Real Estate Lead Generation & Conversion

Archive for the ‘Lead Acquisition’ Category

A single property website focuses on showcasing a single property or a single listing. There is some debate over whether single property websites are an effective marketing tactic or just a gimmick to impress current and prospective clients. A single property website certainly offers vanity appeal to a home seller that has a website dedicated exclusively to their property. However, beyond just being a vanity offering that impresses clients, there are marketing benefits to creating single property websites. Having a short URL, such as www.propertyaddress.com, is very straight forward and memorable when used in marketing marterials and e-mails. Due to the limited number of characters, a single property domain does not use up much space and avoids having annoying line breaks that occur with long URLs.  Single property website domain names are particularly effective when utilized on yard signs. They fit on the signs and are memorable even to prospects quickly passing by in their cars.

Another benefit of a single property website to a home seller is that a prospective buyer directed to a website focused on their property is not going to be distracted by opportunities to browse other homes. There is no “shiny object”  search box on the site pulling the prospect’s attention away from the seller’s property. This applies in particular when a prospect enters the address of the home directly into a search engine. It is much better for the home seller to deliver the prospect directly to information about the seller’s property rather than to a webpage where the viewer may have to scroll through lots of properties before they find the right one, with lots of opportunities to become distracted by competing homes.

Although the following are single property subdomain websites, they serve as good examples of what a single property website looks like.  

22429 Brookside Court, Lake Barrington IL 60010

http://22429brooksideway.agents123.com

3550N Pine Grove Avenue, Chicago IL 60657

http://3550northpinegroveavenue.agents123.com

For reference, the above are subdomains because they are webpages on the agents123.com website. A full fledged single property website would only have “www.propertyaddress.com” in the URL without adding any other domain name inbetween the property address and dotcom (agents123.com in the above example), but the above  offer good examples of  the content of a single property website.

If you are interested in more information about single property websites, or would like to discuss having us create single property websites for your clients, contact us at sales@brokerdynamix.com or call  (847) 680-8811.

The results of a survey published in the April 2010 issue of “Texas Realtor” seems to indicate that once home sellers have decided to pull the trigger on selling, they often select the first agent they contact:

• 62% of home sellers only interviewed one agent before listing their home.
• 19% of home sellers talked to three agents before they selected one
• 3% found picked their agent by walking in or calling a real estate office and speaking to the agent who had floor duty at the time they called.

Internet leads offer real estate brokers and agents their best opportunity with some prospects that conduct research online to: 1) establish contact when the prospects are ready to pull the trigger on a home sale or purchase; and 2) establish communication with prospects that can be nurtured so that once they are ready to transact, you end up being the one agent they interview. Web browsers that are searching Internet real estate sites and call the phone number listed on a Web site are particularly good prospects, which is supported by the above referenced survey.

The seemingly impulsive nature of the respondents to this home sellers survey reinforces the opportunity to generate transactions based on being the first agent contacted. While there are many methods successful real estate brokers and agents utilize to establish these contacts, do not overlook the potential for generating prospect contacts and sales from Internet lead generation vendors. (Full disclosure – the author of this post is the Director of Broker Dynamix, a leading provider of quality Internet real estate leads)

Norm Werner is a Realtor in Milford, MI. He is also the editor and chief contributor to The Milford Real Estate Scene blog.

I read and post to lots of real estate oriented blogs. The topic of buying leads often pops up in those forums. It’s interesting how few agents actually post to these discussions that they buy leads, probably because the “Oh, no, don’t buy leads” voices are so strong and loud. It’s as if they wanted to burn a big scarlet “L” in your forehead if you admit to buying leads. Well, I buy leads and have for years. Like anything else it’s a numbers game. You chase 10-20-30 bad leads for every one that pays off; however, I’ve never had a year yet when I couldn’t look back and see the business that I got from the leads and determine that the sales that I made not only paid for the leads, but also ended in a profit for me.

I suppose that there is a number of bogus or shady lead selling companies out there. I’ve certainly been approached by many and turned them all down, too. I don’t pay any commission or per deal charge, just a monthly fee for X-number of leads. I’ve switched back and forth as the market changed between buying listing leads or buyer leads – right now I’m on the buyer side.

I also get leads from my company – relos and leads off it’s Internet presence – but those come at a price too – a split on the resulting business, so they’re not free either. Perhaps the lead-buying nay-sayers are old timers in the business who get much of their business from referrals by past customers. I too get some business that way; however, in the current market one needs multiple sources of potential business and buying leads is one possible source. The key, I think, is to find an honest company with a strong Web presence, since that’s where potential buyers and sellers are starting these days. I also have four real estate Web sites that I run, from which I get leads.

I’ve also posted on occasion about a secondary benefit of working these paid leads – the experience that results. When I was doing 2-3 CMA’s a week for seller paid leads, I got lots of market pricing experience in lots of local neighborhoods. Now, as I work with potential buyers, I’m showing houses in lots of different neighborhoods, too. All of that adds to my experience base.

So, before you let the nay-sayers scare you completely off buying leads, look around at a few of the companies out there that might be able to give you something to work on that could lead to business. Sure it costs money, but then sending out postcards or buying door hangers or any number of other prospecting methods also cost money and may have about the same ROI potential. Email me if you want to know which company I buy leads from and I’ll tell you.