14 Inbound Real Estate Lead Generation Ideas
In outbound digital marketing, you push your business in front of the right audience. Whereas, in inbound digital marketing, you make the prospects come to you.
1. Local SEO
Around 55% of home buyers start their search online, which means local search engine optimization can be a real game-changer for a realtor.
Local SEO is when you optimize your landing page or website to show in Google search against relevant keywords.
It has a lot of moving parts, but one of the first important steps in your local SEO efforts is listing your business on GMB (Google My Business).
Source: Google.com
In your Google My Business account, you need to put your business’ name, address, and profile. This is commonly denoted as NAP.
Done right, local SEO can put your business right at the top of Google maps search results too. So, anyone searching for a real estate service in your locality can reach you easily.
How to Rank Higher in Google Maps?
Source: Google.com
After you add your business to Google Maps, do the following to improve your search engine visibility.
- Add your local phone number
- Keep your service hours up to date
- Write a comprehensive description
- Categorize your business
- Add photos to your listing
- Embed Google map on your site
Making Your Website SEO-friendly
Adding your business to directories like GMB is only part of the equation of local SEO. You want to be visible to as many prospects as possible.
Making your website Google-friendly is imperative these days. If you already have a website, your first step would be to do an SEO audit.
It can be a simple audit where you check whether:
- Your website is visible locally on search engines
- It’s getting organic traffic
- It’s generating any leads
Even if the answers to the above questions are positive, keep your SEO game up.
Here are some tips to boost your website’s local SEO.
- Submit your website’s XML sitemap to Google Search Console.
- Optimize your page for SEO – this includes titles, meta-tags, meta descriptions, headings, and URLs.
- Make your content SEO friendly – Optimize the text for keywords, have a linking strategy, include visuals, and avoid duplication.
- Usability – Make your site mobile-friendly and fast.
Don’t forget to integrate your website with Google Analytics and use the data to improve your website’s SEO.
2. Gather Reviews and Testimonials
Reviews and testimonials might not give you instant leads, but they are incredibly effective for creating buzz around your service.
See, most people consider reviews as personal recommendations. So, when you have a positive testimonial on your digital accounts, people tend to trust you.
If you don’t have positive testimonials right now. You don’t have to worry; a single happy home buyer or seller can boost your business reputation. Just make sure you provide the best service in town.
Once you get your hands on some pleasant reviews for your business, put them everywhere you can. Showcase them as images on your social media accounts and create a “Customer testimonial’ page on your website.
3. Collect Leads through a Landing Page
A landing page is a great way to get prospects to take a very specific kind of action. It could be as aggressive as persuading them to buy something right there and then. Or, it could be as subtle as asking them for their email address in return for a valuable asset.
As a realtor who wants to generate leads for their business, you are more concerned with the latter one. Although you might also want to consider the first one as you get instant customers that way.
Mostly, you’d be bringing people on your landing page from search engines and social media. So, you’d have to make sure it’s fully optimized and user-friendly. And, the easier it is to navigate for a visitor, the better your chances of generating a lead.
You can either build a separate landing page or you can add one to your website. If your website is on WordPress, there are multiple landing page builders that you can use.
One great option is Elementor.
Source: Elementor.com
Make sure your landing page is user-friendly and easy to navigate. It should point the visitor to one thing only. This means if you are using an opt-in form to get them to enter their email address, every part of your landing page should focus on that.
But, designing a perfect landing page is only part of the process. You need to provide the visitors something they want to trade their emails for.
Here are some ideas:
- Offer a free educational consultation to first-timers
- Offer a free home valuation
- Offer a community guide in the form of a free downloadable PDF
You don’t have to stick to the list. Find out what home buyers or sellers might be interested in, and offer that for free. Well, not free. You’d be getting their email addresses in return.
4. Videos
There is probably no better way to showcase a property than a video. No matter how big or complicated your properties are, you can show them in a video effectively. It’s just a more intimate and visual way to present whatever you are selling.
But, videos are not only for presenting listings. Realtors in Singapore can use videos to educate, inform, and connect with their potential leads as well.
And, as videos are intimate and immersive, you can reach a wider audience with them.
5. Virtual Tours
Giving a virtual tour of your property to prospective clients can be pretty effective. You can showcase the property from every angle.
Traditionally, a listing for a house shows an image and some text. Video marketing has also been pretty effective recently.
But, virtual tours are a little different from videos. They allow the prospects to view the properties they are interested in from the comfort of their homes. It includes 360-degree imagery, and some companies have also started using special virtual tour software.
6. Keyword Targeting
As discussed in the outbound lead generation section, keywords are phrases that potential homebuyers and sellers are searching for on Google.
They are not only related to paid ads though. Keyword research is probably the most important aspect of organic search as well.
We’ve already discussed two ways to find out relevant keywords to include in your content. Let’s talk about two more ways.
The Good Old Google Search
Google autocomplete is an incredibly effective way to find highly relevant keywords for any business. After all, the keywords are coming from the horse’s mouth.
Whenever you type a word or two into the Google search bar, it tries to complete your sentence based on what others have searched in the past.
Source: Google.com
So, you get to know the phrases that your prospects have been searching on Google. Of course, you won’t be getting any more information about them; like the search volume, cost-per-click, and SEO difficulty.
But, just having those keywords to target would be enough. You can target multiple keywords on a single page and maximize your visitors.
Noted the list of autosuggestions? Hit enter and scroll down. You’ll see a few more keywords related to what you searched.
Source: Google.com
Let’s talk about yet another free keyword research tool.
Source: Neilpatel.com
Source: Neilpatel.com
The tool allows you to do three free searches per day. Not only that, but it also spits out a full list of related keywords with actionable data.
Source: Neilpatel.com
Using these keywords on your web pages will attract more and more relevant people, allowing you to convert them into leads.
7. Target Competitor Keywords
In addition to using your researched keywords, you can also target competitor keywords to bring traffic to your site.
Just make sure you don’t use their brand name or trademark in paid advertisements. There are a few reasons why you should be targeting your competitors’ keywords.
- They are cheaper than common keywords
- You’ll attract high-quality traffic with these keywords as the people that are searching for such terms are looking for a service like yours
8. Blogging
You shouldn’t only target commercial-intent keywords. In fact, your major focus should be to provide value. And, a major chunk of your website content should be non-commercial.
Blogging requires consistency and smart work. You can’t just publish content on anything, and you don’t want to post content whenever you feel like it. You need to provide your audience with high-value content consistently so they consider you a credible resource of valuable information.
For instance, you can provide tips and advice to people that want to buy or sell a house in Singapore. You can be their guide for everything related to real estate and moving to a new city.
You can cover different aspects of your local area so that any of your readers moving into your city know whom to contact.
Importantly, you’d be bringing traffic to your blog posts, allowing you to collect the email address of potential buyers and sellers.
Helpful and search engine friendly content is the best way to generate leads for any type of business.
Here are some blog post ideas that can help you gather leads as a realtor in Singapore.
- How to save money to buy a new home
- 5 mistakes a first-time homebuyer makes
- 7 home improvement ideas that’ll increase your house’s value
9. Facebook Page
Facebook’s massive audience makes it an effective advertising platform. But, you can also use it for content publishing and connecting with your prospects.
You can ask questions from potential buyers and sellers and know about their pain points. Posting useful and engaging content should be your top priority here.
A well-managed Facebook page can be a great source of traffic for your blog as well. Once you build rapport with the audience, post your blog posts on your Facebook page. This will help you maximize your results.
But, make sure your content is interesting and valuable. A Facebook page shouldn’t be like a landing page; use it to get people on your newsletter and nurture them later into your sales funnel.
Your Facebook page should include:
- A professional headshot (profile picture)
- A professional cover
- Your website’s address and information
- Your contact information
- Your hours of operation
You can maximize the effectiveness of your business Facebook page by showing customer testimonials every once in a while. This will eventually help you attract more qualified leads to your real estate business.
10. Use Live Chat to Generate Leads
Having a live chat feature is an incredibly efficient way to cater to the prospects that need some questions answered.
This helps you personalize prospect interaction and clear their minds before they pick up the phone and have a direct conversation with you.
Fortunately, you don’t have to hire a person to respond to potential homebuyers or sellers. Artificial intelligence allows marketers to automate their marketing efforts; chatbots are one of those automation tools.
You just have to set flows in a chatbot of your choice, and the software takes care of the lead generation for you.
A prominent example is ManyChat that you can connect with facebook messenger. Anyone messaging your Facebook page becomes your subscriber on ManyChat.
Source: Manychat.com
What you can do is, create a flow of questions and answers that your target customer might ask before wanting to use your services.
11. Use Email Marketing
Email is the perfect way to attract, nurture and ultimately convert real estate leads. The best thing about email marketing? You don’t have to rely on a digital platform for lead generation; your email list is an asset that you can leverage at any time.
Have More Control
You don’t fully control who is going to see your content. There is a chance most of your social media audience isn’t even interested in your business.
Email marketing lets you get in front of the people that are more likely to take action. You know where you are investing your time and money with email marketing.
Email is Common
There is also a chance that a potential home buyer or seller isn’t even using social media. They might not even use Google to search for services like yours. Often, even your dream client doesn’t know who they need to approach to fix their problems.
But, email is something everyone opens at least once a day. No matter if it’s a fortune 500 CEO or a low-scale clerk, virtually everyone has got an email address that they check daily.
Audience Segmentation
All of your prospects won’t be in the same customer journey. Some might be looking for a house, but some will just need a little information.
So, you’d need to create different messages for different audiences. Email marketing lets you do that. Not only that, but you can also automate your messages.
So, anytime someone takes a particular action, your email marketing software will send a pre-scheduled email to them. This caters to every individual separately, maximizing your chances of generating leads.
Tools like Mailchimp are an effective way to start if you don’t have a hefty marketing budget. It offers free sign-up, and you can upgrade whenever your business grows.
Source: Mailchimp.com
12. Be a Helpful Resource on Social Media
A great way to establish yourself as a credible business entity is by providing valuable content on social media platforms.
You don’t have to stick to one platform. But, initially, focus on one and expand as you grow. You can offer real estate advice on social media to prospective sellers and buyers.
Establishing yourself as an authority can be very rewarding, especially in the real estate industry. And, you can easily gather high-quality leads from social media channels like Quora and Reddit.
However, just make sure you don’t sell your services initially. The goal is to add as much value as you possibly can, and then make yourself available to whoever needs your help.
13. Showcase Your Properties Whereas Possible
You don’t want to miss out on any opportunity to present your beautiful properties. Probably the best platforms to show your properties are visual ones.
For instance, Instagram solely relies on visual content. So, create amazing photos of your listings and keep presenting them to your target audience on the platform. Use hashtags to maximize your posts’ reach.
14. Qualifying Your Leads
Generating leads is important to keep your business focused on the right people. But, there would still be some leads that won’t show interest in whatever you have to say or offer.
While it’s pretty desirable to have a long list of email subscribers, you don’t want to exhaust your resources on irrelevant people.
Just make sure you ask them at least once before unsubscribing them from your newsletter.
In most cases, leads are qualified as cold, warm, and hot. If someone is a cold lead, you might not want to target them right now. So, you also want to qualify your leads into those three categories.
- Cold leads are prospects that don’t yet know about your brand and are looking for a solution
- Warm leads are prospects that although interact with your brand, but aren’t your customers
- Hot leads are people that are considering doing business with you but are hesitant to make the final decision
Final Thoughts
Finding leads as property agents in Singapore can be a tricky business. But, it shouldn’t have to be. Applying the right lead generation strategies can make it easy for you to attract and convert leads.
You now have a list of tried-and-tested real estate lead generation tactics. Follow them and get ahead of your competition in no time.
Whichever strategies you chose to implement, just make sure to keep a critical eye on them. Analyze and filter out what works for you; identify the ones that bring the most high-quality leads.
