Real estate agents can generate leads through a variety of methods. Here are some of the most common ways:

1. Referrals: Real estate agents can generate leads through word-of-mouth referrals from satisfied clients, friends, family, and other professionals in the industry.
2. Networking: Agents can attend events and conferences where they can meet potential clients, such as open houses, community events, and local business networking events.
3. Online marketing: Real estate agents can use online marketing techniques to generate leads, such as paid advertising on social media platforms, search engine optimization (SEO), and content marketing.
4. Cold calling and direct mail: Agents can reach out to potential clients through cold calling or direct mail campaigns.
5. Partnerships: Agents can partner with other businesses and professionals to generate leads. For example, partnering with mortgage lenders or home builders can provide a steady stream of potential clients.
6. Lead generation services: Some agents may use lead generation services, which are third-party companies that provide contact information for potential clients who are actively looking to buy or sell real estate.

It’s important for agents to use a variety of methods to generate leads and to consistently follow up with potential clients to build relationships and ultimately close more deals.

As a real estate professional, you have to either take on the many responsibilities of lead generation alone, or form a team of resources. Lightning Lister is your marketing agency resource. We work in volume so the cost for you to run all these marketing methods is as close as if you were running all the marketing yourself through the various channels: Google, Facebook, Direct Mail, Outreach, and more. We WANT you to succeed, not only because you increase our profit, but because we LOVE seeing success in action! Becoming a Lightning Lister Partner Agent allows you to gain benefit from other agents as well because of everyone’s resources pooling together for search engine and social media optimization, rather than just having your own website with little or no traffic getting to it. Not only do you NEED to advertise, but you must know how to advertise EFFECTIVELY and EFFICIENTLY so you don’t simply waste your money and time. Lightning Lister is a team of real estate marketing experts and data analytics nerds who are also real estate agents! We don’t compete with you because we have our zip codes taken (in Illinois and Arizona) – but don’t worry, there are plenty of zip codes to go around! Once you purchase a zip code, we remove it from available zip codes so that your marketing only has the local competition – which may be none!

We aren’t going to leave the article at that, because if you want to do this on your own, we also want to help! Let’s break down the above real estate lead generation methods into full detail.

According to the National Association of Realtors: 36% of home sellers who used a real estate agent asked friends and family for a referral, and 27% used an agent they had previous experience with, either buying or selling a home. (https://www.nar.realtor/research-and-statistics/quick-real-estate-statistics). This means you could have up to 63% of your business from referrals, but here’s the key: you need to be a referral-worthy agent! This means you should be using a customer relations management software (CRM) to organize your leads and periodically connect to remind them why you are referral-worthy. Great CRMs don’t need to be complicated and require hours of your time, they just need to use automated interactions such as email drip campaigns, events, and birthday messages, and have an easy to work with user interface, such as our Google-based CRM!

Attending local events is a fantastic way to make yourself known. You can go to your chamber of commerce, join Facebook groups, and be a part of local discussion using tools like the Neighborhood App. You want to be involved with your neighbors and local businesses because they will trust you more, and people are more likely to do business with a familiar person. Networking makes the following strategies even more successful because those you network with in your area will see your advertising – your postcards, Facebook ads, and even Google Ads if they are searching for a Top Real Estate Professional. Even if you interact with someone at a local event who is not currently in need of your services, there is a high probability they will pass on your info to someone who is – especially if you send them a real estate optimized postcard (such as one from Lightning Lister).

Many real estate agents will have a website created for them, but no plan of traffic acquisition. They think that people will magically find their website, but the truth is they NEED paid advertising on social media platforms, search engine optimization (SEO), and content marketing. SEO is so crucial to the initial development of a website to rank on pages of Google that people will actually visit – you should not even attempt to create a website until you know how much of your target market is searching for which terms and phrases! And even if your SEO is top-notch, you need to consistently write reliable, useable information that your clients are searching for that creates a sense of trust, and eventually turns them into home seller leads.

We are collectively referring to calling, mailing, and emailing as “Cold Outreach”. You can use these methods on their own, but you will be more successful if you employ all the methods above with this method, as your name will be constantly in front of your zip code if you create your ads correctly.

Cold Calling:

You can get For Sale By Owner leads from sites such as Zillow, ForSaleByOwner.com, ByOwner.com, and even Craigslist and Facebook.

You can also use skip tracing to find phone numbers by address, or use our CRM to find email addresses if you know a home owner’s name. There are also programs that have built in data gathering functions, such as RPR, and tax portions of your MLS. You can also search public data sets, such as your local recorder of deeds website.

You can get a list of expired listings, as well as listings about to expire from your MLS. They sometimes have phone numbers associated, and even if they don’t, you can send a postcard to their address.

We recommend sending potential clients a Full Home Sellers Guide, such as the one that you have as a Lightning Lister Partner Agent in your dashboard. You can mail it to the addresses that are about to expire, as well as For Sale By Owners, so when they give up trying to list on their own, you will be a great resource.

You should be sending postcards that are optimized to grab the attention of the recipient and not get immediately thrown in the trash. Here’s a hint: a real estate postcard with a meatloaf recipe may get hung on an elderly person’s refrigerator for a bit, but it will not position you as the local area real estate expert. When you become a Lightning Lister Partner Agent, we send out postcards that have been tried and tested for success in many markets throughout the US!

We can’t stress enough that it’s important for agents to use a variety of methods to generate leads and to consistently follow up with potential clients to build relationships and ultimately close more deals. This is why the Lightning Lister method is so effective, and we see agent making well over $100,000 yearly. Dominate your preferred zip code today! Click Here to Sign Up