick tour.