Survey of Real Estate Lead Generation Techniques

• House Magazines
• Newspaper Ads
• Internet Lead Sites
• Personal Website Leads
• Broker Websites
• Phone Duty
• Relocation Leads
• Pay-Per-Click
• Direct Mail
• Door-to-Door
• Open Houses
• Email Newsletters

Home Magazines

Home magazines that you find in the lobby of grocery stores and in kiosks around town are another popular venue for generating real estate leads. Homes & Land Magazine is offered in localities throughout the nation and offers a corresponding website to attract leads to your real estate practice.

Pros: Print advertising helps you get your name out there and provides one more "touch" to your customer base. It also offers something prospects can "hold."

Cons: Print advertising and lead generation is more costly than web advertising. The magazines are read and then thrown away so you must continually pay for more ads.

Newspaper Ads

For years the newspaper has been a great way to advertise your listing and get your name out there, however, in the last few years people are turning more to the internet to find the homes they want to by, and thus the Realtors^® they will use.

Pros: Inexpensive way to advertise.

Cons: Not as valuable now that we have the internet.

Internet Lead Sites

There are many real estate lead generation options on the web today and some are better than others when it comes to generating leads.

Pros:  You can obtain leads.

Cons: The leads can be more costly. You have to put up with a large volume of bogus leads.

Personal Web Leads

Generating leads from your own personal website is not impossible to do.

Pros: Most cost effective form of advertising long-term. Your website builds equity in search results and can be visited 24 hours per day, seven days per week and 365 days a year. You can reach more people online. People relocating from another city are likely to find your website when doing a search if your site is built correctly.

Cons: Takes time and commitment to see results. Your website must be built correctly and constantly freshened and updated.

Broker Websites

Some Agents depend on their Brokers to hand them leads. Many Broker sites generate leads based upon name recognition in the marketplace and heavy marketing to the area in the form of billboards, print ads and community involvement.

Pros: Leads are relatively cheap to get.

Cons: Usually Brokers require you to pay a portion of your commission in exchange for the lead.

Phone Duty

You may have the option of serving to answer the phones for your Brokerage. This can be a great way to get leads of potential home buyers and sellers in your market.

Pros:  Easy way to find hot buyers and sellers in the market.

Cons: You usually have to pay a portion of the commission in exchange for the lead. It is time consuming to answer the phones.

Relocation Companies

There are relocation lead generation companies that allow you to sign up for receiving leads. These companies then charge per lead and/or charge a percentage of your commission when you make a sale.

Pros:  You can get a few leads.

Cons: You have to pay commission for each new lead.

Pay-Per-Click

Pay-per-click or PPC is the process of placing ads at the top of the search engines and paying each time someone clicks on your website link.

Pros:  Gets you quickly to the top of search engines and in the view of potential clients.

Cons: Expensive and difficult to do correctly without losing money.

Direct Mail

Just Sold/Just Listed postcards are a popular direct mail marketing technique for real estate agents. Realtors^® also send brochures, flyers and letters to their farm area to get a buzz circulating to foster lead generation.

Pros:  Good way to reach prospects in a specific area.

Cons: Time consuming and expensive.

Knocking Door-to-Door

Some agents don't let anything stop them from penetrating a neighborhood and go so far as walking down streets in coveted neighborhoods knocking on doors and speaking with residents.

Pros: Gets you in front of prospects in targeted area. Shows your willingness to go above-and-beyond to potential customers.

Cons: Very time consuming and the rejection faced can be demoralizing.

Open Houses

Open houses can be a loathsome, but good way to meet new prospects looking for homes in your target neighborhoods.

Pros:  You meet prospects face-to-face. Prospects are generally in the buying mode.

Cons: Very time consuming.

Email Newsletters

Email newsletters are a highly effective way to generate leads to your real estate practice because it keeps you in the forefront of the minds of your client base.

Pros: Inexpensive way to contact a large number of prospects.

Cons: Time consuming to create. Template generated email newsletters seem impersonal. Difficult to provide value-added content to market.