Estate Agent Marketing – Lead Generation

Optimising your estate agent marketing to get more leads and therefore revenue is what it’s all about. It’s vital to get more property sellers & landlords on your books.

To get new leads, your estate agency’s marketing needs to be effective. Getting in front of leads, developing your brand and using the right promotional channels are key.

But how do you get your agency ‘out there’?  And more importantly, once noticed, how do you ensure you’re managing leads to ensure they become instructions?

Below are 13 easy methods (well, most of them are) to improve your estate agency’s marketing to boost lead generation & conversions.

We’ve grouped our lead generation tips into different buckets: lead generation sites, paid ads, digital marketing, blogs, email campaigns and so on.

1. Lead generation sites – Rentround

And just when you thought this was an informative article, you come across our plug!

We specialise in getting seller & landlord leads for agents. a great supplement to your own estate agency’s marketing efforts. We’re an agent comparison site that sellers & landlords can use to compare agent fees, location and services.

When leads use our platform, they make their contact details available for us to pass on to 1 or 2 agents in their area.

To be included in the seller or landlord comparisons, we charge agents from £49.99 per month (no contract).

20,000+ leads have used our comparison tool since we started 12 month ago.

For a 25% discount on your first month, use code 25LEAD while signing up here.

OK OK, the plug is over… let’s get back to being informative

2. Paid online ads

Paid ads are vital for estate & letting agents. The term “estate agent” is searched appx 110,000 a month on Google and landlord orientated groups on Facebook have 10,000+ users.

Paid ads can be across multiple avenues, including social media, Google and advert placements. Unfortunately each has their own set up requirements (fear not… we’ve created easy to use guides for you!)

Below are some of the best methods estate & letting agents can utilise to get more leads from paid ads and the benefits/pitfalls of the different options.

Google Ads

It can take years to get a good ranking on Google that provides you with a steady (and free) source or seller & landlord leads.

In the meantime, using Google Ads can help estate agency lead generation when users search for relevant key terms.

You can set up your Google Adverts to only show in specific regions, at certain times, to certain audiences  and only show your ads for specific terms being searched for etc.

It can be complex for estate & letting agents to set up their own Google ads. There are many features Google offers that can be customized.

However if you’re not too careful, your agency’s advertising budget can be quickly consumed.

Special focus needs to be placed on bidding strategies, negative keywords, targeted cost per acquisition and a whole load of other jargon based features.

It can get too much for some estate and letting agents, which is why many agents tend to outsource this activity to a Google ads manager. We offer that service at Rentround too. If interested, schedule a call with us

Google Ads can be a powerful ally to letting or estate agent marketing campaigns.  A quick search for letting agents on Google will show you big names like Savills, Howsy & Purplebricks vying for their ads to be shown nationwide.

In addition, with Google searches, there is intent. People are actively searching for an estate or letting agent. Rather than showing your ads to bored folks scrolling through their Facebook feed, Google Ads are shown to people wanting a service.

We covered how estate & letting agents can set up their own Google Ads as part of their digital marketing plans in greater detail. Included in the article are more details about the power of Google ads, the basics of setting them up for your agency and what features to use to maximize conversions.

Facebook ads for your estate agency

Facebook ads are the images that show up as you’re scrolling down your Facebook feed, looking at images of your friends pet or your cousin’s corny status update.

You’ll need to create some images or videos, set your locations, determine your budget, tweak some of the possible settings and then activate your campaigns.

That’s a simple high level view. We created a step by step guide on how estate agents can set up their own Facebook adverts.

Facebook is of course a powerful marketing tool across all industries, not just in the property world.

However marketing campaigns on Facebook can eat up budgets quickly. Many choose to hire Facebook ad managers who will run the campaigns on a company’s behalf. However these managers can be quite costly, ranging from £600-£1,000. This cost needs to be taken into account when judging costs per lead.

The lead quality on Facebook will not be as high as those leads generated through Facebook. Most of the clicks to your ads will be for people just having a nose, as opposed to Google Ad clicks which are based on a user searching for a service.

That being said, cost per click on Facebook are cheaper, so you may get more clicks for a lower budget.

Ads on other property sites

There’s a tonne of property related websites that offer marketing opportunities. You’ll need to find a site that has your target market. If you’re looking for property seller leads, then find popular blog sites that give advice to people looking to sell their property.

Sites that provide guidance on renting regulations may be ideal to pitch to landlords who could become leads.

You’re then going to need to create banners and artwork to feature on chosen sites pages to attract attention.

The cost of this type of marketing varies depending on the website. The more traffic a site gets then higher the charges will be. In addition, some websites charge based on impressions (how many times your ad is viewed) and others charge based on the number of times your ad is clicked.

However with some sites, they include too may banners & sponsor images, diluting your companies promotions. Be careful not to select an option where you’ll get low return because of over advertising.

Use Google to retarget site visitors

Imagine all those sellers & landlords who visited but then left your site, then say your adverts on other sites as they browse the web.

Pretty powerful right?

This is pretty easy to setup, any Google Ad manager worth their salt can do this in a couple of hours. You just create an advert, set up site tracking in Google, then tell Google that you’d like your advert to show on other sites your previous site visitors browse.

As you’ve read this article, most likely in the coming days as you browse on a few sites you’ll see placed adverts on random sites asking you to take up our estate & letting agent leads

Using this tactic you pay per click. Returning visitors are 70% more likely to use your services.

3. Optimise your agency website to improve your marketing

Your estate agency website is your shop window. But gone are the days of just needing a pretty website. You need tools, features & tailored pages to your potential sellers & landlords.

There are some very simple and very complicated features agents can now utilise to get the most out of site visitors.

Create different landing pages for different audiences

Not all your leads want the same thing. Therefore it’s important to ensure your agency’s marketing caters for all needs.

Some property sellers may be looking for a quick sale, while others may not need to sell quickly in exchange for a lower estate agent fee.

Some landlords may be looking for guaranteed rent services, while other landlords might just want you to help them find a tenant.

Your site should include different pages that cater to different services.

You may have one page shouting about your guaranteed rent services are the best in the city. Then another catered towards how your agency is the best at selling property quickly.

Once you have these pages, what do you do with them?

If you’ve created content about how guaranteed rent is now more popular, in that article you’d link to your guaranteed rent webpage.

If you’re advertising your quick sell services, you’d want your audience to be directed to your page that talks about how good you are at selling homes quickly.

Many estate and letting agents don’t bother with creating specific landline pages and miss out on conversions, its a major issue that hampers their marketing.

By directing traffic to specific pages, based upon the source/content they arrive from, helps keep sellers and landlords engaged, thus improving your estate agency marketing.

A few examples of how we direct our leads to certain pages are below.

In this scenario, we created 2 adverts. 1 advertising the ability to compare letting agent fees in general, then the other targeted at just comparing fees for finding tenants.

Our landing pages are catered towards the users exact search. Those looking for ‘letting agent fees’ in general will see that key term on the landing page, while those seeking tenant find services will see that term on their landing page.

Using landing pages specific to the landlords requirements, improved our conversion rates by 17%.

Not just a pretty site – a key digital marketing tool

It’s all good having a well designed website. But your website should be designed to capture leads and not just look good. Your estate agency’s marketing will fall apart if your site isn’t up to scratch.

This doesn’t just apply to online agents seeking sign ups through their site, it applies to all agents.

Similar to point 1, your site shouldn’t be just one way. You want property sellers and landlords to engage with your site, ideally leaving their contact details.

Ensure ‘get in touch’ forms, valuation tools and your agency contact details are clearly visible. These aspects are key to allowing sellers and landlords to continue further dialogue with your estate or letting agency.

To enhance your website’s role in your estate agencies marketing, integrate web tools to give you greater insights to landlord & property seller behaviour on your site.

You can integrate tools like Google Analytics, Search Console, Tag Manager, Heat Map, etc, to check the performance of your website.

These tools will tell you:

• Which pages of your site are most visited
• How long sellers and landlords stay on your pages
• What sections are most read
• Where you should place key conversion tools

Live chat to engage sellers & landlords

According to studies, 42% of customers prefer to live chat for their customer support questions, while 73% of website visitors and customers who take part in a chat are happy with the results.

Live chat, via a small icon on your webpage, can give leads quick access to someone from your agency.

You don’t have to have your agents manning the screens all day awaiting questions. Most live chat tools alert you or your team via a phone notification or email, giving you the chance to respond on the move.

Most live chat applications charge a monthly fee, somewhere between £30-£80.

Some even offer the feature of sophisticated automated responses, based on keywords the lead may have included in their question. For example, a lead asking “What are your letting agent fees?” may trigger a response to provide the link to your keys page, due to the words ‘agent fees’

Avoid one way chats with leads

No doubt your agency will be getting a number of enquiries of leads wanting to know more about services & fees.

Sales teams in their responses will be relying on links to certain webpages, pre-made written material and video links.

This risk is that the property seller or landlords may have a tonne of follow up questions that can get tedious for both sides over email and therefore momentum is lost.

Include easy ways to schedule follow up conversations such as call scheduling tools, that allow leads to pick a time for further discussion on your agency’s offerings.

Scheduling forms are easy to integrate onto most sites and cost as little as £10 a month.

Boast about your regulatory affiliations

Estate & letting agents can’t operate without certain regulatory affiliations in place, such as a deposit protection scheme.

However that still doesn’t prevent some rogue agents operating in the market. Many of these types of agents have risky processes in place, low customer service levels and gaps in their safety measures.

Portraying to lead what regulatory bodies you’re associated with is a key feature that can add value to your estate agency marketing strategy.

Leads will be far more willing to partner with an agency that is certified with the best regulatory bodies.

Similarly to showing the property portal logos, many estate agents show on their website which regulatory bodies they are registered with.

Questionnaires and quizzes for leads

When visitors come to your website, they want to leave with more knowledge than they had before.

What better way to teach your potential clients a thing or two about the property market and their needs than by offering a fun and interactive quiz? The best part is, most people surfing the internet are drawn to any type of quiz — regardless of how realistic or silly it is.

Check out a Foxtons example below. Their quiz talks about duties of a landlord. The quiz ends up with “contact us now” page for landlords to be able to quickly ask about area’s they got wrong on the quiz and what may end up landing them in hot water.

While most online quizzes are meant to be fun, they can also double as useful tools that direct visitors to specific products and services on your page.

Asking clients to fill out a short questionnaire that combines serious and silly questions is a great way to collect important data.

Plus, most visitors will be eager to hand over their information if it means getting their quiz results!

4. Blogging to bring your agency marketing to life

Hopefully on your site you’re already blogging about various property related topics.

In our previous article we talked about how blogging can help get your estate or letting agency ranked highly on Google. 

But blogging while helping your search rankings, also attracts leads and nurtures them towards your agency.

Content marketing for your estate or letting agency doesn’t always need to be written blogs. PDFs, infographics and video content are other ways of engaging leads.

A good tip for your estate agency marketing when using content pieces, is to ensure you have social media share buttons. A few likes & shares here and there can help articles go viral or get featured on other news outlets.

Blog your heart out

We’ve all heard that it’s a good idea to create a blog, but why? This could be an entire blog in itself, but let’s summarise.

Google loooovvvess content.

One of the best ways to get ranked high on Google searches is through content on your website. The more quality content you have, talking about the things you want to rank for, the better.

Google will look at your content and judge whether or not to place you higher on certain terms.

Of course you need to be blogging about the right things. Talking about what you did on the weekend won’t be exactly attractive for sellers & landlords.

But talking about rental yields, prices & property news in your local area will certainly be a good option.

You get friends

Writing quality blog posts will hopefully get noticed by others, especially website owners. I posted about rental yields being impacted by the Covid lockdowns (it was quite a boring article to be fair), but it got noticed by the Sun, Daily Mirror and the Telegraph

I’m not telling you this to blow my own trumpet.

The reason why this is such a big deal, apart from me being able to brag about it, was that these big outlets linked to Rentround from their own sites.

A link is a vote of confidence that your site is legit and know what it’s talking about. The more votes you have from the bigger outlets, the better Google places you in rankings.

Likes & shares

I could moan all day about how large parts of society has been brainwashed into becoming zombies that thrive on likes & shares. Or how we’ve lost the sense of personal connections and instead we rely on…. Actually this isn’t the right place!

But anyway, people like to like & share good quality content.

If your property related blog gets a like or share, it can cause a domino effect. A landlord on Facebook or LinkedIn will likely have other landlords as connections. A share can be shared by someone else and so on. Before you know it, you’ve got thousands of views and a tonne of new leads to chase up.

Blogs get you leads

Like a fly to s**t, actually that’s not very nice. Like a bear to honey you’ve now got sellers & landlords reading your blog.

As they read, it’s the perfect time to throw up a pop up saying “hey landlord, interested in us letting your property for a small fee? Give us your phone number & email address”.

Capturing details from your readers gives you a great chance for further conversations and hopefully more properties on your books.

Guest posting to create an online presence

Submitting guest posts to websites that attract a lot of property sellers and landlords is an excellent digital marketing tool to get leads.

Topics can be wide ranging, but should include a plug for your estate or letting agency. Be sure to call out your unique selling points and promotional offers.

You may need to pay sites for submitting guest posts, often between £50-£100. The more expensive sites would have more traffic and therefore generate you better exposure.

Many sites will have dedicated pages about their guest post rules, prices and types of content they accept.

Alternatively, if you have some data or information others may find useful, you may be featured on some sites for free.

Rentround was recently featured in The Sun, The Times & The Metro. This was achieved by providing information on rental prices and the property industry as a whole. A majority of the data was sourced from the 10,000+ landlords that have used the platform so far in 2020.

Learn how to get backlinks for your agency here

Infographics

This is for all the visual learners out there. Infographics offer your website visitors a quick and easy way to view compelling statistics and data. Infographics are designed to present information in a quick, clear, and concise way. You can include infographics about a myriad of information from your agency’s recent sales and rates to useful data about the property industry.

These attention-grabbing visuals are crucial for successful lead generation for estate agents. Not only are they easy to share across multiple social media platforms, but they’re also a great source for backlinks. Together, this gets your brand and name in front of a broader audience, increasing leads and expanding your client list.

Vlog about property

Buying, selling, or letting a property doesn’t come without plenty of questions and uncertainty.

If it didn’t, there’d be no need for estate agents! Landlords and homeowners are constantly scouring the internet for information on how to make the most money on their property.

Offer how-to videos so that they can stop looking once they land on your website.

Producing quality video content on your website is just as (if not more) important than producing written content. With over 80% of all internet traffic being composed of video content, your estate agency can’t afford to overlook this lucrative lead generation tool. How-to videos are a great option because they’re short, effective, and informative.

As silly as it sounds, post videos for landlords on how to perform routine maintenance on a rental property or conduct a viewing.

Homeowners love DIY videos on increasing the value of their home or staging a home for sale. Keep your video content engaging, concise, and high-quality.

Don’t let the term “ebook” scare you, either. Just think of it as a longer white paper that gives readers an even deeper look inside the property industry. Your experiences, failures, successes, and lessons can teach prospective property investors and even common homeowners all they need to know about the market and how to capitalize on opportunities.

While you don’t need to be an author to write a helpful ebook, you should hire an editor to proofread your work. After all, we all make mistakes! An editor is also skilled at helping you create a product that reflects the tone of your brand and your personality, landing you more clients.

Research based information 

Inaccurate or outdated content and information are useless. Not only will misinformation steer your leads wrong but it will cost you major credibility points.

Remember, you’re aiming to gain credibility and authority in the property industry, not lose it. Whether you’re writing an ebook, creating an infographic, or hosting a webinar, make sure you thoroughly research and fact-check any and all information, data, and statistics you share.

Be sure that you’re citing reputable property websites and sharing up-to-date data about the current market and trends.

The more you know (and share) about the current market, the more you’ll stand out as an estate agent who is on the cutting-edge of property industry news, technology, and techniques.

Prospective clients want an estate agent who is well-versed in digital marketing, online listings, and current market trends that will result in them getting top dollar for their property rentals and sales.

5. Email campaigns to get leads for your agency

Our days are filled with emails! Most sales type emails are ignored, but the proportion of emails that are read can lead to sales.

The content of the emails, frequency and timing is vital.

Solus emails to sellers & landlords

Other property related websites out there would have over time, created a list of email subscribers. The list is then used for the website to push emails containing news, guides and marketing material to.

The website may also permit 3rd party estate & letting agents to provide marketing material, which will be pushed to the email list.

Costs again will vary. But it’s not uncommon to be charged £800 to send marketing material to these types of lists.

You’ll need to ensure that the list is made up of predominantly the market you’re targeting. If the site is mainly for tenants, using the list to send your latest offers on low estate agent fees wouldn’t work.

When undertaking this type of marketing, it’s important to ask the company what their average open rate is. By seeing how many of their past emails were opened, it can indicate how many eyes are likely to see your email. Just because an email list has 30,000 subscribers, it doesn’t mean your email will be read by 30,000 people. A good open rate is 20-30%.

Newsletters to your target market

Property owners love being informed of property news. Whether it’s an opportunity for improving their rental profits, staying on top of new regulations or possibly purchasing new properties, information is key.

Send regular news blasts to your mail lists, giving them local and national news. 

The formatting and setup of email templates can be done via your estate agency’s CRM. Most CRMs can help send different to different leads, depending on their current customer journey.

Staying in the eye of potential leads builds familiarity and keeps your brand on the top of their minds. As a result, when it comes to them selling their property, you’re in with a higher chance of being their selected estate agent.

If you have a mailing list in the thousands, ensure you use a mailing system. Such types of systems allow you to easily create email templates and send thousands of emails in one go. In addition, they allow you to track who has opened your email, clicks on various links or unsubscribed.

Update your email signature for better agency marketing

Your email signature gives you an opportunity to promote your agency and yourself.

Signatures to boost interest, should include a strapline about promotional offers your agency has running. Including a direct link to your website that has more information, is also useful for sellers & landlords looking to learn more.

In addition, many agents include a link to their LinkedIn profile. LinkedIn profiles can help enhance your credibility as an agent who can sell or rent out homes quickly.

Has your agency won any awards recently? Adding images or mentions of these awards in your email signature can be a powerful marketing tool to get more attention from leads.

As an example, check out EweMove’s signature below which contains details about the awards they’ve won.

This sort of tactic gives that extra boost to your estate agency’s marketing efforts, by promoting yourself in every sent email.

Remarket to old leads

For some people, buying and selling a property is a rare occasion that they only go through 2-3 times in their life.

For others, it’s a regular occurrence and forms part of how they earn a living.

Retarget people who you have already sold properties for. These types of people may have since grown and become players in buying low and selling high.

If you did a good job for them in the past, this may be a way in for further sales.

Of course to do this, make sure you’re maintaining a database of all past contacts.

Use lead databases as tool in your estate agency’s marketing

Using databases to contact potential leads is common across multiple industries.

As leads enter their details on your site, their contact information should be added to databases for future follow ups.

Many seller or landlord leads at the time of visiting your site, may have just been exploring fees & services.

Following up over the course of the next few months will help your agency stay at the top of the leads minds, making them more receptive to selling or letting their property through your agency.

Contact databases can be purchased. However consideration needs to be placed on the quality of the contact information; Is it up to date?

In addition, how many times has the database been sold to other agencies & companies, meaning the contacts may have been already bombarded with information from other agencies.

You should also consider if the database is GDPR compliant. If it contains personal information where individuals have not consented to be contacted, you could be breaching data privacy laws.

6. Reviews & referrals help your estate agency’s marketing

When buying a service, these days, we’re all able to use review and comparison sites (errrr… like Rentround).

It’s good practice to register on review & comparison sites to maximise the number of leads you get.

It’s even better if you reach out for reviews when customers are happy, but also manage negative online comments.

We’re currently rated “EXCELLENT” on Trust Pilot which has gone a long way in building confidence with agents to sign up to our marketing services

Collect reviews to kick start your marketing

According to Search Engine Land, 87 percent of potential customers won’t consider businesses with low ratings.

Ensure your agency has a profile on all sites where reviews happen, Google business, Facebook, TrustPilot etc.

When you have a happy customer, following up for a review quickly increases the likelihood of them leaving a review, as opposed to if you left it a few weeks.

Your estate agency marketing material can then be updated to showcase all the lovely reviews you’ve collated.

Good reviews from a wide ranging number of sources helps build credibility, improving your estate agency lead generation ability and turn them into instructions.

Ask for customer referrals

A happy customer is going to show you loyalty and return if/when they get more properties later down the line.

In addition, landlords usually have landlord friends. Getting an inroad with a happy customers network is a quick fire way to hit higher revenues.

A good way to get in with an existing customers network is to offer a promotion.

Offering a discount on your estate & letting agent fees, or offering vouchers etc entice them to open up their network.

Add your agency to Google business

Adding your agency to Google Business is essential to getting noticed by leads. A business profile allows your agency to show up in more Google searches. In addition, adding a location will enable your agency to show up on maps when leads are searching for local estate or letting agents.

Google will request your agency description, precise location, opening times and images of your business.

In addition, creating a business profile will enable you to start collecting Google reviews.

By hopefully collating a good set of reviews, leads will start seeing your agency in a more positive light and more likely to give you their properties to manage or sell.

7. Seller & landlord tools as part of your marketing

Sellers & landlords need help. Whether it’s help understanding how quickly they can let out a property or how much they can get their property, being helpful towards them puts you in good favour further down the line.

Also, by helping them out, it’s a chance to obtain their personal details to discuss your services with.

Host webinars to boost your estate agency marketing

Hosting webinars is a commonly used marketing tool for estate and letting agents.

Webinars give you the opportunity to offer insights to leads on a particular subject.

Property sellers & landlords aren’t going to give up their time to attend a session that will talk about your agency’s services.

However they will attend if you’re offering up knowledge that will help their revenue.

For example, if you have opinions on how property prices will react after the stamp duty holiday ends next year, that may entice leads as they have something to gain.

After the webinar, leads will be more familiar with you and your estate or letting agency.

Further down the line when they have properties to sell or rent out, they’ll have you in their minds as an agent.

Calculators for sellers & landlords

When it comes to hiring an estate agent and paying estate agent fees, the biggest question on any clients’ mind is, “How much will it cost?”

Their second question is usually related to how much money they can make on their property.

By offering an easy-to-use fees calculator on your estate agent website, visitors can quickly determine what costs they’re up against. Before generating the results, ask visitors to answer a few important questions about themselves and their property. This way, you can follow up with them later.

The calculators can be wide ranging, i.e. an estate agent fee calculator. Or niche to a specific type of person, i.e. a HMO calculator

Customized Spreadsheets

We know the term “spreadsheets” doesn’t sound all that exciting at first, but spreadsheets show impressive results like no other tool. Not to mention, creating a spreadsheet is the tedious part.

Seeing the outcome is exciting and might just convert your leads to paying clients. So why not do the heavy lifting for your potential client and create a landlord expense spreadsheet?

The best part about spreadsheets is that they’re easy to customize and an effective visual for people to follow. Create columns that detail potential monthly income versus overhead expenses and agent fees, with a final total of the client’s potential ROI.

DIY Kits

Who doesn’t love a good DIY project? Whether your clients are homeowners, landlords, or property managers, they can benefit from the information and materials you have and use when conducting business.

Create a useful DIY kit or care package for website visitors. This kit can include everything from motivational quotes to swag bag items and even course content — both in digital download form and as paper printouts.

But before you hand over these kits for nothing, be sure to get a little something in return. Anyone who wants access to your resource kit needs to input some information about themselves including their contact details and information about what services they’re interested in. Now you have a jumping-off point when following up.

Printable Materials

Not all lead generation happens online. There are plenty of tangible ways to advertise your estate agent business that don’t involve social media or a website.

Don’t downplay the effectiveness of printable materials. Not everyone is glued to their computers or smartphones. Some potential customers need tangible materials to remind them of your brand. Mailers, fliers, and business cards go a long way in terms of estate agent marketing.

Offer downloadable tools on your website to offer the best of both worlds.

Now, visitors can download and print your fees, the areas you service, current property listings, and other important information to keep on hand and reference when needed. Other fun ideas that are more about brand identity than marketing include coloring sheets, inspirational quotes, and worksheets.

Resource Materials

Estate agents have plenty of tricks up their sleeves and tools they use to gather information, close deals, and find reputable tenants. Keep in mind that some of the tools you find most useful might also be helpful for your potential leads. Why not share the wealth?

Most homeowners, first-time landlords, and property investors don’t know where to find these tools and resources. It’s your obligation as a professional to provide these tools for them.

Just be sure not to give away too much that your services are no longer needed! Strike a healthy balance by giving clear instructions on how to use the resources and tools with an option for added support either via email, phone, or live chat.

This way, you can supplement these tools with in-person interactions that may just convert your leads to long-term clients.

Checklists for sellers & landlords

Checklists are a property owner’s best friend. This is especially true for landlords and property investors. There are certain steps that every landlord must take before letting out their property.

Offering these clients checklists that simplify their life is a great way to earn their trust and loyalty. Upload checklist templates on your website for key landlord activities like completing inventory checks, tenancy agreements and joining a deposit scheme.

You can also offer checklists for new homeowners, including buyers and sellers.

These can include simple things like what to do before a showing, a checklist of moving materials, or questions to ask your estate agent.

Being a reputable estate agent is all about efficiency. Motivate your clients to be efficient and in control of their own properties by providing useful checklists that guide them every step of the way.

Cheat Sheets

Nothing will turn a lead cold faster than making your customers work too hard for what they want and need. If they’re visiting your website or contacting you, it’s because they likely need your expertise, advice, and services.

There are countless websites online losing customers every second due to a poor design or a website that’s too hard to navigate. Don’t let this be you.

You want potential leads to find and use the tools and resources you’re providing on your estate agent website. So, why not guide them in the process? Cheat sheets are a great way to help potential customers maximize the benefits of your services.

Offer them an inside look at how you value a property, compare fees, and create an eye-catching listing. By letting them in on your little “secrets” they feel special and important. They’ll remember this feeling when it comes time to hire an agent for their property.

Fact Sheets and Glossaries

In order to walk the walk, you need to talk the talk and that means knowing and understanding property market lingo.

New landlords, property investors, and even homeowners can easily get caught up in the industry jargon and end up making major, costly mistakes when breaking into the property industry. Similar to a FAQ page, offer potential leads a useful and concise list of commonly used words and phrases to help them navigate the market.

You can also include acronyms and definitions for popular and important organizations including redress schemes. This is another type of “cheat sheet” that can help potential leads not only make smart decisions for their own best interests but will also help them better navigate your site and utilize the resources it offers.

Respond to online property forums

Sites like Quora have a tonne of questions from people looking to sell or let out their property. It can be tiresome, but keeping a lookout and responding to people’s queries can attract leads.

Forums are also popular places for property sellers and those looking to let out their property. Responding to queries helps build a rapport with potential leads who may in turn give you their business.

Often property forums have strict monitoring in place, to capture spam and marketing. Therefore your responses should be genuine and not be sales orientated.

As you build yourself up by responding to queries, Google starts to recognise you as an ‘expert’ in the field and may start giving your site a boost in search rankings.

8. Get on the property portals to spread your marketing

Property buyers flock property portals to look at which properties are available.

Showing leads which portals you use, especially the larger ones, indicates you’re exercising as many avenues as possible to sell properties quickly at high prices.

Many estate agents stick the Zoopla, Rightmove, Prime Location etc logos on their homepage, indicating how they sell properties, helping to build credibility and confidence.

A picture speaks a thousand words

When leads are looking for their agent, they’ll pay attention to how well your current stock is being advertised. If current properties you’re selling aren’t presented very well, it doesn’t paint a good picture.

Sellers will want to see their property advertised to the best standard and photography makes up a big part of that.

Images would need to factor in lighting, angles and bring out the best features of the property.

The use of drones to take aerial and high angle shots is a fancy feature that may attract leads as well.

9. Discounts, offers & trials in your marketing efforts

We all love a freebie… So if it’s cost effective, offer sellers & landlords an offer to use your service.

Discounts to entice leads

No matter what business you’re in, discounts for sure attract business.

A % knocked off your agency fees can entice leads to use your business. Your promotions, whether on your site, social media or paid ads should showcase your deals

Free Trials 

Who doesn’t like free stuff? In addition to offering useful tools like the fees calculator mentioned above, you can draw clients in by offering free trials on your services.

Free trials and demonstrations are pretty common when it comes to lead generation. Sweeten the deal by offering limited-time-only promotions or personal demos via Zoom. Offer freebies including tenant references, property listings, and viewings.

Free trials and demos work for two main reasons.

The first, most obvious, appeal is that people can’t resist a free deal! But second, once you gain the client’s business and trust, if you uphold your end of the deal (being a reliable and efficient agent), chances are, they’ll be more than willing to extend their business to you, sign a contract, and pay your regular rates.

Giveaways and Promos

Yes, more free stuff! Sometimes when it comes to lead generation, you have to give to get. And that includes giveaways for prospective clients and customers. When it comes to estate agent giveaways, make sure the products are relevant and draw in the right types of clients.

Classic swag products include cups, koozies, tote bags, and pens with your name and contact information on them.

These are useful items that most people keep on hand (no pun intended). Not only will you be advertising to that individual customer but also everyone who sees them with the product.

Some estate agents choose giveaways like tape measures or notepads that potential leads can utilize when viewing a potential rental or investment property. They can use the tape measure to calculate room dimensions and then your branded pen and notepad to take notes!

10. Search engine optimisation for your estate agency

SEO means getting your estate agency site to rank organically on Google (without paying per click). So if you’re an estate agent in West London, it’d be amazing if everytime “best letting agent in West London” was searched for, your agency shows in the results.

Ranking well on Google is no easy job, there’s a lot that goes into it.

While how to rank well on Google is an entire article in itself, which is why we created our Estate agent SEO guide

In a nutshell, ranking high on Google isn’t done overnight, nor is it down to doing just one thing. It’s about a long term task and doing a lot of little things right.

Backlinks from other property sites

This is when other sites mention your site. The more renowned the site that talks about you is, the more search engine ‘juice’ you get.

Getting mentioned (and linked to) from the Financial Times is quite a big deal. Google recognises this and therefore starts to recognise your site to a higher degree. The more backlinks you get, the higher your rankings become

Your website

Google doesn’t like slow sites with lots of errors (neither do property sellers and landlords!). If your site has loads of broken links and pages that don’t work, that’ll impact your rankings

Content on your website

Your site needs to talk about the terms you want to rank for. So if you’re an estate agent in Newcastle, your site should talk about property sales in Newcastle, house sales in Newcastle and everything else related to Newcastle that sellers would be interested in. Google will start to see your content and when searches are run in regards to your niche, you’ll start to show in results

11. Leafleting

Pushing leaflets advertising your estate agency through the doors of your local neighbourhood is an old school method of marketing your estate agency.

The benefits are it enables you to target local people, which is ideal if you’re a local agency.

For national level agents, this probably isn’t an ideal option.

Leafleting isn’t cheap either. There’s a cost to designing the leaflets, printing and then distributing.

In addition many may find this annoying as they throw your material straight into the bin.

Making matters worse is some distribution services will bundle your leaflets with other businesses at one time. So instead of a potential lead just getting your leaflet, they’ll also at the same time get the local pizza place, cleaners and gardeners leaflets.

12. Events & Research

People love events and research. Getting people to engage with what you publish build leads, trust and hopefully more business.

Virtual Courses and Webinars

Webinars and online courses have never been more popular — or effective for gaining leads. For starters, offering these free tell-all sessions helps build brand authority and recognition as an expert in your field. Think of these tools like a blog, but better!

At-home learning is where it’s at in 2020 — especially in light of the recent pandemic and the world’s stay-at-home orders.

Estate agents can offer webinars and courses designed specifically for landlords and property managers. Offer useful tips on how to successfully let a property or find reputable tenants. You can also send videos and links via email to those individuals who can’t attend the live event.

Webinars are also a great way to inform potential leads about how lucrative the property market currently is, motivating them to take action!

Virtual Events 

Speaking of virtual online resources, virtual events are all the rage these days and a great way to connect with and educate your audience.

Instead of a webinar or at-home course, why not throw an epic, entertaining, and information virtual event that attracts leads and other professionals in the industry?

Invite other estate agents and related professionals to speak at your event. Offer promotions, giveaways, and plenty of entertainment.

Giveaways include a free 30-minute consultation, free premium listing on Rightmove or Zoopla, and even a free property valuation.

These online events help get potential leads excited about what you have to offer. Speak about the current market, property trends, and offer plenty of useful information and advice for landlords and property investors.

Estate agent thought leadership content 

Speaking of content, thought leader content is growing in popularity. But what is it exactly? This type of content focuses on highlighting your unique brand and perspective.

What personal experiences, resources, and philosophies can you share about the property industry that set you apart from other estate agents? It’s these unique features that will gain you not only leads but credibility.

With nearly 22,000 estate agents currently in the UK, you need to stand out from the crowd. Create content that showcases recent achievements or impressive qualities.

Perhaps you’ve sold more homes in the last six months than your competitor or you have a remarkably fast turnaround time for finding tenants.

Make sure that your content mentions these incredible skills. Not only will it help generate more leads but will help create trust and loyalty.

White papers about property

A white paper is an in-depth guide on a specific topic and any problems associated with it. For example, it could be a guide on how a landlord can rent our their house or how to maximise a house sale value.

This document is designed to educate readers and provide a thorough understanding of the problem to help solve it. When discussing online content, white papers are often long-form content, similar to an ebook.

The best way to flesh out your white paper is to include plenty of tangible information in a variety of forms.

Include Q&As and interviews with property managers, investors, or other experts. While you may be an excerpt in your field, you want to offer varied content from multiple sources.

Not to mention, rubbing elbows with other experts can work wonders for your reputation. Be sure to include plenty of relevant statistics and current research to support your claims. This is especially important when discussing the property market which is constantly changing and fluctuating.

Ebooks on the property market

While white papers offer long-form content for your leads, ebooks offer just a little bit more. The best part is, you don’t have to be a writer or novelist to compile a useful, best-selling ebook.

As a successful estate agent, you have plenty of knowledge, experience, and advice to create a compelling ebook that potential leads will scramble to get their hands on.

13. Lead management

How much should you spend per lead

Cost per lead is an essential metric to measure when generating estate agent leads.

However even more important, is your conversion rate tracking.

You could get 1,000 leads for £1 each, but if there are 0 conversions, what’s the point?

Or you could get 10 leads for £200 each, then if 20% convert, you’ve made a heavy profit.

Our advice when looking for estate agent leads, is trial and scale.

With so many marketing channels out there, it can be difficult to pin one down to focus your efforts on.

The best bet it is to trial a few options, whether it be Google ads, Facebook ads, Solus emails etc.

Once the campaigns are set up, see which works for your estate agency. Once you’ve identified your most successful, scale up!

What to do with the leads

So you’re getting leads in, now what?

If you’re an estate agent, you’ll know more about converting leads than we do! – But we’ll pass over what we’ve learnt so far when on our lead generation platform Rentround.

Speed

We’ve found the most successful agents that use our leads always contact the lead as quickly as possible. Sometimes the landlord is still on their laptop searching for an estate or letting agent.

Getting to the lead as quickly as possible gives you the competitive advantage against other agents the lead may be interested in.

Follow up

Some of the leads you get may not have their rental property yet, or may not be looking to sell until a few months.

Having a process where you touch base with leads after a few months is a good way to generate more sales and managed properties.

So although when you first talked to the lead they weren’t quite ready to hire an agent and were ‘window shopping’, following up at the right time will help lead conversions

Promotions

Who doesn’t love a promotion? Often property sellers & landlords would be considering multiple agents. A bit knocked off the seller fee or free period of property management might just sway them to your agency.

Dead leads

Some leads just won’t work out, they may have just selected another agent or don’t quite fancy your agency. However don’t just throw the lead in the bin.

Set up an automated channel of contact. Add the lead to a subscriber list so they get to see regular communications from you explaining how fabulous you are.

You never know, their chosen agent may not do a good job or they might get another property to sell/rent out in the future.

This will have a low % success rate. But if it’s an automated set up, it doesn’t take much effort.

In conclusion

It’s tough out there. With Covid-19, the stamp duty holiday, interest rates, BREXIT etc, there’s a lot of uncertainty in the market.

While estate & letting agents navigate the property industry, there’s a lot that can be done to maximize leads and improve conversion rates.

There are easy methods and then there are more complex methods. Likewise, some ways to market your agency are cheap while others need a lot of investment.

No doubt the effort into marketing does yield results and improves revenues. It’s a balance between targeting the right areas.

Our final word… Try our leads at a 25% discount for a month, use code 25LEAD during sign up. There’s no obligation and you can cancel anytime. It’s for sure one of the quickest, low cost ways to add another weapon on your agency’s marketing efforts

Estate agent marketing FAQ