As a real estate agent, it’s essential to find unique ways to create connections with potential home buyers and increase your lead generation.
Here’s a list of 21 underrated real estate lead generation ideas that are built to help you reach a wider audience and increase your portfolio of home buyers and sellers.
1. Live Stream a Property Tour
Holding a live stream on social media to give a tour of a property is a great way to give interested home buyers a sneak peek, especially before the home even goes on the market.
This is also a great way to reach larger audiences while still socially distancing during the pandemic and keeping open houses to smaller crowds or appointments only.
During these live streams, you can even hold a live Q&A to answer any questions that viewers may have. Use the built-in social media chat option or lead your viewers to a live chat on your website to ask any questions they may have.
Use this as a lead generation strategy by asking people to comment with their email addresses to get added to your email list or telling them your website address so they can sign up to learn more.
2. Promote Lead Magnets
Lead magnets are valuable resources that you give away for free in exchange for an email address. In real estate marketing, this could be something like a moving out checklist, guide to navigating financing, the ultimate home buyer’s guide, etc.
Create a landing page on your website that includes some sales copy on why your audience needs this lead magnet and a signup form for your website viewer to input their name, email address, location and potential buying/selling time frame.
Then you can have the PDF download immediately open or you can send it to new leads via email.
While this is a great option for real estate lead generation, and you’ll want to do some local SEO and ad targeting for these pages, there’s still the off chance you might receive new leads that aren’t in your area.
Don’t worry though! You can easily use your email marketing platform or sales CRM like Moosend, SendX, or Really Simple Systems to segment out any leads that aren’t local.
3. Create Interactive Quizzes
One lead generation tactic you may not have thought of is to create interactive quizzes and share them on a page or blog post on your website. These can be a great way to bring in new, qualified leads and offer value to your potential buyers and sellers.
Simply put together interactive quizzes to help interested home buyers figure out what they’re looking for and what their best options are, then request an email address to send them their results.
4. Use Social Media Advertising
Never underestimate the power of good old social ads.
With specific targeting and creating ads that retarget your website visitors, you can easily get your real estate business directly in front of people in your area.
Plus, social media advertising is one of the more affordable types of advertising, so why not give this avenue a try? Start utilizing Facebook ads first, then span out to test a few other alternatives.
You could even look into Google Ads to see if keyword targeting on the search engine could be a great way to gather even more website visitors and leads for your specific business.
5. Take Advantage of Text Marketing
One new lead generation trend in real estate marketing involved text marketing, or communicating directly to your lead’s phone.
In many cases, it can be even more valuable to get a phone number from a lead than an email address, especially since text marketing campaigns perform seven times better than email marketing campaigns.
And since more and more Millennials, who notoriously hate phone calls, are buying houses, you want to be able to reach them in a format they’re most comfortable with.
Simply add a cell phone number field to your lead generation forms and utilize a tool like Textedly or SimpleTexting that can help you get set up with text marketing and start nurturing your leads.
6. Create a Referral Program
It’s commonly known in the world of real estate that one of the best lead generation tactics is word-of-mouth. People ask friends and family which realtor they used, and will often choose from that selection.
One way to ensure your name gets out there is by creating and telling your clients about your referral program.
A referral program is built to offer a reward as a way of saying thanks for each referral they send to you. This can be a set cash amount or a small percentage of your commission depending on what you feel comfortable offering.
There are tons of tools out there to help you create a successful referral program like ReferralCandy or ReferralRock.
7. Master Cold Outreach
Everyone hates cold outreach, but it simply can’t be left out just because it puts a pit in your stomach.
Instead, take advantage of a cold email template to help you get over the anxiety of writing your initial note and start generating some results. Use a tool like AeroLeads to help you compile a list of prospects to contact.
If you can actually become more comfortable and better at your cold outreach, you’ll be surprised at just how effective it can be for your real estate lead generation. A tool like CIENCE can be a great asset to your outbound prospecting as well.
8. Send Handwritten Thank You Notes
Want another great way to stick in your clients’ minds and increase word-of-mouth spread about your services? Snail mail is exciting now, so take the time to write and send handwritten notes to each of your buyers and sellers.
Inserting a small congratulations or a quick thank you to anyone who has sent a referral your way can make your clients feel genuinely special and appreciated.
9. Sponsor a Housewarming Party for Clients
Another way to increase the buzz about you as a real estate agent is to help plan and host a housewarming party for new homeowners once they’ve settled in.
Whether you help them to put on the party or simply send them a housewarming gift, you can bet they’re going to tell everyone about what excellent service they received from their real estate agent.
And don’t worry—this doesn’t have to take a lot of your time or require a big budget. Even the simplest contributions can still make a major impression on your client and their partygoers.
But if you do choose to host a party, send out the invitations, and show up with your name tag on, it can be a great way to start generating leads right from the onset.
10. Check Out Expired Listings
Have you ever thought about looking back at old, expired listings for lead generation? It can be a great idea to look back at listings that have expired not just recently, but a year or so ago as well.
These people obviously wanted to sell at one point, but may be jaded over their experience with a previous agent with their house never selling and could be the perfect new lead for you to nurture.
Don’t pressure these sellers into trying again or you could turn them away. Simply offer any advice you may have, check in regularly, and see if you can get them on the right path to selling their home successfully.
11. Offer Free Real Estate Advice
If you’re working on your laptop somewhere in public like a coffee shop or a local park, set up a small sign that says “free real estate advice” and draws potential home buyers or sellers in to ask for help—potentially leading to them using your services.
Keep business cards nearby as well so that anyone who comes up to you and asks a few questions can have a way to get in touch with you when they’re looking to actually buy or sell. Set out a notepad or clipboard for interested buyers and sellers to add their contact information.
Another way to do this is to promote your Facebook messenger as a way to send in questions and get free, basic advice.
Use a messenger bot to request an email address or phone number alongside their question so you can add them to your CRM but still keep the communication line open via FB messenger.
Doing something like this can be just another form of free consultations that helps you to generate qualified leads that you know are getting ready to buy or sell.
12. Get Involved in Social Media Groups
Join and be active in social media groups on platforms like Facebook and LinkedIn. There are likely several neighborhood and city groups in your area that you can join, as well as some industry groups.
Become an active and helpful voice in these social media groups so that locals know your name and will think of you when they’re ready to buy or sell their home.
13. Host a Workshop for Homebuyers
Another great way to trade advice for lead generation is by hosting a workshop where you share tips and advice, especially for first-time homebuyers.
You can put this together either online with a webinar software like Demio or Livestorm or in-person by renting out a small event venue in your area and promoting your event to upcoming homebuyers.
Leave cards in everyone’s seat or require email addresses upon signup to gather contact information for attendees so you can add them to your digital marketing funnel and keep in touch with them for when they’re ready to buy.
14. Use Digital Marketing
Digital marketing is a great way to target your specific audience with social media, blog, and email content.
The idea is to create valuable and engaging organic content that positions you as a thought leader, both in your industry and in your area.
Some tactics for doing that are to send regular newsletters with valuable information that keeps your real estate business top of mind, utilize Facebook tools to help you post content more easily, write blog content you can share online, and more.
You could even consider creating a YouTube channel and investing in video marketing as well to further inform and engage leads. Drone videos are powerful real estate marketing tools as well.
15. Create Branded Products
Before you even think about getting started with this strategy – or with your real estate business in general—you need to make sure your real estate business has a logo. This could be as simple as your name, or you might have created a name for your business or joined a broker.
Once you have your branded logo, create t-shirts, sweatshirts, pens, etc., and wear/use them while you’re out in public.
Include contact information—your website at the very least—on your shirts/pens/swag so that people know where to go to find more information.
16. Attend Networking Events
Networking is another great way to increase your real estate lead generation. Keep an eye out for any local networking event going on, whether it’s real estate agent specific or if your city provides networking events or small business events.
Real estate events can still be valuable even though you’re meeting other agents because you can learn from more experienced realtors as well as create connections with people who might send you referrals in the future if they can’t take on the client.
However, networking events that aren’t industry-specific are great ways to create relationships with potential homebuyers and sellers who might want to work with you in the future.
17. Create Optimized Landing Pages
Use your website strategically to increase your reach and your lead generation. There are many landing pages you can create to offer value to website visitors, like a property search, guide to your city, and more.
Make sure you optimize your content around a keyword, write quality sales copy, and input a meta title and description for search.
18. Hold Open Houses
This is a tried and true method for lead generation, but that’s because it works.
Use signs to promote open houses and gather contact information from interested buyers who stop by to check the place out.
You can offer gift bags as thanks and keep a guest book or contact cards on a table up front to get lead information to add to your CRM and start reaching out to with newsletters and outreach emails.
19. Check in With For Sale By Owners (FSBOs)
Many homeowners are selling without a realtor because they’ve had bad experiences in the past, but that doesn’t mean you can’t provide them with an incredible experience.
Ask the owner why they’re selling and answer any questions they may have. If they’re not interested in working with you, ask if you can check in with them in a few weeks or so to see how the home sale is going
They may see success on their own, but if you create a genuine enough connection and check in regularly to see how they’re doing, they could become a bonafide sales lead and ask you for help selling their home.
20. Create an Online Course
Putting together an online or email course for potential buyers and sellers could be a great way to build your reputation as a knowledgeable real estate agent and help generate new leads.
Creating an online course is a great way to showcase your knowledge in your industry and provide serious value and assistance to anxious homebuyers and sellers.
Anyone who signs up for your course will likely be happy to have someone as knowledgeable as you as their realtor and will likely share your course with friends and family that are considering buying or selling a home.
21. Use a Real Estate Lead Generation Service
Our last lead generation idea is an oldie but goodie – sites like Zillow, Realtor.com, and the like exist for a reason. Take full advantage of these sites as best you can to get as many new leads as possible.
Create a profile and fill out all of your personal and business information to use these sites to generate more leads. Ask for reviews, be active on these sites, and reap the benefits.
Increase Your Real Estate Lead Generation Today
Start utilizing these 21 underrated lead generation strategies today to ramp up your list of potential homebuyers and sellers. It’s time to invest in your real estate business to make sure you’re seeing the results you’ve been looking for.
