Real estate, like any other savvy business professional, know how important it is to market differently. You want to stand out and advertise in new ways that your fellow real estate agents haven’t considered.
You can buy ad space in the local newspaper and put your information on billboards, but if every other real estate agent does the same thing, you won’t stand out to potential homebuyers and sellers.
Not to worry; Landmark Home Warranty has researched and interviewed real estate agents to find five of the most creative and out-of-the-box ways to get leads.
1. Tinder
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If you haven’t heard of it, Tinder is a smartphone dating application. Tinder users log into the application and are presented with profiles of single individuals in their area.
They can read biographies and scroll through three or four pictures of each single person. If they decide they want to learn more about the person, they swipe right. If they’re not interested, they swipe left. For those people who have swiped right, if the other person also “swipes right” the two individuals are matched and can chat.
At first glance, it’s hard to see how Tinder could help real estate agents obtain leads. But for Realtor Clayton Eason, it was prime “real estate” for getting business.
Eason said he uploads pictures of the homes he is selling and puts a link to his website in the “About Me” section of his profile. When he matches with individuals, he said he develops business relationships with them.
Sometimes they will get him leads through friends or family or will become leads themselves. Eason said the app is an excellent way to network and build relationships with people.
“Don’t be sales-y about it,” Eason said. “Make friends with the people you match with on Tinder.”
The matches you find on Tinder will sometimes appear in the “People You May Know” section of Facebook. Eason suggests friending them and asking them for leads there as well.
2. LinkedIn
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LinkedIn is a social media site for professionals. Users can update their profiles as a resume, connect with companies who are hiring and join groups that share their professional interests.
For a real estate agent, it’s a golden opportunity to find leads. LinkedIn has 296 million members, and most of those professional individuals are in a healthy financial state to purchase or sell a home.
LinkedIn is set up so it will email you each week and let you know when someone has viewed your profile. According to Tyler Zey from Easy Agent Pro, you can use this feature to let LinkedIn do email marketing for you and your business.
All you need to do is click onto profiles of people, and LinkedIn does the rest. Zey says he goes to LinkedIn groups that have his target audience, looks at the member list and then opens profiles in new tabs. He recommends using Google Chrome’s Linkclump to speed up this process.
He opens 400 profiles a day and estimates 2-4 percent of those people will reach out to him after getting the email that says he was viewing their profile. A simple but powerful way to get leads.
3. Facebook
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Facebook is more than just a place to connect with friends and share updates about your day. It’s a powerful tool to find buyers and sellers.
The search bar at the top of your Facebook profile can find some incredible things, including “Pictures of Mom and me” or “Posts about #realestatetips.”
Use it to find leads. Search for hashtags such as #homeshopping, #packing or #moving. Research using specific areas that your target demographic is in, and then friend or message the individuals who have posted the update about buying or selling their home. You can do this same thing with Twitter or Instagram.
4. Host a class through Craigslist
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Craigslist is this generation’s newspaper classified. The best part is it’s free, and the worst part is — it’s free. That means a lot of people can post anything on the site, and your classified ads could get lost among the rubbish.
That’s why it’s time to step out of the “real estate services offered” portion of the site and into something new. Try hosting a class on home selling, purchasing or real estate investment.
Many potential homebuyers will attend a free class if they’re researching buying or selling a home, and you’ll have access to some great leads.
5. Give closing gifts
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Any real estate agent knows how important it is to establish a rapport with buyers and sellers, and giving closing gifts is a great way to get referral leads. It doesn’t have to be anything big.
Some real estate agents get crafty and create homemade door signs, while others go the more practical route and provide the new homeowners with rekey services on the locks. As a home warranty company, Landmark sees a lot of Realtors purchasing home warranties as closing gifts for their clients.
Try these out-of-the-box ideas to get leads. Also, if you have an unusual method for generating leads, please share in the comments section below.
Whitney Baum-Bennett is the SEO specialist at Landmark Home Warranty. She creates informative articles and graphics about everything from buying a first home to how to fix your toilet; see more of her content here.
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