Real Estate Lead Generation – 11 Mistakes to Avoid
Houston Real Estate Lead Generation
Potential real estate clients should be aware of the importance of selecting the right agent when buying their home. Depending on the agent, clients can end up tapping into a home’s real value or spending too much on a low-value property. When working with well-off buyers, agents should make it clear what they can do for them. Read on to discover examples of tactics you should avoid to generate Houston real estate leads. It’s important to be as detailed as possible, particularly if your Real Estate agency operates locally or in a few different locations.
Having worked with numerous residential and commercial real estate companies, we have some great tips for agents and firms searching for buyers and sellers.
1. Don’t Always Stick to What You Know
People are creatures of habit, and realtors are no different. It’s surprisingly common for agents to stick to one marketing technique out of habit, but this isn’t a good idea. Try not to rely on unreliable tactics like cold calling or “snail mail” to reach your audience. These techniques rarely yield the desired effect, and potential buyers seldom respond to agents who reach out using these tactics alone. Diversify your marketing techniques, and you’ll find you can tap into a whole new group of prospective clients.
2. Not Embracing Online and Offline Marketing
Houston Real Estate leads aren’t all exactly the same. They may vary in age, technical abilities and where they tend to run across your marketing. These days, online marketing is the most fruitful option- that’s where most people search for a new property. As mentioned in the previous point, a diverse pool of marketing techniques is vital- once you have your online marketing techniques set up, you can focus on other methods. Be sure to use a variety of methods, including printed leaflets and direct mail campaigns.
3. Not Running an AdWords Campaign
Not running an AdWords campaign to generate real estate leads is an error if you want success in this field. It would seem that setting up a Google Ads campaign for real estate leads is a simple task, but many agents still need professional help building the Real Estate AdWords campaign. A properly configured and set up Google AdWords Campaign should have the following features:
- Relevant and well-researched real estate keywords (including the negative keywords!)
- Optimal advertising groups
- Engaging advertising copy
- Campaign settings in keeping with your company’s goals and technical abilities, like being able to track conversion of clicks into leads
- Geographical locations and demographics, and the relevant keywords to each locality
- A proper, detailed AdWords for Real Estate campaign structure that establishes a logical connection between the keywords, advertising groups and advertising copy.
The final point is particularly important as it’s the hardest point to identify and execute without relevant experience. Without a proper campaign, your Real Estate Google Ads campaign will be inefficient and could be costing you money unnecessarily.
This process aims to generate highly relevant traffic that will result in a significant amount of click-through interactions. Newdgtl has a team of Google Ads Gurus, aka AdWords Gurus, and we’ve built hundreds of Google AdWords campaigns for real estate agencies and professionals.
After the launch, the next step is to monitor the Google Ads Campaign performance – CTR, cost per click (CPC), impression, search terms, ad copy performance – making any necessary campaign adjustments.
4. No Effective Website and SEO
In an age where we do everything online, a company’s website is its professional face and provides clients with their first impression. For a website to maximize lead generation, it must:
- Be user-friendly across a wide range of devices.
- Feature lead capture click-through forms on most pages.
- Use SEO (search engine optimization) so that the website ranks higher in web searches.
Thankfully, these days, building a website isn’t a specialized skill. Select a website-building platform and use their templates and tools. The third point about SEO refers to a skill that is a little more specialized. At newdgtl, we have a team of SEO experts trained to improve your real estate website authority and ranking.
Our SEO gurus will make sure your website will receive more relevant traffic and potential Houston real estate leads at no cost to you. Before long, your organic (SEO) traffic should outweigh your paid traffic by 3-5 times and reduce your real estate leads acquisition cost.
5. No CTA (Call-To-Action)
Potential clients can easily see your advertisement or hear about your service, but they’re unlikely to respond to your adverts unless you ask them to. A call-to-action (CTA) is an effective marketing tool that beckons potential clients clearly and concisely, rather than listing your company’s services.
6. Target Audience is Too Vague
It makes more sense to spend money on lead generation within a particular group- you can engage with people you already want to reach. Look into marketing with Facebook, Instagram and Google, focusing your efforts on specific demographics or geographical locations to generate more leads.
7. Services are Too Vague and Don’t Convey Value
You can easily waste time telling clients how reliable and trustworthy you are, but these qualities should be a given. When pursuing leads, focus on your niche expertise of a certain industry segment or area. Ensure that your ideal customer understands what value you offer them, not just affirm the expectations they already have.
8. Allowing Warm Leads to Go Cold
Once you’ve done the hard work of securing a lead through Google ads for real estate leads or otherwise, you may find that you relax, only to discover they’ve slipped through your fingertips in the time it’s taken you to move them down the pipeline. Avoid this by establishing a robust follow-through technique to develop a long-term plan to stay in contact with and nurture current leads.
9. Failing to Educate Your Audience
In Houston real estate lead generation every marketing communication should be relevant. Therefore, share the most common things you get asked or the latest news in real estate. Target your content to the appropriate readers of your database. Establish yourself as a source of engaging and useful information, and readers are more likely to reach out to you.
10. Giving One Big Opt-Out
If your email opt-out rate is high, make your opt-out list asks leavers exactly why they’re leaving, and offer options to opt-in to only some forms of messaging. If a reader doesn’t want to read your newsletter but likes receiving new listings, let them opt out of one type of message without losing the other. This will keep you in their periphery without feeling like you’re spamming them.
11. Not Maintaining Client Relationships After You Close
Your completed sales could be the leads of tomorrow, through word of mouth or repeat business in years to come. So send a quick survey shortly after you close to find out what you did well and what you could improve on. Keep in contact; send congrats on birthdays, weddings, or the anniversary of the day they bought their house. Naturally, these established relationships should be cherished as they don’t just build up your business; they build your career.
Get in touch with newdgtl and will help setup your own Houston Real Estate Lead Generation process, with the focus on your website performance, SEO and Google Ads.
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