Are you just starting out in real estate and looking up at the top producers, wondering how they consistently produce new sales? Or maybe you’ve been in the industry for a while but can’t seem to break into a bigger market. Does your business solely rely on your past relationships? You might also be an experienced professional looking to juice that last 20 percent out of the market you’ve mastered.
Wherever you are in your career, most Realtors have the same questions rolling through their head as they fall asleep at night: “What would happen if my lead sources dried up?”
I’ve got a better question for you: Is your business built like a diving board or the Parthenon?
Let me explain. A diving board relies mainly on one source for stability. Whenever that source disappears, so does the diving board’s ability to do its job.
The Parthenon, which has been standing for a very long time, relies on hundreds of pillars to stabilize itself.
You want to build a real estate business that, like the Parthenon, is very stable — with numerous ways to get leads. Here are three surprising tools you can use to find leads in 2015:
1. Craigslist ads
Do you have a schedule you use religiously for Craigslist ad posting?
Craigslist has a wide body of users in almost every marketplace. You can access these individuals through posting ads for all of your listings. And when listing your property, you’ll want to pay a lot of attention to the headline.
Headlines that describe emotional responses to the property perform much better than informational headlines. This is because informational headlines actually eliminate some buyers. Think about how many people come to the table thinking that they know exactly what house they want to buy. And do they ever buy exactly what they said they wanted? Almost never! An emotive headline gets them to click the ad and view the images.
You also want the body of your ad to contain as many fantastic pictures as possible. This will help you stand out from the terribly formatted postings that litter Craigslist.
Finally, you’ll want a call to action that requires the readers to text or email you for more information. A good tip is to deliberately omit the price and ask anyone who’s interested to contact you for the price.
Implement a Craigslist ad schedule for your business in 2015 to keep track of all your ads.
2. LinkedIn publishing
LinkedIn now allows users to write blog posts on their profiles. One awesome aspect of this feature is that it alerts all the members in your network each time you post. This gives you the power to constantly place yourself in front of everyone in your network. A great way to use this is to write 300- to 400-word introductions to your listings. Rather than writing long blog posts or creating informational content exclusively on LinkedIn, you can write an appealing introduction and then link to the original blog on your website. Or you can write a short preview of a property and then link to its location on your website.
Either way, this feature gives you the power to reach out into your community even further!
3. Stealth websites
Stealth websites are a fantastic way to get leads in 2015. Did you know that conversations on unbranded websites are typically 10-15 percent higher than on branded websites?
And it’s easy to install a new website quickly and start generating leads! Let’s say you sell in Dallas, Texas, and Plano is a city nearby. You could start a website called “BestPlanoTXHomes.com.” Follow this easy video:
You can easily have that website on the first page of Google and be doing well on social media in under one month. This can get you hundreds of leads on autopilot each and every month! Try it today.
All of these methods are tried and true. Start working on one of these right now and make 2015 the year your leads shot through the roof.
Tyler Zey is the digital marketing director and contributing editor for the Real Estate Digital Marketing blog on easyagentpro.com.
