Real Estate Lead Conversion 101

This is a sponsored post in collaboration with Agentology. 

Let’s face it. The real estate game has changed. Ten years ago, you would meet potential buyers and sellers, what you called “leads” primarily through friends and family, and floor-time. Remember floor time? I do. When I was starting off as a rookie real estate agent, I would do floor time as much as possible in our highly foot-trafficked street in downtown San Diego. I got some of my earliest clients that way. But then things changed. 

Information now is disseminated like never before. Consumers have all of the MLS data they need at their fingertips, and around the clock. They no longer need to wait for us, the agents, to send them new listings, or price changes. They have it all. I remember sending listings to my buyers that I thought they would like. Now, they send them to us. Home shoppers are searching for properties 24/7 on sites like Zillow and others much earlier in their customer journey. So it’s no wonder agents have shifted their marketing budgets online as well, where they now spend $9 out of every $10 to generate leads. As an industry, we agents spend over $10 Billion per year to capture leads online. 

Agents are in hell because they are now flooded with low quality leads at all hours of the day and night. These are cold, unscrubbed, non-exclusive leads, and the last thing agents want to do is cold call and chase after these “leads.” These online leads, however, are here to stay, and we’re only going to see more and more of them, so it’s important to know the best practices on how to convert these cold leads into real opportunities you can close deals with. 

At Agentology, we have become experts at lead engagement and conversion, helping over 1,000 agents nationwide with over 100,000 leads per month, and growing quickly. Below, I will share some of our secrets and practices that you should all employ in your lead conversion strategy. Agentology can do this all for you as well, with our highly trained in-house ISA team.  

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1. Speed to lead!

• Engage each new lead within 5 minutes, 24/7. If you can’t engage them yourself, make sure you have a system or a service that can do this for you. The chances of converting a lead are 21X greater if you engage a lead within their first 5 minutes.  
• Call them first if it’s during normal business hours. If they don’t answer, send a text right afterwards saying you just tried to reach them, and ask if there is a better time to connect. 

Expert Tip: The “Double Dial” 

If you call the client and you don’t reach them, don’t leave a voicemail.
Instead, call back 1-2 minutes later. This is called the double dial, and it works like a charm.
People see that you’re calling back again and their curiosity spikes
as they consider whether it might be an important call worth taking. 

2. Make 8-10 Attempts Over 5 Days

• If you are unable to reach them in your first attempt, make another 8-10 attempts over the first 5 days to reach them. Use a combination of phone calls, texts and emails so you can try to reach them with their preferred method of contact. 
• You are 68% more likely to convert a lead if you make 8-10 attempts. 

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Hire Agentology and ease the burden of lead response. 

Agentology can do this all for you. Our in-house ISA Team works 24/7 so you never miss an opportunity.
We call, text and email your leads 10 times over 5 days and connect you with hot prospects who are ready to work with you. 

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3. Meet face-to-face 

• If you think speaking to a lead over the phone is enough to win them over, you’re wrong. According to NAR, 72% of buyers and sellers will work with the first agent they meet with face-to-face. When you speak to a lead on the phone, that’s the first step in lead conversion. Next, you need to meet them so you can shake their hand, look them in the eye, and build the loyalty and trust you’ll need to be top of mind when they are ready to buy or sell. 
• Invite the lead to coffee or to your office to meet the rest of your team or look at comps. Invite them to an open house or a buyer seminar you’re holding. 

4. Provide Value 

• Online leads are far earlier in their customer journey than you may hope. They may be 4-6 months out or longer from buying or selling their next home. You must continue to provide value throughout their journey so that you stay top of mind over those many months. You do this by staying in touch, at least 1-2 times per month, and not fully automated. Yes, your website will send them new listings, but do you want to make sure they go see them with you? Then be of value consistently. Provide insights on lower mortgage rates, new tax measurements that may affect them, new developments going up in their areas of interest. If they don’t really want to be pressured by meeting with you to go see homes, then offer to send them a list of open houses being held that weekend that they can go and see on their own. Let them know of new listings you know may come on the market. Continue to provide value, and those leads will turn into transactions, and then some, as they begin to refer you business.