Now what are we talking about here? We’re talking about going out there and getting an IDX website like a Real Geeks or BoomTown website, problem with this strategy in my experience is that number 1, when people are on Facebook, there’s no intent there. They’re just scrolling. And if they see an ad specifically with this strategy, the way in which they’re generating the lead is around getting access to properties in a specific area. So you have low intent, low quality of potential lead.
They take forever to convert if they ever convert. And with Facebook specifically with this strategy, they’re converting somewhere around 1% best case scenario. And so for most real estate agents, there’s a lot better ways to go out there and generate buyers and sellers than spending money advertising on Facebook. Number 13 on the list, geographic farming. Now I have done this.
I have tried this for many, many years, and the reality is when I talk about geographic farming, I’m talking about sending mailers to random homeowners where we have no idea if they have any intent whatsoever in actually selling their house. We are just marketing, sending mass mailers to random people hoping that they want to sell their home, and hope is simply not a strategy. Can it work? Yes. It can.
Are people successful with geographic farming? For sure. The challenge is if you ask them all, they will all tell you the same thing, which has also been my experience, and that is it takes a very long time to get a return on a geographic farm through just doing mailers. It’s very expensive, and you have to be able to essentially market into a neighborhood for a minimum of 12 months of marketing ad spend before you start getting a return. And for most real estate agents, not only can they not wait 12 months to get a deal, but on top of not getting a deal for 12 months to spend money every single month without that return for most.
They just can’t do it. Number 12 on the list, Google Buyer PPC. So like we talked about before, if you get on a platform like a Real Geeks or like a BoomTown or like a Commissions Inc, and they have an IDX website, and they’re spending advertising dollars on Google. Now the better thing here is when people go to Google, there is more intent. Think about yourself.
When you go to Google and you search for something, you’re doing it on purpose, unlike scrolling on Instagram or Facebook where if you run across an ad, it wasn’t what you were specifically looking for like it is on Google. So there’s more intent. However, the way in which these companies are driving or converting the traffic into an actually opt in in or a lead is through getting access to properties in a specific area. We call these area specific buyer Internet leads. They have very low conversion and very long conversion cycles, and it is a commitment financially for most real estate agents that they’re either not willing, not able, but really there’s an other there’s other options or other vehicles to generate business faster.
Let’s talk about number 11 on the list. Networking group. So this is where you join your local chamber of commerce or maybe there’s a local networking group where you go there once a month or twice a month. You meet with other local business owners and you build relationships with them in hopes that they’re gonna refer you clients. Now the challenge with this model in my experience is anybody that uses networking groups as a lead generation strategy is the reality is most of them have true meaningful partnerships or relationships with other business professionals already.
And so unless, you know, you get into a group where no one’s ever networked before, which is highly unlikely, it’s gonna be difficult for you to be a real estate agent. Go into a networking group, go into a chamber, and you be the first real estate agent that’s ever been part of that group. Chances are most of those people are already doing business with another real estate agent. And so in my experience, networking, what is more like not working. It’s the path of least resistance. It’s easy easy to go there, have breakfast, have coffee, feel like you’re being productive, but, you know, it takes a long time for those to return any type of good quality lead generation.
So let’s get back into our list. Number 10, direct mail. Now this is different than geographic farming because when I use the word direct in this article, I’m talking about getting a targeted list of prospects. As an example, you may get a list of probates, people that are going through the probate process, and we’re sending those people specific message with a specific direct mail campaign to a specific group of people. Now this is number 10 on the list, and as we get closer to number 1, they become more and more effective in my experience. Direct mail can work when you have a targeted list. Now you are going to incur some out of pocket expense for a length of time before you start getting a return.
But if you can, the more specific the list, the higher targeted the list, the more impactful your message is in the direct mail, the higher likelihood you will get people to pick up the phone and call you. Number 9 on the list, open houses. So if done correctly, you can have great success with holding open houses at your listings or other agents’ open houses. And so if you have a listing that’s in the right neighborhood, it’s at the right price point, and you have the ability to promote and to market and to prospect an open house event a week or so before the event, it could be phenomenal. And so this is a great way for us, not only just to get buyers leads, but certainly, we use it more so in our business to get listing leads from other homeowners in the neighborhood.
Number 8 on the list, organic content creation. Now this is probably the thing that is most talked about right now in our industry. Going out there and building a personal brand and building a social media following and making organic content, which is phenomenal. It’s a great way to build leverage in your business. It’s a great way for you to build some expert authority positioning in the marketplace.
But again, it takes a long time and like anything else, you have to be consistent. You’re not gonna make one video on YouTube. You’re not gonna make one podcast. You’re not gonna write one blog, and leads are gonna start flowing into your business. It’s gonna take some time to make a content strategy organic.
We’re not talking about paid to really work in your business. And so if that’s gonna be part of your business model, it’s just like anything else. If it’s gonna be prospecting or working out, you have to have a daily commitment to making organic content for you to start generating leads. Number 7 on the list, door knocking. So we know that face to face conversation is the most impactful, most influential conversation you can have with another human being.
Wouldn’t it then only make sense that if you were face to face through door knocking, you could potentially have that to your benefit for your entirely generation strategy. That’s the upside of door knocking is that you can have only face to face conversations all day long. The downside of door knocking, of course, is the efficiency of it. Right? It takes a long time.
You can’t knock on that many doors. There’s other things for you to be in more conversations with people, but the upside is that face to face interaction with people that you can’t get through social media. You can’t get through really any other means but getting in front of people face to face. Number 6, cold calling. Now, when I talk about cold calling in the context of this article, we’re talking specifically just picking up the phone, loading up a dialer, and calling random people through random neighborhoods.
That’s what I refer to as cold calling. Maybe those are just sold calls, but I’m talking specifically circle prospecting. It’s number 6 on the list. It can be effective because you can have so many conversations with people that own a home, which is our perspective clients that we want, of course, and you can have a lot of conversations, which is the upside. The downside is most of the leads that are generated through a circle prospecting approach, they are long term nurtures.
Right? These are people looking to do something maybe in 2 or 3 or 4 or 5 years down the road. Yes. Sometimes you get fortunate and also you get some. It’s a longer term approach.
However, it’s free, which is great, so you’re not incurring really any cost. You’re using your time, not your money to generate the opportunity. You’re building your skills, and so it’s a great way to generate listing leads through a free outbound approach. Next on the list, number 5 is seller Google PPC. So you can work with companies like Prime Seller Leads, you can work with companies like Bold Leads.
They can advertise on Google. We talked about this earlier in the article with consumers that have intent. These are people going to the computer, typing into Google, local listing agent. How much is my home worth? What is the process of selling my home?
And you can have companies that I mentioned go after those keyword and generate a listing lead in exchange for dollars. In our experience, those are typically between $15.20 for a online seller Google pay per click lead. And so now you’re trading dollars for leads, which is a great way to do it if you’re gonna spend the money on Google. The downside is most of the time, they are the conversion cycle is a little bit longer, and you don’t know always the lead quality is the thing that sometimes isn’t as great because you don’t know who’s opting in on your lead form, but it is another really good way to generate listing lead. Number 4 on the list, property specific buyer leads.
So we’re talking about Zillowandrealtor.com. Pretty high on the list. It’s number 4. Although you hear me talk a lot about the downsides of buying Internet leads, we talked about some of those earlier. If I’m gonna do it, and I’m gonna put the money forth to do it, I’m gonna do it with a property specific lead.
Meaning, Zillow and realtor.com are very, very good at generating a lead from a consumer that is inquiring on a specific property. And so those convert a lot higher higher than your Google or Facebook leads you get from maybe a BoomTown or Commissions Inc. They convert a lot higher. They’re consumers with much higher intent. I mean, a lot of that time, you can get a hot transfer from Zillow flex program, get a consumer right on the phone, Zillow’s rep transfers it to you and you’ve got a consumer right on the spot.
You can schedule a showing right on the spot. The downside is it’s it’s very expensive. For the most part, they’re mostly buyer leads, not seller leads, which most of you want. And so great way to build a business. It’s just it’s very expensive to do it, but they do have higher conversion.
Next on the list, number 3, direct outbound prospecting. So remember I said, when I use the word direct, I mean that we’re going after a specific targeted niche audience. And so this might be expired listings for sale by owners, absentee owners, divorce, probate, downsizers. These are all examples of a specific target audience that we know the likelihood of them wanting to sell a house is extremely high. And then when I talk about outbound, means that you initiate the conversation, meaning you’re in control with how many of these people you actually talk to voice to voice or in person face to face, and that means many different things.
That means reaching out over the phone. That means going to knock their door. That means sending them an email. That means sending them a text message. That means, sending them a a message on Facebook or Instagram.
This is a direct targeted niche and it’s outbound, meaning you initiate the conversation. This is number 3 on our list. It’s a awesome manner to construct a business. It’s what I’ve done for years, what I continue to coach to, and many, many agents succeed with this lead. Number 2, referral partners.
Something that I think our industry does not talk enough about. Most real estate agents, when they think about lead generation, for some reason, they always think about direct to the consumer. This is number 2 on my list, list, and I wish I would start had started this sooner in my career, but I want you to think about other industries for a second and how they build a business in the housing market. Let me give you some examples. Look at the mortgage industry, look at the title industry, look at the home warranty industry, look at the home inspection industry.
There’s many, many more, but let’s just take those for an example. Their main source of leads is you and I, the realtor. They’ve made a business where they have a service that they offer to the consumer, but they don’t go direct to the consumer. They’ve made their lead generation strategy a business to business generation strategy. And so they go and prospect realtors to have you and I go do all the hard work to go market and prospect direct to the consumer, bring those consumers in, and then refer that business off to our partner.
Well, we can do the same thing. We can turn this business into a b to b business model by going out there and building relationships with insurance agents, CPAs, financial planners, attorneys. These are all people that every single day are marketing to try to get new clients, and those clients specifically are looking to potentially sell a house or buy a house. Think about this as a specific example. A divorce attorney, if she’s gonna build her practice and she’s gonna do 8 or 10 divorce cases per month, 80% of those people have to sell the marital home and in most cases have to buy another home.
So you could partner with a divorce attorney or 2 or 3 of them and potentially get an endless amount of inbound listing lead referrals from those divorce attorneys that you partner with because they need a realtor to help them close the case. Something to consider. And then number 1 on our list is what we call our top 100. So this is a business model for you to generate business from the people that you know and generate business from the people that you know that they know. And so this is an inbound strategy for you to cultivate business from your sphere of influence, from your community, from your referral partners, and get referrals from people that they know.
And this whole entire strategy built around our top 100 is strategically deepening the relationship with 100 people. We’re not talking about 10,000. We’re talking about a group of people, a 100 people, a strategy of communication with them that is so valuable that anytime real estate comes to mind, you have won the top of mind awareness game.