The internet is an invaluable tool for building brand awareness and generating leads for estate agents. When used to its full potential, it can be a way to not only generate leads in the short-term, but to keep them coming in year after year. So if you’re not making the most of it, then it’s high time you did. Here are a few key ways that estate agents can generate leads online, from quick fixes that you can implement immediately and long-term strategies that will keep the new clients rolling in.
A Lightbox
Lightboxes, or pop-ups, are boxes that pop up on your website that ask the user to take an action – usually entering their email to sign up to your mailing list. You may be concerned about annoying your website visitors, but the fact is that they are incredibly effective. Some research suggests that they can increase email sign ups by up to a huge 758%.
Lightboxes are completely customisable in terms of when they appear. If you are worried about putting clients off, you can program the lightbox to appear only after someone has browsed your site for a certain number of seconds or clicked through a certain number of pages. There are plenty of plug-ins that will let you install a lightbox on a WordPress site. Alternatively, get in touch with your web developer who will be able to set it up for you. You may be surprised by how quickly your sign ups increase.
Live Chat
Live chat is an often neglected tool that can generate great results. It works by getting rid of any barriers between your potential client and their first point of contact, making them all the more likely to get in touch. There are plenty of inexpensive options that will only set you back a small amount every month – an investment well worth making.
You can either assign a staff member to deal with live chat throughout the day or you can share the responsibility on a schedule. You can also set office hours so people know not to expect an immediate answer if they message in the evening or on a Sunday.
Call To Action
How many calls to action (CTA) do you currently have on your website? A CTA, simply put, is a prompt for someone to do something like join your mailing list, send a message or follow you on social media. A great place to put a call to action is at the end of blog posts, where you can invite potential clients to get in touch with enquiries or questions about the topic. It’s also a great idea to have some CTAs on your home page.
Don’t forget to add CTAs to the end of your social media posts too. Asking questions in your posts will encourage users to leave a comment, and this engagement can work wonders for helping improve your social media reach.
A Lead Magnet
A lead magnet is something that you offer your website visitors in exchange for their email address. It’s usually something downloadable, like a PDF, video or audio recording, and it something that offers great value to your clients. To come up with your lead magnet, think of what your potential clients would find most helpful. That might be something like a guide to selling a property in your area or how to stage a home for sale.
Once you’ve created your lead magnet, you can set up your email provider to automatically send it to people who sign up for your newsletter. You can take a look in our website footer to see an example of how we have done this.
Email Marketing
Email marketing is a really effective way to generate leads as it is a direct form of communication that’s sent where your potential clients are spending time every day – their inbox. In fact, there’s plenty of research to suggest that it is far more effective than social media, giving you a much better return on investment.
For a more detailed look at why email marketing works and what you should write, take a look at our handy blog posts:
- Why every estate agent should be using email marketing
- Email marketing for estate agents: what should I write about?
Blogging
Content marketing is a fantastic long-term strategy as it not only positions you as an expert in your field but also helps to build up your SEO (search engine optimisation) for relevant keywords, making your business easier to be found on Google. The key when creating a blog is to always keep value in mind, and to give useful, detailed responses to some of your clients’ pain points.
For more information about creating an effective content marketing strategy, you can take a look at the following blog post:
