Impactful Lead Generation Strategies For Real Estate Agents
Outbound digital marketing is connecting with your prospects when they are not actively looking for your product or service.
This can include many things from paid social media advertisements to pay-per-click search engine marketing.
Let’s dive into the digital strategies now.
Facebook Ads
While there are multiple ways to use social media, you are concerned with leveraging it to grow your business online.
Facebook is without a doubt at the top of the social media barrel. Don’t just take our word for it; look at this fact: The active userbase of Facebook is a gigantic 2.7 Billion.
With so many social media users present on the platform, it’s safe to assume that your prospects are hanging out there too.
But, how do you find real estate prospects in Singapore using the ad platform? Fortunately, Facebook detailed targeting can help you narrow your target audience down and deliver your message to them.
Facebook detailed targeting works because the social media platform has data of more than 2.7 billion users.
So, you can get in front of people that recently moved into your locality and would need a service like yours.
But, that’s not it. Facebook allows you to get in front of a pretty small group of people by applying multiple filters.
Source: Facebook.com
These include:
Zipcode: Allowing you to target people in Singapore
Age range: You would want to target the people that have the decision-making power. For instance, you filter below-25 people out of your audience.
Income: The income of an individual can give you an idea about their financial prowess, but it’s not a determining factor.
Behaviors: As a realtor, the people that are going to moving soon are a goldmine. Luckily, Facebook’s behavioral targeting lets you zero in on people that are “Likely to move”.
Demographics: Demographics targeting lets you further narrow your audience down. From a realtor’s perspective, you can filter out:
- First-time homebuyer
- Homeowners
- Renters
You’ll just have to go to “Detailed targeting > Home > Homeownership”.
Custom audiences: You don’t have to rely on your core audience. Facebook’s “Custom audiences” is a pretty incredible feature to attract more “relevant” people.
What you can do is, upload a list of your past clients and ask Facebook to find “Look-alike audiences”. Facebook will find similar people that are more likely to do business with you.
Creating a Facebook ad is also no rocket science. All you’d be doing is, showcase your beautiful properties and add some persuasive copy.
A typical Facebook ad has the following elements.
- Post text (Copy at the top of the image)
- Image
- Headline
- Description
- Call-to-action
Here is an example of a real estate Facebook ad with all the elements:
Source: Constantcontact.com
Sometimes, you may need to show a little more to your audience. Or, maybe you have multiple properties that you want to show in a single Facebook ad.
You can use Facebook’s carousel ads to do that. Carousel ads are great for showing property from multiple angles as well.
Facebook Video Ads
Video is probably the most impactful way to get a message across, which is why video marketing has been so effective recently.
And, as more and more people love watching video content, the video marketing industry is only going to see better days ahead.
Showing real estate properties in videos is even more important. As a realtor, you should put your property in front of the potential buyer. And, a video ad is the best way to do that.
You don’t even need to be a videographer these days to produce a video that piques your prospects’ interest.
You can simply use your mobile phone’s camera if it’s decent enough. You can even edit your videos yourself and add some effects to make them even more attractive.
Video editors like Camtasia do most of the heavy lifting for you.
Facebook Slideshow Ads
A slideshow ad is a mix of a video ad and a carousel ad. A slideshow, as the name suggests, shows multiple images in a sequence with text on them.
This lets you leverage the immersive nature of a video without creating a video ad. And, because a slideshow is just images, it has a smaller size. So, it loads quickly, grabbing the users’ attention in a jiffy.
Google Ads
Source: Google.com
Google is, without a doubt, the most popular search engine, which makes it the most impactful ad platform for businesses.
According to estimates, Google processes around 5.6 billion searches per day. And, it’s safe to assume that a lot of your prospects are also Google searchers.
While ranking your web pages on Google has many factors involved, there is a shortcut that can get you to the top search locations.
Google ads is a platform where you pay Google to showcase your website on the first page against particular keywords.
It’s a pay-per-click advertisement model. So, as an advertiser, you pay Google only when a prospect clicks on your ad.
How to Ace Google Ads for Real Estate?
Running an ad isn’t a big deal; anyone with little knowledge can do it. Your real test would be to attract the right people and make them act.
The first thing you want to ask yourself> “What keywords are your future customers typing into Google search?”
How do you find them? Fortunately, there is a free way to find a list of highly actionable keywords: Google Keyword Planner.
Source: Google.com
Source: Google.com
Once you have a list of keywords, you can target each one of them in a Google ad. The majority of realtors would stop digging here; don’t stop there.
You can find keywords that have relatively lower competition. These keywords are normally called “Long-tail keywords”.
Here are a couple of examples:
- Property for sale in Singapore
- 5-bedroom House for rent in Singapore
Another free keyword research tool is “Answerthepublic.com”.
Source: Answerthepublic.com
It spits out a list of related keywords/keyphrases after you enter your main keyword.
Source: Answerthepublic.com
Finding the right keywords to target is only a piece of the puzzle. You need to put together powerful copy to make Google users click on your ad.
Once you have your Google ad ready to go live, make sure you are using the right ad extension; this will help you get found by the right people.
Here are some useful extensions for real estate agents:
Location extension: This one is for showing your office address. If you want your prospects to know about your whereabouts in Singapore, use the location extension.
Whenever someone clicks on it, Google will redirect them to the map, leading them to your location.
Sitelink Extensions: Sitelink extensions allow you to redirect people to multiple pages on your website, depending on their needs.
But, remember, you do have to pay for every click, so make sure you use this extension only where it can get you results.
Call-out Extensions: A call-out extension allows you to put more information about your service at the top of your Google ad. It’s a great way to grab users’ attention. Unlike “sitelink extension”, this extension doesn’t take the user anywhere; it’s just text. So, you don’t have to worry about the cost-per-click.
Message Extension: While this one only works on mobile phones, it allows the buyer or the seller to directly contact you, cutting through the noise. This makes it easy for you to move that lead down into your sales funnel.
Call Extension: A call extension on a Google ad will give the option to the users to directly call your business without clicking on the link.
This doesn’t only let you bring in warm leads to your business, but can also reduce your overall ad spend.
Other Paid Advertising Platforms
Although Facebook and Google host most of the internet users, there are other ways to generate high-quality leads as a Singapore realtor.
Instagram, which now is a part of Facebook, boasts a userbase of around 1 Billion. Plus, you can advertise on Instagram through the Facebook ads platform.
Similarly, Nextdoor is a platform that’s turning into a go-to resource for people looking for information related to real estate.
Source: Nextdoor.com
Retarget Your Website Visitors
Yet another incredible way to generate leads as a Singapore realtor is retargeting website visitors. Of course, you’d need a website to attract those leads first.
How retargeting works is, someone visits your site (or blog) and leaves it without acting on your call-to-action.
It could be a blog post that you’ve recently published about decorating a house before putting it on sale. Or, it could be your landing page that didn’t convert the visitor.
What you can do is, get in front of your website visitors through a paid ad campaign.
How does retargeting work? Let’s take the example of Facebook retargeting.
- You put up a helpful blog post delving into how much they’d need to save to be able to buy a house in Singapore
- A prospect visits your blog post but doesn’t sign up for your newsletter
- You track them using the Facebook pixel
- You get in front of them with another helpful resource in return for their email address
You have your prospect’s email address now. Someone that has shown interest twice in something related to what you offer is a warm lead. You’ll be able to convert them relatively easily.
Use Real Estate Portals
Source: realtor.com
Real estate portals might be expensive, but they are hubs of real estate-related traffic. So, even if you don’t like them, you can’t ignore platforms like Zillow, realtor.com, and Trulia.
All three of them generate around 8 Million traffic in a month. And, many property agents use these portals successfully for lead generation.
That said, buying leads from a real estate portal might not be possible if you are just starting out. It can be one of the many real estate lead generation strategies though.
