Being a business owner means constantly sourcing new customers. Yet, a large portion of your sales relies on repeat custom, which, although possible, can be challenging to get if your business sells long-term investments like a real estate agency. After selling someone a house, they’re unlikely to return for a couple of years (you’d hope!), meaning your business must rely on lead generation to stay afloat.
Yet, with various strategies available, knowing which tactics and techniques are the best for generating new clients can take time and effort. However, regardless if your estate agency is a start-up or you’re looking to expand your existing customer base, there are various ways you can convert quality leads into customers, several of which we outline in this article.
From establishing a good online presence and asking existing customers for referrals to enlisting the services of digital marketing agencies and networking with local businesses, we discuss some of the best lead-generation techniques for estate agency businesses to use in 2023 – continue reading to find out more.
Attend Public Speaking Events
All real estate agents need to have strong communication skills. Yet, these are commonly demonstrated one-to-one, not through speaking to an audience. While public speaking isn’t a sought-after skill for most estate agencies, possessing it gives you a competitive edge over those that don’t, providing your business with more opportunities for advancement.
Real estate agents that attend public speaking events can present properties, advertise products/services, and generate leads on a much larger scale; since property sales do not come to you, you must seek them out proactively. It can also provide additional benefits, such as networking with other local businesses and allowing you to gain insights you might have yet to consider.
Since asking questions is a pivotal part of public speaking, you’ll discover that asking the right questions will help you gain secondary opinions, identify knowledge gaps, gain criticism, etc., which you can encourage using live polls which help you immediately gain feedback and insights from your audience that could lead to customer conversion whether face-to-face or remotely.
Learn more about how live audience polling goes hand in hand with public speaking by visiting providers’ websites like Vevox, which provides a wide range of audience-engaging tools, from live polls to quizzes. Or consider contacting a team member for more information, and see how their tools could help your business convert leads into customers today.
Maintain A Strong Social Media Presence
Over the past couple of years, we’ve witnessed a dramatic shift in shopper behaviour, the most significant being the decline of brick-and-mortar stores prompting around two-thirds of shoppers to use social media in their shopping strategy. As a result of this shift, it has put increased pressure on businesses (including estate agencies!) to improve their social media presence.
As well as helping estate agencies connect with like-minded professionals, stay on top of industry trends, and promote new listings, social media has become the first point of call for clients (new or returning) to express their interest in properties, find out about your estate agency, read customer testimonials, and much more.
Due to this, your estate agency must maintain a solid social media presence across all the best platforms for businesses, such as Facebook, Instagram, etc. Even if you have no plans of using it for advertising purposes, you never know what connections it could send your way – which is why it’s always worth staying on top of.
Develop Your Brand
As of last year, an estimated 24,500 real estate agencies were operating across the UK. With so many competitors all vying to sell the most properties, your own must have a brand/niche/image that makes it stick out from all the rest; otherwise, it will quickly fade into the background and lead generation will become much more challenging.
Even if you’ve build-up a decent customer base/referral system already, new prospects must have a place to learn more about your services, brand story, values, etc., where a website and strong social media presence come into play. Look at established real estate businesses’ websites. You’ll see that they contain a meet-the-team page, customer testimonials, service pages, blogs, etc., all of which build credibility and gives the visitor a taste of what working alongside them will be like.
Due to this, your image/brand/niche must be reflected in every corner of your website, as this will help convert leads into customers and prevent them from going to competitors. Your website/social media pages will passively help your business generate leads while you invest in other types of brand promotion.
Make Friendships
In your community, you’re bound to find like-minded professionals on the hunt for new leads like yourself, from building merchants and architects to surveyors and lawyers. The more local businesses you connect with, the more likely they will refer you to their clients (mainly if they deal with property themselves). Or they might even let you leave a couple of business cards with them so that customers can help themselves, and vice versa!
