Real estate lead generation tips for a successful selling season

Effective lead generation techniques can make or break your real estate brokerage—during any season, even the busiest. It’s no longer enough to have a team of agents who are ready to sell. Enthusiasm is great, but they still need the clients to support their business. As a broker, anything you can do to help generate referrals for them or impart guidance as their coach and mentor strengthens your value proposition as a brokerage for them to stick with for the long haul.

It sounds obvious, but we know many brokerages struggle to generate and nurture enough leads to maintain a successful stream of sales. And there are ways to mitigate the hurdles.

In this post, we’re discussing a few tips on how to increase lead generation inside your brokerage and how to manage clients like a pro. We’ll break down steps that can be taken today and how Weichert can help elevate your processes to find sustainable growth—during the height of selling season and beyond.

Lead generation for real estate brokers: Where to start

You have a network—now it’s time to really tap into it. Get creative. Reach back out to old  prospects. Lean on technology. In today’s real estate landscape—finding leads is easy. What matters is how you leverage them.

Turn prospects into clients

Prospecting is the ongoing process of generating new leads. Leads can come through referrals from past clients, social media connections, advertising, community networking, and even cold outreach.

Transforming a prospect into a client takes commitment and time. You also need a strategy. For example, is cold-calling prospects the best approach for your brokerage? Maybe not. Here are some ways your agents can discover prospects that can turn into loyal clients.

• Contact the owners of expired, for sale by owner, and foreclosure listings
• Call former satisfied clients for referrals
• Sponsor an open house for a seller, in which you actively solicit other people’s business
• Perfect your agents’ elevator pitch to increase confidence in connections
• Ask prospects how they prefer to be contacted for more successful follow-ups

Always remember—real estate is a people business. Stay empathetic and meet people halfway. And always follow up. Consistency goes a long way when building trust with potential clients.

Develop and maintain relationships with clients to open new doors

Once a sale closes, brokers are there to support the agent to ensure the transaction is completed smoothly and quickly and help navigate issues.

According to research, if a customer is not satisfied, 13% of them will tell 15 or even more people that they are unhappy. On the other hand, 72% of customers will share a positive experience with 6 or more people.

Every interaction matters.

Increase loyalty and inspire referrals by showing your clients why choosing to work with you was the right decision.

Regular interactions and relationship building help maintain a strong connection. Signing clients up for a follow-up program with frequent touches over a period of time, remembering birthdays, anniversaries, holding client appreciation events, and checking in periodically “just because” are all ways to stay top of mind. Making sure you have a good CRM will help agents keep track of some of these things, so they know when to check-in. You can create lots of regular customer engagement with little effort.

Reach a wider audience with smart lead generation technology

The key to really scaling your business is having a solid tech stack. Ideally, it will offer company and agent websites, smart CRM and lead gen tools. As a broker, you can use the system to generate company leads and refer them back to your agents, creating an added source of revenue. As an agent, you can capture leads through your own website, work referrals, or use the lead gen tools available to attract new leads through social media, email and text. A smart CRM will allow you to assign leads to drip campaigns based on lead status that include automatic follow-ups by email and text, or plugin an auto-dialer to queue up calls. By having these tools in place, you and your agents are making sure each lead is followed up in the right way at just the right time, so you are always staying in touch. This is exactly the type of tech stack we use at Weichert and what we provide to every Affiliated brokerage with their franchise package.

Have a strong referral network in place

People are moving in and out of areas like never before. It’s important to have connections inside and outside your community to put you in the position to capture that business. Check out the local chamber of commerce, join a business networking group, look into the local, regional and national real estate groups available and check out online networks. Another great way to build an instant referral network is by joining a franchise. For example, as a Weichert Affiliate, you have access to a number of pipelines including:

• Over 500 offices across the country offering broker-to-broker lead opportunities
• Added visibility for your listings on Weichert.com with millions of views on properties each year
• Direct access to one of the largest referral companies in the U.S. giving you qualified leads
• Access to leads from our Relocation company, one the top companies in the world

With the Spring season upon us, now is a great time to reassess what systems you have in place for referrals and lead gen support to increase the value your brokerage offers agents.

One of the easiest ways to tap into powerful real estate lead generation technology and referrals is by joining a franchise. For example, at Weichert, we ensure that our partners get the most valuable tools in the market—nothing less. We’d love to discuss how your brokerage can benefit from our tech package and referral network. Contact us today!