For a real estate agent, success requires making more sales each year to increase your commission and your revenue. However, since most people don’t buy multiple houses every other year, repeat business can be scarce. Therefore, in order to have a successful real estate agent career, you need to constantly find new leads and turn them into clients. But how? Through a real estate sales funnel.
Basics of Real Estate Sales Funnel
Typically, a sales funnel is the buying process that customers are led through when purchasing products or services from a company’s website. In the real estate industry, a sales funnel is a bit different. For an agent, an online sales funnel is a series of web and landing pages that turn unknown visitors into qualified leads if they chose to contact you or provide their contact information. A real estate sales funnel then helps you nurture these leads into prospects and, lastly, customers.
Building an online sales funnel is essential because it:
- Filters out unqualified leads step-by-step until you end up with the handful of qualified leads that will turn into clients
- Helps you understand what part of your marketing and sales operations is working effectively
- Breaks down the entire sales journey and shows all the stages needed to close real estate deals
- Helps you identify problem areas that need improvement (leaks or clogs)
- Has the potential to drive long-term growth of real estate transactions because it boosts your sales
So, now that you understand the basics of the real estate sales funnel, let’s move into the main purpose of this blog post – how to build one.
Step 1: Create Landing Pages
After having your website developed, develop separate landing pages for each property you have listed. A landing page is basically a web page which your traffic is sent to from a dedicated link (typically from an ad). The purpose of landing pages is to encourage unknown visitors to leave their contact information. Because this is the first impression a potential buyer will have of you and your business, it’s important to design it to match your brand, message, and the buyer’s needs.
A landing page for a property listing should include a photo, the address, and the listing price. Another tip for real estate agents is to create landing pages for each of the properties AND for all the demographics that you want to attract. For example, if you’re targeting young families, then they should be taken to landing pages that feature properties near school districts, health facilities, etc. That way, you ensure that they find what they’re looking for and choose to contact you for more information. Hence, moving forward in the real estate sales funnel.
Looking for a way to attract new clients? Claim your free agent profile at Mashvisor.
Step 2: Set Up Marketing Automation Tools
By creating auto-responders and emails triggered automatically by specific actions on your website, you save time when interacting with and nurturing leads. This is called marketing automation. In this step, think about what you want to happen and give your visitors clear instructions that take them to a landing page and move them through the real estate sales funnel. Some of the best marketing automation tools include:
1. Auto-Responder Emails
These emails are triggered by a certain action in the sales funnel. For example, if a visitor fills out his/her contact information on a landing page, an auto-responder email should respond with a message set up by the real estate agent to establish communication. The most common auto-responders that agents should set up for an online sales funnel are:
- Welcome/Introduction
- Response to Contact
- Preference/Search Criteria
- Follow-Up Request
- After Sale
2. Drip Email Marketing Campaigns
These focus on keeping the real estate lead involved in the buying process by delivering new information which they would find interesting. These include property listings that match their criteria, home buying tips, or seasonal events. A drip email marketing campaign will keep the real estate agent in front of the buyer or seller.
3. SMS Texts
Smartphones give real estate agents the ability to send and receive automated SMS texts which leads to establishing a communication channel with potential buyers and answering their questions quickly. These days, this is a valuable automation tool for a real estate sales funnel. With SMS text messages, you can set up meetings, respond with hours of availability, or send a welcome message to a buyer.
Related: These Are the Tools Successful Real Estate Agents Are Using in 2018
A good CRM like Mashvisor’s allows you to automate your marketing in no time. To get access to our agent dashboard (CRM), schedule a demo.
Step 3: Start Generating Leads
Now that you have separate landing pages and your real estate sales funnel is ready to convert qualified leads with automated marketing tools, it’s time to start filling the funnel with prospects. There are many ways for agents to generate qualified leads; some create and manage their own advertising while others opt to buy real estate leads through online lead generation programs.
If you’re sticking to filling your sales funnel with advertising, using social media is a must in today’s real estate industry to reach prospects and drive traffic to your website. Don’t underestimate the power of platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and even Instagram. Real estate agents cans share updates about their listings, showing request forms, general information requests, or newsletter subscriptions. These are all tried and true methods of generating leads in real estate.
Related: Lead Generation: 4 Exclusive Techniques for a Real Estate Agent
Step 4: Nurture Leads
Once you capture a lead, your work’s not done. No matter how good your real estate sales funnel and lead generation strategies are at filling the pipeline, you have to be ready to step in and make the most of new opportunities. A real estate agent has to connect with his/her leads to understand what kinds of properties they’re interested in purchasing. Here are some points to move leads through the sales funnel and keep them coming back to your site:
- Appointments: Schedule meetings with potential clients to learn more about their preferences and goals. Successful real estate agents believe this is a vital part of nurturing leads through the sales funnel.
- Open Houses: These are ideal to move groups of contacts or leads through the real estate sales funnel because you’ll be exposed to many leads at once.
- Returning Communications: Interact with real estate leads through phone calls, emails, or texts to answer their questions about a property or the local housing market.
Moreover, it’s important for an agent to remember that not everyone who lands in your real estate sales funnel is ready to buy and become a client. Some leads might only be interested in a newsletter or email subscription. Don’t just ignore this group of leads in real estate but, instead, nurture them. Keep them engaged with a mix of relevant content and new listings so by the time they’re ready to move forward, you’ll be on top of their minds.
Step 5: Close the Sale & Refill the Funnel
After you have successfully converted your lead into a client, the final step in the real estate sales funnel is to close the deal, get paid your commission, and refill the funnel to repeat the process. Successful agents know that you need to have a set of people skills to close real estate deals like knowing how to present your buyer to the seller, how to negotiate closing costs, etc.
After closing the deal, it’s time to refill and start again. Experts advise agents to review the results of their advertising and lead generation strategies and look for places to improve their conversions. For example, maybe one of your landing pages needs to be updated to increase flow through traffic. Even if leads already know your brand, fresh materials can make a difference in refilling the real estate sales funnel.
One last tip for this step is to encourage your clients to leave online reviews. This can give credibility to your name and website when trying to refill your online sales funnel. Not only that, but testimonials are great online content and give you a competitive advantage among other real estate agents.
Related: How to Compete with the Top Real Estate Agents in Your Market.
The Bottom Line
Building a real estate sales funnel is one thing every agent in the industry needs to boost his/her career and number of sales. If you’ve mastered the arts of generating leads in real estate, nurturing them, and turning them into clients, then nothing can stop you from becoming one of the best real estate agents in your housing market!
Looking to increase your visibility to real estate investors and homebuyers? Mashvisor provides real estate agents with a certain number of qualified leads per month. You’ll get to check these leads and decide whether or not to proceed and add them to your CRM. To learn more about our lead generation program, schedule a demo.
