Online Lead Conversion for Real Estate (Webinar Replay)

In this 30 min video we are covering the fundamentals of online lead conversion. We’re going to break down what the top teams are doing to crush it and grow their businesses.

This isn’t about software, twitter or anything else that doesn’t matter. We’re covering the high level strategies you need to have implemented to be successful growing market share with internet leads.

Without having this implemented you may as well stop wasting money and time on internet leads.

Think Big

Small businesses are small for a reason, they don’t take action, they don’t implement systems and they don’t understand marketing ROI. Block out all the online noise and distractions and focus internally on your business and customers to get the results you want.

Past Performance Analysis

Most of us are extremely optimistic about how we perform or will perform in the future. Bad news it’s very likely your future performance will be exactly the same as your past performance.

The best way to gauge where you are at is to look at your past performance, e.g. how were your last 10 leads treated.

If your last 10 internet leads didn’t receive professional service, it doesn’t look like the next 10 will either, or the next 100 or the next 1000. Just imagine the very real impact that has on your income.

Once you accurately know what’s going on you can put in place systems and new habits to improve performance.

Speed of Response

Hands down everything comes second to speed of response, this is the most important part of online lead conversion.

If you improve just one part of your follow up, focus on this one area.

Make sure your setup to receive emails alerts instantly, setup SMS alerts to your phone (it’s free) or use something similar to Follow Up Boss’s Instant Call Feature.

You are 100 times more likely to contact a client within 5 minutes versus calling within 30 minutes.
Source: MIT study on internet leads

Zillow is for many teams that follow up their leads quickly, follow up and use drip campaigns one of their highest converting online lead sources.

Many people report bad things about lead generation products because they don’t put in the work to convert their online leads. They want the result but not to follow the process. It’s easier to blame external companies than it is to look in the mirror.

If someone hasn’t implemented a fast speed of response and professional follow up it’s unlikely their opinion on online lead sources is worth listening to.

Lead Co-Ordinator

Consider employing someone on a pay per call or full time basis to follow up your internet leads quickly and hand out qualified leads for appointments with your agents. The teams that implement this have a night and day difference in results.

Follow Up Phone Calls

Make at least 5 calls to your leads to try and contact them. Don’t give up after 1 phone call and leaving a message. Everyone is busy in this day and age, people appreciate professional follow up.

In many cases agents and teams are regularly making 0 calls to their internet leads, if this is the case aim for 3 to start with. Then once you master that step it up to 5.

Always be serving (ABS), how can I help you with your home search? ask probing questions like “why is that important to you?”. Deeply understand your potential clients needs.

Setup an MLS property drip

Find out a buyers specific needs and set them up with a daily email of properties that match their search criteria.

This information is super valuable to buyers. Follow up with them and make sure the properties they are receiving are a good match.

Send non responsive leads a short drip

If you can’t get someone on the phone and your initial email attempts have failed to generate a response, it’s a good idea to put them on a short drip campaign, to let them know your there if they have any questions.

This must come from a place of truly wanting to help someone, everyone is busy.

This should never be implemented as an alternative to calling people or emailing them personally.

The numbers of lead conversion

Most people give up on internet leads before they reach a point where closing a transaction would even be possible. They call several leads and don’t make a sale and determine that internet leads are low quality.

It’s all about the numbers, if your not making the calls, your not making the contacts, your not setting the appointments and your definitely not closing the deals.

If you believe internet leads don’t work, you will never make them work.

Address your business

Address the problems your business actually has.

Focus internally on your business and customers, don’t be externally focused on Real Estate news, product launchs and guru talk.

Learning from other people is great, but you need to be able to apply what your learning through a filter to know if it’s the most important stuff you need to be focusing on.

Even good advice given to the wrong business becomes a distraction.

Trulia or Zillow leads?

Common question that comes up. My response it doesn’t matter. What’s more important is you have a system in place to convert those leads into happy customers. You should do your own tracking. If your converting leads from Zillow, why wouldn’t you also buy a Trulia marketing package.

Secondly asking for an opinion on something like this is pointless if the people your asking don’t get both Trulia and Zillow leads, if they don’t follow up every lead fast, persistently and track the results.

Most people will just feed you back whatever buying decision they made. e.g. if they pay for Zillow leads they will tell you to buy Zillow leads, if they own an iPhone, they will tell you to buy an iPhone.

Buy what you actually need

If you call a website provider they will sell you a website. If you call a lead provider they will sell you their marketing package.

It’s up to you to understand your business and know what you need.

We see a lot of people that aren’t converting internet leads, buy systems that deliver them 100’s more internet leads.

This is a complete waste of money. If these people understood the numbers driving their business better, instead of focusing on what everyone else is buying, they wouldn’t make this mistake.

Dangerous Distractions

Social Media, Facebook, Twitter, noise.

Too much automation, some automation is smart, don’t try and avoid work and the fundamentals of business through automation.

90% of business is doing the basics of business right.

Productivity

Home office – make sure people are aware of when your working, quiet space, closed doors.

Email – only humans in your inbox. Use gmail filters aggressively, unsubscribe from marketing messages.

Prioritize like a BOSS – your life is made up of months, days, hours and minutes. Spend your time wisely.

If you don’t have a system, you are the system. Don’t be a cog in the wheel.

Sneaky Tactic

Research your competition, look at the top producing teams in your area.

Submit an inquiry to them online, I bet they get back to you quickly, professionally and follow up.

In contrast the average frustrated agent will pay for leads online, but won’t respond when they come in.

Free internet leads

Internet leads are easy to come by, working the leads is where the rubber hits the road.

Just find people in your office already paying for internet leads but not converting them.

Let them know you have a system and process for converting them. Let them know all leads will be called in 5 minutes and followed up persistently. Offer them a % of each deal that closes.

Also teams that do convert internet leads almost always have an overflow, because they know lead gen is the easy part, lead conversion is what makes a pro.

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