One of the fun things about sales and marketing is that it’s always changing. It seems as though every few years, someone presents a seminar on the new “proven” sales technique. In fact, a simple Google search for “in-person sales styles” brings up a document that lists 18 different selling methods. The list ranges all the way from “consultative” to something called “non-sales.” (I’m not sure what that is, but it doesn’t sound practical.)
Since things are always changing, I wanted to share a step-by-step rundown of a technique I that used to generate 100 real estate leads in seven days.
Here are the tools I used:
1. A landing page. This is any page on a website that both contains a form and exists solely to capture a visitor’s information through that form.
2. A lead magnet. A lead magnet is an irresistible bribe offering a particular chunk of value to a prospect in exchange for their contact information.
The goal of the lead magnet is to provide something of value for your targeted demographic — in my case, anyone looking to buy or sell a home in my area. Chances are you have opted into a lead magnet at some point; it gives prospects something that they need in exchange for their contact information.
The key to a great lead magnet is specificity. Lead magnets should not be complex, long or time-intensive to create.
Here are some examples of perfect real estate lead magnets:
- Homebuyers’ guides.
- Home sellers’ guides.
- Relocation packets.
- Neighborhood market reports.
- New listing email registrations.
- Property comparative market analyses.
- “How-to” e-books or videos — how to stage a home, how to increase curb appeal, how to buy foreclosures, and so on.
- Reports — neighborhood, school, crime and more.
- Lists — bank-owned properties, short-sale homes, 203(k)-eligible properties, etc.
- Real estate-related e-books or videos — landscaping, remodeling, investment opportunities, flipping a house, and so on.
I ran a targeted campaign of Facebook ads. This allowed me to focus only on people in the areas I specified who were likely to move, which is important because it means fewer people need to see my ad — and the people who do view it are more likely to be interested in my lead magnet.
The nitty-gritty steps
My processes involved two different landing pages, two different lead magnets, and two different Facebook ads and targeted demographics.
I wanted to target both buyer and seller leads, so I used two different e-book guides as lead magnets, one for homebuyers and one for home sellers. The landing pages had no outside links, just basic information about the guides and a button to download them for free.
Once users clicked the button, they were asked to provide a name, email address and phone number. The guide was then sent instantly to their (valid) email address.
There are services online that will provide landing pages for real estate integrated with lead magnets — or you can do some research and put it all together yourself.
Once the system was built, I needed to push traffic to it. Enter the Facebook ads. I created one targeted ad for buyers promoting that e-book, and one targeted ad for sellers promoting the other e-book.
The marketing funnel followed these steps:
- Someone would see the Facebook ad.
- The prospect would click the ad.
- He or she would read the brief landing page.
- The prospect would click the “download” button.
- He or she would submit contact information.
- The guide would be delivered via email.
Here are some of the numbers that demonstrate my return on investment: I had 173 clicks through to my landing page and a total ad reach of 4,238 viewers. I spent $50.44, and my cost per click was 29 cents. I got 101 leads (a 58 percent conversion rate), and my cost per lead was 50 cents.
Have you ever used this technique to generate leads? Let me hear your thoughts, experiences and questions in the comments!
Ethan Edwards is a marketing content and product developer for Opesta who provides a rugged, yet refined, view of lead generation techniques.