We created this in-depth guide to help you create Facebook ads that will generate leads for a reasonable price. We’ll help you understand when to hire a pro and offer step-by-step instructions for setting up your first campaign on your own. We’ll talk about costs, and finally, we’ll show you real-world examples of Facebook ads agents and brokerages are using to fill their customer relationship manager (CRM) with leads.

Download Realtor Ad Checklist

How Much Does It Cost to Run Real Estate Facebook Ads?

Luckily, not as much as you might think. In some cases, Facebook advertising can be downright cheap. Usually, you’ll be looking at a low of $4 per lead to a high of $100 per lead.

Of course, how much you pay per lead will depend on how well you can target leads, how good your ads are, and how many other people are targeting the same audience—and what they’re willing to spend per lead. However, if you play your cards right, your price per lead should decrease as you get better at Facebook advertising.

When to Hire the Pros (Done-for-You Facebook Advertising)

Of course, like everything worthwhile, Facebook advertising has a pretty steep learning curve. If you want (or need) leads right away, you can hire a team to run and optimize your ads for you. But should you?

I can’t answer that question for you, but I can recommend a startup called AgentGo. Using artificial intelligence and ad templates from industry leaders, AgentGo helps you create Facebook ads in 5 minutes or less—without the steep learning curve. Best of all, AgentGo starts at just $16 per month and comes with 24/7 chat support and a private Facebook Group.

Visit AgentGo

How to Create Real Estate Facebook Ads: A Step-by-Step Guide

1. Conduct a Personal Brand Audit for Professionalism, Authority & Trust (P.A.T.)

Since Facebook is primarily a visual medium, you must have your branding sorted out before you start spending money on Facebook ads. Ideally, you want to produce ads that get you leads and help project your brand online to stay top of mind with your farm area. Here are a few things you might want to look at before getting started.

Your Mission, Vision & Values (MVV)

Your MVV is the invisible thread that runs through your brand and will be reflected in all of your marketing and advertising, whether you like it or not. We created a helpful resource so check out How to Create an Inspiring Mission, Vision & Values for Your Brokerage to learn more.

Your Logo

Branding your Facebook ads with your logo is a great way to prove your professionalism right away. You can learn more about brand logos and how to create yours by reading The Best & Worst Real Estate Logos [+ Pro Design Tips.

Your Website

Since many Facebook advertising strategies send leads to your website, you’re going to need a high-quality site designed for lead capture. There’s no need to repeat ourselves here. We’ve got a couple of useful guides to help you with that, too.

Check out The 5 Best Real Estate Lead Generation Websites and How to Build an IDX Real Estate Website: The Ultimate Guide to get your IDX-enabled real estate website up and running.

Your Headshot

Having a great headshot can help you convert more clicks to leads. After all, people are far more likely to give their contact information to someone who looks trustworthy! You can read Real Estate Agent Headshots: 15 Industry Experts Share Their Best Advice to learn how to get your profile pic up to industry standard.

2. Decide Which Types of Leads You Want to Generate

Since Facebook lets you target buyers and sellers, you should have a rough idea of what kinds of leads you want to get before starting. Try to come up with numbers, if possible. How many more buyer or seller leads do you need to hit your financial targets?

Buyer leads are often much easier to generate with Facebook ads.

3. Calculate Your Maximum Cost per Lead

Once you’ve figured out how many more leads you want to generate, you need to sit down and figure out how much you’re willing to pay for each lead. An easy way to calculate this is to figure out your gross commission from deals you close from Facebook leads, then divide that by the number of leads you generate on Facebook.

For example, let’s say you typically sell homes worth $500,000 and have a standard split. That means you gross around $6,250 per deal. Now, let’s say you convert 5% of the leads you talk to into clients and close 40% of them. So out of 100 cold leads, that leaves you with five clients, and you close two of them. That gives you a gross commission from Facebook leads of $12,500.

That means if you spend $125 per lead, you’ll just break even. If you spend $100 per lead, on the other hand, you’re looking at a profit of $2,500. If you spend $50 per lead, you’d get a profit of $7,500.

4. Set Up a Facebook Business Page

The next thing you’ll need to start running real estate Facebook ads is a Facebook Business Page. If you don’t already have one set up, click here to get started. Enter your page name, then choose “estate agent” as your category, and write a description for your business page. When you’re done, click “create page.”

Next, add your profile photo and cover photo, then click “save.”

[Related article: How to Set Up a Real Estate Agent Facebook Page to Get More Leads]

5. Set Up Your First Campaign

After you have your page set up, the next step is to set up your first campaign on Facebook. In the Facebook advertising world, a campaign is the overall objective you set to generate a certain kind of lead. Within that campaign, you will have ad sets made up of the different ads you run as a part of that campaign.

For example, let’s say you want to set up a buyer lead campaign. Under that campaign, you might have one ad set that offers a free first-time homebuyer’s guide and another that provides a list of off-market properties. Within each of those ad sets, you might have different variations of each ad or retargeting ads to show to people who have already visited your website.

To set up a campaign, click on “Ad Center” in the left column. Click to learn more about the Facebook Ads Manager.

To create a campaign, click on the “Create Ad” button.

6. Set the Campaign Objective & Ad Settings

Next, you need to set your campaign objective and name your campaign. Click on “lead generation” and name your campaign something like “Buyer Lead Ads.” Then click “Continue.”

Facebook offers several campaign objectives, including Traffic, Engagement, App Installs, Video Views, and Lead Generation. For this guide, we’re going to create a lead generation ad. Click on “Lead Generation” and then give your new campaign a name. Next, click continue.

Now we will add our ad settings. On the next page, click on the campaign you created. Under “special ad categories,” click on “housing.” Due to fair housing laws, Facebook requires agents to use this category and this category only.

On this page, you can also set up A/B testing for your ads and optimize your budget. Optimizing your budget will spread your spend across multiple ad sets. Since we’re only creating one ad today, we’ll cover ad sets in a later article.

7. Set Your Contact Method & Ad Budget

On the next page, you will set up your ad budget and change more settings. First, you need to choose how you want leads to contact you. You have three options here:

Instant Forms: Your leads will fill out a form to contact you.

Automated Chat: Your leads will chat with your business page to contact you.

Calls: Your leads will call you to contact you. For now, choose Instant Forms.

Next, under “Page,” choose your Facebook Business Page and click to accept Facebook’s terms. After you do that, click on “yes” under “Dynamic Creative.” This will let Facebook optimize elements of your ad to get more leads.

Setting Your Budget

Pricing for Facebook advertising is based on a bidding system. That means that advertisers bid on how much they are willing to spend to reach a specific audience. Luckily, all of this bidding happens automatically. All you need to do is set your maximum daily bid, and Facebook will determine when and how much to bid for your placements.

You can set your daily budget differently for each campaign or each ad set within each campaign. You can also change your budget as you go, but never change your budget once you have an ad set that generates leads at a reasonable price per lead!

To get started, choose a daily budget, and then select a start date and end date for your ad.

8. Targeting: Define & Refine Your Audience

Next, you’ll tell Facebook what audience you want your ads to be shown to. Since Facebook has more than 2.4 billion users, this is a crucial step to making effective Facebook real estate ads. Under the “Audience” section, click on “create new audience.”

Location

While Facebook used to let agents pick a ZIP code for location, they now only allow you to drop a pin and advertise to people within a 15-mile radius. To target your farm area effectively, make sure you drop a pin somewhere near the geographic center of your farm area.

Language

Next, select the common language your audience speaks. If you’re targeting a bilingual audience, you can choose more than one language.

Demographics & Interests

Here’s where Facebook gets interesting but also a little bit challenging. In the past, Facebook would allow agents and brokers to target audiences by income, ZIP code, gender, marital status, and more demographics that indicate someone might buy or sell a home soon. They even had a category called “likely to move,” making targeting dead simple.

Now, because of their new fair housing regulations, Facebook only lets agents target by interest. Don’t worry—you can still pick interests that might indicate someone is likely to make a move soon. You just need to be more creative. Here are a few interests you might want to consider targeting:

• Zillow
• Trulia
• Real estate investing
• First-time buyer
• For sale by owner
• Holiday cottage
• Home equity loan
• Refinancing house
• House hunting
• Housing.com
• Land and houses
• Luxury real estate
• First-time homebuyer grant
• Mortgage loans
• Property finder

You can also look for other clues that your audience is likely to make a significant life change that might include a move. You can choose things like interest in infant supplies and toys, home loans, bridal registries, relocation, or more. Since your options are pretty limited here, it makes more sense to just browse for interests and pick a few that might work. The only caveat is that the more interests you choose, the smaller your audience will be.

Connections

Under connections, you can choose to show ads to people you already have a connection with. That would include people who like your page, responded to an event, or visited your website.

9. Choose Your Placements

Here’s where Facebook allows you to pick where your ads are displayed. You can choose to have your ads shown on Facebook or Instagram, or both. You can also display ads on Facebook’s “Audience Network” of participating apps. For now, choose “automatic placements.”

10. Create Your Lead Forms

Next, you will need to create the lead forms that your leads will fill out to contact you. Scroll down to “Instant Form” and then click on “Create Form” to get started. You can choose which image your lead sees along with your headshot, and also determine which questions you will make them answer to contact you. In general, the fewer questions you ask, the more conversions you will get. You can also choose not to ask any questions and simply set an appointment.

You can skip this step if you already have a website with landing pages and lead capture. If you don’t already have a website, you can learn how to build a WordPress site, or choose a lead website builder below.

[Related article: How to Build an IDX Real Estate Website: The Ultimate Guide]

[Related article: The 6 Best Real Estate Website Builders]

11. Set Optimization & Spending Controls

Now you can set the optimization and spending controls for your ad campaign. First, set a daily budget for your ad spend based on the cost per lead you calculated above. Starting at the high end of your budget will allow Facebook to optimize your ads more quickly. That means you’ll start getting good leads faster. Also, the more ad placements you have, the higher the likelihood that someone will click on your ads.

For a traffic ad, you’ll want to set the optimization to “Landing page views” as your goal is to drive traffic to your website. For a lead generation campaign, your goal will be to get someone to enter their contact information, so Facebook will automatically choose “leads” for optimization.

Now that you have a campaign set up, an objective, targeting, placement, and spending controls, Facebook will tell you your potential for daily reach and link clicks. Make sure your audience is large enough, and you have an opportunity to get the number of leads you decided on in the third step. If everything looks good, move on to the next step. If not, you can tweak your settings to try to widen your audience.

12. Choose an Ad Format

OK, now you’re ready for the fun part. Here you get to choose the copy and creative for your Facebook ad. Before you get started, you need to choose between the three options Facebook offers for traffic ads:

Carousel Ads

Carousel ads are ads that feature several images or videos that your audience can scroll through. For example, you might have four open houses lined up for this weekend and include a picture or video walk-through of each in your carousel. That means your audience can view multiple listing photos through one ad.

Single Image or Video Ads

A single image or video is just that. Instead of having multiple photos for your audience to scroll through, you only have one image or video to grab their attention.

Collection Ads

Collections are mostly designed for ecommerce companies. They feature a video and then a selection of products below that video. For example, you might see a collection of boots if you’ve been shopping for boots recently.

When it comes to the actual ad you’re going to run, you need to plan everything before you start writing copy and designing the ad. How are you going to entice someone on Facebook to stop scrolling and click on your ad? To get you started, read on for a few examples of effective Facebook ad strategies and how to build them.

13. Create Your Lead Magnet, Write Copy & Design Your Ad

Now that you know what kind of ad you’d like to create, the next step is to create it. Generally, if you’re offering a piece of content as a lead magnet, it makes sense to write and design that first.

Next, it’s time to get started creating your ad. You need to choose imagery, design your layout, and write the copy for your ad. If you’re using a video ad, then you’re going to have to shoot your video. Here are a few quick rules for creating engaging Facebook ads.

Always Put Yourself in Your Leads’ Shoes & Ask WIIFM?

When it comes to writing copy and getting creative with imagery, design, and video, it can be very easy to lose track of your main goal. In every ad, your main goal is always to convince your audience to take a certain action. To make sure you’re putting them first, once you’ve created your ad, pretend you’re a part of your audience and ask yourself What’s In It for Me?  Why should I click on your ad? Pretty graphic design or clever language often won’t cut it.

Try Using Emojis in Your Copy

Remember, your job is to make people pause, read your ad, then click on it. Emojis can increase the click-through rate of ads because they look more like the text that their friends are posting on Facebook.

Use Images of Homes, but Also Consider Using People

While at the end of the day you’re trying to get someone to purchase or sell a home with you, pictures of homes can sometimes cause people’s eyes to glaze over and tune out your ad. Images of people, on the other hand, are harder to resist looking at.

14. Design Your Landing Page & Set Up Retargeting

Even if you have a killer Facebook ad, you can end up with no leads at all if you’re not careful about designing your landing page. A landing page is just a page on your website that your leads will “land” on after clicking on your ad. Your landing page might just ask them for contact information, or it might be a specific page on your site that has IDX listings in their price range. Or, if you build a lead ad with lead generation as a campaign objective, your landing page will be on Facebook.

Whatever you decide, just make sure to take the time to design a landing page that encourages people to leave their contact information. Landing page design can get complicated, so check out our in-depth guide to real estate landing pages below before you get started.

[Related article: 5 Clever Real Estate Landing Pages That Convert Like Crazy]

Retargeting is when you take the people who have already visited your website and advertise to them only on Facebook. This can be a powerful way to generate leads, as many people won’t click on an ad until they see it several times. It’s also a great way to stay top of mind with leads until they’re ready to call you.

7 Examples of High-converting Real Estate Facebook Ads

1. Listing Sneak Peek Facebook Ad

Here’s a classic example of a new listing ad with great, eye-catching design, beautiful imagery, and short, to-the-point copy that emphasizes the positive aspects of the home and builds fear of missing out by highlighting the word FAST. Note how the emojis draw you in to read the copy. Also, this is yet another reason why having a great headshot is crucial to real estate marketing.

2. Home Valuation Facebook Ad

This home valuation ad comes right to the point and has an attractive and professional layout to convince homeowners of their trustworthiness. Note the subtle difference in the copy. They’re not asking “What’s your home worth?”—they’re asking “What’s your home REALLY worth?” This reminds readers that many home valuation sources like Zillow’s Zestimate are far from accurate.

3. Simple Listing Facebook Ad

Here’s another excellent listing ad that relies on a great picture of a highly photogenic home to draw people in.

4. Video Listing Facebook Ad

Here’s a video ad that starts with lush drone videos that people can’t resist these days. The video is a personal story of a San Francisco resident who epitomizes the city’s unique charm. You don’t always have to just advertise a home. You can even promote an entire town and associate it with your brand.

5. Video Listing Facebook Ad

This Warburg video Facebook ad starts with a professionally shot video walk-through of a luxury Upper East Side apartment. Even if you’re not looking for an apartment like this, you probably can’t help but click.

6. Simple Listing Facebook Ad

This branding ad from Brown Harris Stevens shows off a stunning estate and encourages people to visit their Instagram account to look at more gorgeous listings and keep the Brown Harris Stevens brand top of mind.

7. Agent Branding Video Facebook Ad

Here’s a classic branding ad that has a fantastic video introducing the agent. The brightly colored background stands out and makes leads pause over this ad.

Over to You

Are you a realtor who is crushing it with real estate Facebook ads? Or, are you just thinking of getting started but need some more pointers? Let us know in the comments below, or join our Facebook Mastermind Group here.

The post How to Create Real Estate Facebook Ads That Actually Generate Leads appeared first on The Close.

In this article, we’ll discuss why you need landing pages, the essential elements of a great real estate landing page, and look at five landing page examples from top producing agents around the country. We’ll also share our recommendations for landing page providers that can help you convert more of your website traffic into leads.

Why Your Website Homepage Isn’t Enough: You Need Real Estate Landing Pages

Studies show that the typical first-time real estate website visitor will visit only two pages of your site—and they won’t stay for longer than a minute or two. Since attention spans are so short and the window to convert a visitor into a lead is so small, you need to be sending them to pages designed expressly for conversion.

The joy and excitement of fantastic Facebook or Google analytics reports for the ads you’re running will be completely dashed when you click over to your customer relationship manager (CRM) to see that not a single one of your visitors converted. Don’t send your leads to your website homepage—you need real estate landing pages instead.

The Close Recommendations: Our Top Picks for Real Estate Landing Page Providers

Want to learn more about some of these providers? We’ve done the hard work for you. Read our review and video walk-through of the Real Geeks, BoldLeads, and Placester platforms to help you choose which one works best for you.

5 Live Real Estate Landing Page Examples

Now that we know why landing pages are important and some options for getting one set up, let’s take a look at some real estate landing page examples from actual agents and brokerages that are out there converting prospects into leads.

For the full experience, click the link to visit the page for yourself.

1. Home Valuation Landing Page

Redfin, USA

Our first real estate landing page example comes from Redfin’s Home Valuation landing page, where property owners obtain an estimate on their home’s value at no cost! Actually, that isn’t true—there is a cost. Site visitors must share their contact information, and doing so lets Redfin know that they’re at least considering the idea of selling their home—knowledge that is very valuable.

This page offers an instant valuation, meaning, when someone types in their information, they get an instant result. When it comes to home valuation pages, there is another approach—the delayed valuation, where a visitor types in their information, you get notified, and then create a custom comparative market analysis (CMA) just for them.

Maximizing Your Return From a Home Valuation Landing Page

Providing a visitor with an instant home valuation is a strong conversion strategy. However, instant valuations are based on algorithms like the one used for Zillow’s Zestimate, and aren’t always reliable.

A delayed valuation landing page allows you to put your eyes on a property’s data before confirming an estimated value for your visitor, ensuring a higher level of accuracy and detail but converting at a slightly lower rate.

Experiment with both and see which delivers the best value for your time and money.

2. Property Search Landing Page

William Fastow, Sotheby’s International Realty, Washington, D.C.

The following real estate landing page example comes from William Fastow, a top performer in the DC area.

On the Property Search landing page, prospective buyers can search for available properties on the market and set up custom alerts for the homes they’re looking for. The cost to access these tools? Contact info.

Maximizing Your Return From a Property Search Landing Page

Prospective buyers will be much more likely to exchange their contact information for inside information or exclusive listings. Fastow does this by offering visitors a chance to “see listings before anyone else!”

When putting together your landing page, consider what is most valuable to your visitors, then offer it to them in exchange for their contact information.

3. Real Estate Farm Landing Page

Vintage Oaks, New Braunfels, Texas

Real estate agents marketing entire planned communities or using a real estate farming strategy need to have resources that can attract buyers to an entire region, not just specific properties. This landing page from Vintage Oaks, a builder-developed real estate community in Texas, offers a free e-book to anyone thinking about a purchase in exchange for contact information.

Maximizing Your Return From a Real Estate Farm Landing Page

Real estate transactions are complicated, especially on the buy side. Buyers need to think about the property itself, financing, inspections, appraisal, and more. Offering a resource that hits all those pain points is a great way to start a client relationship (good for you), as well as highlight you as a trusted adviser through a challenging process (great for your clients).

When putting together your real estate landing pages, think about more than just a single pain point. What can you provide the buyers in your market that will help them through the real estate process as a whole?

4. Community Guide Landing Page

Holly Williams, RE/MAX Gateway, Alexandria VA

As a realtor, you’re a community expert. You know every street, every city park, every hip-and-happening coffee shop, and every grocery store. You use these things to promote the listings in your community. Leverage your community expertise like Holly Williams of Alexandria, VA, does by offering exclusive advice on events, insider info on neighborhoods, and suggestions on how to get the most out of what your market has to offer.

Maximizing Your Return From a Community Guide Landing Page

By creating ads for particular communities, you capture the attention of both those who want to live there and those who already live there, making you a local expert for both buyer and seller leads.

Market your landing pages directly to potential buyers through paid advertising, and use them as evidence of your expertise in your listing appointments.

5. Exclusive Homeowner Content Landing Page

Doug Willis, Up2Date Real Estate, Pasadena, CA

Offering content in exchange for contact information is a tried-and-true approach to real estate lead generation, as we see Doug Willis of Pasadena, CA, doing here.

The decision to sell a home often occurs weeks and sometimes months before a homeowner decides to contact a realtor. By offering content designed exclusively for this situation, you can make contact early and begin that nurturing process before any of your competitors has a chance to get involved.

Maximizing Your Return From an Exclusive Homeowner Content Landing Page

Customize your landing pages and lead magnets to your target prospects. Your lead generation strategy will be more effective if your offering speaks directly to their personal profile, goals, or needs.

For instance, if an e-book is titled “6 Projects to Complete Before Listing Your Home for Sale in Oregon,” you will likely get some conversion. But, if you titled it “6 Projects to Complete Before Listing Your Waterfront Home in Portland, Oregon,” you are likely to get a much higher conversion rate from waterfront homeowners in Portland.

The major takeaway here is that multiple, personalized landing pages are much more effective than a single, homogeneous one. When offering content to your would-be listing clients, make it as personalized as possible.

The 6 Essential Elements of Effective Real Estate Landing Pages

Now that we’ve seen some landing pages out in the wild, let’s take a look at what makes these pages so effective. Landing page providers like Placester have each of these elements baked into their templates. How would you tweak them to resonate with your particular community?

Here are six things your real estate landing page can’t do without:

1. A Strong Headline

Your real estate landing page’s headline is the first (and sometimes only) thing that visitors will read from start to finish, so a clear message that captures attention and is easy to understand is a must. You don’t need to reinvent the wheel here, either.

If your real estate landing page’s purpose is to drive leads for an iBuyer platform, a simple headline like “Get an offer on your home with the press of a button” will do the job perfectly.

2. A Crystal-clear Answer to the Question Being Asked

People visiting your landing page are doing so because they were prompted by a question they wanted an answer to—a question like “How much is my home worth?”

Real estate agents who have their landing page game dialed in know that the most effective landing pages answer these questions and ONLY these questions.

If you’ve got someone who is looking for an answer, don’t provide them with unsolicited information, background noise, or further options that don’t answer the original question.

3. A Fantastic Image

Great landing pages use strong imagery to reinforce (and not distract from) their message. The best landing page images represent the geographic area your prospects are either coming from or wanting to go to.

For instance, a landing page image for a real estate agent working in Manhattan could be the city skyline, the interior of a swanky New York loft, an attractive residential block, or the interior of a neighborhood coffee shop. All of these images capture an aspect of Manhattan living without distracting from the visitor’s directive.

CLOSE INSIDER TIP: Stay away from videos on landing pages. Videos can slow down the load time of a website, especially on a mobile device. According to a study done by Kissmetrics, more than 40% of your prospects will abort their visit to your site if page load time exceeds two seconds. Your cool drone video of your market’s skyline isn’t worth losing 40% of your leads.

4. A Purpose for Every Word on the Real Estate Landing Page

Every single word and punctuation mark on your real estate landing page needs to have a purpose. Remember, your audience’s attention span only allows you seconds to convince a prospect to become a lead.

The best way to go about sharpening your copy is to get others to read your work. Editing, especially by someone with a writing background and an eye for concise copy, is essential to honing your message.

5. An Optimized Lead Capture Form

The most important part of any landing page is the lead capture form, where your visitors give you their personal information. According to a study by WordStream, top-of-the-funnel lead conversions will drop significantly if a landing page has more than four fields to complete. So, stick with only the information you absolutely need.

Our suggestions are: name, email address, and phone number.

Also, take advantage of the messaging your button allows. “Submit” feels clinical and boring, and doesn’t solicit feelings of urgency. Try button messaging like “Sign Me Up” or “Get It Now” to convey a conversational tone.

CLOSE INSIDER TIP: A/B testing is a great way to continually tweak the performance of your landing page’s lead capture forms. Does a red button or a green button do better? How about three forms to fill out vs four? Perform the tests, and take the data to make your landing pages better through ongoing optimization.

6. A Mobile-friendly Experience

Just shy of 90% of Facebook sessions occur on a mobile device, which means that if you’re running ads on Facebook to drive traffic to your landing pages, making sure the mobile experience is a good one is key. Double-check all your landing pages on both desktop and mobile before sending them live.

Your Turn

Have you had success with a real estate lead generation strategy directing prospects to landing pages? Do you have an amazing strategy for converting traffic into clients? Tell us about your experience in the comments below. If you want more advice from pros nationwide on real estate landing pages, make sure to join our free The Close Real Estate Agents Mastermind Group on Facebook.

The post 5 Clever Real Estate Landing Pages That Convert Like Crazy appeared first on The Close.

In this article, I’ll share my highly effective Bad Phone Number Email Campaign. Use it to encourage your “bad leads” to respond with a good phone number and hopefully provide you with an explanation of where they are in their process.

Step 1: Be Quick to Confirm a Bad Phone Number

Fact: 30% of your leads are going to the wrong phone numbers.

Think about it. If ALL agents react by trashing these leads, there is virtually NO competition for them. Are you with me? As a result, these leads are actually highly valuable.

I continue to work multiple sources of leads in the most common customer relationship managers (CRMs) within the real estate industry, and the percentage of bad phone numbers across the board hasn’t changed since I started.

When I train dialing leads, my main focus is on efficiency. Working more leads in less time. Think of every dial being 23 seconds for each lead. That adds up to approximately four rings. If you are not eliminating the bad phone numbers from your call list, how much time are you wasting?

For every 100 dials, 30 will be a bad number. That is approximately 11 minutes of wasted time calling leads that you’ll never reach if you’re not eliminating them from your call lists.

How to Verify Bad Phone Numbers

Your very first dial will be longer than the 23 seconds because you are looking for a few things on that first initial attempt. These are:

1. Does the dialer disconnect? (Attempt a manual call from a phone)
2. Does the dialer ring through and NOT go to a voicemail? (Attempt a manual call)
3. Does a voicemail pick up with the lead’s name as the message?
4. Is it an automated voice message?
5. Is it a landline? (i.e., “You have reached the Smith residence.”)

Taking the extra time with the first dial saves you a tremendous amount of time when dialing through the entire database.

Third-party dialers do not detect most bad phone numbers; it will just continue to ring or simply disconnect immediately. When this happens, have your ISA make a manual dial from an actual phone to verify if it is genuinely a bad number.

Step 2: Separate the Bad Phone Leads

Use your CRM tools to remove bad phone leads from your call list. I have compiled a list of ways to do this, depending on your system.

1. Utilize a tagging system: If you don’t already have a tag, create a “Bad Phone” tag to apply after confirmation and make a note as to why the number is bad.
2. Mark the number as a wrong number: In some CRMs, when a lead revisits their website, the lead is asked to reconfirm their phone number, increasing your chances of getting a good phone number.
3. When building your call filters, remove bad phone leads by eliminating all leads tagged or marked as bad: Doing so will ensure a more efficient dialing experience, and you’ll be reaching out to leads who might just answer their phone.
4. Build an automated bad phone number campaign.

My Highly Effective “Bad Phone Number” Email Campaign

Here it is—the campaign you have been waiting for! Remember, not every lead is going to respond. However, when ONE does, the quality of this lead is valuable because they have agreed to communicate by offering their correct phone number or explaining their situation.

This campaign is only my suggestion—copy it, use it, or tweak it to make it work with your personality. My style is setting my communication apart from other traditional emails. I want to be remembered and stand out for being different.

Notice square brackets in the action areas of the email. Review your CRM’s FAQ section to determine how your database automatically adds these fields to personalize or customize emails for mass action.

SEND IMMEDIATELY

copy to clipboard

Subject: Oops—I think we got something wrong!

Hello [First Name],

Is [CELLPHONE] your correct number?

We want to make sure we are sending suitable properties for you to review.

[Agent First Name] [Agent Last Name]

[Website]

DAY 1

copy to clipboard

Subject: Where is your favorite location?

Hello [First Name],

I am just checking in one more time. Is [CELLPHONE] your correct number?

We still wanted to make sure of your property search and the area you are looking in. Do you have plans to purchase a property?

[Agent First Name] [Agent Last Name]

[Website]

DAY 3

copy to clipboard

Subject: Just wondering…?

Hello [First Name],

I’m just wondering what your situation is, and when you might be interested in looking at homes?

[Agent First Name] [Agent Last Name]

[Website]

DAY 7

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Subject: We keep missing you!

Hello [First Name],

We/I don’t want to be a pain. We are just trying to get in touch with you, so we know what your situation is.

Call or text us AT [AGENT CELLPHONE]. We/I just want to be a helpful resource. When would you like to make a move? Next month? Next year?

Are we sending you the right properties?

[Agent First Name] [Agent Last Name]

[Website]

DAY 11

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Subject: Another quick check-in

Hello [First Name],

You may just be looking, and that is great. We just want to make sure we are sending you properties that appeal to you.

Happy to have a conversation. Is your phone number [CELLPHONE]?

It is important to us that while you are just looking, we are sending the proper information.

Have a great day!

[Agent First Name] [Agent Last Name]

[Website]

Day 16

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Subject: Still viewing homes in [FAVORITE CITY]?

Hello [First Name],

This might be a stretch, and I may be sticking my neck out, but are you ready to look at homes? Looking forward to hearing from you!

Are you still viewing homes in [FAVORITE CITY]?

Have you checked out our Facebook page yet?

[Agent First Name] [Agent Last Name]

[Website]

Have fun with this! This sequence reflects how you may want to set up your email campaign, beginning with the first outreach, and followed by five more emails sent over the course of 16 days.

Step 3: Review the Bad Phone Lead’s Activity

I have to laugh when I hear agents complaining about THAT ONE LEAD who is always looking at properties but who never seems to reply.

It’s OK, really. You are offering a service to help them look at homes on the market. This is nothing more than a restaurant offering their menu online. Do you think restaurant owners get upset when you view their menu and go somewhere else to eat?

Action tip: What home did they last view? Send them an email with the listing included in the email and say:

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Hello [First Name],

I saw this home on the market, and based on your criteria, I thought you might be interested in this one. If you are interested in seeing it, I can schedule a tour at your convenience. What do you think?

[Agent First Name] [Agent Last Name]
[Website]

Step 4: Be Consistent

Like fine wine, it becomes more valuable over time. So do your leads. Being consistent with communication is the key to increasing communication. Simply activating the email campaign and forgetting about your lead is not going to get the job done.

I like to know what is going on in my database. If you rely on campaigns, you aren’t paying close attention to your leads. You should have a filter to log in to your database and quickly access the bad phone leads.

If your CRM allows, sort by most recently active leads. You can see who has been viewing homes most recently—this is the easiest and best way to communicate and have control over responding. So, let’s take it a step further.

Action tip: You now have a list of the most recent active leads. Now sort your list by those who haven’t received an email from you recently. Your filter should consist of: bad phone, most recently active, last recently emailed.

Send a Mass Email

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Hey [First Name],

I see you have been looking at some great homes. When would you like to schedule a tour?

[Agent First Name] [Agent Last Name]

[Website]

The idea of a quick, easy, single question is to get them to raise their hand. The more often you do this, the more often you are positioning yourself to get lucky. It is all about the timing and catching leads when they are ready. You have no idea of their time frame, and it is a numbers game.

If you never do it, you have zero chance of making contact. It literally takes minutes and costs you nothing. What is the harm in making this a process that you build into your system on a weekly basis?

Over to You

The funny thing is, we often think we have a great lead when we have a good phone number—but in reality, how many “good leads” fail to answer the phone? Pursue the “bad leads” with my email campaign. If you would like help organizing your CRM, setting up basic systems for your own ISAs, and my ISA scripts, you can download it all here.

Have a great tip for working with bad phone leads? Having trouble with bad phone leads? Let me know in the comments or call me for a private coaching session.

The post How to Convert Leads With Bad Phone Numbers (+ Email Scripts) appeared first on The Close.

]]> https://theclose.com/convert-leads-bad-phone-numbers/feed/ 2 https://theclose.com/nurture-real-estate-leads/ https://theclose.com/nurture-real-estate-leads/#comments Fri, 05 Feb 2021 14:39:44 +0000 https://theclose.com/?p=14618 What if I told you there is a way to minimize these common objections and never get hung up on again?

The post How to Build Rapport With Inbound Leads, Quickly [+ Scripts] appeared first on The Close.

]]> If you’re a cold caller like me, how many times in the past year have you been hung up on? How many times have you heard “How did you get my number?” or “Why are you calling me?” If you’re relatively new, getting hung up on or dealing with objections like these might have made you throw in the towel on cold calling.

What if I told you there is a way to minimize these common objections and never get hung up on again? Full disclosure, you will still get hung up on … obviously, this isn’t magic. However, my team has used these simple scripts for years to deflect the objections that lead to the most hang-ups. The key is to use them before the objections even come up.

Download Beverly’s Scripts

Of course, different leads require slightly different strategies, so I organized the scripts by lead source. Remember to let me know what you think at the end of the article, and happy cold calling!

1. Building Rapport Quickly With Zillow Leads

Love them or hate them, Zillow dominates our industry. Anyone who has even thoughts about buying a home has probably registered on Zillow, most likely early on in their search. Most of them are looking for something specific and very likely just want to talk with the listing agent. Did you know that the average registered lead has the potential of getting up to three phone calls almost immediately?

This is why the most repeated term in the real estate industry, “speed to lead,” is so profoundly important for Zillow leads. The lead’s information goes to the listing agent, to the Premier Agent who pays for the lead, and Zillow Concierge. No wonder Zillow leads are pissed off when we call, right?

So how do you break through and come away with a win? It is surprisingly simple. You just need to identify with the lead’s problem and be prepared for the two most common objections they will have: “I’m not really looking” and “I only want to work with the listing agent.”

Here’s a quick example script for your opening line to get as much info as possible without even talking about the home they registered for. The objection here is “I’m not really looking.”

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Agent: Hey [first name]?

Lead: Yes?

Agent: I see you were on Zillow and requested information about 123 Main Street. What was it about that home that interested you?

Lead: It was near my mother’s home and in the perfect location.

Agent: Oh great, while I am looking for more information on the home, let me ask. How long have you been looking?

Lead: We were not really looking, I just saw this home and was thinking about it if it worked out.

Agent: Great, so do you rent or own currently?

Lead: Rent.

Agent: Are you in a lease term or month to month?

Lead: Month to month.

Agent: So if you found the perfect home, you could move at any time? Let me ask you, what would have to happen to make a move possible?

Don’t make the mistake most agents make and say “that home is already under contract.” If you do that, they will have no reason to continue the conversation with you. Instead, practice the script I just gave you and dig into their situation. In order to empathize and build rapport quickly, you need to understand their situation.

Here’s a script to handle the “I want to work with the listing agent” objection. This one is a quick conversation ender for many agents. If they get hung up on, it’s usually going to come after this objection.

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Agent: Hey [first name]?

Lead: Yes?

Agent: I see you were on Zillow and requested information about 123 Main Street. What was it about that home that interested you?

Lead: Are you the listing agent?

Agent: No, I am not. Why is that important to you?

Lead: They know more about the house and I can get a better deal working with them directly.

Agent: I totally understand what you are saying. Just a quick question. Do you know that the agent was hired by the seller to make them the most amount of money? And that is a conflict of interest for them to save you the most amount of money and protect you from anything that does not require them to disclose?

Of course, this is not how the conversation ends. You will probably get one of two responses to this question:

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Option 1:

Lead: Yes, that is fine, I have bought before. I don’t need an agent, I can do this myself.

Agent: So if you were going through a divorce, you would be OK using the same attorney?

Option 2:

Lead: Oh, I knew something of that but didn’t realize this, no.

Agent: Well, it’s my job to not only save you the most amount of money, but to protect your future investment. What is it exactly about this home that you wanted to know?

Note: Zillow Leads Require Multiple Call Attempts

The dirty secret to success in real estate is that you just have to be a little bit better than your competition. Scripts help, but if you have trouble getting people on the phone in the first place, you’re sunk.

So when the speed-to-lead approach doesn’t work, meaning they don’t answer the phone on that first attempt, try and try again. Staying consistent with multiple call attempts is crucial to converting Zillow leads to customers.

The rule I train my inside sales agents (ISAs) to follow is a minimum of six to eight call attempts within two weeks. This is how you beat your competition because with this consistency you increase your chances of having a conversation. Meanwhile, the other agent lost because of the lack of attempts. They tried once, maybe twice, and then they gave up. Always remember that real estate is a numbers game!

If you’re looking for a smart ISA solution, check out REALQuaified. REALQualified’s team of highly-trained ISAs will follow up with your leads on your schedule.

Visit REALQualified

2. Building Rapport Quickly With Google PPC Leads

Leads from Google Ads are among the most common leads generated in the industry. I like to think of these leads much like they are walking into a store and the sales clerk asks, “Is there anything I can help you with today?” Like most of us in a store, they usually say something like, “No thanks, I am good” OR “I am just looking, thank you.”

Yet many agents get mad with leads who respond similarly. Why? That philosophy of speed to lead in my opinion isn’t relevant with Google or any pay-per-click (PPC) lead. These leads aren’t ready to be pounced on like a Zillow lead. That means your strategy to build rapport with Google PPC leads should be a little different.

As long as there is a call attempt within 12 hours, depending upon what time they register, that should be enough. Remember what I said about the Zillow leads and the amount of phone calls they get? These leads have their defenses up and are on high alert because more than likely, they didn’t just start and stop with your website. They probably registered on a few websites and probably registered on Zillow too. There is a large chance you are not the only phone call they are receiving. That means being too aggressive can result in a straight-up phone block.

In my personal experience with calling these leads, most are genuinely just looking. Who doesn’t like to look at homes? Your main goal calling them is to simply find out where they are in the process. Sure, the appointment is the ultimate goal, but you are more likely to get results from them long term with proper nurturing. So don’t get too aggressive. Save that for Zillow leads.

The way these leads usually find you is by literally typing “homes for sale in [city]” into Google and clicking on whatever comes up. Unfortunately, that means they might register on more than one website.

When I am training agents I always tell them, “He who has the conversation wins!” Keeping that in mind calling these leads and knowing they are “just looking” in several of your competitors’ databases is key.

Now that you understand where they are coming from, it makes talking to them so much easier. Here’s a quick opening script as an example:

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Agent: Hey [first name]?

Lead: Yes?

Agent: I saw you were online looking at homes in [city] and wondered what your future plans are, or what you may be looking for.

The reason this opening line works so well is that it’s a laid-back approach. This helps drop their defenses of not wanting to be sold to. It’s quick and to the point. It also leaves less room for an immediate objection because you are directly identifying the fact they were searching online for homes … which they were! This is the first phase of breaking through with Google leads, dropping their defenses, and building rapport.

3. Building Rapport Quickly With Realtor.com Leads (& Others)

These leads can be in a variety of situations. Just looking, wanting more information on a specific property, or wanting to see a home—and don’t forget those strange people who say, “I wasn’t looking for homes online!!” Yeah, right! Then how did I get your phone number?

Just like Google PPC leads, always frame your opening question with how they were routed into your database. Here’s a good example script for your opening line:

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Agent: Hey [first name]?

Lead: Yes?

Agent: I saw you were on [Realtor.com / Trulia / and so forth] looking at homes in [city] and wondered what your future plans are, or what you may be looking for.

Don’t worry about putting much focus on the name of your website or the company you work for. Most leads will remember registering on at least one website, but might not remember every site they registered with. These leads have been web surfing in so many places so they probably don’t remember the exact sites they registered or didn’t register for. Instead, what really matters are the questions you ask finding out where they are in the process to gain a sense of urgency.

Finding the lead’s intention, urgency, and current situation is paramount to converting these leads into customers as well as building your pipeline of future business.

4. Building Rapport Quickly With Facebook Leads

Facebook ad leads—like Zillow leads, we either love them or hate them. When everyone first started with Facebook ads, they were pretty much only advertising listings to make the sellers happy. I know I was.

In fact, with one listing I advertised on Facebook back when Facebook ads were new, the seller shared my post with everyone in their family, extended family, and friends. That meant a ton of inquiries. Of course, most were just curious and wanted to see more photos.

So yes, I got tons of leads from that ad, but they were all over the country with no real plans for moving. That meant a lot of phone calls resulting in nothing but frustration.

It is important to understand your market dynamics and be the solution to the problem your leads have in your market. This tactic is what is going to produce more quality leads.

Here are a few Facebook ad headlines that will actually get you leads and not random people from all over the country:

Get the hottest list of homes in [city] under $____ here Get a list of new construction homes here

Waterfront homes for sale in [your farm area]

Always use headlines that grab attention. Once you choose your audience, you are then targeting to their interests, creating a higher-quality lead. The most important thing to remember with Facebook leads is that they will have a longer turnaround time. Speed to lead is less of an issue for Facebook leads.

Of course, when calling them, you should still always remind them that they were on Facebook and clicked on an ad that indicated they were interested in receiving a list of homes. Just remember to ask what specifically they would be interested in with respect to location.

Here’s a good script for Facebook leads:

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Agent: Hey [first name]?

Lead: Yes?

Agent: I see you were on Facebook and were looking to receive a list of homes [ad specific]. Just wondering what exactly you would be most interested in; is there anything in particular that would interest you more?

Lead: I just want the list of homes. I am not seriously looking yet.

Agent: OK, great, not a problem. I can certainly do that. Let me ask you, what would be the reason for a move if you were to move in the future?

Lead: We have been thinking about downsizing.

Agent: Great, how long have you been in your home?

Lead: 20 years.

Agent: That is wonderful, so you probably have some great equity?

Lead: Yeah, our home is just about paid off. Not sure we want to get into a mortgage.

Agent: If it would be possible to trade homes and little or no mortgage, would you consider moving sooner than later?

Lead: I suppose so.

Agent: Would it be helpful to just look at numbers? No obligation. I can come out and tell you what a buyer would pay for your home in today’s market. Then we have a solid number that will allow us to see what is out there within those numbers and see what happens.

You have just taken a lead that “wasn’t that serious” and by digging a little deeper, were able to turn it around to an appointment. Will this work with every lead? Of course not. However, if you want a chance of converting any leads, you need to always be thinking about solving their problem. The first step is to equip yourself with the right questions to identify their problem. The next step is to propose your solution to that problem. Simple!

5. Building Rapport Quickly With Home Valuation Leads

Using a tool like Real Geeks to create home valuation landing pages? The first lesson I learned with these leads is that they don’t necessarily own the home they are looking to get an evaluation on. Weird, right? Also, quite a few of these leads are more curious about the value of the homes they do own for refinancing purposes and not actually selling.

The best thing about these leads is that you are building an arsenal of potential sellers in your database. I want you to think long term and big picture about these leads. My best advice for new agents is this: You are in the database-gathering industry, whether you know it or not. The biggest value you have in your business is your database. Anyone who tells you differently is lying or not very successful. Contacts = contracts. It’s as simple as that!

Now let’s learn how to have a conversation with these leads.

Option 1:

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Agent: Hello [first name]?

Lead: Yes?

Agent: I saw you were online and were curious about the value of the home on 123 Main Street.

Lead: Yes, I was.

Agent: Did you find what you were looking for?

Lead: Pretty much. I was just talking with my neighbor and we were just discussing our neighborhood and a home that has gone up for sale, and we were wondering what our homes were worth.

Agent: Were you happy with the number?

Lead: Yes, for the most part.

Agent: I just wanted you to know that what you received is very general number and more than likely a pretty broad range. How long have you been in your home?

Lead: 10 years.

Agent: Are you thinking about maybe selling and making a move?

Lead: No, not until our kids graduate school and our youngest is 13, so we have at least five years.

Agent: Just wondering—do you think there would be anything that could happen that would make you move sooner?

Lead: Very doubtful, as our next home will be our last home and will probably be near the water somewhere.

You could also run into the situation that they were looking at the value of a home they were interested in purchasing that may be a FSBO or former childhood home. This is why I always open up with the next option:

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Agent: I saw you were online and were curious about the value of the home on 123 Main Street.

Lead: Yeah, I drove by the home and saw a sign in the yard, but couldn’t find it online.

Agent: What is it about this home that interests you?

Lead: I pass it every day going to work and it is so much closer for me. I have always liked it and was just wondering what is going on with it.

Agent: I can certainly find out for you. Are you looking to make a move closer to work?

Lead: No, I just saw this home and was curious.

Agent: Is there a price range of interest? If there would be something we could make happen for you, would you be interested in exploring or potentially making a move?

Taking conversations this far gives you a great indication of time frame. Remember we can’t make people move—we can only offer suggestions and see if it piques an interest.

Over to You

How do you build rapport quickly on the phone? Have a great tip or script? Let us know in the comments.

The post How to Build Rapport With Inbound Leads, Quickly [+ Scripts] appeared first on The Close.

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