How to improve the quality of real estate leads you’re getting

The person who coined the phrase, “Quality is better than quantity”, may well have been talking about real estate lead generation. After all, there are few other instances where quality is more important.

As a real estate agent, you probably know this by instinct.

Have you ever received a bunch of leads, perhaps from an online lead generation service, and worked them hard — only to end up with most, if not all, going absolutely nowhere? What a waste of time.

To build your business and reach your goals, you need a steady stream of quality real estate leads. In fact, receiving just a handful of high-quality leads will  get you more clients and listings than receiving scores of dead-end leads.

So, what’s the definition of a quality real estate lead?

You may have your own criteria applicable to your business and market, but basically what you want is a lead that:

1. Has a high likelihood of converting.
2. Is a prospect that isn’t also talking to a lot of other agents. (Ideally, he or she is only talking to you.)

If you have just one real estate lead like that each week, imagine the increase in clients and listings you’d land over the next year.

Where do leads like that come from?

The first source is client referrals. On average, homeowners are in a position to recommend an agent to a friend or neighbour two to three times a year. That’s a lot of potential referrals. And there’s no better lead than a real estate referral. Not only is that prospect likely to convert, they’re probably only talking to you and no other agent.

Another source is geographic farming. What farming does is make you well-known and trusted to homeowners in that area. In a sense, you become part of that community. The people their come to know and like you. When a homeowner decides to sell, you’re the agent who’s top-of-mind and likely to get the call.

Like referrals, leads from geographic farming are high-quality. They’re likely to convert and, in most cases, the prospect isn’t “shopping around” for an agent. They want to work with you.

How to do get more high quality leads from these sources?

You need a real estate marketing system. Building loyalty with past clients and a geographic farm community requires you to stay-in-touch regularly, with a combination of marketing tactics, including real estate newsletters.

Get the right system, and you’ll see more and more quality leads coming from these sources.

Sure beats chasing leads that go nowhere!