Real Estate Marketing Myths That Cost Rookie Realtors Money

Each Marketing Monday this month, we are dissecting real estate marketing myths that cost new agents money. Last week, we focused on Real Estate Marketing Myth #1: If you build a website, they will come. Today we turn our attention to another common myth that costs new Realtors® money: buying leads.

Real Estate Marketing Myth #2: Buying Leads = Buying Sales

There is more than one way to buy a lead. Professional Realtors® may choose to buy lead lists, website listings, Google AdWords and / or social media. While buying leads can be an effective strategy, it’s important for new Realtors® to understand that buying leads does not necessarily translate into buying sales. There is risk involved, especially when starting out and capital is precious.

Unfortunately, leads don’t come cheap and conversions are often low (think less than 1%) for even the best closers in the business. This brings us to a major point in the discussion: before a new agent spends any money on leads, they must make sure that they know how to close. This may seem like a chicken and egg scenario but there are other options out there to help you become a closer. They may take more work but that just means you have more practice under your belt. Try the dreaded cold calling and foot pounding. If you haven’t perfected your elevator pitch and closing speech, you must practice, practice and practice before gambling on expensive lead-buying.

In addition to knowing how to pitch and close, you must have a solid real estate lead management strategy in place. If you do not have the resources to capture and nurture your leads, lead purchasing can become a fruitless endeavor.

If you do decide to purchase real estate leads, you need to know what you’re paying for and what you’re getting into. When it comes to purchasing leads from website, for example, are you paying for actual leads or impressions? Are there other Realtors® on that page that you will need to compete with? Is there a contract that will lock you in regardless of how many conversions you aren’t getting?

There are a lot of great resources out there. Many highly successful Realtors® have offered some fantastic free advice via video, short articles and blogs about buying real estate leads. The best advice we have heard, however, is to not put all your eggs in one basket. If you blow your entire real estate marketing budget on one lead source, you put yourself in a vulnerable situation. What if your lead source has a traffic drop? A spike in fees and charges? Or policy changes? Make sure that lead purchasing is just one component to your overall real estate marketing strategy.

We hope you found this real estate marketing tip helpful. If you have any questions or comments, please let us know! Make sure to tune in next Monday as we discuss the real estate marketing myth surrounding networking and lead source expectations.