Most agents will have no trouble sourcing real estate leads. However, nurturing and converting leads into clients is a different kettle of fish.
Not only do the two tasks require the right focus and knowledge, but they’re also mutually exclusive. In other words, get the nurturing phase wrong and converting the lead will be next to impossible.
This article explains real estate lead conversion and nurturing. By the end, you’ll know everything needed to transform real estate leads into clients.
What is lead nurturing in real estate?
Lead nurturing in real estate involves building a relationship with a prospective home buyer. It allows real estate agents to build relationships with potential customers that could lead to property transactions.
Nurturing a lead implies catering to their needs over an extended period. Since these needs are typically informational, the process involves providing helpful real estate information that could aid a purchasing/selling decision.
In return for your efforts, these potential buyers and sellers will warm up to you and your brand. Thus, you’ll be at the top of their minds when they’re ready to become personal property owners or sellers.
2 things to consider when doing lead nurturing
You’ll need to focus on the following areas to get real estate conversion during lead nurturing:
1. Source of the lead
Modern businesses source leads in so many ways. In addition to putting out ads through traditional channels like television, magazines, and billboards, you can also:
- advertise digitally via paid ads, social media content, and email marketing
- use platforms like social media and a website blog to engage in content marketing
- create referral programs that motivate third parties to source leads for you
That said, the abundance of sourcing options demands that you keep track of where you source your best leads.
Let’s say you decide to use two channels to source real estate leads: a social media platform like Instagram and your website. Your strategy involves paying for ads for office buildings and office space on Instagram and ranking blog posts on your real estate website organically.
If your Instagram ads result in a ton of followers but zero phone calls while your ranked blog posts result in newsletter signups, it’ll be evident that search engines are better for sourcing leads.
Basically, you need to pay attention to and understand the channels from which you’re sourcing leads. Knowing the sources that generate the most ROI for your real estate lead conversion efforts will help you focus resources on the right channels.
2. Leads vs Prospect
When nurturing real estate leads, you must also focus on the distinction between leads and prospects. While the two terms are often used interchangeably to describe a potential buyer, the difference lies in the individual’s readiness to make a purchase—in other words, how far along they are on their customer journey.
Real estate leads are strangers.
They don’t know or trust you and, naturally, won’t be ready to purchase real property from you. In other words, you haven’t nurtured them.
In contrast, real estate prospects are potential buyers with whom you’ve established a relationship. You’ve nurtured them, and because of this, they’re closer to purchasing a property.
Understanding the difference between leads and prospects is essential because it dictates your approach to marketing to either category. Their readiness (or lack of) to buy a property determines the manner, frequency, and speed with which you contact them.
What is lead conversion?
Lead conversion is the process of converting a lead into a customer or client. It encompasses lead nurturing.
In reality, only a tiny percentage of the leads you source will do business with you. The percentage of people you can convert from lead to client is your lead conversion rate.
You can calculate your lead conversion rate using the following formula:
(Conversions/Leads) x 100 = Conversion Rate
In other words, divide the number of conversions you’ve made over a specific time (e.g., six months) by the number of leads gathered in the same period. Then, multiply the resulting figure by 100. What you get is your conversion rate.
How to optimize lead conversion in real estate
Now that you’re familiar with what lead conversion entails, let’s look at how you can convert real estate leads:
1. Adopt a multi-threaded outreach strategy
If you plan on selling property to businesses or high-networth individuals, consider adopting a multi-threaded outreach strategy.
Multithreaded selling is a sales strategy that involves chasing multiple leads within one organization. It’s typically used to close deals for products with long sales cycles and when several decision-makers are involved in the buying process, such as when selling real estate to companies.
The main benefit of adopting multithreaded outreach is that it allows you to build relationships with several people involved in buying your product. This can smoothen the buying process since everyone in the buying committee already knows about your brand.
Multithreading can also be useful for gauging a lead’s interest in a real estate opportunity. For instance, if you’re selling office space to a startup, engaging with multiple decision-makers about the deal provides multiple perspectives. When collated, you’ll be better positioned to tell whether the lead will convert.
2. Invest in the right tools
When nurturing and converting real estate leads, the tools you use determine how smooth the process will be.
At the minimum, you’ll need marketing tools like:
- a real estate platform for listing the available properties in your portfolio
- a software suite that supports marketing automation
- email automation software for running drip campaigns
The tools above offer several benefits. For starters, they’ll help you automate the lead-generation and nurturing process.
For example, rather than manually following up with each lead, you can create and deploy pre-programmed communications that build trust. Here’s an example of a pre-programmed welcome email workflow.
We’ll talk more about pre-programmed communications later.
As shown above, you can also use email automation tools like GetResponse to organize your leads (via segmentation). For example, you can start with two broad categories of people who want to buy and those who want to sell property. You can also create additional segments under those two groups.
Segmentation makes sending more relevant and personalized content that will resonate with your potential customers easier.
3. Create a strong lead magnet
A lead magnet is a downloadable piece of content that attracts leads. Its primary purpose is to help you collect emails for lead nurturing. You can embed a lead magnet into a page on your website or create a separate landing page.
Common real estate lead magnets include:
- Guides
- Cheat Sheets
- Reports (housing market, etc.)
- Tips
- Short Courses on various real estate topics (e.g., mortgages)
Creating a strong lead magnet is integral to getting leads. Your leads need to value the item enough to provide their contact information in exchange for it.
Refined Rooms LLC has not one but two lead magnets on its website:
The said magnets attract leads who want to make their house showings less stressful or organize their homes.
GetResponse provides a free landing page generator you can use to build your lead magnet landing page.
You can either create the landing page from a template or rely on our AI-powered builder. Once set up, you can send your leads to the landing page and collect emails.
Naturally, creating an effective lead magnet requires an understanding of what your leads desire. Without it, your magnet won’t be as effective.
4. Send personalized email drip campaigns
Email drip campaigns are a time-tested way to nurture leads during the real estate lead conversion process. These automated real estate emails help you build a relationship through pre-programmed communications published on a schedule.
You can make your drip campaigns even more effective by personalizing them.
The lowest-hanging fruit for drip campaign personalization is to address the email recipient by name. Office space company WeWork does it in the email below, creating the impression that the email is meant explicitly for Smiles Davis:
The above email also covers our second tip for personalizing drip campaigns, which is to send triggered emails. Essentially, the emails will be deployed when users take a specific action.
In the WeWork email’s case, a prompt to set up their account is sent in response to a sign-up action. Other actions your drip campaigns can respond to include link clicks, seminar registrations, and survey participation.
Another way to personalize your campaigns is to include the sender’s picture, as PREMIER AGENT does in the email below:
Including the sender’s picture helps humanize your company and provides a familiar face leads can connect with.
Our last tip regarding personalizing your drip campaigns is to always prioritize the lead’s needs. In other words, send them targeted information they’ll find relevant. You can achieve this by segmenting your email list.
Analyze your target audience to identify some of the differences in their needs. For example, some buyers may be interested in properties within a specific location. Others have a certain budget they’re working with. Use such traits to create different segments and send personalized emails based on their needs.
The GetResponse email marketing tool lets you create and personalize drip campaigns. It allows you to tag leads and set triggers to deploy targeted email campaigns.
5. Build brand awareness
Another critical factor to focus on for real estate lead conversion is brand awareness. Specifically, creating it.
Creating brand awareness has several benefits. The most prominent is that it fosters association.
Here’s a question: What brand comes to mind when you think of online search? If you answered “Google,” you now understand how powerful brand association can be.
If you play your brand awareness creation cards right, your prospective clients could eventually associate your business with (for example) affordable housing or luxury fittings.
So, how do you create brand awareness for your real estate business? One way is to position your company as an expert on a specific topic.
Rather than being an “everything” real estate brand, focus on one or two aspects. Real estate investor Ian Love understands this principle. His Instagram (pictured below) reveals that his brand focuses on real estate investing:
Next, create content like blog posts and videos about your chosen field of expertise and distribute it far and wide. You may also want to participate in relevant workshops and appear on podcast shows.
Your content should focus on educating and entertaining rather than selling. You don’t want to be that person who’s always trying to sell you something. Give value first, and you will win the goodwill of your target audience. This helps build trust.
If your content is engaging, it’ll also be shareable. Thus, our final tip is to prompt your audience to share your content if they find it helpful. The shares will ensure it reaches the widest audience possible.
6. Up your social media game
The number of social media users in the US is set to increase to 95.71% by 2028. That means a social media presence is non-negotiable for your real estate business. Without one, you’ll miss out on a ton of potential leads and customers.
So, the question becomes: what platforms should you be on?
Facebook is an excellent place to start.
As of 2024, 71.17% of people in the US are on Facebook, a percentage that’s set to rise to 75% by 2027. You can create a dedicated Facebook page for your real estate business free of charge, as eXp Realty has done in the image below:
Other than creating a group page, you can also run targeted ads to generate leads. Social network sites have ad management features that let you show ads based on your audience’s demographics (as Facebook’s Ads Manager demonstrates below):
You can run ads on Pinterest, Instagram, Reddit, and TikTok (provided the proposed ban doesn’t come into effect).
Other tactics you can use when sourcing leads from the various social media channels include:
- use video (Facebook Live, Instagram stories, etc.) to showcase the properties you’re selling
- upload informative and visually pleasing content like infographics to inform your audience
- run contests and giveaways to generate buzz
- request video testimonials from former clients to get the social proof needed to bring in new leads
The bottom line is to understand and use all the tools social media platforms provide for content creators. If you’re consistent about posting high-quality content, you just might build a big brand on social media and convert leads through this channel.
7. Be responsive
Make sure to respond quickly when leads contact you. Aside from being the professional thing to do, swift responses can also help your conversions.
But that’s not the only reason to get in touch quickly.
As one of many players in the hyper-competitive real estate industry, you can’t afford to be easygoing about responding to leads.
On the contrary, how quickly you respond can determine whether or not you land them as a client. That’s because you’ll likely be competing with other agents and businesses for the same lead. A quick response will put you ahead of the game and increase your chances of securing the lead’s business.
So, what can you do to improve your communications with leads?
You can start by setting up a notification system that’ll ensure no questions or inquiries fall through the cracks. This may require investing in a CRM system or a reliable call center software to streamline your communication channels and maintain responsiveness with leads.
You may also want to invest in a chatbot system. These systems can help you handle the most common inquiries. This should free up your time to ensure you’re focusing on the most vital interactions that could result in a conversion.
Another brilliant idea is to prepare template responses you can copy and paste into an email. They’ll save you time and ensure that the lead receives a prompt response to their inquiry.
8. Provide reliable support
Finally, offering reliable support will go a long way toward converting leads. Real estate transactions typically involve many moving parts, which can be overwhelming for some clients.
You can make the process easier for your leads by being proactive about communication. Promptly deliver news, whether good or bad, so they’re in the loop at all times.
Other ways you can support your leads include accommodating their schedules (possibly meeting outside working hours) and being transparent.
25 ways to build your contact list
We’ve compiled a list of 25 tried-and-tested tactics for the success of your future campaigns.
In Closing
With the right knowledge and tools, nurturing and converting real estate leads will be straightforward.
Among other focal points, you’ll need to distinguish between leads and prospects during the nurturing phase. As for converting leads, tactics like creating brand awareness, offering support, and responding quickly should improve your chances of sealing the deal.